I couldn’t breathe. My throat choked on air because my body was suffocating in pleasure.
“Come for me, ma petite. Let me feel how right this is.”
It was because he demanded it that I came. He didn’t even care about muffling my scream as my body obeyed. His name tore from my lips as I convulsed with an orgasm so strong it bordered on pain. My body went rigid from his confession—ripped from him because this was the end; it was the end of him trying to stay away from me. It was his demand, but it was also my victory that gave my body release. I saw black and white. I saw stars. I saw everything and nothing and the beautiful mess in between. I saw him.
My body clenched and squeezed around him, but it was like trying to get a grip around something that was too big for your grasp. It felt like my muscles were too stretched to tighten around anything, but they must have because Léo lost control.
His thrusts became erratic and rabid, jerking into my body uncontrollably until a strangled roar echoed through the room as he came. I felt his dick pulse inside me. I was surprised to realize that somehow in all that he’d slipped on a condom, but Léo Baudin didn’t make idle threats. I knew the day was coming when he’d take me without protection because he’d claimed victory over me—and I was the prize. Every last piece of me.
I collapsed against the desk, registering nothing except Léo still inside me and the fact that at some point during my time pinned against the hard wood, the hand that had caged my wrists together and kept my arms prisoner shifted to interlocking his fingers with mine. He’d held my hand lovingly as he fucked me with lust and loathing and I found enough strength for a smile.
Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas.
Intense. Sad. Beautiful. Essential.
In the things we loathe become the things we love.
In another life, Baudelaire had written about us.
“What did you tell your mom?” I demanded, unlocking the door to the studio apartment that the school had provided me with for the semester.
It was a few blocks from the campus. Easy to walk to. Small enough that most nights it didn’t matter to me whether I stayed there or on the couch in my office. There was nothing to come back here to… or for.
“That I was staying at a friend’s.”
Putain. Fuck. Why couldn’t I make this feel wrong?
I was bringing a goddamn student back to my apartment—a student that I’d just fucked. Fucked, cleaned, and then promptly told her while I wiped her desire off my dick that she was coming home with me. I demanded it because the reality was I was begging. And the way her face lit up at the command… Merde.
Holding the door open for her, I let her walk inside the space first. It had been days since I’d been here, but she needed to sleep in a bed, and I needed to sleep with her.
“This is what they gave you?” She turned to me and asked when I flicked on the lights. “It’s cozy.”
An unexpected smile cracked through the stony expression I couldn’t seem to shake. Cozy was one way of describing it. Closet-sized kitchen to the left, bathroom to the right, bed straight ahead. The building was old—at least for America—and that meant large windows and poor temperature control.
“Can I…” her eyes flicked to the side. “Use the bathroom?”
“Please. It’s the only door in the room besides the exit,” I teased, watching some of her nervousness dissipate.
As soon as the door clicked shut, I slumped into the single chair that graced the kitchen counter and dropped my head into my hands. Mon Dieu, what was I thinking?
I tried to remember, but all that came to my mind was Troy with tears streaming down her face, in Luke’s arms. Jealousy surged through my veins again, green, clingy, and suffocating—like poison waiting to choke me.
Those tears were mine. Just like her desire and her anger, her sadness was mine. Her joy, her fear, her hope, everything… In that moment, I’d laid claim to everything. Well, almost. I’d barely restrained enough sanity to put a condom on before I took her. Barely. But soon even that would be gone if it wasn’t already.
“I’m sorry,” she began as soon as she stepped out of the doorway,
“Don’t apologize, Troian.” I wanted to go to her and apologize for treating her the way that I did. “I shouldn’t have been so—” I broke off as she climbed nonchalantly onto my lap.
Twining her arms around my neck, she pressed her lips to mine. “Don’t apologize, Léo. I wanted everything you gave me.” She bit down on her lower lip and the semi-erection I was sporting turned to full-on granite again. “I want it again… I want more.”
A strangled laugh escaped me. Christ, she was so tempting. So innocently demanding. No wonder my cock was ready to permanently live inside her.
“Merde, ma petite.” My hand cupped her face and I allowed my thumb to brush over the lip her teeth had been abusing. “Do you know how old I am? You picked an old man,” I teased. “I’m not ready for that.”
Her eyebrows raised in the way that made me want to fuck them higher.
“Really, Monsieur Old Man?” She wriggled her hips over my arousal, making it jerk against my pants. “Because it sure doesn’t feel that way.”
I grimaced and pushed her off my lap before I couldn’t stop myself.
“Take your clothes off.”
Her mouth parted in that delicious way that reminded me of how her top lip disappeared when my dick was in her mouth.
Merde. Shit.
Not again, Léo. Not tonight.
She glanced back toward the bathroom. “I just… ahh…”
I cut her off. “I’m not fucking you again.” The instantaneous fall of her face had me add, “Not tonight. I don’t want to hurt you. But I do want to hold you.”
My body hummed at the way her expression lightened—like I’d just offered her the world instead of a night in my arms. It didn’t just hum—it felt alive, I felt alive.
“Take them off,” I repeated. “And tell me why you were crying.”
She hesitated but didn’t disobey. Layer by layer, she removed all of her clothes and revealed the details of her conversation with her father.
“Do you really forgive him?” I asked, trying to hold my body steady as she climbed back onto my lab with just her underwear on. “Or did you do this just to get another ride on my cock?”
The half-jest concealed the not-so-humorous truth. How I felt about her fucking petrified me. It made me hate her. It made me fuck her. It made me insane. For her. And I accused her of using me as some sort of rebellious retaliation because I was afraid that I was.
She grinned. “I’ll have you know, Monsieur, that I forgave him before I rode your cock, he just didn’t know it and neither did you.” My hand gripped harder into the soft skin of her waist while my other fingers and eyes traced up and down the side of her tattoo. “But, if I had known it would have gotten me a ride, I might have done it sooner.”
“Touché,” I rasped, lighting running a nail over the inked words.
She shifted in my lap and her gaze dropped from mine. “I-I don’t know why I feel about you the way that I do,” she murmured. “But I know that it doesn’t go away… it doesn’t get less… it doesn’t get better.”
“It gets stronger… it gets harder to ignore…” I finished hoarsely.
“Without it, it feels like I’m dying,” she confessed in a voice that made a whisper sounds like a scream.
My mouth thinned. We were dangerously close to admitting something that neither of us were ready for. My lips touched hers. It was the only answer I knew how to give when words failed me.
“Let’s go to bed, ma petite.”
It wasn’t a request. I stood and kept her in my arms, her lean legs locking tight around my waist as I walked the few feet over to the Queen-sized bed. Setting her on the mattress, I stripped down, enjoying how she half-crawled underneath the slim covers and stared blatantly at my body.
I never cared where I slept. Bed. Couch. Chair.
They were all just a means to an end. But with her in my bed, I could no longer imagine… consider… sleeping anywhere else. Hell, I knew that after tonight, even sleeping without her might not be possible. I’d never felt that for Amélie.
“Are you… sure you want to sleep?” Lust coated her throaty voice.
Non. Je n’était pas sûre. No, I wasn’t sure. I was hard and I wanted her—that was sure—but she was going to be sore. Very sore.
Sliding in beside her, I pulled her to my chest. “Oui.” My lips brushed against her forehead. “Because tonight, I’ll know that I won’t wake up to a nightmare.”
She pushed on my chest to look at me, worry marring her beautiful eyes. “You wake up with nightmares? Why?”
My jaw ticked. I should laugh at her confusion. I should make light of her misunderstanding. But I couldn’t. “No, Troian. I dream of you.” My hand cupped her cheek. “That’s why I haven’t slept much lately… Because when I wake up and you’re not here, that is my nightmare. Knowing you aren’t mine, knowing I’ll never touch you… never wake up buried deep inside of you… those are my nightmares.”
Pink flooded her cheeks. The urge to fuck her again—and the strength it took to hold back from it—almost made me vomit.
Pulling her mouth to mine, I kissed her hard and said again, “Go to sleep, ma cher.”
I felt her body relax against mine and I held her closer.
La femme est l’être qui projette la plus grande ombre ou la plus grande lumière dans nos rêves.
A woman is the only being that either casts the greatest shadow or the greatest light on our dreams.
Baudelaire, le connard, the bastard, taunted me with his words.
Troian was the light and shadow in my dreams—in my life. She is what returned dimension to my existence that had become flat and nondescript.
I was dreaming with my eyes wide open.
It was the only explanation for waking up to Léo lying beside me. I wiggled my front closer to him, wondering if his erection had gone away at all overnight. In return, those deep sea eyes peeled open as he rolled his cock against my core.
I winced. I should have expected that.
“Not yet, ma petite,” he said with the sexiest early-morning rasp to his voice.
My whimper quickly turned into a sated sigh as he kissed my forehead and got out of bed.
God, not even Hell could be hotter than him right now.
All toned muscle. Disheveled hair. Naked.
I soaked in the smell of him left on the pillow and watched as he walked into the kitchen. It took a few minutes for the clicks and clinks and then the smell of fresh coffee for me to vaguely recall the small espresso machine on the counter.
“Please tell me you’ve made more than just coffee in that kitchen.”
“And if I haven’t?” he returned, and I laughed into the pillow.
I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want this to end. I wanted to wake up here forever. Well, maybe not here, but next-to-him here. We weren’t wrong. No matter what the rules said, what the school said, what my parents would say… Wrong would never feel like this.
My mouth watered when he returned holding the small steaming cup of caffeine. I loved coffee just as much as the next person, but this had nothing to do with the imminent caffeine infusion and everything to do with the very hot naked male whose semi-erection was the only thing I could focus on.
I sipped the bitter liquid when he held the cup to my lips.
“It’s good,” I said, taking it from him. The sheet that had been covering me fell to my waist as I sat up. “Thank you.”
I could practically hear the boom of lust that rocked through him seeing my breasts and tattoo exposed while I sat with my back propped against the wall, sipping the espresso like we were in a café.
“Not as good as in Paris,” he replied through clenched teeth.
Paris. “Well, I wouldn’t know…”
What were we going to do about Paris? He couldn’t stay here. This wasn’t his home. He’d go back in a few weeks and what would I do?
“Troian.” He tugged the drink from my fingers at the same time pulling my worried mind back to the present.
I wanted a future with him. I just didn’t want to think about the logistics of it right now.
He tipped my chin up and his lips crashed on mine. Worries and worlds stopped as his tongue slipped inside. So different than so many of his kisses. Soft and soothing. Deep. Consuming.
The world could end right now, and I wouldn’t care. As long as I could stay here and live off of caffeine and his kisses, that would be enough… that would be everything.
“You should go home, Troian. I don’t want your mother to worry.”
Fear choked me.
Had I said too much? As soon as he mentioned Paris, he knew what I was thinking. Way to go, Troy. I was finally here, with him, without fighting for us and I go and bring up the future. What a naive, rookie move.
I swallowed over the lump in my throat as he pushed off the bed and walked the few steps to the other side of the room, opening the top drawer in the small chest and pulling out a shirt.
My heart stuttered as I watched the muscles of his back flex as he pulled on a wrinkled shirt. I wanted to argue, but I knew that he was right. I barely had any friends here. It was a miracle that she’d believed me last night. Not that I wasn’t eighteen—an adult. The worst that could happen was expulsion if they found out where and who I was with. But I wasn’t worried about me.
“Okay,” I agreed meekly because I was worried about him. And because I was afraid I’d pushed too hard. He was already here as some sort of punishment. His career would be over if they found out about us.
I scooted to the edge of the bed, trying to hold back tears as I quickly tugged on my clothes. It was fine. I would go home, and everything would be fine. My hands slipped trying to put on my shoes they were so clammy. Great.
“Oomph!” I turned and spun right into him.
Without thought, my fingers curled into his shirt, never wanting to let go.
“Go home, ma petite. And then go to work tonight.” I’d completely forgot about work. “I’ll see you there.”
I blinked a few times, unsure that I’d heard him correctly. “Y-you’re coming to Rhymes?”
He stared at me like I’d just asked if the sun was going to set tonight; of course it was. “And then you’re coming here with me.”
This time when my heart flipped, it was in the best way possible. I loved when he was curt and demanding.
And I loved when he demanded from me the things I desperately wanted to give.
“You didn’t have to come for my whole shift, you know,” I teased quietly as we walked to his apartment building.
He’d been the first customer to walk into Rhymes earlier and the last one to leave. I should have known—when Léo Baudin made a promise (or a threat) he kept it. And here, I’d spent all day worrying that he’d decide not to show up at all. That his desperate little student wasn’t worth the hassle for the last few weeks of the semester.
I choked on my inhale, finding myself spun up against the door to his place, his body rigid against mine.
“Actually, I did.” When I looked in his eyes, I knew why he had to stay the whole time; he trembled with need.
“I-I think my boss has a crush on you…”
“I don’t give a fuck about your boss.” And then his lips were on mine. Angry. Frantic. Deprived.
The next thing I felt was the bed hitting the back of my legs. I’d lost all my clothes in the short distance to it from the door and Léo’s undone pants hung precariously from his hips. I felt hot and my pussy ached—ached because I would be getting my period soon and ached from last night. God, how was this possible? We practically attacked each other like it had been weeks… or at least days… since we’d touched. Not hours.
“You know how many times I’ve thought about fucking you today?” he growled, reaching for my tits.
<
br /> I arched them into his hands with a moan that begged him to tell me.
“You know how many times I thought about fucking you at your work?” He worked my nipples between his fingers as he spoke. “In the storage room. On the bar. Standing with your clit pressed against the block of ice while I fuck you from behind.”
I gasped and he flicked my nipple as delicious punishment.
“You’re driving me insane, ma petite. Do you know that? Do you know that I worked today on something meaningful for the first time in months? It was the only other thing I could do to not think about you.”
“Léo…”
He pulled me against him, his hands cupping the flesh of my ass as he jammed his erection against my stomach.
“You’re not leaving this fucking bed all week. Do you understand?”
“My mom…”
“Tell her you’re on a trip with a friend.” He nipped along the edge of my jaw.
I giggled, loving how he watched my small breasts as they bounced. That was a terrible excuse.
“And what do I tell Dr. Shelly?” I said with a smile. “She’ll have a field day with that.”
My eyes went wide as soon as the words left my mouth. His hands gripped my wrists mid-air on their way to wrap around his neck. My stomach dropped faster than cell service in the Grand Canyon.
“Who is Dr. Shelly?” he demanded, holding me away from him.
He didn’t know. I forgot he didn’t know about her… about why I was here… about that part of the story.
Oh God. I felt those few inches of separation grow like it was a hundred miles. No. Like he was a galaxy far, far away and I would need the Millennium Falcon to reach him. And maybe a Chewbacca to hold him down when I told him the truth.
“Léo—”
“Who is she?” It wasn’t even a question, but a warning if he didn’t get any answer soon.
“My psychiatrist.” The harder his fingers dug into my arm, the harder I bit into my lip. What was worse? Letting him think that it was because I caught my dad screwing my best friend or informing him that it was because it hurt so bad that I resorted to cutting myself.
The Fall of Troy Page 28
