“Skip guard duty,” I commanded when he pulled away and reached for his breastplate.

“I can’t.”

“I said, skip guard duty.” I spider-walked my fingers up his spine and laughed as he came back to bed with a groan. He missed quite a few of his Praetorian duties, thanks to me. And then he missed his punishment details.

“This has to stop,” he muttered thickly. “It’s wrong—shameful—”

“Oh, but that’s what makes it fun. If you want someone tame, run back to that sticklike singer of yours and see if she can squeeze you into her busy, busy schedule.”

He glowered at me helplessly, but he didn’t run back to Thea. Oh, no. I was better than Thea. Finally someone had realized that.

NOT here!” Paulinus pushed me away as I drew him off behind a garden statue at a dinner party.

“Why not?” I flexed my fingers along his chest.

“They’ll—they’ll see!” Not so far off were the sounds of well-bred laughter and soft joking, footsteps and rustling gowns. “If they catch us—”

“Isn’t that part of the fun? Doesn’t it . . . excite you?”

He opened his mouth in horror, but I snaked upward to suck on his lip and draw his hand inside my stola, and there was no more argument.

We weren’t caught. But we could have been, and what a scandal it would be! A senator’s wife and her stepson? The laughter would follow Marcus all the way into the Senate. “Did you hear about Norbanus’s wife? Yes, the fool left her alone in Brundisium and now the son is doing his father’s work for him!”

Oh, yes, that was exactly what they’d say. As I never hesitated to tell Paulinus.

“You’ll ruin him, you know.” I leaned back on my elbows, tracing my toes over the small of Paulinus’s back as he pulled away from me. “His career. His writing. His standing in Rome. All gone.” I snapped my fingers. “Marcus Norbanus, cuckolded by his own son. It would destroy him.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His voice was muffled.

“I think you do. Fascinating, isn’t it? You won’t give me up for your own father.” I coiled myself against his back, reaching around to smooth my hands over his chest. “What if he walked in right now? What if he saw the two of us together like this?”

“Stop it.”

“Imagine his face.” I put my lips very close to Paulinus’s ear. “He limps in, tired from a long day. All he wants is to kiss his lovely wife and invite his beloved son over to dinner. And what does he find? His beloved son riding his lovely wife, rutting with her, right in his own bed, so close he can hear them both moan—”

Paulinus wrenched away, knocking me back against the sheets, and swung around with his fist raised.

“Are you going to hit me?” I murmured. “Oh, do. I might enjoy it.”

He faltered. I threw my head back and laughed. He fell on me with a strangled curse. I wound my body around his and branded him with my teeth.