CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Tierney
I woke up in a dark room feeling like I’d been run over by a fire truck.
My muscles were tight, my bones heavy, and I was pretty sure my ankle throbbed like it had its own pulse.
The ancient air conditioner coughed out stale air, the scent of cigarettes and mildew so sharp it hit the back of my throat. I stayed still, piecing together the last twenty-four hours in my head.
I was in my motel room in Venice. I’d hurt my leg but didn’t break anything.
I’d crashed into deep sleep—ten hours minimum, judging by the darkness outside.
Achilles found me, treated me, and spared me.
For now. He’d carried me here, but he didn’t let me escape.
I didn’t know what his plans were, and I’d be a complete fool to sit around and find out.
Carefully, I rolled sideways on the mattress. The silhouette of a colossal male greeted me. Achilles. By the way his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, he was dead-ass asleep.
Now let’s make him more dead and less asleep.
If only it were so simple.
I couldn’t stand up and trot around the room, searching for a weapon. That’d wake him up. I guess I could tiptoe my way out. But he’d 100 percent be on my ass in three seconds flat. No. I needed to off him and get it over with. If I blew this chance, there wouldn’t be another.
Maybe he intended to let me go. But the fact that he was still here didn’t bode well for me. Life had taught me that counting on anyone’s charity was a dumb idea.
Lying flat on my back, I stared at the ceiling and ran a mental inventory of potential weapons in the room.
He’d gotten rid of all of my daggers in the alleyway, but I knew he slept with his Glock tucked in his waistband.
I also knew I was a damn good thief. Spending the first fourteen years of your life living in a work camp that rationed chickpeas does that to you.
I slowly reached for his waistband, holding my breath so as not to make a sound.
My fingers curled around the back strap of his firearm.
The gun must’ve ridden up while he shifted in his sleep because it was already halfway out, lying on the mattress.
A sigh of relief rattled in my throat. Inching it all the way out, I watched his face, expecting his eyes to snap open at any moment.
But then the weight of the metallic weapon rested fully in my palm, and his eyes were still shut.
Fuck me. Okay. Phew.
The suppressor wasn’t screwed on. Not ideal, but I’d make it work. I cautiously rose to my knees, careful not to make the bedsprings squeak. I stared down at his sleeping figure, clutching the gun with both hands. Aiming for his head, I flicked off the safety. A click rang in the air.
Do it, you idiot. What is wrong with you? Save yourself.
Nausea coated the back of my throat. What the hell was I waiting for? Why couldn’t I pull the damn trigger?
“Do it.”
The words snapped me into reality. Achilles’s snakelike gaze locked on mine in the darkness. A nocturnal predator homing in on his prey.
I swallowed hard, still aiming the weapon at him.
“Go on,” he coaxed, his voice steel wrapped in velvet. “It’ll solve both our problems.”
No. It wouldn’t solve my most pressing one: that I’m still in love with your psychotic ass.
A sob ripped from my throat. I lowered the gun and dropped my head between my shoulders.
I couldn’t do it.
He scooted up so his back hit the headboard and gently pried the gun from my hand.
I heard him thumb the safety on. Something about the finality of the sound made me collapse onto his chest. And that was when the waterworks started, tears streaming down my face.
I was heaving, choking, gasping for air.
“Why can’t we kill each other?” I slammed his chest with my fists.
“You know why.”
Because all my best memories were with him.
“No, no!” I shook my head. “You’ve ruined my life.”
“I did.” There was no hint of apology in his voice. “But I’m done getting even.”
I clawed at his dark Henley, waffling between trying to kill him one last time or drowning in his addictive touch. I just needed a distraction…a buffer between me and all the feelings that flooded me.
My hand snaked under his shirt. Warm skin and chiseled abs. That simple touch sent an agonizing bolt of desire up my spine. I needed him inside me, consequences be damned. I climbed onto his lap, latching on to a vein in his neck and sucking it greedily.
“Cazzo,” he groaned. “Be careful.”
I looked down. Oh shit. I’d poked his stab wound by accident, breaking it open. Blood coated the bandage around it, which needed to be replaced. He wasn’t wearing any pants. Just briefs. “Oh, sorry.”
“For stabbing me or for kneeing the stab wound?” The smile in his voice made me melt.
“Hmm, both?”
He gripped my chin and smashed his lips on mine.
Our tongues twisted together, and I planted my knees on each side of him on the mattress, grounding onto his erection.
I loved the sounds I milked from the great warrior Achilles Ferrante.
Helpless, barely controlled grunts of pleasure each time my pussy rubbed against his cock through our clothes.
“How’s that ankle?” he murmured into our kiss.
“Better,” I lied, not wanting to stop this.
“Good.” He gave me a rough shove. I bounced on my side of the bed, falling to my forearms. He mounted me and tugged my panties down.
He must’ve taken off my pants sometime when he tended to my ankle.
“Been wanting to do this since we were teenagers.” He used his thumbs to pry open my thighs, running the tip of his nose along my slit, bottom-to-top until his lips clasped around my clit.
I grabbed a pillow and pressed it against my face, arching as I muffled a scream.
“You’ve done this before,” I mumbled into the pillow.
“I wasn’t concentrating on anything but making you come,” he admitted.
It was appealing. His honesty. His boyishness. His ability to open up without embarrassment.
He swirled the tip of his tongue along my clit, sinking his middle finger into me, to find me completely drenched. I squirmed, wanting both to ride his finger and to escape the tingly, building pleasure.
“Fuck, you taste good.” He added another finger, and then a third, fucking me while sucking and nibbling on my clit.
I met his leisured, teasing thrusts with frantic enthusiasm, bucking my hips, my entire body begging for more.
The man ate pussy like Michelangelo sculpted naked dudes, reaching masterpiece level of perfection.
“God, I—” I began to moan.
“Mmm. Pussy’s perfect.” He grabbed my waist and flipped me to my knees. The pillow I pressed against my face fell to the floor. “Now let’s taste your other hole.”
Achilles thumbed my ass cheeks open and plunged in, swirling his hot tongue against the rim before spearing it all the way through, to a point of half penetration.
Stars exploded behind my eyelids.
His fingers were still inside my sex, driving in and out quicker now, and I was so full of him, pleasure and pain swirled together in a perfect storm.
I buried my face in the mattress to stifle my moans, my ass pushing against his face, begging for more.
His fingers went deeper, faster inside me, his rough knuckles brushing my clit. I was going to explode.
My pussy clamped down on his fingers, desperate. My orgasm spread across my body like wildfire. Shivers swept up and down my spine.
“My turn.” He bit the side of my ass softly, giving it a casual slap.
My knees gave in and I fell to my stomach on the bed with an exhausted groan.
My limbs felt like overcooked noodles. But Achilles couldn’t care less as he scooted on his knees up my body, the swollen head of his cock nestling between my legs.
“Gonna fuck you nice and good now.” His breath skated across the side of my neck, his hand snaking over my shoulder and squeezing the front of my throat.
“And if you’re a good girl, I’ll even let you breathe. ”
With a yank on my waist, he brought me to kneel on all fours. Before I could register what was happening, he slid into me, planting one leg over the mattress as he began slamming into me from behind. Our moans filled the room, soaking the walls.
“Shh, now. No one said you’re allowed to enjoy this. Every time you make a sound, I’m going to squeeze a little harder,” he murmured in my ear.
He was finally giving me what I wanted—violence, degradation, depravation—and I knew exactly why. Because he wanted to remind me he didn’t need all that to make me come hard.
The pressure on my throat was delicious, addictive and drove me faster to the brink of an orgasm.
Something warm and wet plastered to the back of my thigh from behind.
I didn’t have to look to know his stab wound had opened completely and blood gushed out.
He noticed, too. Crimson leaked all over the sheets and our bodies, dampening my flesh, entering my pussy.
Still, he didn’t stop, only fucking me harder, cutting off my air supply whenever I got mouthy, and letting me breathe again when I quieted down.
We were bathed in his blood, fucking like two mad people, and I never wanted it to end.
I angled my ass up in the air and closed my thighs together, relishing the friction. He turned me inside out, making me forget the mess we were both in. I dripped cum, and he dripped blood, and the sheets were a mess of pink and red.
“I—I have to come,” I choked through his grip on my throat. I couldn’t help it.
“Who are you coming for, Piccola Fiamma?”
“You.”
“And who do you belong to?”
“Y—you.” I tried stifling another moan of pleasure, my body tingling with goose bumps and pre-orgasmic shivers. “I belong to you, Achilles.”
It was the truth. Depressing as it was, I could never want another. Just as well, as I’d decided to swear off men after all of this was over.
“Damn right you belong to me.” His hand slid from my throat to my clit, his hot mouth covering the side of my throat as he trailed kisses on it while playing with me. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
I inhaled sharply, an explosion of pleasure detonating in my body. My knees gave in and I fell stomach-first to the bed.
Achilles came inside me, probably remembering our last farewell conversation, where I told him I couldn’t get pregnant.
“Mine.” He collapsed on top of me, crushing me to the mattress.
“Yours,” I breathed. “Till death do us part.”
Because that seemed to be the only way we could ever quit each other.