“How?” I don’t mean to ask the question. The single word lands like a gauntlet thrown between us, too heavy for three little letters.
Patroclus tenses. “What?”
I’m already moving, climbing out of bed and motioning impatiently at him. “Show me how.”
“Achilles…” He reluctantly follows and moves to stand in front of me. He’s naked and half-erect and that shouldn’t piss me off, but nothing about this situation is like it should be. Patroclus sighs. “Why are you doing this?”
“I want to know.” I sound like an asshole, but I can’t stop myself. I’ve seen Helen Kasios. Fuck, I’ve talked to her a few times, though her aggressively bubbly personality grates. She’s easily the most beautiful person in Olympus. The kind of beautiful that would make a person forget themselves and act against their own best interests. The kind of beautiful that can spark wars and doom relationships.
I won’t let her doom mine. I don’t give a fuck if she’s turned her eye on Patroclus. She can’t have him. He’s mine.
Patroclus sighs again. “Nothing good will come of this.”
“Since when do we keep things from each other?”
“Nothing happened, Achilles. I don’t understand why you’re jealous.”
Jealousy. That’s what this feeling is. I hate it. I want to kill it with fire. Emotions aren’t as easy to conquer as physical challenges, though. I step closer to Patroclus, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body. “Did she stand close to you like this?”
He curses. “Fine. We’ll do this.” Patroclus takes my hand and places it on his shoulder. “She leaned on me to put her shoes back on.”
Put her shoes back on?
I don’t have a chance to voice the question, because he tightens his grip on my wrist and drags it down my chest. “And then she did this. That was literally it. You’re being ridiculous.”
His defensiveness tells me more than his protests do. Patroclus doesn’t get defensive. “You wanted to fuck her.” He sputters, which is answer enough. I drag my knuckles over his stomach and wrap my fist around his hard cock. Hard for me? Hard for her? The lack of confirmation makes something ugly snap inside me. I stroke him roughly. “She’s gorgeous.”
“You say that like everyone in Olympus doesn’t already know it.” His breathing goes choppy as I keep stroking him. “Achilles, let’s go to bed.”
I pause. “Patroclus.” I don’t have to say anything else. He knows me just as well as I know him. He knows what I want.
He digs his hands into my hair and presses his forehead to mine. “This won’t make you happy.”
“It might.”
Patroclus huffs out a laugh, though he sounds pained. “Fine. Yes, I wanted to fuck her. If she wasn’t destined to be your wife, I might have taken her up on her offer.”
My wife.
I had no intention of doing anything about the wife aspect of winning the title, and I still don’t. But in that moment, it’s impossible not to let my imagination run with how a wedding night might look with Helen Kasios. Spoiled brat, yes, but I’m not immune to her. I don’t think anyone alive is. She’d be fire in the bedroom. I don’t know how I know, but I’m suddenly sure of it.
Patroclus kisses me. Or maybe I kiss him. It doesn’t matter. We stumble back toward the bed. His hands are in my hair, stroking down my back, grabbing my ass and hauling me harder against him. There’s no denying the source of this frenzy, and we both know it.
He drops to his knees and I barely get a chance to reach for him before his mouth closes around my cock. “Fuck.” Sometimes when he goes down on me, he’s a little fucking tease, tormenting me with the slow slide of his mouth and his clever tongue until I lose my patience and haul him to the bed to fuck him.
That’s not how he sucks my cock tonight. He pulls me deep, until his lips meet my base. I stare down at him for a long moment, but Patroclus has his eyes closed. He moves over me with a determination that has my balls tightening. Like he wants to escape something. Like he’s trying to prove something.
“You’re sucking me off like you’re apologizing for something.” I tilt my head back and close my eyes. “You’re forgiven, Patroclus.” He’s right. He didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know why I’m reacting like this, but I recognize that it’s bullshit. His moan in response to my words confirms it. This man loves me as much as I love him. He’ll fight to keep from endangering us.
I believe that. I do.
Most of the time.
This time, I don’t topple him to the bed. I let him pay a penance he doesn’t deserve because I know it will make him feel better. Every pull on my cock deflates my jealousy. It doesn’t matter that Patroclus wants Helen. Fuck, I want Helen. What matters is that he’s here, with me.
I tighten my grip on his hair. “I’m close.”
His only response is to reach down and cup my balls. He knows what I like, what will get me off the hardest. I curse and come so intensely, my knees buckle. Patroclus doesn’t stop sucking me. Not even when I have to catch myself on the edge of the bed to keep from hitting the floor. Only then does he release my cock and press a kiss to my hip. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“It doesn’t feel like that.”
I sink onto the floor next to him and lean against the bed. “I was out of line.”
“Maybe a little.”
“Definitely.” Even with the orgasm blunting my thoughts, the jealousy lingers. There are thousands of people in Olympus who Patroclus could fuck and I wouldn’t think twice about it. Helen? She’s a different story. “I’m sorry, too.” I hold up my hand. “Spit.”
“Fuck, Achilles…” He obeys, though. He always does. Patroclus spits into my hand and watches with that look on his face as I wrap my fist around his cock and stroke him lazily. He always reacts like this, as if he can’t believe he’s here, that I’m touching him like this. We’ve been partners for a decade, ever since our friendship turned to fumbling hands and messy kisses when we were twenty.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh yeah?” His lips curve. More importantly, the tension lingering in his shoulders dissipates. He leans against the bed, leaning his head back to expose his throat.
“Yeah.” I waste no time pressing an open-mouth kiss there as I jack him. It feels good to have him in my hand, to have him pulling me up for a rough kiss. I could finish him like this. I have so many times before. It’s not enough.