Achilles: Sounds like a you problem.
Tierney: No, it’s a YOU problem, because if you want my forgiveness, you can start with getting me wine and cigarettes. Leave them at my door.
Achilles: I’m not your servant. If you want me to bring you a drink, you’re having one with me.
Tierney: You don’t even drink wine.
Achilles: I’d drink poison for the pleasure of your company, and you damn well know that.
Tierney: Fine. One drink.
Achilles: Give me ten minutes.
My lips quirked up. He was still in the area. He probably waited to see if I’d change my mind.
Did he do that every day?
A short time later, the doorbell rang. I swaggered to answer it, taking my sweet time, and opened it with a face full of makeup and an emerald-green minidress.
Achilles stood on the other side, and he was right, because the minute our gazes clashed, my stomach flipped and the unmistakable rush of butterflies swarmed inside it. It wasn’t a nice, fuzzy feeling, but an uncomfortable reminder that the man in front of me had seen me at my very worst, several times, and still chose to stick around.
He looked like he wanted to strangle me for keeping him waiting all this time.
I flashed him a fake smile—the only kind I was capable of these days. “Miss me?”
“Do you enjoy driving me insane?”
“I’m surprised you’d even ask. Of course I do.”
His eyes narrowed. “At least you’re smiling.”
“I’m doing better,” I said quietly, suddenly a little embarrassed by the memory of him tending to a corpse version of me. Changing my sheets when I’d soiled them when I was too unresponsive to drag myself to the bathroom. Washing my hair. Shoving my limbs into pants and shirts. Feeding me with a freaking spoon when I had lost all willingness to keep myself alive.
“So…thank you.”
“Thank you?” he spat out the words in disgust.
“What’s wrong with thank you?”
“If you don’t hug me right the fuck now, I’m going to break both your brother’s legs.”
I frowned. “What does my brother have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. I just wouldn’t lay a finger on you, and he shares most of your DNA.”
I stepped into his open arms, a tremor rolling through me. He was warm, hard as stone, and smelled of something spicy and clean.
God. Hisscent. I’d missed it. It was no longer there, on my pillows, in my kitchen, in my closet. All the telltales he’d been to my apartment along the years, stalking me,terrorizingme. I’d always straddled the line between terrified and enamored with this man. He was the monster from the closet I’d always hoped would sneak into my bed.
The one I fell in love with, even though the fairy tales warned me not to.
“I drank your sister’s breast milk today.” My lips moved over his stubbled jawline as I spoke.
Achilles stiffened, his arms tightening around me possessively. “What kind of kinky shit are you two into these days? I don’t share, Tierney. Not even with my sister.”
“It was an accident.” I forced myself to step back. “She put it in a jug in the fridge, with no label or anything.”
“Only more reason not to touch it. Who keeps unlabeled milk?”
