Page 34 of Taming Achilles

She shook her head and shut her eyes. She was shutting me out. Retreating into her mind.

“Eyes on me!” I ordered. She complied. Along with her anger was a glassiness from unshed tears. One pooled and dripped down her temple, leaving a damp shine on the black comforter below her.

If she were anyone else, I would ask what caused those tears. But I didn’t care. I would make myself not care.

“The sun has set,” I mentioned, casually glancing out the windows to where the sun had dipped over the horizon, the sky darkening and casting a shadow over the land. “It’s time for my payment, Princess.”

Her eyes slowly closed, a frown on her face, brow creased. But she complied. I roughly pulled her jeans down her arse, just enough for it to hold her thighs closed. I lifted her legs, her knees held together by the jeans, and pushed them to hook over one side of my hip.

Her bound hands clenched into little useless fists.

I released my cock from its constraints, not even bothering to pull off my belt. Using the sweet valley of her buttocks to lead me to her tender folds, holding her knees tight into my side, I pushed myself into her.

She closed her eyes tightly, and let out a small whimper. I didn’t know if it was from pain or pleasure. Maybe both. But she was wet. Just as she always was for me. How she always would be, forever.

“Eyes. On. Me.” I demanded.

Because I needed her to know who owned her. Who was using her. I needed her to see me, and only me. Not Cal, or Tanner or any other fucker who had worshipped at her altar. Me!

“Geordie,” she moaned my name. I bucked and she screamed, her cunt tightening and responding to me as it always did. I knew her body, and always would.

“Did you scream his name as well?” I asked, because I was a masochist. I needed to know. “Did you scream Callum’s name when he was inside you? Did you come for him the way you always have for me?” I pumped into her, harder and harder with every word, with every need to own, and possess, and to ingrain myself into her skin. The way I should have five years ago. “Did you call yourself his whore as well?”

Had she been with him the same way she had been with me? Had she tainted every precious memory I had of our years? Did she laugh with him as they fumbled in a claw foot tub, in the middle of a Venetian apartment? Had they made love in the alleyways between the canals? Did they dance in the rain outside the Palazzo Pisani while some troubadour sang Amigo Para Simpre as they played on an old piano?

I unleashed my seed deep inside her, surprised by the speed at which those memories brought me to my finish.

I slumped on top of her, rolling off, knowing that she hadn’t been satisfied. She had lain perfectly still. The thought gnawed at me, though I tried to shake it away.

There was no reason to feel guilt for this woman.

“Here’s my truth.” Her voice snapped my attention to her. The single tear that had gone down her temple had now multiplied. “I never slept with Cal.”

I didn’t hear her at first. Or if I did, it didn’t register. But she continued, mercilessly dropping this truth like razor blades over my sweaty, sated body.

“We said we would, one day, when we were married. We might even need to see a therapist for it,” she was speaking to the ceiling, her eyes never moving. Never blinking. Her eyes stopped being the colour of seafoam, and were a dull, sad green. Like the fading light of the aurora borealis. “Sex and love were the last things that were important in a marriage. We learned that from our parents. We could do it enough to start a family. That was something he truly wanted. That’s why you three are his partners, when he could have made you his employees. He wants a family more than anything.” She sniffled a little, but her arms were still bound over her head, her naked body still on display. “I used that weakness against him. And he thought what he felt for me could turn to love.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she gave me no space to interrupt.

“So I never slept with him. Never had to. I came to him, offering him a lifetime of companionship, a home for Chloe, and a comforting understanding that we could both fight our demons and our loneliness together,” she said again. The repeated truth made my heart want to leap out of my chest. I wanted to weep and fist pump at the same bloody time. “So, my truth …” her voice trailed off.

She let her head fall to the side, looking away from me. Hiding that lovely face from my view.

“The only man who has been inside me hates me, and only wants me as a …” her voice trailed again, as her mouth struggled to form the word. I knew what she would say before she said it, but I was powerless to make her stop. “Whore.”

That was the proverbial slap in my face. She landed it with great effect.

I looked at her body, the pulse at her throat, the heave of her breasts under her white blouse, and the way her fingers were relaxed, unmoving. Her trousers were still pushed down her thighs, adding to the indignant, tragic beauty that lay on my black sheets. She was a sculpture of marble created by the great Greek masters. The image of Briseis, a captive slave, taken by Achilles outside of Troy.

She was telling the truth. I could feel it, like I could feel the heat in the room.

“Pippa …” I said it like a sigh, coming up to my elbow, reaching over to touch her chin. To pull her face towards me. “Pippa, I …”

But I had no words. Nothing to make this okay.

She blinked, and all her sorrow disappeared. Her face was blank again. She was ensconced behind her mental fortifications and I was shut out again.

“Are you done with me?” her voice was flat. “Can I go now?”

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