Masks

Masks 

Summary: Everyone in Rome hides their desires behind a mask. Is Antony any different with Sura, or will either of them let down their guard long enough to let each other in? Slight canon divergence, Basilicia scene

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“If you do not want a kiss, Sura, then why did you come?” It would be so easy to give in to him, but she cannot. She will do anything to survive, but she is not Xanthe, swayed by a pretty bauble. And he is not Cassius, fooled by a kiss. 

“To desecrate the Senate, of course.” The mask is back, hiding her thoughts from him. If Marc Antony knew… If he knew, I would be in more trouble than Tsirona could save me from. And yet, the gods are dead. They have turned their faces from Sura and the Catauni. She lays her fingers on his forearm, suppressing the thrill of desire that betrays her body when he turns his full attention to her. Anger and lust flicker behind his eyes. “Is that not why we have come?” 

“You know why we have come, Sura. The play was not to your tastes. Do you really think you can hide your thoughts so easily from me, little barbarian?” Antony caresses the bare skin of Sura’s hip with the back of his hand, sending pins and needles of anticipation to every nerve center. She has to fight not to tremble before him, not to expose her belly and show her weakness. 

If you let the enemy think he has won, your betrayal will wound him all the more. And yet she cannot, she cannot. She refuses to allow herself to think of Syphax, the only man she would ever allow to touch her heart. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, my love — for tomorrow we die. Sura drops her gaze to the tile of the Basilica. Never let them know you want them all dead. When she looks up again, she is smiling, hate buried deep down, where she will make herself forget that she only survives because she is a courtesan of Lena’s scholae. 

(Sura thinks of her less fortunate Gaulish sisters in the stews of Subura, and shudders at the thought of the fate that could have so easily become her own.)

“I am not hiding from you, domine.” Sura ghosts her fingertips along Antony’s jaw, and he encircles her wrist with two fingers, reminding her that he is so much bigger than she is, and so much more powerful. “After all, you have bought me. What is stopping you from taking me right now?” 

Antony growls deep in his throat in displeasure. He is a man who likes a challenge. She thought she knew how to handle him. “Do not tempt me, Sura.” Antony lets out a juddering breath, his voice heavy with scorn. “If you do not want me, there are a thousand who will.” 

Sura stands on tip-toe, so her lips are scant inches from his. “I never said I did not want you.”

Antony’s mouth crushes against hers, his arms wrapping around her, pressing her close. “Tell me again how you do not want me, Sura.” He nips at her bottom lip, drawing it out between his teeth, and she melts against him, gasping as his thumb brushes over the hard peak of one nipple, teasing her through the fabric of her dress. “A thousand like you.” Antony growls, sucking hard on her bottom lip as she grinds against his thigh. He cups her face in his hands and when she opens her mouth with a moan, he thrusts his tongue deeply into her, stoking the fire in her belly. “I could not find a thousand like you in all of Rome.” 

“Antony,” Sura gasps, her thoughts whirling with the desire to feel Antony thrusting inside of her at the same pace his tongue thrusts into her mouth, filling her up, quenching the fire in her core. 

He wants what they all want (Cassius, Cornelius, Lucius), yet he wants more than merely that. (More than she can give.)

His hard length presses into her, and she is reminded of just how flimsy the fabric of her dress is. He could take her here, now, on the Senate floor. A rush of heat dampens her thighs, her body betraying her, and when Antony throws her leg over his shoulder she does not protest, but moans wantonly like the barbarian savage she is. 

The tip of his tongue teases her clit as his fingers part her folds, and she is unable to keep her hips from bucking against his mouth, her fingers digging into the stone plinth behind her. She bites her tongue, thoughts of the man she loves mixed with the here and now, all her pleasure from the one she should despise. Syphax… Antony! Antony’s tongue swirls against the hood of her clit with the lightest touch, then he presses the tip against the swollen bundle of nerve endings so that she gasps and arches into him. One hand holds her thigh, the other teases her entrance, his tongue moving faster and faster, and Sura can feel her legs beginning to give way. 

“Antony!” Sura moans, feeling herself begin to crest, and he thrusts two fingers into her, touching her very core, curling against her inner walls and stroking them with slow, sweet precision. The tip of his tongue flicks her clit, and then his tongue thrusts into her as his fingers spiral the swollen bud, and Sura splinters apart, coming completely undone against his tongue. 

When he sets her leg down she is still shaking with the aftershocks of her orgasm, and Antony has a smirk on his face as though he’s conquered Gaul himself. 

Later, in the bath with Cassius, she will think of this moment when she peaks, and Cassius will kiss her and never know a thing is amiss. 

After all, it is a game they play with her, but little do they know that Sura means to be the only one who survives it. 

Never let them know you want them all dead.