A Man's Sword Read online

  “Are a gladiator. We are used to dealing with anything that happens to us.” Deciding he had no reason to play coy like a foolish maiden, Marius took matters into his own hands. He grabbed Gabriel’s wrist and pulled the man closer to him. Cupping the back of his head, he kissed him, and the crush of masculine lips against his made his cock hard as stone. He nipped Gabriel’s lower lip, thinking the man timid, and demanded Gabriel open to him. Maybe men in this time were far more hesitant, far less likely to act on their desires. A pity, and if all men were like this, maybe he should find a way for Janus to send him back to his own time.

  Maybe Marius’s words reassured Gabriel, for the man opened, then demanded, walking Marius backward to press him against the counter. Bracing one hand on the stone countertop, he hooked his fingers into the belt loops on Marius’s jeans with the other and pulled him close. Marius might have been startled by the movement, but now Gabriel wanted him with a fierceness that matched his own.

  Joy burst in Marius’s chest. Gabriel still hadn’t put a shirt on, and his broad and hairless chest remained exposed to Marius’s explorations. Though it wasn’t his chest that interested Marius. Still, that smooth skin called to him, made him wonder how a man kept in such good shape in this time.

  Gabriel pulled back and drew a harsh breath. “The steaks.”

  Marius sniffed. They didn’t smell burned, just nicely well done.

  Gabriel dashed over to the stove. A moment later the steaks and a green salad drizzled in dressing were placed before him. Marius’s stomach rumbled. He definitely needed food before he could feed the other hunger. He cut into the steak, noting the flavors and spices as the meat seemed to melt in his mouth. No cut of beef had been so tender, nor so flavorful.

  The salad, with a cheesy, vinegar-type dressing, tasted far better than Marius was used to experiencing. By the time he’d eaten the entire meal, including a few more slices of bread, he was willing to turn his attention back to his other hunger. Apparently Gabriel had other ideas, because he put the dirty dishes in one of the metal boxes, then nodded to Marius. “Why don’t we go into the living room?”

  “The living room?”

  “Where we relax. Follow me.”

  Marius allowed Gabriel to lead him to the living room, though Marius supposed that someone would live in every room of the house. Surely they didn’t have a room just for dying.

  Gabriel gestured to a large dark leather couch. “Sit down if you like.” Gabriel sat down on one of the cushions and stretched out his arm along the back of the couch.

  Marius sat, leaning back into the plush fabric. It cradled his body, and he thought everything in this time seemed so much more rich and sensuous. Maybe their lives were easier, and they didn’t have to reach out and seize the day because death didn’t linger around every corner. Another big metal black box sat across the room from the couch, and several other comfortable-looking pieces of furniture sat around it. More weaponry, highly polished, hung on the walls, and a bronze bust of a Roman warrior sat on a dark wood table placed against end of the couch.

  Marius picked it up, marveling at its weight and likeness. Not to him, but to a Roman warrior with its straight nose, the helm, the patrician lips, and solid neck. The likeness could have been any number of men in the barracks. “This would have been a Provocator. My lanista trained several of them.”

  “Were you one?”

  Marius shook his head. “No. I was a murmillo. The gladius was my weapon of choice.”

  “How did you…? Is it even proper to ask?”

  Marius smiled and looked at the man sitting next to him. The brush of Gabriel’s fingers against the nape of his neck soothed and yet also aroused. “I might as well say. I am certainly not at home where my fall would bring shame. I had been a soldier. I liked games of chance. One day Janus turned the other face and I found myself deeply in debt. I was forced into the arena to try and pay back some of what I owed. I believe I had paid it back and then some, but my lanista’s patron enjoyed me too much. I doubt I would be free any other way.”

  “Than coming here?” Gabriel turned his head.

  “Yes,” Marius said. “I don’t wish to talk.”

  “I don’t suppose you do.” This time Gabriel reached for him and smoothed a strand of his almost too long hair between his fingers. Questions lurked in his eyes. Marius saw and read them, so familiar. He had no trade in this time, did not even know if people still fought with swords, for all that Gabriel liked to display them. Something about the way they hung on the wall, polished to a shine, told him they were simply decoration.

  When Gabriel’s fingers caressed his lips, Marius sighed. “I am a gladiator,” he said. “I prefer to conquer.”

  “It will be nice not to pitch for a change,” Gabriel said. Then he covered Marius’s lips with his own. This was the kiss of a man who knew what he wanted, who demanded and gave little quarter. Marius’s cock hardened, the jeans too confining against his sensitive skin.

  Marius pushed Gabriel back onto the couch, needing to have this man sprawled beneath him. The need to overpower Gabriel—to show he was still in control, despite being out of his time—rushed through him. He reached for Gabriel’s waistband. It took a moment, but he managed to fumble open the button. The metal fastening rolled down, revealing Gabriel’s cock. Marius palmed him, noting he was cut.

  A moment’s hesitation—a gladiator’s sense of self-preservation—stopped him from sliding down and taking that marvelous piece of flesh into his mouth. “You have no disease?” He cursed his inelegant words but didn’t know how to ask what he needed in the language of this time.

  “No. I’ve been tested.”

  Marius had no idea what “tested” meant, but he had to take this man, who had given him clothing, food, and shelter, at his word. “It has been over a year, and I am healthy.” That was all the assurance he could give.

  It must have been enough, because Gabriel grunted, “Good.”

  Then Marius did exactly as he wished and slid down so that his lips were level with Gabriel’s cock. It’d been a long time, too long even without the change in time, since he’d sucked a man. Such niceties weren’t always available when he was working the pits or was bending a senator over his bed. It might not be manly, but he enjoyed the salty taste of a man, the way he could make a man moan with need with the swirl of his tongue or the caress of his finger. He had talents that had made him a good amount of coin one night in a brothel. But that had been long ago, and he’d been just a man and not yet a soldier.

  A moment to pause and marvel at the masculine flesh before him, and then Marius lowered his mouth to the tip. A drop of fluid gathered, and he took it on his tongue. The salty flavor burst in his mouth, as succulent as the dinner he’d just eaten. And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he swiped his tongue across the tip.

  Beneath him, Gabriel bucked. “It’s been a long time,” he said, his voice as taut as the cords in his neck.

  “Then I shall go slowly.” He spoke with more bravado than he felt. The pounding of his own cock nearly threatened to unman him, and he hadn’t even undressed yet. Rising, he caressed the flat planes of Gabriel’s chest, tracing each ridge in his abdominal muscles. So perfect, so muscled, and yet clearly not a warrior in the traditional sense. How could it be? he wondered, and knew there was much about this time he didn’t understand.

  He knew one thing, though, and that was that a man’s desires never changed. Women might be fickle and wavering like the phases of the moon, but men craved few things in great quantities. Power. Lust. Conquest. Even the senators in their togas, talking of their great republic, wanted these things; they simply acted in a different manner.

  Marius tugged at Gabriel’s jeans to distract himself from thoughts that might cool his ardor. Gabriel lifted his hips, and with a quick pull, the garment slid down to his ankles. The long muscled legs looked like they belonged to a soldier or a runner, and were sprinkled with the same dark hair that matched the curls at his
groin and on his head. Except for a thin strip of hair surrounding his cock, all else was bare.

  “You shave yourself?” He traced the bare skin with his finger.

  Gabriel shuddered. “Sometimes.”

  “What for?” He leaned forward and nuzzled the bare flesh, answering his own question. “I see.” Turning his head, he pressed his lips to the side of Gabriel’s cock. The rod twitched, and Marius curled his fingers around it. He stroked once, twice, then slid from the couch long enough to get out of his confining jeans.

  Naked, he stood.

  “You’re like a statue,” Gabriel whispered.

  “Touch me and know that I am a man.” His cock almost stood straight up, he was so erect. Drawing his palms down his body as he kneeled on the couch cushion, he smiled at the hunger in Gabriel’s gaze. “You’ll have me soon enough.”

  “Not soon enough.” Gabriel cupped his balls. “Suck me or fuck me. I don’t care which.”

  Ah, now that was a sentiment—a need to grab life and power by the balls and cuckold it until it bent to your will—that Marius understood all too well. Lady Fortuna was so fickle, but Jupiter brought armies to victory and granted Rome its power. “Then roll over.”

  Gabriel did, then reached over to open a small drawer in the table by the couch. He tossed a bottle of something at Marius, who caught it. “Use this,” Gabriel ordered.

  Though the language on the bottle was unfamiliar, it contained letters he recognized. And when he opened the bottle and poured some in his palm, he instantly knew its purpose. The liquid glided finer than any oil or unguent ever had, and he reached down and coated his cock with the slippery liquid. Then, presented with Gabriel’s perfect ass, Marius reached forward and applied the liquid around the puckered dusky hole that beckoned to him.

  “Yes,” Gabriel hissed, pressing his ass against the thumb on his sphincter.

  The tip slipped inside the hot passage, quickly disappearing, only to pull back again. Marius added a second finger. Though his balls tightened and his seed threatened to spill, he knew he had to take care. When Gabriel worked his hole against Marius’s fingers, low sounds of pleasure spilling from him, Marius knew he was ready.

  He pressed the head of his cock against Gabriel’s opening. Grabbing Gabriel’s hips, Marius worked as slowly as his own desire would allow to fully sheathe himself. After a long moment, Gabriel’s heat surrounded him, clamping down on his cock.

  He pulled back until he rested just inside and then thrust forward again. The slickness, the heat, surrounded him and drove his focus down to the increasing pressure inside and around his cock. Leaning forward, he pressed his chest to Gabriel’s smooth, muscled back. He reached around and, with his still slick hand, stroked Gabriel’s cock.

  It didn’t take long to bring either of them off. Gabriel gave a low moan, his cock hardening even more. It twitched; then he thrust forward into Marius’s hand as he spilled himself all over the couch. Feeling Gabriel come beneath him, his ass clamping down onto Marius’s cock, was enough to take Marius over the edge. He pounded forward once more, his balls swinging against Gabriel’s, and came.

  Spent, he leaned against Gabriel and sucked air into his lungs. Slowly, he uncurled his fingers from around Gabriel’s cock, and he realized they were wet and sticky on this leather couch. He pulled back, his cock sliding free with a soft noise.

  “Shower,” Gabriel muttered, sitting back on his heels. He winced but gave no other indication that he ached.

  “Again?” Marius asked, though he wasn’t upset to be enjoying the wondrous shower once more.

  Gabriel nodded. “For you, again.”

  CLEAN and dressed again, this time in an old college T-shirt and his jeans, Gabriel gave Marius a tour of his home. They’d talked little in the shower, though they’d done a lot more. Having Marius brought out Gabriel’s lust, and he’d allowed Marius to take him again beneath the spray. Thank God for his tankless hot-water heater.

  He winced, hoping Marius wouldn’t notice. The gladiator looked no worse for wear, and in fact, made several comments about the Roman weapons on display. Gabriel tried to explain about his time, because Marius’s knowledge seemed too in-depth to have come from a book. He had to accept that he had a real live gladiator in his house.

  “So you simply asked Janus to find you a doorway?” Gabriel shook his head. He sat on the couch downstairs in the basement, not wanting yet to introduce Marius to television, or, heaven forbid, any number of movies about Rome and gladiators. What would he think of Spartacus? Or Rome? Or even—Gabriel shuddered—Gladiator?

  “I did. And he has.” Marius spoke so casually, so at ease with his circumstances.

  It befuddled Gabriel to think that a man could be so understanding about such an extraordinary event. If he’d been dropped into Marius’s time, Gabriel doubted he’d have handled it so well. Then again, maybe Marius was still in shock over the technology and the way things had changed. Maybe, when he had grown used to this, the importance would sink in. Or maybe he’d simply pray to Janus to send him home and the god would.

  An immediate and acute sense of loss stabbed Gabriel’s heart. No, surely no god would be so cruel, though in this thought he disregarded all the teachings of a vengeful Christian god and the tricks that other pagan deities played on their worshipers. If my father could disown me in God’s name, then I don’t think I truly know what any deity wants. He pushed aside the painful thought, lest more follow.

  “I could help you in your business,” Marius offered. “I may only know weapons from my time, but I think a good sword is a good sword no matter the time.” Marius stood and crossed to the display. “Take this one, for example.” He lifted a French rapier and looked along its length. “This is a bit slender for my uses, but it is good metal and has been wrought with care. If you did not rely on brute strength, this would be a good sword.”

  “It was.” Gabriel thought for a moment. Offering more than a man wanted had gotten him in trouble before, but Gabriel was driven to be as bold as the man standing in his basement. “I do not know if you would like what I do, and I do not want to tie you to my work. But I do make more than enough that you’re welcome to stay here until you’re established in this world.” Thoughts of documents and social security numbers came and fled. “We have documents and laws about working and earning an income. There’s paperwork that you do not have. So I don’t know what opportunities are open, but we can find out.” Gabriel wondered if the Italian government would do anything, then almost laughed aloud at his folly.

  “And if I decide I want to stay?” Marius replaced the sword and sat back down on the couch. “I have known you for less than a day and fucked you only twice. I do not know if we work well together. I do know that I like what I’ve seen.”

  Gabriel couldn’t hide his grin. “I wouldn’t mind.” His smile grew.

  Marius leaned forward and cupped Gabriel’s chin. “I’m a gladiator. I always get my way.” He drew Gabriel’s lips to his and kissed him. The touch of his lips proved to be surprisingly gentle; Gabriel expected Marius to mark him, to claim him for his own. Instead, he tasted and the kiss softened, then deepened as Gabriel opened for him.

  Marius dipped his tongue inside, eliciting a moan from Gabriel. Tasting him like this, kissing him, was like finding a moment locked in time. He could do this forever. At last, he pulled away, breathing heavily.

  “Well, then, if you’re a gladiator, tell me the truth. Was that really your sword?”

  Marius nodded. “I doubt another could have been marked like it. I remember in which arena and which foe brought the battle scars to my weapon. They are dead, victims of the crowd, while I am here.”

  Gabriel could almost hear the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd. “You know what they say about a man and his sword. They are not easily parted.” He tried to lighten the mood.

  Marius smiled. “I have never been parted from my battle weapon.” He glanced at the sword hanging on the wall.

  “It appea
rs not.” Gabriel followed Marius’s gaze to the weapon. He debated his next words carefully. “And I have no intention of getting rid of that sword.”

  Marius reached forward and grabbed the hem of Gabriel’s shirt in his fist. He used the fabric to pull Gabriel toward him until they both sprawled half on, half off the couch. “Good. Because a gladiator protects what’s his.” He pressed a hard, hungry kiss on Gabriel’s lips, leaving no room to wonder if that possessive statement included him too. Apparently it did, because when the need for air broke the kiss, Gabriel found his shirt pressed up around his armpits and Marius panting for breath. “As the one who found the sword, I guess that makes you mine too. And I intend to take my time with you.” Marius released Gabriel’s shirt and more deftly unbuttoned the top button on the fly of his jeans. One by one, he undid the rest of the buttons until Gabriel’s cock was free. He slid down Gabriel’s body. A quick swipe with his tongue; then he took Gabriel’s cock into his mouth.

  Gabriel moaned. His gladiator was talented with more than one kind of sword. And then his eyes rolled back in his head as Marius took him deep.

  Gabriel grinned, then grabbed Marius around the shoulders and rolled them both fully onto the floor. The gladiator straddled him, his cock fully erect behind the fly of his jeans. Gabriel rolled his hips, bringing their erections sliding together beneath layers of denim. “Apparently Janus knew I’d always dreamed of having a gladiator in my bed.”

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  About the Author

  A long time ago in a galaxy far away… oh wait, that’s a different saga. W.M. KIRKLAND began writing over twenty years ago, and all the stories, no matter the genre, featured handsome princes. Today, W.M. combines a love of history and fantastical settings with strong men and bonds which cannot be broken. Although these men keep W.M. at the computer most of the day, there’s still time for enjoying the outdoors, great movies, and a good time.