CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE #2
Achilles slammed my wrists above my head, covering my entire body with his. He was panting hard, and I knew it wasn’t from paralyzing a 110-pound woman. He dropped his forehead to mine, growling, “I’m not doing this shit with you anymore, Piccola Fiamma.”
I thrust my pelvis between us in answer, meeting his hot erection through our clothes. “Of course you are. That’s what we do. We hate fuck.”
“No more hate fucks.”
“No?” I purred mockingly, arching my back so my nipples grazed his muscular chest.
“No.” His voice sounded surprisingly somber. “I’m going to make love to you, and you’re going to make love to me.”
I ignored the traitorous way my heart sped, careening behind my breastbone like an out-of-control vehicle.
No one had ever made love to me. I accepted long ago that I wasn’t worthy of any kind of normal love. My father tolerated me out of civilized necessity. My brother cared for me because of our shared past and trauma. Both their affection was laced with pity.
Achilles studied my face like he could read my entire stream of consciousness through my eyes. Normally, it’d unnerve me. Surprisingly, I found myself not caring if I bared my soul to him. He’d seen the ugliest part of me long ago and still thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“Little Flame,” he rasped, in English now, which felt unbearably intimate and whimsical. “Let me love you. Show me every jagged, ugly piece of you, and watch me stay anyway. I will stay. But you have to let me.”
I stared at him, defenseless and tired. So, so tired. Of fighting this. Of clinging to habits that meant to defend me from a man I no longer needed protection from.
I burst into a sudden sob. Dr. Andrews had cautioned me that grief would pay me more frequent visits, now that I was finally facing my trauma. Still, weeping during foreplay wasn’t exactly the height of seduction.
But Achilles didn’t seem to care.
“Let it all go.” He slowly freed me from my shirt, jeans, and underwear. After removing my clothes, he kicked off his slacks, keeping the pressure of his body on mine, anchoring me in place.
I shook beneath him, my body wrecked like a ship caught in a storm in the middle of the ocean. He let go of my wrists, cradling the back of my head with one hand and wiping my tears with the other. He caught one tear between his index and thumb, rubbing it together into evaporation.
“Look at you,” he rasped, kissing the column of my neck so tenderly, it robbed me of the last of my self-preservation.
“Chelovek.” He fed me back the word I gifted him all those years ago, and just like it brought him back to life, it revived me, too.
“Human after all. Flesh. Blood. The full range of emotions. They didn’t break you, baby.
Nothing could. You went through it. You remembered. You faced it. And you came back.”
Our eyes met as he moved over me, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to run.
To lose myself in carnal desires. I wanted to be present, to see this moment through.
He slid into me, a hiss of pleasure rumbling from his chest. I forced myself to loosen my muscles, to stop my body from going into fight-or-flight mode, where I was ready to slit his throat at any moment.
His movements were slow, leisured, tender strokes. I felt like I was falling into a dream.
He touched and caressed me everywhere, taking great care of every curve and part of my body.
Kissed my tears, my mouth, my eyes each time he entered me.
And though I felt his touch, what made this time different from all the others was how I felt his soul.
Our souls clicked together, fusing into a whole. We needed this so badly.
For him to break the final wall between us and make me submit fully to this relationship.
I clung to him desperately, like a child seeking comfort in the arms of a safe grown-up, and he never let me go. Not even when we shifted and changed positions.
“Is this okay?” His lips moved over mine.
“Y-yes.”
“I can feel you in a way I never have before.”
The rush of dopamine to my veins made me tremble like a leaf. “I feel like you’re injecting your DNA into my system or something.”
He pulled slightly back and stared at me, his expression wonderous. My words had hit him somewhere deep.
Because this was what he always wanted.
To engrave himself in me the way I was seeded in him.
The pleasure of my orgasm started with a tingle at the base of my spine, spreading all over my body quickly. Achilles let out a grunt, coming at the same time. We stared at each other the entire time, arms braced, like we were holding on to each other in a storm.
And I knew in that moment that if eighteen-year-old Tierney could’ve experienced this just one time, this connection, this love which passed between one body to the other, she wouldn’t have tried to take her own life.
And she wouldn’t have let Luca bully her into breaking Achilles’s heart.
When Achilles rolled off me, he was silent. I imagined the same whispers of surprise and emotions crawled over his body as well. Because I was the farthest thing from okay. This whole making-love ordeal rocked my world and tipped it over.
Instead of talking, I offered him my hand. He took it. Our fingers clicked like two pieces of a puzzle.
“Thank you for making me face my biggest fear,” I whispered. “And thank you for…everything.”
He squeezed my hand, still staring at the ceiling. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was going to cry.
Fifteen years of love and hate and everything in between boiled down to this.
We made love. And we survived.
“Achilles…” I turned in the bed and pressed my hand to his jagged cheek. “I want you to know that from now on, I am going to try to be the best wife that I can be. I will devote my life to you.”
Silently, he pulled our joined hands to his face and kissed my knuckles.
I think maybe, in that moment, even he didn’t have the words to describe what was happening inside us.
“But we’ll never have biological children,” I croaked, running my fingers along his face.
“And you’ll never have a traditional wife.
Someone who stays at home, cooks a meal every day, and knows how to knit a sweater.
A woman like Lila, who’ll be content to simply stand by your side and watch you lead. ”
“No,” he agreed. “But I’ll have something else no man I know possesses.”
“And what’s that?”
“Enough.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “You’re enough for me, Tierney.”
Achilles
Rolling off Tierney felt like crawling out of a battlefield after winning a war.
Injured.
Exhausted.
Scarred.
Triumphant.
It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was going to be worth it, and the worst of it was behind me.
The final wall had detonated.
It was just us now.
Me. Her. And the love we shared.