With my back now facing Aia’s usual place on the bench beside the cot, I couldn’t see her, and I found the realization distressing. I called her over to the other side of the bed, and she complied. Kneeling beside the cot, she took my hand in hers.
“Are you in pain?” she inquired.
“Nothing of consequence,” I replied. I dropped my eyes to the linens on the bed and judged the space there.
“Come,” I said. As I pulled her hand, I saw hesitation in Aia’s eyes. “Lie here with me.”
“Will you be still?” she asked quietly.
I nodded once, and she hesitated but a moment before rising from the floor and positioning herself on the cot at my side. I wrapped my arms around her small form and held her against me. She placed her hand on my chest, carefully avoiding the dressings around my wound.
For some time, we simply lay together on the cot, and Aia distracted me with more tales of learning to bake when she was young. Her stories had become so vivid, I could practically smell the bread with the warm, intoxicating scents of wheat, yeast, and herbs as it was removed from the oven. The contrast to my own childhood was not lost on me. It conjured forth memories of my father, a cold and unforgiving man. He was absent for most of my young life as he took his place on the steps of the Senate where he still spent most of his days. I had often been told I re
sembled him in attitude. There were also brief glimpses of my mother, whose social obligations left me to be raised by the slaves of the household. I barely knew her before she died. I had heard rumors of my father having her killed, and I did not doubt them.
As daylight began to fade, Aia brushed her fingertips over my shoulder and began to remove herself to the bench where she usually slept.
“Would you stay beside me?” The thought left my lips in the form of a question, and I found it odd I had phrased it in such a way. I could have commanded her to do so, but I realized I wanted her to desire it as much as I did.
“Of course, Faustus,” Aia replied as she settled back into my arms.
“This room is cold,” I said. Why I found it necessary to explain myself was mystery. I looked down her body as I ran my hand from her hip up to her shoulder. “You are warm.”
Our eyes locked over each other’s gaze, and we both paused. If Caesar himself had entered the room, I couldn’t have drawn my look from her deep blue eyes. I was a prisoner to them. My fingers twitched without order from me to do so as I moved them from her shoulder back to her side. I realized I had not drawn breath since our eyes had met, and I attempted to release the air slowly.
I still hadn’t looked away from her gaze. Her eyes grew soft, hooded, and the desire I found in them unmistakable. Her fingers traced the planes of my chest and then continued down to my stomach.
“You touch me as a lover would,” I remarked, “not just as my nurse.”
I smiled at her blush as she looked away.
“I think you desire my touch,” I teased.
“You are gentle.”
I widened my eyes at her.
“Gentle?” I huffed a short laugh through my nose. “I have not ever heard that particular word used to describe me.”
I watched her for a long moment.
“What do you know of me?” I asked.
Aia moved her eyes to my chest as she spoke.
“You command one of Caesar’s legions in the west, against the Gauls,” she said. “You had a wife and child, but they passed into the afterlife some time ago, and you have never remarried. Your father is a senator in Rome, and your family holds more coin than the gods themselves.”
She looked back to me.
“Or so I have heard.”
My mouth twitched in a grin, but it was short-lived. What she knew was truth, but it was not the knowledge she needed to understand with whom she had lain.
“I am a soldier,” I said quietly. “I’ve moved through your homeland, destroying everything I encountered—burning villages, killing men, enslaving children, and raping women before I slit their throats—and you call me gentle?”
I felt her body tense at my harsh words, and my stomach twisted. Oddly enough, it was important to me that she knew the black heart of the man she apparently desired.
“You are gentle with me,” was all she whispered in reply.