And those things made all the difference.
My mouth went dry as she approached the desk with her handful of papers, rearranging the mess left on it. I stopped watching because Léo walked in. His shirt wasn’t wrinkled. No one else in the class would notice, but I did.
Did she iron it? Was she responsible?
His gaze swung through the room and paused briefly on me, long enough for the embers to spark and flame before his attention was diverted to Giselle. My fist tightened around my pen as they spoke in quiet tones and my knuckles whitened when she put her hand on his arm and rubbed it gently… soothingly… like she knew what battles raged inside him.
She had no idea.
Even after she left, I couldn’t focus on anything else as Léo began class and my body overreacted. I stared as his hand scribbled things on the board, flashbacks invading my mind of those hands teaching my body how to feel. Memories intermingled with questions and possessiveness after seeing Giselle touch him like that.
He didn’t belong to me, but his broken pieces were my match.
I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t really care about her. I knew that fucking her hadn’t done anything for him. And that’s not what turned my stomach into a demolition zone. I cared if he’d talked to her about me… about what happened and our future… when I’d been given the silent treatment.
I didn’t care who knew about us, truthfully. I cared that I didn’t know what we were, and it felt like someone else did.
The minutes didn’t move fast enough for class to be over and for me to make my excuses to Kev before I skipped steps up to the hallway of offices.
Class had felt like detention. Like punishment. Forced to sit in a cage of jealousy, I made it to Léo’s door and didn’t even bother to knock before I flung it open.
Oh god. He wasn’t alone.
My jaw dropped and I tripped to a stop a few steps into the room when I walked in to the sight of Giselle with her arms wrapped around him. It could be comforting. It could be an embrace between friends. It could be purely platonic. But the first man I’d ever slept with and who seemed to have taken my heart hostage was hugging another woman.
Both of their heads jerked to my intrusion.
“Oh… I… I’m sorry—I just…” I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t come up with an excuse.
Léo’s eyes darkened and his mouth thinned into an angry line.
I was screwed.
“Giselle,” he rasped. “Miss Milanovic asked to meet with me after class.” She stepped away from him with a soft smile. “If you wouldn’t mind excusing us.”
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until he spoke and gave a calm and rational excuse for why I’d barged into his private space.
“Bien sur, Léo.” Of course, Léo, she replied softly, her eyes flicking between us questioningly.
My chin notched up. Was she trying to remind me that we were from different worlds by replying in French? My fingers clenched around the strap of my bag. I might not speak perfect French, but I spoke the only languages that mattered—the ones of sadness, heartache, and debilitating desire.
I stood frozen in place as the blonde glided around me with a graceful sway of her hips that I would never in a million years have. Léo didn’t look at me as he passed stepped by me, too, to shut the door. The click of the lock made me flinch, putting every muscle on high alert.
“Miss Milanovic,” he said with a low voice as he nonchalantly walked around the rest of back of his desk, flicking through papers that sat on top even though I knew he wasn’t looking at them.
“Don’t call me that,” I demanded. Of all the things I was thinking and that I wanted to ask, I couldn’t stand that he called me something so formal when just a few days ago he’d ripped through my virginity.
His lip twitched. “How can I help you?”
“Help me?” I bristled, stepping up to his desk and planting my hands on it. “Are you… are you serious right now? Or were you too drunk to remember that you fucked me on this carpet on Friday? I might be able to find a bloodstain or two to remind you.”
My voice was only borderline hysterical, but I’d have time to be embarrassed about that later.
His eyes glinted dangerously. “It was a mistake, Miss Milanovic. My greatest, in fact. And for your sake, it ends here. You are too young. You are my student. You are not meant to be mine.”
“Liar,” I spewed angrily. “Is this what you’ve spent all weekend realizing? That I’m your student and that’s why we can’t be together? I’ve been your student for weeks now and still, I ended up underneath you with your dick buried inside me… I thought you were smarter than that.”
His growl was ferocious, and I knew I’d hit the nail on the head.
“You are going to be okay, Troy. You have a whole life of possibilities and in every one of them, you are going to be incredible,” he bit out. “But I’m not going to be anything. Especially not when I return home. Possibilities don’t exist for me any longer.”
I knew there were more secrets, more details to his past and his pain that he locked up tight. Just like there were to mine. He thought it would change what we had. I knew that it wouldn’t.
“Every breath is a possibility, Léo,” I replied softly. “You said when you are with me, you can breathe, so don’t push me away. Just breathe and let me be your possibilities.”
It seemed like his clothes wrinkled and bent under the strain of the fight inside him. Needing me, yet believing he wasn’t good.
I saw the moment the stone mask descended over his face, the cruel armor he thought would push me away. If he thought I wouldn’t fight for him like I’d fight for myself, he was wrong.
“What do you want from me, little girl?” he sneered. “Did you think that because I fucked you that I could turn around and ask you to be my girlfriend? That I’d take you—my student—on a date?” He pressed his hands into the desk and leaned toward me. “Or maybe that I’d write you some poetry like ton precieux Baudelaire?”
Heat sizzled through my body. He wanted me to beg. He didn’t want to admit that he’d been drowning with me.
And then he reached in his top drawer, never breaking eye contact, and pulled out my book, holding it up next to him. Taunting me.
And I saw red.
The next thing I knew I was standing in front of him grasping for the book that he held out of my reach. Our bodies were so close that anyone looking would think they touched, but for us, that half an inch felt like half a world apart.
The desire from the other night was back. But more. It was like every time I touched him was only enough for that moment which meant that I would never be able to get enough.
“Give it back,” I demanded, panting as I strained for the book, desperately trying to not brush against him before I made an even bigger fool out of myself.
But I wasn’t the only one struggling. His breath inhaled forcefully—like there was a hundred-pound weight of desire sitting on his chest and he was trying to breathe until it let up.
“You’re very demanding, ma petite,” he rasped with a careless smirk. “‘Don’t call me that,’ ‘give it back’… And you should keep it down. Every office on this floor is filled right now.”
I hated his lips. I hated his lips that mocked me… that taunted me… that pushed me. I hated them so much that all I wanted to do was kiss them—kiss them to shut them up and kiss them to call them a liar. Because that’s what they were.
“Give me my book,” I said with a low voice. “And then tell me, Professeur Baudin, are you just so horny that you’re ready to fuck anyone who asks for it? I’ll let Giselle know on my way out.”
This time I jumped for the book, not giving a shit who or what I encountered in the process. And the instant my body brushed against his, carelessness was gone.
His arm dropped and I barely registered the thud of my book hitting the floor before my body was whipped to the side and pinned by his hips to the desk, his chest
pressing and leaning me back over it.
I tried to catch my breath, but it was hard to focus on anything except the hot, hard male flattened against my front and the long, thick ridge digging into my stomach. I tried to calm the thrill that chased up my spine, knowing it hadn’t been there before, when Giselle was in here; his was the kind of arousal that clothes just couldn’t hide.
“Mais non, ma petite,” he growled angrily. “I’m just ready to fuck you when you beg me for it.”
He tried to forget that I knew why he pushed me away… I knew because I’d done the same.
Because I loathed him.
Now our erratic breaths made sense because they moved in unison—in hateful harmony and loathing lust.
My tattoo felt like it was burning down my side and searing the goddamn truth into my soul.
I loathed Léo. I loathed him for getting through my walls and setting fire to my feelings. I loathed him because he needed this just like I did and still, he fooled himself into thinking he could stay away.
He was the thing I hated. And the tattoo that was sparked by my past, now became a prophecy for my future, engraved into my cells, that if I didn’t find a way to not loathe, there would be no stopping me from falling completely and uncontrollably in love with him.
I raised my chin like it could keep me above water. “I’m not begging for it.”
Fuck you, Baudelaire.
“I’m not begging for it,” she said.
I couldn’t help but stare at her for a moment, ma petite bataille.
So demanding and strong and undeterred. No matter what I said or did, she fought to be here. With me. Mon Dieu, what I wouldn’t do to keep that in my life. She was fierceness refined with her own inner fire. But she had too much ahead of her—and so did I… and not in the good way.
A tortured groan slipped from my lips—one that I’d been beating down every moment since I’d fucked her and especially, every moment since then that I wanted to touch her again but couldn’t. My dick didn’t let any detail go unnoticed—her messy braid, her monochromatic attire, and her jealousy. No, it saw silken strands that my hands wanted to fist, clothes that hid from the world what was only meant for me, and it demanded I show her that my possessiveness had no bounds even though I’d tried everything to cage it.
It hadn’t worked.
“You will,” I said as my lips hunted hers.
Maybe not in words, but the way her mouth opened beneath mine, the way her tongue licked and stroked against mine, and all her whimpers that I swallowed—that was her begging for it. And I gave her what she wanted—hard and demanding, the kiss made clear what my words could not: that I no longer existed but to consume her.
My hand rose to her chin, cupped it, and forced her lips an inch from mine. Staring down into her beautiful face, I saw the few trails of wetness that led down from her glistening eyes. I’d made her cry. I should have been happy; if I hurt her enough now, she’d leave and I wouldn’t be able to hurt her anymore. Only nothing went according to play with Troy. Rien. I cursed myself as her eyes acknowledged me. It was getting harder and harder for me to push her away like I should.
Brushing my thumb over her swollen lower lip, I rasped, “You want to know why, ma petite? I call you your name because I need every reminder that you are my student; I need every reminder why I shouldn’t be touching you like this. I need every reminder that that description of you—student—prevents me from making you anything else. I need every reminder that I can’t take you anywhere, I can’t let anyone see what I feel for you—not because I give a shit about myself”—I laughed harshly—“there is nothing left of my life to ruin. But you… it would ruin everything for you.”
Merde, my chest ached as I spoke. The words were true. Of course, they were. I just hadn’t realized just how badly I didn’t want them to be.
“And, en verité, even if I could take you to dinner, ma petite, I wouldn’t,” my lips tugged in a smile, “because you, sprawled out naked beneath me, your sweet pussy bare for my tongue, is the only meal I need to survive.”
She shuddered and sagged against me.
“Léo, please…” she begged softly.
She didn’t want me to stop. She wanted me to go faster. She wanted me to stop torturing her with words—except words is what she came here for. So, even though my dick throbbed to dispense with the niceties and get inside her already, I gave her the words that would let ma belle bataille sleep at night.
“I kept your book because I needed you to come to me—because I sabotage my own plans to keep you away,” I let out a harsh laugh as I kissed her hard. “Because I’ve thought of nothing else but your tight little body bleeding around my cock and screaming my name for the past two days.”
“Léo…” she gasped and arched into me. “I need you.”
“And Giselle?” My laugh turned into a groan as I slid my hand between us and cupped her sex. Mon Dieu, her heat was pulsing through every layer of clothing. Black spots clouded my vision as I imagined how wet and ready she was. “She was never anything but a fleeting attempt to forget—like a Band-Aid to cover a bullet hole. But you, you are everything that begs me to remember to let myself feel something good again, to let myself feel… All my body sees is you.” I dropped soft kisses on her cheek, trailing toward her ear. “All my body wants is you.” I licked around the edge of the soft shell. “I opened you, ma petite. I made you for me. My cock would make a permanent home inside if you if I let it. Forever inside your tight heat. Holding me. Squeezing me. Making me come until my desire is a steady stream from your sex.”
She whimpered as I pressed my palm against her, rubbing her needy cunt through her clothes. There was no stopping this.
There was no stopping us.
Knock, knock.
“Léo, you have a minute?” Jack’s voice rang out from the other side of the door.
We froze. I felt the way her already racing heart now thundered out of her chest as her eyes went wide at me. There was hardly a minute to think before I heard the doorknob turning. She could have just stepped away. I could have just pushed her to the other side of the room.
None of that happened.
I looked at the door and the next thing I knew, Troy was gone—disappeared beneath my desk. Just as Jack poked his head in, I took a seat in my chair. Right now was not a good time to be standing; more things that Troy needed to be hidden underneath the desk right now.
“What?” I bit out tightly. Good thing he was used to—and unfazed—by my surliness.
He sent me that sad, pitying smile—you know, the one that says he just wished I could find something to make me happy. If he only knew how happily my attitude would disappear if he left the fucking room.
“I want to talk to you about your class… the semester,” he began, and I fought every urge not to tell him to ‘fuck off;’ I’d squandered every inch of leeway I had with him when it came to this though. Actually, I’d squandered more inches than I had when I’d threatened that obnoxious girl with her pen.
“I’m sure you have your own plans for the midterm and everything, but I wanted to maybe go over some thoughts I had for how things are typically done here in the states.” I stared blankly at him and he groaned. “Don’t give me that look, Léo. Midterms should be at the next week and then the kids leave for spring break. You have to test them on something before they go.”
A raised eyebrow cracked through my uninterested gaze.
“There are complaints that you are only giving them a final and it’s not fair to give them a grade for the entire semester based on one project.” Fucking Americans.
And then my knee jumped up and hit the underside of the desk as I felt Troy’s hands on my legs. What the hell was she…
“Fine. I’ll give them another test,” I winced and bit out, ignoring an explanation for the loud thud.
Thankfully, Jack had too much built up that he needed to say because he began to ramble on again about this midterm thing. I wasn’t
listening. The blood pumping through my ears drowned him out as Troy’s small hands slid up my thighs, over my arousal and reached for my waistband.
And I was powerless to stop her.
“I’m here because my boss is going to have my head if I don’t make sure you have a level-headed approach to testing them. He wants to make sure you don’t do something crazy…”
Like give a student an A because she was about to suck my cock off?
My fists clenched, feeling as the fabric of my pants give way and her firm fingers pulled my arousal out. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I knew Jack would think this was just me again, frustrated at being told what to do.
It wasn’t.
This was me as raw need ripped through my body at the way she stroked my erection from base to tip, her finger grazing over my head each turn. She was going to pay for this.
At least she couldn’t see my face. Troy would see right through the stoic, mildly engaging expression I’d plastered on. I could see her now, laughing as I struggled to keep my shit together as she cupped my balls and tugged faster on my cock.
The strokes slowed and I just barely dragged in a breath before I felt it—the heat of her breath before her hot mouth closed over my tip.
“Léo.” My eyes jumped to Jack who was looking at me with concern, his pacing in my office paused. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” My voice broke as the suction from her mouth grew. Mon Dieu, she was going to pay for this. “Just trying to get work done.”
As in ‘get the fuck out of my office’ so that I can ram my dick down her throat for this.
Of course, he only nodded placating, “I know, I’ll just be another minute. I just want you to understand…”
The only thing I understood was Troy’s mouth wrapped around the tip of my erection as her small hand pumped up and down my length. I stared off into space, which, luckily for me, is what I usually did when Jack droned on. I could feel her smile. I could feel it every time my dick jumped and pulsed to be farther inside her.
I ignored Jack because every ounce of my focus was on holding off my orgasm until he was gone.
The Fall of Troy Page 24
