CHAPTER NINE #2
Answering was only going to worsen my already-catastrophic situation. Best do what he said now and take my revenge later. I reached into his tented shorts, yanking down the waistband. His cock sprang out, cum dripping on his hoodie.
“Stroke it.” He took my hand and guided my moves along the length of it.
I spat on his cock defiantly to moisten it, adding some phlegm into the mix of spit.
He laughed in response, fastening my fingers over it. “Brat.”
I scowled at myself in the reflection of his black visor and knew he was staring as I jerked him off.
His arms fell to his sides, and I pushed up his hoodie with one hand, tracing the tattoos of venomous snakes, skeletons, and cobwebs adorning his perfect form.
Desire roared in my veins. It quieted every other thought inside my head.
I wanted him, badly, and I didn’t care the only way to get him was if he punished me for what had happened.
“You know, I paid your little shrink a visit when we were twenty-five,” he said, his tone wry and amused, while I was pleasuring him. My spine stiffened as his cock grew thicker and longer in my hand. “Asked him what the fuck was wrong with yo—no, don’t stop. Keep going.”
I tried to swallow a lump in my throat. Failed.
“Nice try.” I picked up the pace on his cock, wanting to yank it off his damn body. “Therapists don’t share information about their patients.”
“Apparently they do when there’s a gun aimed at their crotch,” Achilles said conversationally. “It’s amazing how persuasive I can be with a sour mood and a full chamber. Wanna know what he told me?”
No, I didn’t. In fact, I never stuck around long enough to get a diagnosis from a therapist. I didn’t even know which shrink he was talking about, I’d been to so many.
“Not particularly,” I said, pumping him harder and faster, suddenly wanting him to come and leave me the hell alone.
“He said when a child suffers a big trauma at a young age, they often get mentally and emotionally stuck at that age. Arrested development. He put your emotional maturity somewhere between fourteen and fifteen. Said you’ll stay this way until you work through your shit and accept what happened to you at the camp. ”
Tears clung to my lashes. I didn’t want him to see me in a moment of weakness, so I breathed through my nose and tried to push through it, jerking him off faster.
Fucking come already.
“Oh, good. I’m ready for you now.” He flicked my hand off his dick, then grabbed the backs of my thighs. “Get on top.”
He was going to make me screw him after the things he’d said to me?
Why not? You just told him you betrayed him because he never meant anything to you.
I pushed my knees up and mounted him. He grazed my clit with the tip of his fingers.
A shudder rippled through my entire body.
His cock slid into me, my wet entrance accepting it eagerly—greedily—as he buried himself to the hilt.
This position was so much better than the one on the plane because now he was hitting my G-spot, curled all the way there, without even moving.
I trembled around him, a rush of heat coursing through my veins.
Don’t enjoy this. What the hell is wrong with you? He just admitted to a gross breach of privacy with your former therapist.
He grabbed my waist and readjusted himself, tilting his hips up and hitting the sensitive spot inside me again. Another quake of pleasure rolled through my body, and I grunted.
“So fucked up.” He brushed a thumb over my cheek, chuckling. “You’ve always been just as sick as me. Ride me, Tierney.”
I did. I didn’t even bother pretending I didn’t like it anymore. I was fucking my archnemesis who loathed me, and I was enjoying every single second of it, even if he wrecked me. Because he was right. I was a mess and always would be. We’d tried to fix each other once, and look where it got us.
With each roll of my hips, he slammed deeper into me, hitting my G-spot.
I controlled the pace and the movement, which meant I was now in charge, drawing pleasure from the situation whether he liked it or not.
I wrapped one hand around his neck, the other tracing his abs as I moved on top of him.
Hate radiated between us, potent and fierce.
We were fucking, but we might as well have been fighting.
I was riding a criminal high, my inner muscles spasming around him, milking my pleasure from him. I could feel the first wave of orgasmic ecstasy washing over me.
“Hate you,” I moaned, grinding my clit against his abs as I slammed down on his cock again.
“Hate you more, baby.”
He grabbed my waist, hurled me up and brought me down to my knees in front of the Ducati. My knees hit the ground with a thump.
“Nah, you don’t get to come this time, either.
” He pushed the glistening head of his cock past my lips.
I slammed my teeth together in anger. Achilles let out a growl, taking his dick in his hand and slapping my cheek with it.
It didn’t hurt, but it infuriated me, and to my shock, I felt my tears close to falling.
“Better open up, sweetheart. Fuck knows what other hole I’ll choose to come in if you deny me.”
God, I was going to destroy the bastard as soon as we got out of here. I didn’t care if I had to hide from the Camorra for the rest of my life. But right now, in this exact moment in time, I didn’t have any choice.
I opened up, tasting my arousal on his cock as he speared himself all the way in.
I choked around his girth, his tip scraping the back of my throat.
Tears began leaking from my eyes. It wasn’t just from my gag reflex.
The humiliation strangled me, and I hated myself for not hating this.
For still being turned on by what he was doing to me.
“Hamish told me you have a degradation kink.” He clawed the back of my head, fucking my face with vigor. “You know, before I killed him.”
I felt his hot cum sliding down my throat, and it took everything in me not to bite his dick off. He fisted my hair, keeping me still as he emptied himself inside my mouth.
“Oh, fuck,” he grunted, closing his eyes. “Just so you know, if you try to bite me, I’m breaking your neck and letting you fall off the cliff.”
I internally screamed like a wounded animal. I didn’t think I could hate anyone more than Igor Rasputin, but Achilles came damn close.
After he was done, he let go of my hair. I fell backward, my ass hitting the ground. My tears kept falling, and now I wasn’t just angry and ashamed—I was reeling.
Pushing up to my feet, I turned around and stomped away, descending the cliff on the same pathway on which we’d arrived.
“Tierney,” Achilles barked. “Back here. Now.”
“I’d say fuck you, asshole, but I don’t want to fuck you. Even at the price of being sold to Stefano Coppola.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice echoed across the cliff, carried by the wind.
“I’ll find my way to Coppola. Fuck off and leave me alone.”
I stomped so hard my teeth chattered with each step, but I didn’t stop. I heard the engine purring to life behind me, and sure enough, he zigzagged in front of me, stopping in a screech and blocking my path. The mere sight of him made me want to scream.
“Get on the bike,” he snarled.
“Leave me alone.”
“What’s wrong with you?” he growled, hands tightening over the handlebars.
“What’s wrong with me?” I stabbed my chest with my finger.
“This weekend doesn’t give you a free pass to treat me like trash.
I have enough of that from you when we’re home.
I get it. I wronged you. You never got over it.
No one forced you to stay in touch with me.
Grow up. You’re talking about my mental age?
Yours doesn’t scratch eleven. All you do is bully and belittle me, and when we fuck, you don’t even let me come! ”
“Thought you liked degradation.” He was almost comically surprised.
“Consensual!” I screamed. “You don’t just fuck someone’s face without permission. What the hell is wrong with you?” Wiping the tears with the heels of my palms, I shook my head. “You thought you were doing me a favor?”
His face bricked over, and he didn’t say anything.
“You’re a shit lay.”
His throat worked around a swallow. “I thought this was how you wanted it.”
The catch in his voice almost calmed me down. Almost. Ignorance was no excuse for abuse.
“Are you ever going to forgive me for what happened?” The question scorched a path through my throat.
“I don’t know.”
The air pulsated with intensity between us, and my lungs squeezed around the little air inside them. I couldn’t take being near him anymore. A part of me wanted him to kill me already. Finish me off. It wasn’t like he’d left much to live for, anyway.
I shook my head. “Move.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I’ll let you come next time.”
“There won’t be next time.”
“Yes there will, and I’ll do better.” He paused, measuring his words. “And I won’t…” He cleared his throat. “I won’t mention my conversations with your therapists again.”
“Therapists?” I roared. “Plural?”
Another beat of silence. What else did he do over the years to keep track of me? I knew he’d stalked me. Murdered men who’d touched me. Accessed my medical records. Was anything in my life my own? Untouched by his destructive hand?
“Wow,” I exhaled, a humorless laugh escaping me. “All this monitoring and you couldn’t even buy me a carton of milk every time I ran out. Rude.”
“You don’t drink milk,” he said softly. “It upsets your stomach. You drink that almond shit that looks like spunk.”
Was it normal that one moment I wanted to strangle him, and the next, I wanted to hug him? I didn’t think so. But there was something extremely vulnerable about this man only I seemed to be privy to.
“I’ll ask for permission from now on before I do…”—he cleared his throat—“anything.”
“You thought I didn’t want to come?” I narrowed my eyes.
He stared at his slides. “Yeah.”
“Well, no. I like to come. A lot. I like to be bossed around and spanked, but I have some hard limits.” I took a deep breath.
Might as well tell him, as I was stuck banging him for the entire weekend.
“No spitting, no calling me a whore, no edging.” The first two items reminded me of the gulag.
The third was a product of it. I did not like being deprived of food, shelter, or pleasure. “You always have to make sure I come.”
“Okay.”
“But… You can hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” I knew he was studying me intently, working something in that genius mind of his. “Hurt you how?”
“You can…” I licked my lips. “Hit me.”
Silence stretched between us for a moment before he spoke.
“No, I can’t.”
“Yes, you ca—”
“I can’t,” he said, cutting me off. “Hurt you. Not like that.” Pause. “And you don’t need that either to enjoy yourself. I watched you. You nearly came both times we were together.”
He was right. I hadn’t thought of that. I wondered what that meant. But then again, a part of me didn’t want to know. Sex was an exchange of orgasms, nothing more, nothing less. No emotion attached to it. Not even with my high school sweetheart.
“And I want us to have a safe word,” I said.
He nodded. “We’ll choose a safe word. I won’t do—”
“And don’t ever call me a whore again.” I cut into his words breathlessly. “Every single sex worker I’ve met is eons more respectable and worthy than your sorry ass.”
Something dangerous rippled behind the helmet. No one talked to this man like I did. Probably how I got myself into this mess in the first place.
“Look, hop on the bike. I’ll tone my shit down.”
“No. Good sex is the bare minimum. I’m still pissed off.”
He groaned, tossing his head back, shaking his helmeted head. “Tell me what I need to do to get your ass in gear because there’s no guarantee Sangue Blu isn’t on his way here with an army of soldiers and enough firearms to conquer Rome.”
This was the closest I’d ever gotten to negotiate a more bearable weekend with him. We both knew I was mounting that bike. For better or worse, my imprisoner was my only ticket to freedom.
“I want to shop till I drop while I’m here. On your dime. You’re not keeping me stuck in the hotel while you tend to your business.” I folded my arms. “And I want you to stop being mean to me. Stop mentioning our past. And stop denying me orgasms.”
“Done, done, and done,” he said. “What’s our safe word?”
His question threw me off. I normally went for a boring and trivial word. Banana or tomato. Something that wouldn’t come up as a part of dirty talk in the bedroom. But I didn’t have to think long to choose our safe word.
“It’s two words.” I licked my lips.
I could feel his gaze through the helmet, intent and lethal.
“Ford Prefect.”
The two words hung in the air between us like a sword.
“Thought you said we’re not allowed to talk about our past.” His tone was neutral, measured.
“It’s not our past,” I said. “It’s a book character.”
“Ford Prefect.” He grabbed my helmet and slammed it against my sternum. “Got it.”
I snatched the helmet with a huff and hopped behind him. Apparently, the conversation wasn’t over after all because he twisted around to face me.
“I’m not fucking you again so soon.” I screwed the helmet on my head and clipped it. “I’m implementing a three-hour rule between sex. You’re not worth the UTI.”
“I’m not going to fuck you again,” he said, and after a moment, added, “Not now, anyway.”
“Then what do you want?”
“Is it a crime to look at you?”
“No, but if it were, you’d still fucking do it.”
I glared at his covered face with open hatred, confused and out of my depth. I felt naked and exposed under his concealed gaze, knowing he was able to read me so much better than anyone else.
Finally, I punctuated the silence by saying, “If I’m such an awful person and you can’t stay away from me, what does that make you, Achilles?”
“Ah, that’s an easy one.” His thumb brushed over the throbbing pulse beating against the side of my neck. “A fucking fool who is, and always will be, addicted to you.”
“You don’t act like a lovesick addict.”
“I never said I want to be addicted to you.” He shook his head. “I’d love nothing more than to purge you from my system. You are a disease, Tierney. People are also addicted to meth. Doesn’t mean it’s good for them.”
“If you have any trace of compassion for me, stop hurting me,” I said quietly.
“I can’t,” he admitted. To his credit, he sounded rueful.
Almost forlorn. “You hurt me. Not just then. Today. Tomorrow. Every day. Your mere existence makes it hard to breathe. I have to live every day with the fact you didn’t choose me.
And I can’t stand it.” He flicked the visor up, finally letting me see a glimpse of his eyes.
They were red, bloodshot. “I can’t quit you.
I don’t know how. And it’s ruining both of us.
So do us both a favor and fuck the hell off when we get back home. ”