The pleasure that boomed through my body was like nothing I’d ever felt. It was consuming. Terrifying. Addicting.
The world that had been tilting, completely crumbled underneath me and if he hadn’t pinned me to the door, I would have collapsed to the floor.
Gasping, my body twitched as nerve endings tried to reconnect themselves in a way that made sense. I felt his ragged breathing against me, and I knew he was still on the edge. I could feel the long ridge of him pulsing against my stomach, begging for the same freedom. The knowledge of it made my orgasm feel empty without having a part of him inside of me.
And then he was gone, and I was desperately clinging to the solid wood behind me and the frayed remains of my composure.
I was sure that I looked a sight—my eyes swollen from the tears I’d shed and wiped on my way here, my face flushed first from his insult and then from that. My shirt felt tight and twisted around all the wrong parts and my once-comfy leggings were shoved so far up in all the wrong places.
“Qu’est-ce que j’ai fait?” What have I done?
For a moment, I saw the guilt that shuddered over his body. He’d taken what he wanted, a strange victory from me. Only in winning, he’d also lost; he’d lost the semblance of a barrier that had kept him from me.
We stared at each other, fighting to understand what had just happened—and fighting to not want more of it. He was cruel. I was crazy. Our ending would be tragic.
“This was a mistake,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get out.”
I could see why he was frustrated. Even with his shirt half-untucked, I could see his frustration right through the front of his pants—thick and throbbing with unfulfilled desire. I could also see my frustration—and the release of it on his left pant leg, a giant wet patch where I’d soaked through the material.
“Léo—” His lethal look made my teeth clamp together painfully. “Professor—”
“I said. Get. Out.” The lion turned into a dragon because I could see him breathing fire with every word.
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know why I hated him yet my body craved him—his touch, his taste, his body against mine… on mine… in mine. I wanted to know how I could so desperately need something from someone I could—should—never have.
I loathed him…
And more than all of that, I wanted to know him—his secrets, his pain. I wasn’t a whole person. I wasn’t in any place to give any kind of help. But sometimes, it doesn’t take a whole person to fix someone’s broken; sometimes, it only takes bits of your pieces to fill in their gaps.
“Miss Milanovic.” His voice dripped with hard, bitter disdain. Oh God, did he have to call me that? Now, here? With my breasts swollen and tingling, aching to be pressed against the contours of his chest, did he have to use every weapon he possessed to break me down? “I think I’ve given you more than enough attention to buy you time to find someone who can play into your daddy issues. So take your needy little teenage body and look elsewhere for that attention—my suggestion would be from someone who actually wants to give it to you.”
My chin pulled up high like it was tethered to a rope on the ceiling—one that walked a fine line between holding me up and hanging me from it.
“Professor Baudin, I’d call you a liar, but from the looks of it”—I paused to drop my gaze to the front of his pants that distorted over his erection—“your body is speaking louder than my words,” I sneered, grabbing my stuff and storming from the room.
An attack like that couldn’t hold for very long, so I grabbed my stuff and stormed from the room before I broke. Only once I was outside did the sea pull me under and let me drown in mouthfuls of mortification.
I’d just gotten off on my professor’s leg and his response was that I should try to find someone who wanted attention from me—that kind or otherwise.
He was a liar. He wanted me like I wanted him. But that didn’t make me any less alone.
And each step back to my house had me wondering if I’d started a fight I couldn’t finish.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but Léo Baudin and his words would break me.
My parents were happily married. My grandparents on both sides were happily married. My younger brother, as far as I knew, was happily married. Even though I didn’t speak much to my family any longer, their displeasure over my career choice and lack of interest in the family business, as well as my own marriage to Amélie outweighing their familial bond. None of it altered that, on the whole, my family had been lucky in love and life.
And then there was me.
I thought I’d been happily married. And that was the problem. My fingers dug into my head as I tried to recall the beginning of my marriage to Amélie or even before it. We were happy. I knew we were. I remembered the smiles and laughter. I remembered the first day I saw her, standing in front of Winged Victory at the Louvre, her head cocked to one side, blonde hair spilling down her back and shoulder; her bright yellow sundress sticking out like a sore thumb against the monochromatic museum littered with tourists. She’d been a student then, a few years younger than me, as I was finishing my master’s.
Like the sun, I was drawn to her warmth—her brilliant energy. She loved to look at sculptures, but painting was where her heart was. Probably because the task was messy and more forgiving of mistakes; I should have known then.
But I didn’t.
I should have known when my father warned me but I’d always been defiant of the rules. Mon Dieu. My God, I’d given up the Baudin empire for the sake of art.
And with Amélie, I’d tried to rein in the sun. I wanted to keep her for myself and worship her until the end of time. But the sun isn’t meant to be kept—and neither was Amélie. And I didn’t realize it because the sun only blinds you when you are looking too close. Only then do you realize that your wings have melted and you’re plummeting to your death.
I remembered how much we both loved art and how excited she’d been when I’d taken the position at les Beaux Arts.
I always remembered.
It was she who had forgotten.
Like the seasons change, she grew cold. I didn’t see it at first. I was too busy—too distracted—with my work. My sculptures, my papers, my classes—they were my legacy and I thought she understood that; I thought she felt that, too. Maybe I’d given them too much of the time that should have been hers. Everything blurred together now.
I should have questioned the nights when we’d both get home late from working on our respective projects and she’d go to get in the shower, and I’d see her body littered with paint streaks in areas that should have been protected by clothing; I didn’t. That was the thing about living in a bubble—sometimes it’s so clear that you don’t even realize when it pops.
My head jerked when the Nespresso machine dinged that my coffee was ready. The creamy scent of fresh espresso drifted through my office like an old friend. It was the only friend who came to visit at three AM; I hadn’t slept a full night in years. I kept to the early mornings because they were dark and cold and lonely—just like me.
I closed my eyes as the burnt brown liquid warmed me. This was also the time that I had to fight the memories, because they, too, were lonely and searching to make my frozen heart their permanent home.
But this morning, the kind of insanity in my insomnia had nothing to do with my seemingly-happy marriage or my wife’s disappearance; it had everything to do with the tiny girl with aged bronze hair and eyes that held the kind of anger that I felt in my soul—the kind that came from giving your all and now, all that was left was to resent yourself for not giving enough.
The air in the office was chilled; they turned the heat down overnight. I hadn’t moved from my desk since she left. It was like the space had turned into the scene of a crime and if I left, I’d destroy any chance that I’d be able to follow the chain of evidence back to her warmth.
A current of lust sparked throug
h me—like it had been every few minutes for hours now—jerking my cock against my pants. It was still swollen and throbbing and angry. It was burning with rage, just like I was. And it was her fault.
My eyes squeezed together tight and there she was again, on the door in front of me. Her legs wrapped around my thigh as she bucked and ground against my leg. Subconsciously, my hand moves to my pants. The spot she left on them dried hours ago, but under my fingers, I could still imagine its dampness.
Mon Dieu, I was going insane. Lusting after a student. Lusting after one more rule to break.
I’d done a lot of questionable things to students in the name of respect… and education, but the only name for this was pure, unadulterated need.
I shouldn’t have taunted her. I knew the second I mentioned her father it would put her here in my office. But that brief touch, that momentary taste she took of my thumb. It was all I goddamn thought about all week. All week while she hid from me. And absence made the insanity grow stronger.
I pushed her because without the fight, she looked so lost I couldn’t stand it. Without the fight in her eyes, I saw only the reflection of myself—some who looked at their future like there was nothing left of it. I didn’t care what the hell her father had done, ma petite had talent, she had drive, she had fierceness to the point of flawed determination, and when she fought me, she found herself.
Selfishly, I pushed her because I also had to sit there and watch her stare at another man’s cock for three hours all the while wishing she was staring at mine. I provoked her to punish us both. When I saw her standing there, pale cheeks washed with white tears, I couldn’t stop myself. Who did that? Who followed their asshole professor back to his office and provoked him further? Who, after being insulted time and again, decided it was still worth the fight?
Troian Milanovic.
Troy.
I laughed bitterly to myself. She would always be my battle. Homer had no fucking idea what kind of siege I was determined to lay to her. And if he did, he would change his history.
And Troy… she fought me back with a kiss. I should have stopped it then. Instead, I pushed her for more—the girl who appeared to have no breaking point. I shouldn’t have given her that attention. I shouldn’t have let her desperation affect my own, but she needed me. I could see it lined in her irises and sweating out of her pores.
Elle avait besoin de moi.
She. Needed. Me.
Her anger. Her lust. It was oxygen to my lungs. It reached right down into a part of me I didn’t even know existed and switched on some sort of primal gene. It didn’t make me just want to give her attention; it made me want to consume her with my presence. It made me want to burn the whole goddamn universe down—and everyone who hurt her, including her fucking father, with it—just to rebuild it with her at the center.
I told myself it was because of Amélie—because I hadn’t given her enough attention—that I was locked in this war to give Troy, knowing I was risking everything in the process. I told myself it was because I failed my wife that I was desperate to fix Troian, pulled the flask from my desk, and drank to drown out the lie that it was.
Over this past year, I’d had a lot of these three AMs to wonder what I’d done—or hadn’t done—for Amélie. Even before that, I’d sensed I was losing her in spite of her protests. I’d felt there was nothing left to us but our shared name. I thought asking for a divorce would bring the levity of this situation into her carefree orbit. It hadn’t.
Maybe I hadn’t been attentive enough, even though I swore I tried to make her a priority, canceling meetings, classes, turning down projects, even not showing for awards because she didn’t want me to. Maybe I didn’t make us enough money after my parents distanced themselves from us, even though we’d lived comfortably.
Or maybe it was something worse. Three AM brought the darker thoughts.
Maybe she resented me for my success.
Maybe I hadn’t touched her… taken her… the way that she wanted.
Maybe it was never me that she wanted at all.
My hand flexed on the desk. If I was back in Paris, I would have slammed it into the familiar depression in the wood that my fist called home.
I’d loved Amélie—a thought that made me want to vomit now.
I’d given her every goddamn attention.
I’d given her everything.
And she’d left.
Dieu. God, she didn’t even fucking leave—she’d disappeared.
No note. No explanation. Completely gone. Just like the liquor from my flask. And she took my future right along with her.
The soft thuds down the hall were distantly familiar, but when they paused in front of my door, there was only one person they could belong to.
A soft knock was hardly a warning before it opened and Jack stuck his head in.
“Wondered if you were in here.” He quickly glanced around the room, looking for any sign that I was falling apart and in danger of not only costing me this job but his as well.
“Oui.”
“Are you drinking, Léo? It’s not even seven.” Displeasure sank his voice heavily.
Seemed like more of a reason to drink to me… My eyes flicked to the flask that I forgot to put back in my drawer last night.
No.
I hadn’t forgotten. I left it out because I drained the whole thing thinking about Troy and her tight little body brimming with anger and lust.
“Just espresso.” I pointed lazily to the small cup. “That’s empty,” I added, indicating the flask that had been full a few hours ago.
With a long, drawn-out sigh, he dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk.
“Léo, what’s going on?” He rubbed a hand over his mouth, like how he felt seeing me could compare to what it felt like to live my life. “Christ, how can you even work like this? How’s your project coming along?”
“It’s not.” I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. In the past year, I hadn’t made a single stroke of progress on the piece I was supposed to present next semester back in France, my sketchbook eerily blank until the day I met Troy.
Even though the administration had strongly requested I take a sabbatical this semester, they still expected me to come back and present not only a paper but an original work for the exhibit—la Grande Exhibit des Beaux Arts; it was like the Grammys for the art world and somehow, I made it as one of the who’s who. Hopefully for the right reasons.
Art was emotion set to paper. Since Amélie left, the only emotions I had were the destructive ones attached to her. But even that despair wasn’t enough to give me inspiration.
Ironically, the only thing I knew better than the back of my hand eluded me when I went to actually work on it. I knew what I was looking for—that kind of sadness that is so deeply rooted and yet grows with a luminescent beauty. I wanted to create something that was so beautiful to look at, you wouldn’t mind that your soul was being ripped apart in the process.
Every time my pencil touched the paper, though, all I saw was white, blank space. Desolation.
Until Troy.
She was like the blank canvas, wiped clean by her anger and glowing with possibility and hope. Like fields after a fire, covered with ash but the soil more fertile for it.
“What can I do to help? You can’t… live like this, Léo.” His eyes flared and I knew the familiar lecture was coming. Thankfully, a few thousand miles and an ocean meant that I didn’t have to hear it too often. “It’s been a year since Amélie disappeared. She’s gone. You have to move on.”
“She’s not dead, Jack,” I said with a voice so low I was surprised he heard it. “She disappeared. She wanted attention. I spent a year looking for her—why mon Dieu was it not enough?”
“It was never enough for her,” he spat. Jack had never liked her, even when she was happy. “I know you thought she hung the fucking sun and I was fine with that when it wasn’t hurting you. But I know you are smart enough to see who she was even if
you don’t want to.”
I pinched my temples because when he looked at me like that, I could. I saw the whining, the late nights, the paint where it shouldn’t have been. I saw the way she flirted with other men when we were out with friends. And I saw the way that she pulled away from any kind of intimacy with me.
“She was my wife.”
Happy marriage. I was supposed to have a happy marriage. Like my parents and my grandparents and my brother. I was a failure.
“And she didn’t love you. She left you, Léo. Dead or not—I’m not going to argue. She left and you let her accomplish the one thing that I think she set out to do—let it destroy your legacy.” His arms flung wide. “Look at all this—papers, mess. I haven’t seen you pick up a pencil in… I couldn’t even tell you. I can tell you that I remember the old Léo who was always sketching—on napkins, paper towels, in class right alongside your students. You need to let your anger at not-knowing go and when you get back to France, you need to do whatever it takes, fight whoever you have to fight, to cut her dead weight from your life.”
My teeth grated against one another. I wondered if his pun was intended. I didn’t want to remember the time when inspiration and emotion came easily, and my pencil translated them effortlessly onto the paper. And I couldn’t tell him what petitioning for my freedom would do to my legacy.
“Léo, I remember how those kids used to watch you. It wasn’t the flying chisels or the death threats that had them in class on time and hanging on your every word; it was because your passion for this.” I tensed as he slid out my sketchbook that I’d just opened again after months of laying dormant, knowing that if he flipped to the page marked, he’d see Troy how I saw her—in a way that a professor should never see a student. “Your love of art, what you do, inspires people.”
“She’s not dead, Jack,” I repeated because it was the only thing that I knew. Amélie wasn’t dead and that meant I couldn’t move on.
It was true that after a year of nothing, what few allies I had finally caved to the prevailing opinion that it was hopeless, insisting that she was dead. It was true that I could now petition to be set free from my marriage. But I couldn’t because I didn’t have answers—and without them, it was my conjectures that weighed me down… strapped me down… and some nights even beat me. And without those answers, the world would turn me into something that I wasn’t—the world would turn me from master to murderer.
The Fall of Troy Page 13
