I wake up the moment Patroclus slips into bed. He’s trying to be quiet, but as stealthy as he is, I’ve never been that heavy of a sleeper. Not as a child, and sure as fuck not when I became a soldier. I roll over and hook an arm around his waist, pulling him to me, his back to my chest. I bury my face in the nape of his neck. He smells like summer night…and perfume.
I open my eyes. It’s still dark. The clock reads 3:00 a.m. “You’re back early.”
“Yeah.” He’s so tense, he’s like a block of concrete. Something happened. Something he doesn’t want to talk about.
Yeah, that’s not going to work for me. “Patroclus.” I press him down onto the mattress and prop my head on my hand. “Talk.”
I can’t see his expression clearly in the shadows, but I don’t have to. I know this man as well as I know myself. I can practically feel the guilt coming off him in waves, even if it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. Nothing he could have done tonight should spawn guilt. That’s not how we work.
Finally, he drags in a breath. “Helen Kasios put her name forward as a champion.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
I shake my head. “What the fuck is she thinking? She’s going to get hurt, and that will piss off Zeus and Aphrodite and make things more difficult for the new Ares.” For me.
“I used to know her.”
That shocks me enough that I sit up. “What are you talking about? You don’t know Helen Kasios.”
“I used to.” He says it like a confession. “We went to school together when we were kids, before my family moved away from the city center. We were…friends.”
He’s never once mentioned her in all the time I’ve known him. I know I should see that as proof that she’s no one to him, but all I can focus on is that there are parts of Patroclus that I don’t recognize. I scrub my hand over my face. “So you knew Helen Kasios once upon a time and she put her name forward as a champion.” That’s not enough to spawn this guilty reaction in him. “What else happened?”
“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.
“You’re sucking me off like you’re apologizing for something.” I tilt my head back and close my eyes. “You’re forgiven, Patroclus.” He’s right. He didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know why I’m reacting like this, but I recognize that it’s bullshit. His moan in response to my words confirms it. This man loves me as much as I love him. He’ll fight to keep from endangering us.
I believe that. I do.
Most of the time.
This time, I don’t topple him to the bed. I let him pay a penance he doesn’t deserve because I know it will make him feel better. Every pull on my cock deflates my jealousy. It doesn’t matter that Patroclus wants Helen. Fuck, I want Helen. What matters is that he’s here, with me.
I tighten my grip on his hair. “I’m close.”
His only response is to reach down and cup my balls. He knows what I like, what will get me off the hardest. I curse and come so intensely, my knees buckle. Patroclus doesn’t stop sucking me. Not even when I have to catch myself on the edge of the bed to keep from hitting the floor. Only then does he release my cock and press a kiss to my hip. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“It doesn’t feel like that.”
I sink onto the floor next to him and lean against the bed. “I was out of line.”
“Maybe a little.”
“Definitely.” Even with the orgasm blunting my thoughts, the jealousy lingers. There are thousands of people in Olympus who Patroclus could fuck and I wouldn’t think twice about it. Helen? She’s a different story. “I’m sorry, too.” I hold up my hand. “Spit.”
“Fuck, Achilles…” He obeys, though. He always does. Patroclus spits into my hand and watches with that look on his face as I wrap my fist around his cock and stroke him lazily. He always reacts like this, as if he can’t believe he’s here, that I’m touching him like this. We’ve been partners for a decade, ever since our friendship turned to fumbling hands and messy kisses when we were twenty.
“I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh yeah?” His lips curve. More importantly, the tension lingering in his shoulders dissipates. He leans against the bed, leaning his head back to expose his throat.
“Yeah.” I waste no time pressing an open-mouth kiss there as I jack him. It feels good to have him in my hand, to have him pulling me up for a rough kiss. I could finish him like this. I have so many times before. It’s not enough.
I break our kiss, ignoring his sound of protest as I drag my mouth down his chest and stomach to take him into my mouth. The tremors in his thighs confirm it won’t take long to get him off, which is just fine with me. I’m not any more interested in teasing tonight than he was. I suck him down hard, working him with lips, tongue, and that little edge of teeth he likes sometimes.
“Holy fuck, Achilles. I—” He doesn’t get a chance to finish, at least not verbally. He comes in my mouth, and I moan as I drink him down. I don’t stop there. Fuck, I don’t stop until he tugs my hair, pulling me off his cock. “Damn.”
I press a quick kiss to his lips. “See. Nothing to worry about.”
“I never said there was anything to worry about.” There’s a smile in his voice now. “But I’ve apologized and you’ve very effectively staked your claim.”
“Yeah.” I grin, completely unrepentant. “Now, bed.”
“Bed,” he agrees.
We brush our teeth and do some minimal cleanup before climbing back into bed. This time, when I pull him back against me, he’s relaxed and sleepy. He’s still Patroclus, though. I think the only thing that will shut off that big brain of his completely is fucking him damn near into a coma. A single orgasm barely slows him down.
I’m not remotely surprised when he runs his fingers over my forearm and says, “I tried to talk her out of competing.”
“I bet you did.” I tug him closer. “I take it that went over well.”
“Not even a little bit.” He sighs. “It’s going to complicate things.”
I tighten my grip on him as if I can keep him by my side with sheer strength. “It doesn’t complicate anything we don’t want it to. I don’t give a fuck if she came on to you. She’s off-limits.”
“I know.” His tone goes dry. “I was talking about the tournament. Having the prize compete for the title is…messy.”
“Oh. Right.” I close my eyes. “Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.”
“Always so confident.” He brings my hand up and kisses my wrist. “But you’re right. This won’t be enough of a hiccup to ultimately affect things. No matter what else is true of Helen, she’s not a warrior. She doesn’t have a chance against you.”
Damn straight.
Not in the arena. And not with my man.
