Page 32 of Thawed Gladiator: Victor

“It’snotpity.” The words tumble out before I can stop them. “You’re the most honorable man I’ve ever known. The way you maintain your dignity, your principles, even when you thought… The kindness you show others even while believing yourself bound in chains of slavery. Your wisdom, your strength—not just physical, but spiritual. I admire you more than I can say.”

The silence stretches between us, charged with possibility. Then his hand cups my cheek, his thumb ghosting back and forth across my lips.

“Maya,” he breathes, and my name on his lips sounds like a prayer.

When he kisses me, it feels like stepping into sunlight after years in the depths of a cave. His touch is both reverent and hungry, as though he’s been holding himself back with as much difficulty as I have. My fingers tangle in his hair as the kiss deepens, and for a moment, two thousand years of separation vanish like morning mist.

We break apart, breathless, foreheads touching. “You humble me,” he murmurs. “With your fierce protection, your determination to do right even when the path is unclear. Your strength in facing impossible choices.”

“I lied to you.”

“You sheltered me while I learned to understand this age.” His thumb traces my lower lip. “Truth comes in many forms. And sometimes the heart knows what the mind has yet to accept.”

The tenderness in his touch undoes me. This time, when our lips meet, it feels like coming home.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Damian

My head may be swimming with losses, swirling with questions that can never be answered, but my body is single-minded. My phallus is hard as an irongladius, pointing at Maya beneath these soft pants.

I want her. Have wanted her since she first laid hands on me to correct my form. No. Before that.

But I’ve been with her night and day for weeks. I know how she thinks and how much she’s sacrificed. I know her heart. My feelings for her are more than want. They’ve burrowed deep into my chest and have doubled and tripled and become desire, affection, connection.

My fingers clutch her hair as I pull her closer. It feels as though it’sthisI’ve waited millennia for, and I don’t want to let her go. Our lips clash as we come together with a hunger that’s been screaming to be fed since she walked into my room and stared at my nude body when I was still using my cane.

We’re on our sides, facing each other, and I span her bottom with my palm and crush her against my erection until she gasps.

“I want you, Maya.”

Her only response is a soft hum as she palms one of my ass cheeks to press herself even closer and grinds harder against me.

I suck her bottom lip into my mouth, then grip it with gentle teeth and shake my head. She gazes at me, pupils wide in the shadowy night, looking at me in complete submission. Waiting for my next move.

“I know some of your secrets,” I whisper against her lips.

She’s still in a daze, too lust-drunk to speak, her leg snaking around mine to pull me closer. No words are needed—the invitation is clear as her thighs part beneath me.

“You like this, my dominance?” Though I know the answer, I nip along her jawline as I wait for her response.

“Mmm.” Her voice is dreamy.

“Like me in charge?”

I roll on my back, carrying her with me until she’s lying on top of me, legs splayed open, knees stabbing into the mattress, her warmcunnusriding my hardness.

“Yesss.”

The woman in charge of a gym full of muscular males is so soft tonight. So quiet as she gives me her one-word answers.

“But there’s something you like even more than that. No?”

She nods, then shakes her head, then wiggles to rearrange herself on top of me so she can ride me harder.

“Eh,Domina?” I accentuate the word, cupping her hips to help her writhe against me to get more of the pressure she needs.

Her eyes flare wide as her mouth pops open.

---