Tainted by Christina Phillips

Author:Christina Phillips [Phillips, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-08-19T20:00:00+00:00

Gawain stared into Antonia’s ice-blue eyes, eyes that had captivated him from the first moment they had met. He knew they would haunt him until he continued his journey in the Otherworld, and perhaps their beauty would haunt him even there.

Forget her? How he wished he could be certain that he could. But every time that fucking Roman had fawned over her, pawed her and attempted to denigrate Gawain in her eyes, the tarnished truth had clawed through his chest.

She was more than a fleeting fuck. She always had been, but until this night, he hadn’t realized just how much she meant to him.

They had no future. He knew that. But the thought of her marrying the praetor, as she was sure to given her status and the Roman’s obvious interest, curdled his guts.

Antonia was in his arms, smiling up at him and driving him out of his senses with lust. It should be enough. With any other woman, it would be enough. But with Antonia he wanted more. He did not want her to blithely mention the short duration of their affair. A few weeks? Was that all she was willing to give him?

Savagely he flung her hair pins onto the floor and tugged her ringlets over her shoulders. Now she looked untamed, unregimented. Un-Roman. But it didn’t matter how she looked. Because her blood was still the blood of patricians and she belonged to the empire.

“Perhaps I will engrave your name on the inside of my torque.” He offered her a sardonic grin. “Then I will never risk forgetting our enjoyable encounters.”

For a moment, her lips trembled as though his words wounded. But perhaps it was a trick of the lamp light. Perhaps he had merely imagined it. Because her smile now was more blinding than ever.

“Do you engrave the names of all your conquests on your torque?” She traced her finger over the images of Lugus but her gaze did not waver from his. He almost told her yes, he did, but somehow he could not.

“The torque of my forefathers is sacred. I would never desecrate it in such a manner.”

Her finger slipped to his bare throat. Her light touch burned his flesh. “Have you ever been in love, Gawain?” Her voice was soft, persuasive, but anger flared that she dared to ask him such a personal question. Then he looked into her eyes and instead of idle curiosity, he saw those elusive, haunting shadows, and his anger fell to ash.

“Once.” More than two turns of the wheel ago and yet it felt like another lifetime.

“Was she of Cambria?”

He unclasped the brooch that held Antonia’s gown at the shoulder. “She was a warrior.”

The tip of her tongue moistened her lips. “Of course.”

He studied the precious gems encrusted in the brooch as it lay in the palm of his hand. He could not fathom why, but Antonia’s response speared through his chest. And the pain was not for the loss of Morwyn.

Antonia’s gown pooled at her feet, leaving her clad in only a knee-length tunic.

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