�Spoils� Part VI

Princess Plum Jade

Rated �R� for language and sexuality


This Chapter is for JK13, a wonderful cyberpal, thank you for all your love and encouragement.  �Plummy

Angelus?!?

Kordelia was frozen in place and her voice refused to work.  This was the man she�d fallen in love with when she was a little girl, the phantom who had haunted her girlhood as she looked from man to man and compared each one with the gorgeous Roman giant who spoke perfect Greek. Every man she�d ever compared him with had come up lacking.

It can�t be him!  It can�t be!  I was almost seven years old, it�s been almost eleven years and he looks�exactly the same! He just looks a bit shorter because I�m taller than I was back then.

Her heart pounded and blood rushed up into her face. It was him. Without doubt.  She even felt that same itching tenderness beneath the smooth skin of her forehead, the urge to touch him, just as she had felt it back then.  It was Angelus, the same Angelus, Kordelia was certain.

She had been a child the first and only other time she had ever seen him.  He was a hard-faced, soft-spoken man.   Thick-boned and broad-shouldered.  Deliciously muscular with a prominent brow, high sculpted cheekbones, a firm, cruel mouth, and a nose slightly too large for his face to be perfect. 

There had been a stillness, a latent cruelty in him that warded away most people.  Her two older brothers, Actaeon and Damon, and her sickly mother quietly avoided him.  Even the servant girl sent to pleasure him at night was afraid and wept when she was sent to him though she admitted he never harmed her.

He only fascinated Kordelia; it had been impossible for her to resist him.  She had come upon him in the front area of their villa where he and her father had been discussing Egyptian grain shipments for the Roman army.  Giggling, Kordelia climbed up into his lap, little hands clinging to one of his arms for balance.

�I want to play, Angelus!  Let�s pretend!  I�m Helen of Sparta and you love me more than all of Greece!�

Angelus had blinked twice, looking at her oddly, curiously, perhaps he wondered if she was feeble-minded.  He scowled lightly, fingers brushing his forehead, but his eyes flicked to hers and the anger went away.

�Kordelia!  How dare you?  Leave the room at once!  At once!�

Kordelia would never forget her usually indulgent father�s outrage at her behavior.  He had spanked her soundly with a reed switch, upbraided her for flirting with Angelus.  She had cried, tried to explain that she only wanted to play with him.

�Don�t you know that Rome itself is full of whores and some of them are only a few years older than you?�  Apollodorus had thundered.  �He wants a betrothal! He�s asked to marry you!  I should let him!�

Fear set her child�s heart to painfully quick thudding.  Would her father give her in marriage to a Roman?  Send her far away from her home and family to be a wife?  She was not old enough to mate with Angelus yet, but they could still be married and she would have to live with his parents or any other guardian he chose.  She was so frightened she stopped crying.  Apollodorus sat on her small bed and set her on his knee.

�I refused, of course.�  He stroked her dark hair tenderly.  �I would never give my darling daughter to a Roman boor.�

�I�m not your darling today!� she sobbed against his tunic.

�You are always my darling, Kordelia,� Apollodorus rubbed her head soothingly.  �Even when you are impossible,� he chuckled.

After that, her childish fears had won out against the desperate tingling in her aching forehead, the longing to touch Angelus conquered by the instinct to hide from him, avoid him, just as her mother did.  And one day, Kordelia had risen from bed and Angelus was gone back to Rome.  She had cried even as she sighed with relief...

He was every bit as beautiful and strong and cruel as he had looked back then. The rough planes and squared angles of his face were lovingly stern.  Authority clung to him like a second skin.  This was a man who was accustomed to being obeyed without question.  Kordelia let her gaze flow admiringly over his strong, fit body.  Angelus was clad in a fine Black wool himation, the long folded Grecian kilt draped sensually low on his trim hips, the free edge tucked neatly over his left shoulder.  He did not bother with a tunic underneath the himation and Kordelia stared at his beautifully defined chest muscles and trim abdomen.  Even his feet were beautiful in sandals of smooth black leather.

Angelus smiled, just the slightest curl of his lip at Kordelia�s obvious ardor for him, and swept gracefully over the three marble steps that led up to her patio.  To distract himself from his body�s tension and the itchy tingling in his brain, Angelus refilled Kordelia�s silver goblet with wine.  He lifted the goblet to his lips and inhaled the exquisite bouquet of the clear red wine.  Angelus closed his eyes, savoring the fragrance.  This wine had been prepared nearly thirty years ago, before Kordelia had even been conceived. Which tastes better? he wondered idly.

He had a sudden idea.  In a movement so swift human vision could not detect it, Angelus grasped Kordelia by her hair and drew her against him.  He lifted the goblet and splashed the wine over Kordelia�s chest, then watched the dampened thin fabric cling more closely to her magnificent breasts.

Kordelia gasped.  �What do you think you�re doing?� she asked, trying not to sound panicked.  This was a man addicted to fear, she sensed it.  He would not respect her if she feared him without good cause.

�So many questions.�  Angelus gripped Kordelia firmly, one strong arm around her waist to hold her close to him.  He lowered his face to her chest and pressed a hard, open-mouthed kiss to the spot between her breasts.  He sighed contentedly as he felt her heartbeat race against his mouth through her soft, wine-sweetened skin.  Kordelia answered him with a hungry sigh of her own.  His free hand slid up her slim arm and ripped the brooch out of her tunic.  Kordelia gasped and made a shocked sound of protest as he pulled her tunic down to reveal her breasts with their darkening, hardening nipples.

Kordelia braced her hands on his shoulders and tried to push him away.  The arm around her waist tightened brutally, hard enough to make her mewl painfully from it.  He laughed softly, amused by her effort to free herself.

�Angelus!� she exclaimed.  Her breath quickened at her realization�her acceptance�that he was actually there.  She was actually touching his perfect skin.  And he was touching her.

�Drusus Angelus Dominicus.  That�s my name.  And I should ask you, Kordelia,� His voice drew out her name until the sound of it caressed her.  He mimicked her earlier challenge, �What�are�you�doing�in�my�garden��

Kordelia made an impatient sucking sound through her teeth.  �I�m here because you brought me here!� she replied irritably. 

Her breath hitched in her throat as the arm around her waist dipped over her bottom and he tugged down her tunic.  Her lower body was pressed against his rocky arousal.

��with�your�clothes�still�on?� Angelus concluded.

Pulling her tightly against him, he relished the feel of her generous breasts on his smooth chest as his lips crushed hers in a hungry kiss.

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"Spoils" Part VII

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