He grins, just like I expected him to. “Challenge: accepted.” He rises easily despite kneeling for so long and grabs my hand to tug me to my feet. We stumble down the hallway, kissing and rubbing on each other like a pair of fumbling teenagers, but the second we reach the bedroom, he’s focused in on me again. Achilles knocks away my hands when I reach for the hem of my shirt. “Let me.”
“Bossy.”
“You like it.” He pulls my shirt over my head and skims my pants the rest of the way down my legs. And then he’s surging to his feet and taking my mouth again. This time, there is no gentleness, no sweetness. Achilles kisses me like a conquering warlord, and I am all too willing to cede to the demand of his tongue. He strips in between kisses as he backs me to the bed.
I try to move back so I can appreciate the view, but he’s having none of it. He shoves down his pants and then he’s on me again, bearing me down to the mattress and settling on top of me. I might be taller, but he’s much larger, and moments like these really highlight the differences. He strokes his hands over my arms and down my sides. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“Impatient.”
“For you? Always.”
I arch up and kiss him. There are times when I want the slow buildup and the careful readying that being with a man Achilles’s size sometimes requires, but tonight I’m just as impatient as he is. “Yes. I need you now. I don’t want to wait.”
He moves off me long enough to yank open the nightstand. I’m already blushing when he laughs because I know what he’s going to say. I’m right. Achilles shakes his head. “We’ve been here twenty minutes and you already unpacked?”
“I don’t like living out of a suitcase.”
He fishes out the bottle of lube and gives me a searing look. “I know.”
I watch, my heart in my throat, as he spreads lube onto his cock. Like the rest of Achilles’s body, it’s in perfect proportion…which means it’s rather massive. Even after all this time, there’s a moment of hesitation mixed in with my anticipation, the feeling reaching new heights as he begins to ease his cock into my ass. A rough moan slips free, and he sinks deeper in response. “I want to watch you come all over your stomach. I fucking love it when you lose control like that.”
My ability to form words is rapidly disappearing. All that’s left is desire. I arch up and kiss him. I need to be consumed entirely. There’s no thought for anything else but taking more of him into more of me. Achilles seems to sense exactly what I crave because he thrusts fully into me and lets his body weight rest more firmly on mine, pressing me into the mattress as he kisses me like he needs me more than air to breathe.
I feel the same.
It’s enough. It’s perfect. We could stay forever like this, poised in this moment where lust and love meet.
But our desire won’t be so easily sated. He starts to move first, tiny little thrusts that have me moaning and writhing for him. It’s good, too fucking good. I try to last, to hold out, but I’ve never won a battle of wills against Achilles. Tonight won’t be the moment I start.
I grip his hip, a rough moan slipping free. He grins. “More.”
I’m helpless to do anything but obey. Every thrust drags another moan from my lips. It feels so good to have him fuck me like this, all his focus narrowed on me and me alone. Each thrust is rough and perfectly controlled, designed to curl my toes and short out what little thought remains in my head. By the time my body overrides my control and I come all over my stomach and chest, I’m chanting his name.
Achilles shifts back, propping himself up on his hands as he picks up his pace, chasing his own pleasure. He devours me with his dark gaze, a possessive stroke that I can almost feel over my face and down to where my seed marks my skin. “You’re mine, Patroclus.” He curses, his rhythm going irregular. “And I’m yours. Say it.”
“I’m yours,” I gasp out. I reach down to grab his hips, urging him deeper. “And you’re mine.”
At least for now.
9
Helen
I don’t touch myself to the sound of Achilles fucking Patroclus…but it’s a near thing.
The rhythmic thumping of his headboard, interspersed with low moans and Patroclus practically yelling Achilles’s name, doesn’t do much for my ability to sleep. I lie in my bed and try very hard not to picture those two going at it. They’re both far too attractive for my frame of mind, and I’m far too attracted to both of them. If we weren’t all competing for the same title, I might put a little more effort into seducing one or the other…or both.
By my logic, sleeping with one of them is good, so surely both of them in my bed would be a phenomenal night.
I roll over and punch my pillow. My desire for them might be real—and inconvenient—but it’s just my recklessness talking. I spend so much of my life carving out the sensitive parts of myself so no one else can see them, touch them, hurt them. Is it any wonder that all the ugly bits bubble up and overwhelm me from time to time? That occasionally living in this skin is too much and I need an outlet?
There was a time when I chose more self-destructive methods than sex to relieve that pressure. I don’t like to think about it now, but it wasn’t like I had the tools to deal with living in Zeus’s household in a healthy way. It wasn’t until I started sneaking to therapy at twenty that I managed to curb the worst of my impulses. My therapist isn’t thrilled about me using sex to appease that urge, but we have a compromise. I am always safe and always careful about who I sleep with, even when I’m doing things I know I shouldn’t. It seems like an oxymoron but it works.
Sleeping with either Achilles or Patroclus—or both—is not safe or careful. Yes, I want them, though I also want to shove Achilles out a window. But Patroclus was right to turn me down the other night. Not to mention… Gods, I don’t even know him anymore. Not really. And I sure as fuck don’t know Achilles at all. They might be just as much monster as Paris is; I didn’t see his true colors until it was far too late for an easy escape. Sex complicates things, even with the most emotionally unavailable person. Sex with two men who want the same thing I do, who will crush my dreams without a second thought?
Surely, I’m not that self-destructive.
Surely.
On the other side of the wall, the bed starts thumping again.
“Are you fucking serious?” There’s no sleeping like this. I might as well not even try. If it were another situation, I might appreciate their stamina, but I’m tired and overwhelmed and listening to Patroclus get his back blown out is making me both crankier and green with envy.
I sigh and climb out of bed. Maybe the couch is more comfortable than it looks. We don’t have overly long until the first trial, and I need sleep and to be mentally preparing. It should be easy. This is what I want, after all. But when I try to gather my thoughts about me, they scatter like marbles.