Page 11 of Sinful Promises

We purchased our tickets and entered the guarded gate with about ninety minutes until closing time.

Before we headed into the main structure, I paused before one of the giant arched entrances and pointed up. “See the ‘X’ up there?”

He followed my gaze.

“It marks this archway as gate ten. There are eighty of these gates around the Colosseum. They were designed to get the spectators in and out of the venue as quickly as possible.”

“Huh.” He nodded, seemingly impressed.

“Okay, so picture this. It’s the year seventy AD. Have a guess how many people came to this stadium to watch the events?”

He shrugged, but his eyes danced from me to the enormous structure towering over us. “I don’t know. Maybe ten thousand.”

“Try fifty to sixty thousand.”

His eyes widened. “Shit. That’s huge.”

“Yep, so even two thousand years ago they had to consider managing crowd control. Impressive, eh?”

He ran his hand through his luscious hair and it slinked into place again. Meanwhile, I shoved two annoying curls away from my eyes and they bounced right back into my vision.

After passing through the entrance, I directed him to walk with me along the grand vaulted ceiling causeway. “This walkway used to circumnavigate the building, but a massive earthquake in 1349 destroyed a large portion of the Colosseum.”

It was tempting to walk straight toward the internal archway to overlook the interior arena, but I had another idea. “We’ll start at the top.”

“Okay.” He indicated for me to lead the way.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, I grabbed the handrail. “See how the stairs are different heights and widths?”

He cocked his head. “It was built thousands of years ago. Don’t give them a hard time.”

“I’m not. They did it on purpose to stop people from flooding the upper levels too quickly. Another form of crowd control.”

He huffed. “Huh.”

We started up the stairs—me taking my time, making sure I didn’t go ass over giant tit, and Roman bounding up them like an Olympic gymnast.

He waited at the top of the third set of stairs, and when I neared him, I said, “Did you know that 1349 when that earthquake hit was the same year the plague roared through Europe?”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they thought the earthquake had released the plague onto them,” I said between ragged breaths. “They didn’t know it was from the fleas carried by rats. In fact, that wasn’t known until the late eighteen hundreds.” Realizing I was rambling, and not doing a very good job of it as I could barely breathe, I shut up.

Roman offered his hand, grinning. “You love history. Don’t you?”

I rolled my eyes and grasped his palm in mine. “Sprung.”

He pulled me up to the narrow landing, allowing me into his personal space. Holy smokes he smelled so good. “I think it’s great. It must be amazing to remember all this stuff.”

Stuff. That was exactly what it was. And all of it was going to be useless in a few months’ time.

After several flights of stairs that were hard enough because each step was different but even harder because of my pathetic aerobic abilities, I stopped at the top level and clung to a railing. I could barely breathe, let alone speak. The spectacular view didn’t need any announcement though. From our vantage point, we overlooked the massive arena and extensive views of Rome itself.

“Wow. This is magnificent.” Roman did that sexy whisper thing again and I wondered if he’d practiced it. Like in the shower or something, to hear how it sounded.

No. I couldn’t imagine him being that vain.

I gazed at him, hoping he’d be just a little bit puffed like me. Nope. This stadium was built for men like him. He could run up and down those stairs ten more times, dressed in a loincloth, glistening with sweat, long hair bouncing off his bare shoulders.

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