by Naima Simone
“This will take you to the penthouse. Good night, Ms. Hill.”
With that, the doors closed, and she rode thirty-two floors. In seconds, the doors opened once more, and she came face-to-face with Achilles.
It’d been less than an hour, but it might as well have been days. The impact of him slammed into her like a cudgel to the chest. He’d removed his suit jacket and tie, but the ice-blue shirt remained, and the black vest hung open over his massive chest, and the slim-fitting pants clung to his hips and powerful thighs. The hem broke over his bare feet.
God.
Why did the sight of his bare feet reverberate through her like two cymbals crashing together? Maybe because it reminded her of the man and the intensity, the raw strength barely leashed beneath the civility of the suit?
Maybe. Did it matter when her nipples tightened under the cups of her corset top and her sex swelled and dampened beneath her skirt? When her belly tightened, as if in hunger, but not for the dinner her parents had served nearly an hour earlier. Only the man in front of her could sate her.
She inhaled, swerving her gaze away from him, over his shoulder. To the relative safety of the apartment behind him. It served to distract her, because good Lord. She was used to wealth, but this... Just the glimpse of the expanse of glass, marble and stone had her softly gasping in amazement.
Achilles shifted to the side, silently inviting her in. He didn’t speak, just slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants and trailed her as she wandered into the penthouse, gaping—yes, gaping—at the home that made her parents’ home look like a hovel. Okay, maybe not a hovel. But definitely a single-family home.
Three glass walls invited the dark sky and Boston skyline into the apartment, granting the illusion of living among the clouds. Floating, freestanding structures separated rooms into different living areas—couches, a white piano, fireplaces, a chrome dining table, random sitting areas with low-slung furniture designating the purpose of the rooms. A steel and veined marble state-of-the-art kitchen encompassed the back end of the penthouse, while a suspended, curving, glass-encased staircase led to the second level.
She jerked her awed glance from her surroundings to Achilles. His mouth twisted into a caricature of a smile.
“Go ahead and say it. I’m a hypocrite.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Lecturing your parents on excess and benefiting from the work of someone else and living here.” He wore that same dark smile. “I believe that makes me the definition of a fraud.”
“Since a fraud or a hypocrite would be the last persons to admit they were as much, I doubt it.” She tilted her head. “Let me guess. Cain?”
His eyes narrowed on her, and she chuckled, shaking her head.
“It’s not difficult to guess. Kenan is from Boston. You relocated to Boston and wouldn’t have had a place to stay. And unknown half brother or not, Cain wouldn’t have had you living in a place he wouldn’t live in himself. And this place—” she pivoted in a small circle, again taking in the glass palace in the sky “—has Cain Farrell written all over it.”
“And what has me written all over it?”
She knew a challenge when she heard it. Knew when she was being set up for failure, too.
“Keep some of the glass and the sky. More walls. Less steel and chrome and all the amenities. I don’t think you mind the fireplaces, but not gas. I think...” She paused, cleared her throat and considered the wisdom of her next words, but what the hell? “I think you’re like how you described your mother tonight. You like to see the product of your own hands. So you would want to chop your own wood for your fireplace. Which means trees, nature and not a glass castle on the thirty-second floor. How am I doing?”
He didn’t answer, just stared at her with that bright gaze that both unnerved her and set her ablaze.
“Why are you here?” he rasped.
“To make sure you’re okay.”
Once more he studied her with that unblinking, measured scrutiny. Then, after a moment, he gave his head a hard, abrupt shake and stalked toward the living room. “Do you want a drink?”
“Since I skipped after-dinner drinks, definitely.”
He glanced at her over his shoulder, eyebrow arched. “I’m sure that went over well.”
She flashed him a dry smile. “Swimmingly. If you can call dire warnings of ruining my family’s reputation by running after you like a common trollop—who even says trollop anymore, I ask you?—‘well.’ If so, then yes, it went over very well.”
“That’s...dramatic.” He reached the built-in bar and removed a Sam Adams for himself from the fully stocked mini-refrigerator. “What can I get you?”
“I’ll have what you’re having.”
He didn’t comment on her choice, just twisted off the cap of his beer, handed it to her and retrieved another for himself. Only after she lifted the bottle to her lips for a sip and downed the ale, did he ask, “Why are you really here, Mycah?”
Slowly, she lowered the beer, met his piercing gaze.
To apologize for my parents’ behavior.
To look you in the eye and see for myself that you don’t despise me.
All true. All answers she could give him, and he would most likely accept them. All she had to do was say them. Just say them, dammit...
“Because I didn’t feel safe in that house.”
Oh, God. Why had she said that?
Lightning flashed in his eyes, and she wanted to hide from it.
She wanted to hurl herself at it. Be struck by it.
“And you feel safe here? With me?” he asked, a low rumble in his voice.
“Yes.”
As inane as it was, as tumultuous as their past and current...relationship might be, she did. She harbored zero doubts that he’d ever intentionally hurt her, exploit her. If she’d come seeking shelter, he’d not only give it, he’d use his own body to provide it. That was his nature.
No.
It’s who he was.
After witnessing the pettiness, the cruelty her parents were capable of tonight, she needed that haven. She craved that security. She’d come here on the pretense of making sure Achilles was okay, but really, she was the one who desperately wanted to be assured.
Did that make her a user? Did that make her selfish?
“Stop, and no.”
She blinked, snatching herself from the downward spiral of her thoughts. “I’m sorry?”
“Wherever you were going right now in your head. You had a deer-in-headlights look in your eyes.”
“I’m selfish. A user,” she whispered.
“You’re going to have to explain that one.” He cupped her elbow and led her to one of the sitting areas, guiding her to a black armchair. “Sit. Because you look like you’re about to fall over.”
“I convinced myself I was coming here for you. When it was about me, for me, all along. Selfish,” she repeated, tilting her head back to meet his gaze. “I came here to use you.”
She expected his disgust at her admission. At the very least annoyance. Not that flicker of...oh, God, desire.
“Use me in what way, Mycah?” Another man might have hunkered down next to the chair, minimizing his size so she didn’t feel towered over or intimidated. Not Achilles.
And she didn’t feel intimidated or overpowered.
No. She felt covered. Protected.
And so aroused she could barely breathe without taking in his scent—pine, fresh rain and sex.
“Mycah.”
“I want... I would...” She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t push it out.
In her family, asking for what you needed—other than the latest season’s fashion line or the newest car—was akin to exposing your neck to an apex predator. It was revealing a weakness. When he’d been a stranger, someone she hadn’t expected to see
after a night together, it’d been easier. But he wasn’t a stranger anymore.
If he’d ever really been.
And as much as she’d run to him tonight...as much as she trusted him not to intentionally hurt her... What this man could inadvertently do to her heart would make a natural disaster look like an April shower.
“We’ll table it for now.” He sank into the chair across from her, his sprawled long legs bracketing hers.
He didn’t speak as he tipped the bottle to his mouth and drank. And she did the same, watching him, mesmerized by the oddly sensual sight of his ale-dampened lips and the dance of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. Maybe it was the alcohol she’d barely sipped, but she longed for nothing more than to lean forward and slowly close her teeth around that strong throat and flick her tongue over his skin. Taste the earthy, salty flavor of it.
User, a small, smug voice rustled in her head. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
“I’m sorry, Achilles,” she whispered, tracing a fingertip through the condensation dotting the bottle. “You didn’t deserve that kind of treatment tonight. I know you didn’t want my apology earlier, but I need to offer you one. Or try to.”
“Look at me.”
She lifted her head, meeting his gaze, a flicker of annoyance at her immediate obedience to his order mingling with a flash of lust.
“I didn’t want to hear it earlier because it wasn’t yours to give. The same now.” He leaned forward, setting his beer on the floor before propping his forearms on his thighs. Pinning his bright eyes on her, he said, “And yes, I was mad as fuck and trying to hide it with everything in me so I didn’t end up giving your parents and everyone else at that table the satisfaction of proving I was who they believed. The beast. The thug. The Feral Farrell.”
“You know about that?”
He snorted. “I’m not deaf or blind, Mycah.”
“No, I know that.” She waved her hand, frustrated. “I guess I hoped you hadn’t...”
“My mother always told me, it’s not what they call you, but what you answer to. Your parents or any of the people here in Boston don’t define me.” He paused, studied her, and she fought not to recoil from that incisive stare. Fought not to hide lest it perceive too much. Slice too deep. “So why are you allowing them to dictate who you are?”
“I’m not...” Damn him. She closed her eyes. Hiding. And not caring if he knew it. No, screw that. She reopened them, glared at him. “I told you before that you don’t know me. So stop presuming that you do.”
“Then tell me.”
If he’d scoffed at her, she might’ve left. Might’ve ordered him to fuck off as she stalked out of there in righteous indignation. But his quiet offer full of curiosity, of genuine interest, deflated her anger.
Soothed her hurt.
“In the interview, Cain asked me why I wanted to work for Farrell. The answers I gave—promotion, opportunity, experience—all were true. But he asked the wrong question. It should’ve been why I needed to work there. Because I do. I need this job.” She huffed out a laugh, holding the cold bottle between both of her palms and rubbing it back and forth, back and forth. “That party my parents threw tonight? Do you know who paid for it? Me. Or I will at the end of the month. Because the monthly allowance that they receive from Hill-Harper will be gone, spent on clothes, jewelry, lunches, spa appointments, gifts for their friends. And it will be up to me to cover the mortgage, household bills, staff salaries and any other outstanding debts they owe. See, my parents deride my career, but they depend on it.”
“You’re enabling them, and they’re taking advantage because they know you’ll pay their way.” He growled, anger radiating off him. “That isn’t love. That isn’t sacrifice.”
She shook her head. “It’s family,” she insisted. “If your mother—”
He slashed a hand through the air, cutting off her argument. “My mother would never have asked that of me. Which is why I would gladly have given her the world if she’d lived. And you know what she would’ve done, Mycah?” He leaned forward, his blue-gray eyes burning into hers. “Told me no. She would’ve fought me on it until I wore her down. C’mere.” He crooked two fingers, beckoning her closer, and she slid forward on the chair cushion. “You don’t even believe the bullshit you’re telling me,” he said, his voice impossibly gentle, brutally blunt.
Tears sprang to her eyes, stinging them.
But then, the truth tended to do that.
Sting.
“What is it, baby?” he whispered. “You’re safe. Tell me.”
The truth grappled with self-preservation in her throat for approximately five seconds before it burst from her.
“Three and a half more years. That’s all I have left. Three and a half more years before my sister graduates from high school and goes to college. Then I’m free. I’m paying for her tuition, and I can’t abandon her. She’s brilliant, Achilles, and deserves the best education possible. I won’t take that away from her, and I can’t lose her. She’s the only real relationship I have. I don’t put it past my parents to prohibit me from seeing her if I stop paying their bills. But in three and a half years, she’ll be through with high school and she’ll be eighteen, an adult. And I’ll have what I’ve dreamed about for years.”
“What have you dreamed of, Mycah?” he pressed when she hesitated.
She threaded her fingers through her curls—or attempted to. Remembering too late the strands were secured in an updo, she clenched her hands tight before dropping them to her thighs.
“Mycah.”
“Freedom.” As the word echoed in the room, she winced, emitting a hushed, embarrassed chuckle. Turning, she set her neglected beer bottle on the side table. Anything to avoid looking at him. “Freedom,” she repeated less vehemently, with a much heavier dose of self-deprecation. “You must think I’m dramatic.”
“You think I don’t understand the need for freedom?”
She jerked her head back to him, shock ricocheting through her.
He slowly nodded. “You know the terms of Barron’s will. By now, everyone does. For most people, it would seem like a dream come true. Co-run a multibillion-dollar company. Instant billionaire. But I never asked for it. Never wanted any of it. And I’m counting down the months, the days until I’m out of here. Out of Boston. Until I’m free from it all.”
He surged from the chair and strode to the window, yanking the tie from his hair on the way. Burrowing both hands through the thick strands, he fisted them, yanking so hard, she winced in sympathy. He splayed his fingers wide on the sheet of glass. As if attempting to reach through it to the sky beyond.
“Do you know the reason I hate the name Feral Farrell so much?” he rasped. “Because a part of me fears that there’s some truth in it. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy within the confines of this...world. After—” he broke off, his hand balling into a fist against the window, his head bowing between his shoulders “—I left Seattle, I deliberately chose a specific way of life for myself. A quieter life, a simpler one. This one... It’s too loud. Too harsh. Too mean. I know Cain and Kenan think I’m pulling away from them, that I’m distancing myself from them, but I can’t let myself become too attached because I can’t stay here. They were both born here. This is home for them. I don’t belong here.”
She rose and went to him, unable to remain in her chair any longer. Without questioning the wisdom of what she was doing, she crossed the room and didn’t stop until she stood behind him. So close, her forehead pressed into the indentation of his spine. So close, the toes of her stilettos nudged the bare heels of his feet. So close, her hands slipped under the edge of his vest and cupped his slim waist.
Achilles’s body went rigid, but he didn’t move away from her. Taking that as a positive sign, she closed her eyes, breathed him in. Dragged that decadent scent of the outdoors into her lungs and held on to
it like a drug. Then as she exhaled, she already craved the next hit.
“You asked me how I wanted to use you,” she murmured, her words puffs that fluttered against his vest. “I came here because I needed you to hold me. To touch me. To shield me from the world just for a little while before I have to go back out and face it again.” She slid her hands over his stomach, up the ridged ladder of his abs until her palms covered his pounding heart. Turning her head, she pressed her cheek to his back. “I think we can give each other that. I don’t see anything wrong with both of us using each other.”
For the longest moments, he didn’t stir. The thump, thump against her hand the only movement. But in a sudden explosion of action, he wrenched out of her embrace, turned and damn near leaped on her.
Excitement and lust combusted within her, and she met him in a clash of lips, tongue and teeth, his beard abrading her chin and mouth in a sensual caress. God, it’d been so long. So damn long since she’d been touched. No, that was wrong. Not just simply touched. So long since she’d been touched by him. By Achilles.
The whimper that escaped her throat should’ve embarrassed her, but she was beyond that. Tunneling her fingers through his thick, cool strands, she fisted them, dragging his head down so she could feast on the mouth that had been taunting her for weeks. Impatient and so damn hungry, she licked him, demanding he give just as much—no, more—in return.
His big hands gripped her head, angling this way. Then that way. Then this way again. As if he couldn’t get enough. As if he’d never be satisfied. Join the club. He could suck at her tongue, nip at her lips, lick the roof of her mouth, and she would still yank on his hair, claw at his scalp, silently beg for everything.
This wasn’t a kiss.
It was war.
And goddammit, yes, she wanted to be a casualty.
“This dress. It’s been fucking killing me all night. How do I get you out of it?” he muttered against her mouth, his hands roaming her breasts, belly, hips.