Centurion's Honor (Imperial Desires, Book One) Read Online Free PDF Page A

relationship could ill afford as strained as it had grown these days.
    The absence of sound was what drew his attention and Cassius stared out over the room to find the music had ended and Anan was dutifully ushering her guests from the room.
    Cassius appreciated the way the golden stola clung to her generous curves, how it stood in rich contrast to her shimmering skin. Anan was gracious to her guests, her smile warm as she said farewell and watched them depart. It struck him then that there was nothing to suggest she was the same as another woman, equally beautiful and equally wealthy, who was pampered and spoiled, who selfishly manipulated others for sheer sport.
    He had many reasons why he should bury his desire for Anan—she was not Roman, she despised Romans, she could very well be plotting against him at this very moment. But to bury his desire because he told himself she was the same as another woman was foolishness and he knew it. The longing he’d glimpsed in her eyes as she’d bathed earlier told him her needs had long been neglected. In her gaze he did not see a woman who would lie with a man for sheer sport. No, if Anan took them to her bed, she would give of herself fully, completely, because she desired the touch of another, because she longed for it, desperately.
    As if she could hear what brewed in his head, the very object of his thoughts turned and he found himself drowning in beautiful amber eyes. The room was mostly empty now, except for the servants passing through to return the dining hall to order.
    Cassius was mesmerized by the woman drawing closer to him, the gentle sway of her hips, the slight smile teasing the corners of her lips.
    “As I told you, all was perfectly safe. You may retire if you wish.”
    “We will retire when you do,” Cassius replied.
    “In that case.” Anan glanced over at her maidservant and dismissed the girl with a nod. “I shall retire now, I think.”
     
    Anan was drunk off wine, her body languid, and the two men who walked behind her assaulted her senses. The air of masculinity and passion that clung to them she could almost feel as if it caressed her like a lover’s hand.
    She also sensed tension radiating from them, as if they’d quarreled. She glanced over her shoulder at Titus. His entire countenance was rigid, his handsome features marred by coldness, but the moment she caught his eyes, heat blazed in those emerald depths so full of passion, so full of hunger.
    Before she could stop herself a gasp escaped her and she whirled her head around before Titus could glimpse the pinkening of her cheeks.
    Titus wanted her—every time he gazed upon her, his eyes burned with longing, with desire.
    She did not dare gaze upon Cassius, but if she had, if she’d met and held his stare, she was certain she would have glimpsed myriad emotions swirling in those sapphire depths. Unlike Titus, he did not herald his needs so openly. When he looked at her, fire burned in his eyes, just as hot and needy as the fire in Titus’, but Cassius fought it, he fought to leash it, quell it. He did not want to want her, and yet he could not seem to help it, he could not seem to stop himself from wanting a woman who was beneath him—a barbarian. What had he called her? Ah yes. A bitter, childless, husbandless bitch. He should not desire a woman such as her, and yet his body told her he did.
    She entered her chambers and turned around, expecting to find them hovering at the doorway.
    She was wrong.
    They stood within yards of her, the heat of their bodies finding its way toward her, and the scent of them, the primal essence of their beings mingled with her own. She dragged in a breath, almost afraid of the physical awareness that was sure to come. Pure masculine dominance filled her lungs until she was lightheaded.
    She was breathless as she stared back at them.
    Anan held no illusions—she was a Roman matron past her prime, a barbarian queen who was really no queen at all. Cassius was all