“She…” He clears his throat. “I’m pretty sure she propositioned me.”
People come on to Patroclus all the time. He’s sexy, he’s got a soldier’s body, and he’s smart as fuck. Anyone who talks to him for ten seconds knows he’s a catch. Most of the time, he doesn’t even register that he’s being hit on. When he does, he politely disengages. It’s rare for someone to interest him enough to allow himself to be seduced, and even rarer for him to act like this afterward. I’m pretty sure it’s never happened before.
I don’t like it.
I sure as fuck don’t like how it makes me feel.
“How?” I don’t mean to ask the question. The single word lands like a gauntlet thrown between us, too heavy for three little letters.
Patroclus tenses. “What?”
I’m already moving, climbing out of bed and motioning impatiently at him. “Show me how.”
“Achilles…” He reluctantly follows and moves to stand in front of me. He’s naked and half-erect and that shouldn’t piss me off, but nothing about this situation is like it should be. Patroclus sighs. “Why are you doing this?”
“I want to know.” I sound like an asshole, but I can’t stop myself. I’ve seen Helen Kasios. Fuck, I’ve talked to her a few times, though her aggressively bubbly personality grates. She’s easily the most beautiful person in Olympus. The kind of beautiful that would make a person forget themselves and act against their own best interests. The kind of beautiful that can spark wars and doom relationships.
I won’t let her doom mine. I don’t give a fuck if she’s turned her eye on Patroclus. She can’t have him. He’s mine.
Patroclus sighs again. “Nothing good will come of this.”
“Since when do we keep things from each other?”
“Nothing happened, Achilles. I don’t understand why you’re jealous.”
Jealousy. That’s what this feeling is. I hate it. I want to kill it with fire. Emotions aren’t as easy to conquer as physical challenges, though. I step closer to Patroclus, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body. “Did she stand close to you like this?”
He curses. “Fine. We’ll do this.” Patroclus takes my hand and places it on his shoulder. “She leaned on me to put her shoes back on.”
Put her shoes back on?
I don’t have a chance to voice the question, because he tightens his grip on my wrist and drags it down my chest. “And then she did this. That was literally it. You’re being ridiculous.”
His defensiveness tells me more than his protests do. Patroclus doesn’t get defensive. “You wanted to fuck her.” He sputters, which is answer enough. I drag my knuckles over his stomach and wrap my fist around his hard cock. Hard for me? Hard for her? The lack of confirmation makes something ugly snap inside me. I stroke him roughly. “She’s gorgeous.”
“You say that like everyone in Olympus doesn’t already know it.” His breathing goes choppy as I keep stroking him. “Achilles, let’s go to bed.”
I pause. “Patroclus.” I don’t have to say anything else. He knows me just as well as I know him. He knows what I want.
He digs his hands into my hair and presses his forehead to mine. “This won’t make you happy.”
“It might.”
Patroclus huffs out a laugh, though he sounds pained. “Fine. Yes, I wanted to fuck her. If she wasn’t destined to be your wife, I might have taken her up on her offer.”
My wife.
I had no intention of doing anything about the wife aspect of winning the title, and I still don’t. But in that moment, it’s impossible not to let my imagination run with how a wedding night might look with Helen Kasios. Spoiled brat, yes, but I’m not immune to her. I don’t think anyone alive is. She’d be fire in the bedroom. I don’t know how I know, but I’m suddenly sure of it.
Patroclus kisses me. Or maybe I kiss him. It doesn’t matter. We stumble back toward the bed. His hands are in my hair, stroking down my back, grabbing my ass and hauling me harder against him. There’s no denying the source of this frenzy, and we both know it.
He drops to his knees and I barely get a chance to reach for him before his mouth closes around my cock. “Fuck.” Sometimes when he goes down on me, he’s a little fucking tease, tormenting me with the slow slide of his mouth and his clever tongue until I lose my patience and haul him to the bed to fuck him.
That’s not how he sucks my cock tonight. He pulls me deep, until his lips meet my base. I stare down at him for a long moment, but Patroclus has his eyes closed. He moves over me with a determination that has my balls tightening. Like he wants to escape something. Like he’s trying to prove something.