Page 26 of Thawed Gladiator: Quintus (Awakened From the Ice #6)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Quintus

The morning light streaming through our hotel makes Nicole’s normally brown hair gleam with copper strands as she stands before the mirror, trying to tame it into submission.

I watch from the bed, still amazed that I’m allowed to witness these intimate moments—the way she bites her lower lip when concentrating, how she tilts her head to study her reflection.

“Stop staring at me like that,” she says without turning around, but I can see her smile in the mirror.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re planning something that would make us very late for our architecture tour.” She meets my eyes in the reflection, and heat flickers between us despite the early hour.

I rise from the bed and move behind her, my hands settling on her waist. “Would that be so terrible?”

“Yes.” But she leans back against my chest, undermining her protest. “I promised to show you my city, and I keep my promises.”

“All of them?” I brush my lips against the sensitive spot behind her ear, feeling her shiver.

“The important ones.” Her voice has gone slightly breathless. “And this is important. You need to see what two thousand years of architectural evolution looks like.”

“I can see it here.” I trace the line of her neck with my fingertips. “Of all the wonders I have seen, in any age, you are the most beautiful.”

She turns in my arms, eyes sparkling with mischief. “That’s a terrible line.”

“But effective?” I lean down to brush my lips against hers.

“We’ll see how effective it is tonight.” Her kiss is quick but promising. “Now get dressed before I change my mind about leaving this room.”

An hour later, we emerge from the subway into downtown Chicago, and I stop dead, staring upward. Glass and steel towers stretch toward the sky like monuments to human ambition, their surfaces reflecting the morning sunlight in patterns that would have seemed like divine magic in my time.

“Overwhelming, isn’t it?” Nicole’s hand finds mine, her fingers intertwining with a casual intimacy that still makes my heart race.

“In Rome, our tallest buildings were five stories. This…” I gesture helplessly. “How do they not fall?”

“Engineering. A steel frame skeleton, plus foundations that reach almost as deep as the building is tall.” Her enthusiasm is infectious. “Chicago pioneered most of these techniques after the Great Fire in 1871.”

After she tells me about the cow blamed for the fire, she guides me toward a building that seems to be made entirely of glass, her expertise evident in the way she points out load-bearing elements and design innovations.

Watching her explain complex concepts with confident authority is dangerously distracting.

“You’re brilliant,” I tell her as we pause before what she calls the Willis Tower.

“I’m just repeating what I learned in my urban planning coursework.” But color rises in her cheeks at the compliment.

“No. You’re making connections, teaching me to see patterns I’d never see alone.” The touch is chaste enough for public eyes, but the way her pupils darken tells me her thoughts have turned from lectures to something far more dangerous. “You’re brilliant, and I love watching your mind work.”

“Keep that up and we’ll never make it to the Frank Lloyd Wright house,” she warns.

“Perhaps I learn architecture best with my hands.”

“Quintus.” My name carries warning and promise in equal measure.

“Show me this Wright’s work.” There’s a touch of reluctance in my voice, just to remind her what I’m going to do to her when we’re alone tonight.

By midday, we stand in front of the Oak Park house, which leaves me speechless. Where Roman architecture emphasized grandeur, Wright’s design flows like music made solid.

“It’s completely different from anything I knew,” I admit.

Nicole’s eyes shine as she explains, “He called it organic architecture—buildings that grow naturally from their environment.”

“Like you,” I say without thinking. “You’ve grown from the life you chose, not the one that tried to confine you.”

Her smile blooms, soft and radiant, and it robs me of breath.

“I never thought of it like that,” she murmurs.

The afternoon sun has shifted by the time we finish exploring Wright’s masterpiece, and Nicole’s stomach chooses that moment to announce itself with an audible growl.

“Apparently, architectural appreciation works up an appetite,” she says with a sheepish smile. “Ready for the next essential Chicago experience?”

“More architecture?”

“Better. Food architecture.” Her eyes sparkle with mischief as she leads me toward the car. “Time to introduce you to deep-dish pizza.”

Twenty minutes later, I’m staring down at the thick, towering creation the server has placed before me, studying it with the same wariness I once reserved for unfamiliar weapons in the arena.

“This is soup in a bread bowl. Not like the flat circles they serve us at the Sanctuary.”

Nicole’s laughter bubbles up from across the small table at Giordano’s, and I realize I’ve never seen her this relaxed. The deep-dish monstrosity defies every concept of bread and cheese I’ve known, but her delight in my confusion is worth it.

“In Rome, bread was bread. Cheese was cheese.”

“In Chicago, we do things differently.” She takes a bite, eyes closing in bliss.

Despite my best efforts, sauce drips on my shirt. Nicole dabs at it, then pulls back, flustered.

“Sorry. I just—”

“I like it.” After catching her hand before she can pull away, I bring it to my lips and taste her fingertip instead of the sauce. “Take care of me all you want.”

Her breath catches, and I see heat flicker in her eyes despite the public setting. “You’re going to be the death of my good intentions.”

“What good intentions?”

“The ones that involve keeping my hands to myself until we’re alone.”

A middle-aged couple at the next table has been not-so-subtly eavesdropping on our conversation, and the woman elbows her husband with obvious approval of our affection. Nicole notices and flushes pink, but she doesn’t let go of my hand.

“Everyone’s watching us,” she whispers.

“Let them. They’re seeing what happiness looks like.”

Her laugh is pure music.

“Mmm,” I murmur. “Perhaps the sweetest course waits until we are alone.”

The pizza improves as I learn to approach it like combat—strategic planning, proper tools, acceptance that victory requires getting messy. By the time we finish, I understand why the people of this city defend their food with such passion.

“Verdict?” Nicole asks as we prepare to leave.

“It is delicious—like much in this age that unsettles all I thought I knew.”

“Such as?”

I stand and offer my arm, noting how naturally she accepts the gesture. “Women who topple gladiators in practice. Students who choose their own tutors. Towers of glass that climb higher than Rome ever dreamed.”

Her smile could power the entire city.

We wander until the lake swallows the skyline, and the boardwalk unfurls ahead—a ribbon of lights and laughter. Navy Pier glows in the falling sun, and what Nicole calls the Ferris wheel lifts its bright crowns against the evening sky.

“Heights,” I admit. “Not my strength.”

“The great gladiator afraid of heights?” Her teasing is gentle, affectionate rather than mocking.

“In the arena, I trusted the earth beneath my sandals.” I study the turning wheel with unease. “How high does it climb?”

“High enough to see forever. Trust me?”

Her hand slips into mine—warm, certain. That alone makes the wheel feel less like a threat and more like a promise.

“Lead the way.”

The little box rocks as we settle in. I grip the rail, striving for calm. Nicole covers my hand with hers, anchoring me.

“Don’t look down. Look at me,” she says softly.

So I do. Her green eyes shine in the fading light, her smile radiant enough to eclipse the city falling away beneath us.

“Better?” she asks.

“Much.” And it is true. With her, even the air feels steady.

At the crest, Lake Michigan spreads like an endless horizon. Nicole leans into me, voice quiet but certain. “You faced your fear because I asked you to. That’s love—the kind where happiness matters more than comfort.”

I cup her face, reverent. “Then it is love. Because I’ve never wanted someone else’s happiness more than I want yours.”

Her kiss tastes of daring and forever. When our feet touch solid ground again, I know it isn’t only the wheel that has turned tonight—something inside us has shifted too, toward permanence.

“Fortuna has smiled on us both. In my time, we said the goddess reserves her greatest blessings for those brave enough to choose growth over fear.”

She draws back slightly, her eyes wide and luminous in the lights of Navy Pier.

“Speaking of Fortuna…” Her voice trembles with awe.

“I should have told you sooner. Last night in Grant Park… I saw her. She called me ‘daughter of courage’ and told me our love was blessed. That I can choose you—and still choose myself.”

For a moment, I can only stare at her. Then the wonder floods me, the kind of awe I thought I’d left behind in Rome’s temples. “You saw her? Spoke to her?” My voice is reverent. “Fortuna herself?”

Nicole nods, a hand pressed to her chest as though she can still feel the goddess’s presence there. “It wasn’t a dream. She was real. And she gave us her blessing.”

Emotion surges through me so fiercely I have to ground myself by taking her face in my hands. “Then even the gods witness what I already knew: that you are my fate.”

Her answering smile is radiant, and when I kiss her again, it feels like sealing a vow written across centuries.