“Look at you,” he rasped, kissing the column of my neck so tenderly, it robbed me of the last of my self-preservation. “Chelovek.” He fed me back the word I gifted him all those years ago, and just like it brought him back to life, it revived me, too. “Human after all. Flesh. Blood. The full range of emotions. Theydidn’t break you, baby. Nothing could. You went through it. You remembered. You faced it. And you came back.”
Our eyes met as he moved over me, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to run. To lose myself in carnal desires. I wanted to be present, to see this moment through. He slid into me, a hiss of pleasure rumbling from his chest. I forced myself to loosen my muscles, to stop my body from going into fight-or-flight mode, where I was ready to slit his throat at any moment.
His movements were slow, leisured, tender strokes. I felt like I was falling into a dream.
He touched and caressed me everywhere, taking great care of every curve and part of my body. Kissed my tears, my mouth, my eyes each time he entered me. And though I felt his touch, what made this time different from all the others was how I felt hissoul. Our souls clicked together, fusing into a whole. We needed this so badly.
For him to break the final wall between us and make me submit fully to this relationship.
I clung to him desperately, like a child seeking comfort in the arms of a safe grown-up, and he never let me go. Not even when we shifted and changed positions.
“Is this okay?” His lips moved over mine.
“Y-yes.”
“I can feel you in a way I never have before.”
The rush of dopamine to my veins made me tremble like a leaf. “I feel like you’re injecting your DNA into my system or something.”
He pulled slightly back and stared at me, his expression wonderous. My words had hit him somewhere deep.
Because this was what he always wanted.
To engrave himself in me the way I was seeded in him.
The pleasure of my orgasm started with a tingle at the base of my spine, spreading all over my body quickly. Achilles let outa grunt, coming at the same time. We stared at each other the entire time, arms braced, like we were holding on to each other in a storm. And I knew in that moment that if eighteen-year-old Tierney could’ve experienced this just one time, this connection, this love which passed between one body to the other, she wouldn’t have tried to take her own life.
And she wouldn’t have let Luca bully her into breaking Achilles’s heart.
When Achilles rolled off me, he was silent. I imagined the same whispers of surprise and emotions crawled over his body as well. Because I was the farthest thing from okay. This whole making-love ordeal rocked my world and tipped it over.
Instead of talking, I offered him my hand. He took it. Our fingers clicked like two pieces of a puzzle.
“Thank you for making me face my biggest fear,” I whispered. “And thank you for…everything.”
He squeezed my hand, still staring at the ceiling. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was going to cry.
Fifteen years of love and hate and everything in between boiled down to this.
We made love. And we survived.
“Achilles…” I turned in the bed and pressed my hand to his jagged cheek. “I want you to know that from now on, I am going to try to be the best wife that I can be. I will devote my life to you.”
Silently, he pulled our joined hands to his face and kissed my knuckles.
I think maybe, in that moment, even he didn’t have the words to describe what was happening inside us.
“But we’ll never have biological children,” I croaked, running my fingers along his face. “And you’ll never have a traditional wife. Someone who stays at home, cooks a meal every day, andknows how to knit a sweater. A woman like Lila, who’ll be content to simply stand by your side and watch you lead.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I’ll have something else no man I know possesses.”
“And what’s that?”
“Enough.” He pressed his lips to my temple. “You’re enough for me, Tierney.”
___
Achilles
