I’m still having a hard time processing that I’m here, in between these two men, when Achilles starts eating me out. When Patroclus is between my thighs, he’s methodical. Achilles goes after me like he can’t get enough, like he’s less worried about getting me off than he is about tasting every inch of me. It’s sexier than I could have dreamed, and all the while he keeps up that steady rhythm with his fingertips inside me.
I don’t remember closing my eyes, but when I open them, Patroclus is staring down at me. He studies my face as if determined to memorize every piece of me. As if he can see beneath my skin to the selfish, petty, ambitious woman beneath. He shifts back, still maintaining his grip on my wrists, and eases down onto his stomach on the bed.
Patroclus’s lips brush the shell of my ear. “You fight so fucking hard, Helen. To be taken seriously. To be seen as a person. To forget how often neither of those things happen.” He speaks in a soft murmur completely at odds with the way Achilles is sucking on my clit.
I tense. I didn’t ask for this. I’m already held down and spread open. Being stripped bare, too? It’s too much. “Stop.”
Between my thighs, Achilles pauses, but stop isn’t wait. After the barest of hesitations, he resumes, settling into a rhythm of rubbing the flat of his tongue against my clit. My whole body goes tight in response. “Please.” I don’t know what I’m asking for. Patroclus to stop before he says something I can’t take. Achilles to make me come so hard, I stop thinking entirely. Both. Neither.
Patroclus, devil on my shoulder, just keeps spilling words directly into my ear. “Has anyone ever taken care of you, Helen? Not as a prize to be shown off but as a woman?”
He might as well have split open my rib cage and ripped my heart right out of my chest. This is only supposed to be sex, to be a convenient escape from how ugly the inside of my head is right now. It’s no supposed to be Patroclus or Achilles—or both—seeing me. “Stop,” I whisper.
“Do you really want me to stop?” He kisses my neck and then nips my earlobe. “It could be like this. You don’t have to pretend with me—with us. We don’t expect perfection. We just want you.”
My eyes burn and I blink rapidly, hating the tears that slip free. I can’t concentrate, can’t even think. “You don’t…” Whatever protest I’m trying to make disappears as Achilles sucks hard enough on my clit to bow my back.
He shifts to nip first one thigh and then the other. “You’re making her cry.” I can’t tell if he’s pleased or bothered by it.
“I’m just telling the truth.” Patroclus kisses my neck and moves to my shoulder. “You want to keep her.” Patroclus pauses as if waiting for Achilles to deny it. When he stays silent, Patroclus continues. “We want to keep her.”
Keep me.
The very idea should infuriate me. I am not someone to be kept. The whole reason I’m here in the first place is to avoid that fate…
Except when Patroclus says they want to keep me, it doesn’t feel like he’s saying they want to keep me in a gilded cage, a trophy wife to bring out for parties and events to prove what badass guys they are. Taming Helen Kasios and all that bullshit.
No, when he says keep, it sounds a whole lot like…
“You’re thinking too hard. Stop making her think too hard.”
Achilles sounds so irritated, I smile despite myself. “Maybe you’re just not doing a good enough job.”
He lifts a brow, a devastatingly cocky expression on his face. “Hmmm. Guess I need to up my game, then.” He glances at Patroclus, and they share one of those silent conversations I envy so much. This time, I get flashes of intent. Achilles is asking a question. Patroclus grunts in response. I don’t know the nature of the question, but I’m ridiculously pleased to have picked up even that much.
So pleased that I don’t have time to tense before they move as a unit. Patroclus grabs me under the arms and lifts me as he rises. He eases onto his back on the bed with me straddling him facing Achilles. “What…” My voice trails off as Achilles wraps a fist around Patroclus’s big cock.
He gives me that wicked grin that promises all sorts of fun and pleasure. “Up.”
No mistaking his intent. I rise slowly and bite my bottom lip as he drags Patroclus’s cock through my folds. Back and forth. Back and forth. He catches against my entrance, and I start to sink down, but Patroclus grabs my hips, holding me in position. “Not yet.”
“But I want it.”
“Not even a princess always gets what she wants.” Achilles stops any argument by dipping down and sucking Patroclus’s cock into his mouth. His cheeks hollow beneath his beard and he hums with obvious pleasure.
I go still as I realize what’s happening. He’s tasting me on his boyfriend’s cock. He’s obviously a fan because he gives Patroclus one last rough suck and then his mouth is on my pussy again. This time, the sight is even better than before.
Patroclus’s hands denting the skin at my hips as he fights both me and gravity to keep my body aloft. His hard cock practically throbbing with need and wet from Achilles’s mouth. Achilles’s eyes holding my gaze as he works my clit exactly how I need to get off.
For as long as I live, I’m never going to forget my time sharing a bed with these men.
Never forget? I might laugh if I could breathe though the orgasm barreling down upon me. More like I’ll be scandalizing my grandchildren someday recounting the time I allowed myself to be seduced by two warrior men.
Patroclus’s hands tighten on my hips, and it’s the only warning I get before he slams me down on his thick cock. I didn’t even realize Achilles had positioned him at my entrance.
I come so hard I scream, but Achilles doesn’t stop that decadent motion with his tongue against my clit. Patroclus starts rocking me on his cock, the tiniest movement that has my toes curling. “Gods!”
“Nah.” Achilles leans back and licks his lips. His beard is soaked from me, and a dark, possessive part of me loves the sight. He kisses his way up my stomach, pausing to lavish my breasts with attention before kneeling before us. Through it all, Patroclus keeps me rocking on him, keeps me on edge. Achilles frames my face with his big hands. For once, he looks devastatingly serious. “Let us keep you, Helen.”
The shock of my actual name on his lips nearly sucks me under. I can’t submit, not to this. Not here, not now, not when so much is at stake. It should have been an easy thing to deny. One little word, two tiny letters. No.
I…can’t say it.
I can’t agree, but I can’t push them away, either.
Instead, I do the only thing I can think of. I hook Achilles’s thick neck and yank him down to claim his mouth. I pour everything into the kiss, all my doubts and fears and sorrow. Because this can’t last. It doesn’t matter what these two men think, how right the words they say, how safe they make me feel. It simply cannot last.
But we have tonight.
Achilles growls against my mouth. “Fine, then.” He breaks the kiss long enough to grab a pillow. “Lift.”
Patroclus almost unseats me when he obeys. I catch myself on Achilles’s shoulders and for a moment he looks at me like…well, like he wants to keep me. Then he plants those massive hands on my hips, lifting me and turning me around to face Patroclus. “I want to watch,” I protest.
“Another time.” His casual assurance that there will be another time should irritate me, but it makes me all melty inside instead. He works me down on Patroclus’s cock, and that draws my attention to our third.
Gods, he has his heart in his eyes.
I rock my hips, fucking him slowly as Achilles climbs off the bed long enough to grab lube from the nightstand. Patroclus looks at me like I’m a puzzle, a marvel, a gift. Like he’s in full agreement with Achilles about keeping me. That should piss me off. It really should.
But then, nothing is like it should be with these two. They defy expectation.
Patroclus slides his hands up to cup my breasts. “One day.”
I can’t quite catch my breath. “One day?”
“One day you’ll say yes.” He pulls me down into a kiss. I expect something soft and sweet and maybe a little polite. Joke’s on me. Patroclus kisses me like he needs the air in my lungs to breathe. Like if he just claims my mouth effectively enough, he’ll claim my words, my future, my everything. I can’t think past the rushing in my head, past the pleasure pulsing inside me, so close to completion.
The bed gives beneath Achilles as he crawls to take position between Patroclus’s spread thighs. He shoves them wide and up and makes a really sexy pleased sound. “I like you two like this.” He drags a big finger down the center of my ass. Patroclus jolts, so he must be getting the same treatment. “I could have either one of you,” Achilles muses. “Yeah, I like this a lot.”
I break the kiss long enough to say, “You’re talking too much.”
“Nah, you like it when I talk.”
Patroclus goes tense, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that Achilles is feeding him his cock. With the flick of a switch, this became more about Patroclus’s pleasure than it became about mine. I press back a little so I can move more effectively…and so I can give him a show. The way he watches my body, it’s like he’s still not quite sure this is real, but he really, really wants it to be.
I’m not sure it’s real, either.
I lift my arms over my head as I roll my hips, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to twine them around Achilles’s neck. He’s tall enough that I have to stretch, but the way Patroclus curses at the sight, it’s more than worth it.
Patroclus moves one hand from my hips to press his thumb against my clit, and then he holds perfectly still so I can rub against him how I need. “I want to feel you come on my cock again, Helen.”
“Keep it up and I will,” I gasp.
Achilles palms my breasts as he picks up his pace, fucking Patroclus so roughly, I can feel every stroke. So roughly, it’s as if he wants to reassure himself that Patroclus is okay, and this is the only way to do it. It’s almost like the thrust starts with him and cascades in a wave through Patroclus to me, where I rise and sink back down, sending it back to Achilles. It’s surreal and sexy, and I never, ever want it to stop.
I never want any of this to stop.
It feels too good, though. The pressure builds and builds, and I want to fight it but not enough to stop or slow down. Achilles plucks at my nipples, little pinpricks of pain that only add to Patroclus’s thumb against my clit, his cock filling me entirely. I open my mouth to demand more and then it’s too late. I’m coming.
I start to slump forward, but they hold me up between them. Achilles picks up his pace, and I dazedly realize he was holding back until now. He’s not holding back any longer. His thrusts have Patroclus’s cock moving inside me and my orgasm just keeps coming. Wave after wave, until it feels like my very bones have turned liquid. Achilles holds me surprisingly gently considering how he’s fucking Patroclus, and I swear I feel him kiss my temple.
Patroclus curses. “Fuck, I’m—” His grip on my hips turns punishing and then he’s driving up into me, yanking me down onto him as he comes so hard, I feel it.
Achilles presses me gently down against Patroclus’s chest. Patroclus wastes no time in claiming my mouth again, but I barely have time to sink into it before I feel something wet lash my ass. I pull back. “Achilles.”
“Mmm.”
“Did you just come all over my ass?”
He chuckles. “Yeah.”
I wait for irritation, but all I feel is a ridiculous sort of amusement. I grin down at Patroclus. “He really likes to mark his territory, doesn’t he? Like a dog.”
“Nah.” Achilles slaps my ass lightly. “Just marking my intent.”
Patroclus gives a choked laugh. “Stop. You’re making her clench around me and it’s too good.”
“Shower. Then bed.”
“We just had a shower, Achilles.”
“And I just got you all kinds of filthy. Come on. It will be fun.” Achilles slides off the bed, hooks me around the waist, and lifts me into his arms. I don’t screech this time. I’m still too boneless from the orgasm and… Maybe I don’t totally hate being hauled around by Achilles. I like the possessive way Patroclus watches us even more as he gingerly hauls himself off the bed and follows us into the shower.
We barely last five minutes in the shower before Achilles is on his knees, Patroclus’s cock in his mouth and his fingers buried in my pussy. At some point, we tumble back into the bed, wet and slippery and intent on our pleasure. Over and over again, as if we’re racing the clock to pack as many orgasms in before we have to return to reality.
Eventually, though, reality intercedes. It always does.
Achilles stretches, looks at the clock, and sighs. “Bedtime.” He rolls over and grabs the phone. I can’t help appreciating the way his muscles move. He really does have the body of a warrior. On my other side, Patroclus shifts so he can coast his hand down my side to my hip. Not a sexual touch, but it feels so good, I nearly moan. The casual intimacy is something I’m going to miss almost as much as the sex. Both he and Achilles are so free with their touch, with their words. I’m going to…miss them.
“You just tensed up. What are you thinking?”
I want to lie or do something to turn away the question, but maybe I’m more fucked up than I thought, because I answer honestly. “I’m going to miss you. Not just the sex, though that’s fun, but…” I try for a shrug, but it’s rather challenging to shrug while flat on your back. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.” He brushes my hair back from my face. I try very hard not to think of how much a mess I must look right now. I hate that Paris’s poison still occupies space in my head despite my best efforts. I know he was using criticism to manipulate and control me, but that doesn’t stop insecurity from lashing me at the most inconvenient times.
Patroclus hesitates, his dark gaze flicking to Achilles, who’s gone silent and still on my other side. “You don’t have to pretend with us.”
“I know.” It’s even the truth. That’s not the problem, though. Pretending and putting on a mask are second nature, and even if I feel safe enough with these two men to be my true self, that doesn’t change how fucked up our circumstances are. “But—”
“Do you always borrow trouble?” Achilles sits up and stretches his arms over his head. “The third trial will decide the future. No point in worrying about it until then.”
“Achilles.”
I glance between the men, but this time, I have no idea what they’re conveying back and forth. What must it be like to trust someone that much, to have that level of history, that you can speak without words? I can do it with Eris a bit, but that’s more shared trauma than anything else. And my silent conversations with Hermes and Dionysus basically consist of “Can you believe this bitch?” while at Dodona Tower parties. What Achilles and Patroclus have is something else altogether.
Finally Achilles looks down at me. “I wasn’t talking out of my ass earlier. We mean to keep you.”
“You can’t keep a person.”
“All the same.”
I can’t have this conversation again while flat on my back. Why are we retreading this ground? Nothing’s changed, no matter how many orgasms we’ve exchanged. We’ve gone beyond beating a dead horse with this situation. I sit up and scoot back to press against the headboard. “You want to be Ares. I want to be Ares, too. We are diametrically opposed.”
“Only in that.”
As if it’s that easy. “When I win, you’ll have to go back to being Athena’s second-in-command. You’ll never forgive me.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs those wide shoulders. “And when I win, you’ll lose out on Ares but become my wife.”
The thought isn’t as unattractive as it was the first time I thought it. If I were a different person, maybe tonight would be enough to make me change my mind, doubt my goals. It wouldn’t be so bad to be kept by this man and Patroclus.
Except being kept is the thing that’s slowly choking the life out of me. No matter how nice the cage, the bird inside is still trapped. Being married to one of the Thirteen is not the same thing as being one of the Thirteen. If I fail, I will spend the rest of my life on the outside looking in. “You honestly expect me to accept that.”
“I honestly expect you to accept the results of the tournament, yeah.” Another of those shrugs. What must it be like to be Achilles, totally and completely sure of his place in the world and the path laid out before him? I envy him, even as I just don’t fucking understand how easy it seems to be.
My stomach twists a little, but I force myself to stare him down. “So you’ll accept the results of the tournament, too?” Maybe I should leave it alone, but I can’t quite make myself. “You say you want to keep me, both of you. So that extends to my potentially winning Ares. If—when—I win, you’ll still want… What? A relationship? Is that what you’re saying?”
Achilles smiles. “Yeah, princess. Exactly.” He answers too easily, as if indulging me. As if he doesn’t believe for a second that it’s really a possibility. “That’s usually what ‘keeping’ means.”
It’s too good to be true. No matter the strength of the connection, I’ve only known these men for a few days. Relationships that last years couldn’t weather what we’re about to. What are the odds we will?
I push the thought away. I can’t afford to let myself get derailed worrying about things that might or might not happen. Either it will or it won’t. Ruining things with Achilles and Patroclus based on theories… Maybe it would be smarter, but I don’t want to do it.
Instead, I stretch. “I’m tired. Let’s brush our teeth, change the sheets, and go to bed.” I ignore the little voice inside me whispering that we’re only playing house and this will end in tears.
Everything in Olympus ends in tears.
You have to take your joy where you can find it.
