I needed… I didn’t know what I needed, but I needed more.
I slid my finger down, starting to push it inside my slick channel when I heard a clatter. My eyes shot open, afraid that we were caught.
“Don’t,” he snarled. His flask lay on the floor beside him where he’d dropped it.
I froze. Don’t what? Don’t climax?
The leather book slid from his lap as he leaned forward and crawled over toward me like he’d been a man stranded in the desert and my sex was the oasis he’d finally happened on.
I watched as he prowled to me, my feet scooting even wider to accommodate his broad shoulders as he made it between my legs. One hand lifted and he traced his fingers down the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. Still staring at my sex, he grabbed my hand that was still sticky with my desire. His mouth parted and he searched out my eyes as he pulled the finger that had been partially inside me, into his mouth. Like rain on water, his turbulent eyes rippled with lust.
He pulled my finger out with a pop as his head dropped with a tortured groan. Whatever battle he’d been fighting with himself, he’d just lost it.
“I’m going to be the only thing inside your pussy, tu comprends, Miss Milanovic?” Do you understand, Miss Milanovic? I shuddered. He shouldn’t be calling me like that when we were like this. But it was all part of the game. It was all part of the show of power even when he had none.
“Y-yes,” I stammered, shifting my hips because the ache in my core was becoming unbearable. I’d been so close. And he’d taken it from me.
Slowly, he moved down between my thighs, breathing against the skin he’d just traced. I gasped and my back arched off the floor as I felt the soft brush of his mouth against the skin he’d just touched, kissing gently along the same trail. It was tender and soft and reverent. It was nothing like the Léo who’d touched me before. It was everything.
And then he breathed over my pussy and I almost died. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t. I stared at him—at his disheveled head and the way he grinned at my most private parts like he’d caught his prey.
“Ma petite,” he whispered with a smile.
All I saw was twenty-thousand leagues of desire as he flattened his tongue at the base of my aching slit and licked all the way up. Air vacuumed into my lungs like someone just saved me from drowning. Maybe I was. Maybe I was okay with it. The velvety soft feel of his tongue combined with the slightest burn left from his alcohol-tainted mouth was a combination that was made to kill.
I’d never felt anything like this—the push and press of his tongue as he sought to taste every inch. I didn’t know my body could feel like this—overflowing with exquisite and aching need. Sure, I’d had a few boyfriends touch me down there; I’d fooled around with guys but not like this… never like this. A small cry escaped my lips. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to get more of it. But I didn’t have to.
He knew.
Léo knew exactly what I needed. Monsieur Baudin, Professor of Pleasure.
At my response, he nuzzled deeper between my thighs, coating his nose and mouth with my wetness, and then inhaled deeply. The possessive growl that came with his exhale, though, had my entire body melting—and that was before those lips that had latched onto the flask, now latched onto me. He licked and nibbled and sucked on me until his name left my lips in an incoherent mess of moans. My head dug so hard into the wood of the platform as my body bowed that there would probably be an indentation on both by the time we were done.
I felt him laugh softly against my pussy; I was too needy to care.
“You taste like cranberries. Sweet. Tart. So complex,” he murmured against me.
Sage flowers. From the hippie body wash that my mom bought for me.
I whimpered as I felt the air from his breath teasing me. I wrapped my legs around him, my core clenching angrily for the release it had been denied. My fingers speared through that mess of a mane on his head. I loved it. I loved the way my fingers got lost in the silken texture and I loved the way I could curl it around my fingers to give me something to hold onto—and something to pull his lips back down to where I needed them—hot and hard against my sex.
There was no more laughter then. His body rippled with a need that matched my own as he devoured me, his tongue pushing and flicking with all its strength.
Oh God, it burned so good.
“Mon Dieu,” I heard him murmur. I didn’t know if it was a curse or a prayer until I felt the push of his tongue at my sopping entrance. And then he was inside me and it was the most exquisite sensation I’ve ever felt. “Merde, you are so tight, ma petite. Tighter than I thought possible. Tighter than I could have imagined. And all I’ve done is imagine.”
My breath disintegrated at his words. He’s imagined me. My lion. My mystery.
“I’ve done a lot of wrong things… beaucoup de mauvaises choses… but you, ma petite, you would be the masterpiece of all my mistakes. You would be the one they write about in history books, the one they hang in museums, the one they talk about centuries later… Mon mauvais chef-d’oeuvre.”
My wrong masterpiece. My masterpiece of mistakes.
Tears stung at the back of my eyes. I knew I would pay for this later—for enjoying his words and his touch. We were the kind of masterpiece that was so moving, it would be banned. Before I could dwell, his mouth descended back onto me and any other thought was lost.
His tongue jammed inside of me over and over again, licking and curling into the sides of my clenching core. I held onto his head like he was a dead man’s switch, where letting go would trigger something explosive that I wasn’t sure I would survive. Switching between spreading me wide and swiping up and bumping over my clit, my body turned into a giant ball of fire, raging and uncontrollable.
“Léo,” I gasped his name into the silence of the room. “I-I can’t… I’m… I’m going to…”
I couldn’t even finish the thought because there was no thought. It was like the pain I’d felt before I’d hurt myself—except this time it was pleasure; it was the kind of pleasure that couldn’t be contained inside of me, the kind of pleasure that was too big and too strong for my body. All I could focus on was the way his mouth attacked my core, demanding its surrender.
And it did.
I knew I was loud, but I couldn’t stop the way his name escaped my mouth as I came hard against his mouth, my body giving up the fight. The orgasm was too potent—too intense. That ball of fire inside me was now doused as the giant wave of release drenched each and every one of my muscles from the inside out and washed every ounce of strength from my body.
I laid in a quivering, gasping heap on the hard, white wood. Dark spots flashed in my vision as the room slowly came back into focus: the high ceilings, fluorescent lights. Outside the windows was completely in shadow now that we were well into the night. There was a stillness.
I imagined it was the same kind of stillness that followed after the first bullet was fired at Lexington and Concord—‘the shot heard around the world,’ the bullet that started the American Revolution, the bullet that echoed with ‘who started this?’ and ‘what have we done?’
What had Léo and I done?
Tonight… here… we had started our own revolution. Professor versus student. Accepted versus taboo. Lion versus lamb.
I felt the achingly tender kisses he placed next to my core and up along the inside of my thigh. And then like the sun disappearing behind a cloud, I felt his breath, his warmth moved away. I wanted to cover myself—because it was cold and because I was sprawled on the floor, naked from the waist down, when anyone could walk in, wondering why there were still lights on in here.
My head rolled to the side in time to see him reach for my clothes and deposit them between my legs.
“Put them on,” he instructed gruffly.
Ice moved through my veins. Gone was the man who had just worshipped between my legs like I was his salvation. Gone was the man who admitted to needing me
like I needed him.
With shaking arms, I pushed myself up and quickly pulled on my clothes, watching from under hooded eyelids as he wiped his mouth with his hand, removing any last trace of me from his lips. He adjusted his arousal in his pants, partially hidden by his untucked shirt, before roughly grabbing for the leather notebook and flask from the floor where he’d left them.
He was angry. He was angry that he’d given in to me… to us.
Angry for starting the war.
But he didn’t stop there. Walking over to where the chair lay toppled on the floor, he grabbed my things and began shoving them in my bag.
“W-what are you doing?” I asked unsteadily, rising to my feet.
“You need to leave,” he said harshly, his voice all rough and rasped like he was losing his voice along with his sanity.
“What? Why?” I asked dumbly. I knew why.
Feral eyes pinned mine as he strode toward me and shoved my bag against my chest. My arms reached to clasp it before it tumbled to the ground as his hold disappeared.
“I tried to do this the easy way… I tried to ask…” he groaned. “If you are looking to fuck someone, Miss Milanovic, you need to look elsewhere. I’m not fucking you. Don’t come to my office. Don’t stay after class. Mon Dieu, don’t even look at me. This did not happen. This is not happening.”
My mouth parted—the only sign of the knife that was being stabbed into my chest. I wanted to scream. I wanted to beg. I wanted to cry. I wanted to know how he could say that after what just happened.
“Comprenez-vous?” he demanded, switching to the formal version of the pronoun to add salt to the wound.
I couldn’t speak it hurt so badly.
“Do you understand?” he bit out again, his jaw flexing with anger.
“Y-yes,” I mumbled.
“Go.” His head jerked toward the door.
I stayed frozen for a moment, staring at his hard, handsome face, waiting for his eyes to come back to me. I wanted one more chance for him to lose his determination. But that chance never came. His gaze remained unwavering from the door.
Death-gripping my bag to me, I did what he left me no choice but to do. I walked toward the door like the fires from my own personal hell followed me, getting closer and closer until I found myself running for the exit, running down the hall, and then bursting outside into the frigid night air with tears streaming down my face.
We weren’t individual puzzle pieces. We were misshapen souls that clashed together so desperately, so violently, and so many times, that we fractured our angry armor to the point where the only other person who could mesh perfectly with our jagged edges was the other who created them.
I hated him for creating a perfectly imperfect fit.
In the things we loathe become the things we love.
I was an idiot.
Not the ‘oh, darn. I shouldn’t have done that’ idiot. I was the ‘oh, that really, really hurt. Let’s keep doing it again and again’ idiot. It was times like these I had to swear that I didn’t like hurting myself—physically, mentally, or emotionally—I just happened to like things… want things… that caused me pain.
Like a relationship with my father.
Like finding a way to forgive him and Lil.
Like Léo Baudin.
Everyone has their breaking point and yesterday had been mine, feeling like I had come so far and fallen even farther. Bursting into the house, my sneakers soaked through from the snow that had fallen, my teeth chattering because I hadn’t bothered to put my jacket on when I’d run out of there, and tears streaming down my face—of course, my mom had freaked out.
And because no emotional breakdown was complete without everyone losing their shit, she’d promptly burst into tears when I pushed myself away from her and ran up to my room, slamming the door.
I should’ve known he’d shove me away. Violently. Carelessly.
What had I been thinking? Maybe that the melancholy that grew around him like ivy and reached out to my own would be enough to make him want to sleep with me—his student? That because he thought it okay to threaten one student meant he thought it was okay to fuck another.
It was only an hour later, after calm, yet consistent, knocking and prompting by Paolo, that I opened my bedroom door before they resorted to unhinging it to let themselves in.
“Troian,” my mom begged, her voice hoarse from crying, too. “Please, tell me what happened. I-I’m so worried. I-I’m shaking. I might pass out.” Her hand flew to her forehead as she leaned against the doorframe to my room for support. “I might faint. I’m feeling very lightheaded.”
Yes, she was overly dramatic about it. No, it wasn’t all for show. Even though I’d lived with my dad for the past several years, that didn’t take away from the fact that she was my mother and, unlike my father, cared (albeit too much) about my feelings.
“Troian,” Paolo said, his Italian accent much thicker as he tried to handle my mother and her emotions. “We don’t… have to talk about it. But please, tell us… or your mother… what happened.”
What didn’t happen? was a better question.
My eyes rose to meet hers.
“A lot of things. Dad called earlier this week and I talked to him and that didn’t go so well.”
Her eyes widened in shock. I’d thought to wait until after I told Dr. Shelly to tell her but what was the point now?
“I was struggling in one of my classes and I thought I wasn’t getting along with the professor, and then I thought I was, and now…” I shook my head, taking a deep breath before I rambled myself into territory I couldn’t come back from.
“It hurts to care about someone who doesn’t care enough about you,” I whispered, my voice even hoarser than hers and clogged with self-deprecating tears.
It wasn’t the whole truth, but they weren’t getting anywhere near that.
“Oh, honey,” my mom gushed, cupping her hands over her mouth, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. “I’m sorry. I can call your father… I can tell him…”
I shook my head. “No. It’s okay. I just… I need space. I just need to process.”
With a tight smile at my mom, I saw how Paolo’s expression told her that they’d pushed enough for one night and to let me sleep.
I remained frozen as she came over and hugged me before he ushered her from the room. Reaching for my bag, I dug around searching for my phone and earbuds. I needed to listen to something and forget the world.
Oh, no.
No, no, no.
Frantically I shuffled through everything in my messenger bag that I used for school. Don’t freak out. Except it wasn’t there. Baudelaire. I pinched the bridge of my nose as the world began to tilt.
I shouldn’t have such an attachment to a book. It was only a book of poems. It wasn’t life or death.
I tried to reason with my already arrhythmic heart.
It was my solace.
That was the thing about books—the words never changed. They were always there when you needed them. They could always find a way to say the things or describe the things you never could. Somehow, they took bits and pieces of you and rewrote them in a way you could make sense of.
And without Baudelaire, I made no sense.
Collapsing onto the bed, I curled into a ball. Hot, sticky tears gushed down my face.
I should’ve showered. I should’ve washed off every trace of the thing that I loathed. Instead, I turned farther into it—farther into the lingering shadows of his scent and the fading trail of his touch.
Waking up this morning, I’d been greeted with breakfast and the information that my mom had scheduled me an emergency session with Dr. Shelly who’d just arrived back in town. I remembered the old Troy who would have gone off the hinges at her. But who I’d become was relieved to hear it. I needed to tell someone what happened.
What happened…
I kissed my professor.
I stripped for my teacher.
And then I
let him lick me from the inside out until I had no idea who I was or why I was hurting.
“Troian,” Dr. Shelly greeted me warmly. I was a little taken aback when I saw her—dark blue jeans and a light blue sweater.
She always wore monochromatic at the office. I, on the other hand, was in black leggings and an oversized navy sweater that I’d purchased at a thrift shop in D.C. with Lilith last year. I didn’t know why today it felt okay to wear it; I’d been on the verge of burning it so many times.
“H-hi,” I said, walking inside and taking my normal spot on the couch. It smelled like peaches in here; a strange scent for winter. “T-thank you… for coming in today.” My voice was a little gruff, but I knew it was a weekend and that this wasn’t normal.
“Of course,” she said with a reassuring smile. “When your mom called, I was so worried. Thankfully, I got back home last night. My mother had a small fall, that’s why I had to rush up there, but she’s doing much better and I’m doing much better now that I’m not surrounded by her four cats.” She laughed and I noticed the slight redness that still lined her eyes and nose.
“She told you what happened?”
“She said you were very distressed.” My lips thinned, but I nodded. I doubted ‘distressed’ was the word my mother used. “And mentioned that your father called you.”
I guessed we could start there.
“What did he want to talk to you about?” she asked, setting a cup of hot tea in front of me without even asking if I wanted it. “I bought a new tea yesterday—peachy green, so I thought I’d make some.” Peach.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of tea, but it was warm—steaming—and I was cold. So, I picked up the mug just to hold it and took a deep breath of the fruity scent.
“He wanted to apologize,” I answered her.
This was how the train of questions started—always with the facts followed by feelings.
“And did you let him?” A small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth; she knew me well after these few months.
“At first,” I admitted. “I wasn’t prepared. I answered his call by mistake, but then I couldn’t hang up. And then he apologized for hurting me—not for what he did,” I clarified, wincing as I came to that moment of the call. “But for how he treated me.”
The Fall of Troy Page 19
