Deep in Kat’s body Achilles’ words caused heat to spread like she’d just downed a shot of twentysomething-year-old single malt. She felt the slick need between her legs and subdued the urge to press her thighs together to seek relief. It wouldn’t do any good anyway, that was not the kind of relief she needed. Kat’s eyes drifted lower to the bulge that was becoming more and more obvious beneath the sheet.

Could she do it? Could she make love to him and keep him hypnotized?

Unethical skank! Her inner editor shrieked at her. Thankfully Kat was excellent at gagging her inner editor. Plus the real question she needed to ask herself wasn’t if she could keep him hypnotized, but whether she could keep him calm enough that the berserker wouldn’t possess him. And she was far from sure she could keep him calm and make crazy, sweaty love to him.

Well… maybe they wouldn’t make crazy, sweaty love. Seriously there were just so many levels between celibacy and crazy lovemaking—or even sweaty lovemaking. Perhaps she could find a level that would work.

Again Kat reached out to touch Achilles. This time she let her hand caress a path over his chest and down to his hard abdomen. Her fingers dipped under the sheet. She didn’t actually touch his cock, but Achilles’ skin trembled beneath her fingers and he drew in a deep breath, which he let out in a moan.

“You’re still in your cove… relaxed… warm… safe,” she murmured, being careful to keep her voice hypnotic, which was damn difficult because her breathing had definitely picked up. “What else do you see there besides sea and coral and sand?”

“You,” he said. His deep voice was, thankfully, still relaxed and he sounded dreamy and exquisitely sexy.

“Yes,” Kat said before she could change her mind and turn back into a boring professional (sadly not practicing the oldest profession). “I’m there. What am I doing?”

“Lying beside me,” he said, and then before she could prompt him with another question he added, “There is no fear in you, and you are touching me.”

“Achilles, there is no fear where you are—no anger—no pain.” Suddenly she had the urge to cry. How long had it been since he’d been touched without fear or anger? Following her impulse, she lay down, facing him. Her head rested on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. “You are becoming more deeply relaxed,” she murmured softly. “My touch is your anchor. Your desire is guiding it. What do you desire, Achilles?”

“You.”

And that was it. That single word was her undoing. “Then you’ll have me,” she said, sliding her hand down slowly… slowly… until she grasped his hard shaft. Achilles moaned as she stroked the long, thick length of him. “Remember, this is a dream… only a dream…”

He moaned again and his hips lifted to meet her strokes. Kat slid her legs under the sheet and moved closer to him, and with a rush of liquid excitement she realized that he was completely naked. The loose linen wrap that had been covering him had come free, so there was nothing except the thin silk of her underdress between them.

To hell with this! Kat thought, tugging the flimsy silk up so that she was bare to the waist, she pressed herself against his hard thigh.

“Ah, gods!” Achilles said as her wet heat ground against his skin in time with her stroking hand.

“Is it good?” she whispered, wishing he would take her aching nipples in his mouth.

“Yes.” He moaned the word. “More… give me more of you.” He turned lazily toward her, rolling on his side with a dreamy motion as if he were moving through water. His hands came down to cup her bare buttocks and he pressed his hard cock insistently against her.

“Yes, more!” Kat’s vagina was swollen and so wet that she slid easily up and down against the hard, hot length of him. Achilles didn’t enter her, and Kat continued to whisper calming words to him as she glided against his cock, the thick ridge of his head pulsing against her clit until she exploded in a fast, shattering orgasm. “Come with me, Achilles.” She gasped and reached down to stroke his cock, slick with her wetness. With a guttural cry, Achilles’ hot seed spurted between them.

“Princess…” He sighed as she milked him dry and then collapsed against his shoulder.

“You—you are deeply relaxed,” she panted. Well, hell yes he’s deeply relaxed. She stared at his face. They’d both come and he’d stayed under the entire time. Holy shit. That was the nastiest thing I’ve ever done. Kat was sure she’d be blushing, if her cheeks weren’t already completely flushed from the massive orgasm she’d just had. Now what am I supposed to do? Kat cleared her throat, suppressing the seductress and resummoning the shrink. “Achilles, you will sleep for the rest of the night and wake after dawn completely refreshed.” To say the least, she added silently to herself. “Do you understand?”

“Yes…” he murmured sleepily, and she noticed that his lips twitched up in his little half-smile.

Kat slowly unwrapped herself from around him and slid carefully from his bed. She looked down at him. Achilles was utterly, completely relaxed. His breathing was deep and regular. His body was limp and sprawled, spread-legged across the bed, but even like this he still retained a look of fierceness and power. With sudden insight she knew that even without the berserker that possessed him this man would have been a great warrior and a leader.

Kat bit her lip and wondered (belatedly) how the fierce warrior would feel about the way she’d manhandled him tonight. She could imbed a hypnotic suggestion that he not remember what had happened between them at all. Kat sighed. No, she wasn’t that stank. Plus, even though her behavior was what Jacky would call “entirely too fresh,” Kat was not into self-delusion and knew that she wanted him to remember—wanted him to know that they pleasured each other without the berserker taking over. On the other hand, what if remembering freaked him out? According to the goddesses, he hadn’t had sex in years. Maybe he’d wanted to be fully conscious for it.

Oh, sure. Then the berserker could have taken over, and that would have definitely been no bueno.

“Well, crap,” she said softly. Then an idea came to her and she raised her voice back to a clinical level. “Achilles, when you wake you will remember everything that happened tonight, but only if you want to. Sleep now and have only pleasant dreams.”

Congratulating herself, she sipped from a fresh goblet of wine while she used water from a basin to wash up. When she was done she looked back through the gauzy curtain at Achilles. He was sound asleep. She would have liked to have crawled back in bed with him and snuggled up against that incredibly hard body, but what would happen in the morning when he woke up? Would she be greeted by a surprised Achilles or by a blood-thirsty berserker? Not willing to take the chance, Kat curled up in her thick pallet of downy linens, and was almost immediately asleep.


Kat didn’t wake up until the kerfuffle coming from outside the entrance to the tent crept into her dream, turning the gorgeous Italian pool boy/man who was massaging her shoulders into a shrieking fishwife. Jolted out of her fantasy Kat sat up in time to see Jacky bursting into her tent. The small, deceptively sweet-looking blonde stalked over to stand in front of her. She put one hand on her very slim hips. The other Jacky pointed straight down at her vagina.

“My va-jay-jay is covered with blond hair! Can you fucking believe that? I’ve never seen such a thing,” Jacky said.

Automatically Kat shot a glance at the curtained bed in the rear of the tent and was relieved, and a little disappointed, to see it was empty. She rubbed her eyes and smoothed her hair back out of her face.

“Well?” Jacky said, tapping her foot impatiently against the thick carpet.

“Well what, Jacky? You’re a natural blonde. What did you expect?”

Jacky plopped down on the edge of her pallet. “I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t even look last night when I peed. And anyway, it was dark. Then this morning I was washin’ up, and there it was. It was a shock, I tell you.”

Kat stretched luxuriously. “I love you, Jacky, but you’re kind of a moron.”

Jacky narrowed eyes at her that were unfamiliar in their color, but completely familiar in their expression. “I am not a moron. I’m just white.” She lifted blond brows. “Of course, some people might say that’s the same thing.”

Completely unbothered, Kat grinned and stretched again. “You know, you just need to relax and go with it. We’re not going to be here long and—”

“Sweet baby Jesus, you’ve had sex!”

Kat frowned at her BFF. “How can you tell that? And I didn’t really have sex. At last not technically.”

“First, easy. You’re all rumpled and glowy. And you haven’t been this relaxed in”—Jacky paused, obviously mentally counting—“in about three and a half years. Which is how long it’s been since you’ve had sex. Second, what do you mean not technically? And please recall that we decided several years ago that oral sex is definitely sex.”

Kat fidgeted. “It hasn’t been three and a half years. It’s been three years and four months.”

Jacky snorted.

“And I didn’t have oral sex.”

“But…” Jacky prompted.

“But I had sex—kind of.”

“Explain Katrina Marie.”

Kat sucked a deep breath and then said in an enormously fast rush, “I-hypnotized-Achilles-and-while-he-was-under-I-had-a-heavy-make-out-session-with-him-and-we-both-came.”

“Christ on a cracker. You raped Achilles.”

“I did not! He said yes.”

“You want to try sayin’ that again. This time with the truth stuck in there.”

“You’re really crabby now that you’re white,” Kat procrastinated.

“I’ve always been crabby, as you know very well. Stop stalling, Katrina.”

Kat sighed. “Okay, well, he kind of said yes.”

“You know shtuping the TU quarterback on the fifty-yard line is nothing compared to raping an unconscious guy.”

“Jacqueline, I did not rape Achilles.”

“Katrina. Was he in control of all of his faculties?”

Kat’s grin was slow and satisfied. “It certainly felt like he was.”

“Fresh! You are so fresh! And that is not what I meant. I mean was he conscious or under your diabolical influence when you shtuped him?”

Kat chewed her lip, hesitated, and then gave up. She always told Jacky everything—she might as well get it over with. “Look, earlier last night I met him out on the beach after Agamemnon’s bullshit. And, well, we’d been getting along at the king’s tent, even though I did piss off the king. God, he’s as annoying as Hera said. Anyway, what I said was nothing compared to Achilles announcing that he and all his men who had a mind to follow him would be withdrawing from the battle.”

“Bet that went over with Agamemnon like hot turds.”

“Yeah, and Achilles told him off and we almost had to fight our way out of there. And may I take this opportunity to mention that Briseis doesn’t seem like a very nice girl.”

“You met her?”

“Not really. She was lounging against Agamemnon’s royal knee throwing me dirty looks.”

“What kind of looks did she throw at Achilles?” Jacky asked.

“She didn’t. The bitch didn’t glace at him one time. It wasn’t like she wanted him, but more like she just didn’t want me to have him. I ignored her and held on tight to Achilles’ arm. That really freaked her out.”

“Holding onto his arm freaked her out? What is she, some kind of weird virgin?”

“No, my guess is she’s like most of the women from this time. They’re freaked out by anyone touching Achilles on purpose.”

“Why?” Jacky asked. “Is it just that berserker thing? Hell, remember my brief but unfortunate thug phase and Rashod a.k.a. X? He was mean as a snake, but he watched himself and showed some damn sense during the short time I dated him. Yes, I do admit that he is now doing time for accidentally killing his neighbor, LaShawn Johnson, but clearly when we stopped dating he also stopped using good sense.”

“Jacky, Rashod a.k.a. X, pulled out a nine millimeter gun and in broad daylight shot LaShawn and his dog—dead. Five times each, if I remember correctly,” Kat said. “I do not think you can call that an accident.”

“Rashod a.k.a. X, only meant to shoot LaShawn’s pain in the ass yappin’ dog. LaShawn lost his damn mind and got out there all between the bullets and the dog. Which, in my professional medical opinion, is not very bright.”

“Why were we talking about Rashod a.k.a. X?” Kat asked, utterly confused.

“Because I’m just sayin’ if that little Briseis and all the rest of the milquetoast white chippies around here are oh so scared of your boy, I think they could use a little fieldtrip to North Tulsa to chat with some of the brothers to straighten them right up. Truly, Kat, how scary could Achilles be?”

“It’s not Achilles,” Kat said slowly. “He’s not scary. He’s sexy and kind of sad and lonely. It’s the berserker they’re afraid of, and they should be. I got a glimpse of him, Jacky. He hadn’t even fully possessed Achilles, and it was awful.”

“Katrina Marie, did he hurt you?” Jacky moved instantly into the persona Kat liked to think of as Super Nurse.

“No. I, uh, ran.”

Jacky’s blond brows met the hairline of her flowing tresses. “You ran. As in away from him, across the beach, with your bosoms floppin’?”

Kat looked down at her young chest. “I don’t think these bosoms flopped much. They’re almost unnaturally perky. But, yes.”

“So you raped him as some kind of twisted revenge scheme? It’s borderline brilliant, but still very stank of you.”

“Look. I did not rape him. The whole thing was really an accident.”

“Oh, yeah, like Rashod a.k.a. X’s unfortunate murder one accident.”

“No, not like that. I was trying to relax him. Apparently Achilles doesn’t sleep, or at least not much.”

“So you, what, gave him a relaxing blow job and that made you come? You’re seriously more desperate than I thought.”

“Again, no. I didn’t give him a blow job nor am I desperate, Jacqueline. I hypnotized him.”

“And then came the blow job?”

“No! I didn’t blow him. I jerked him off. But not before I’d taken my pleasure from him,” Kat said with a satisfied smile.

“You sat on his face while he was hypnotized? Guys can do that when they’re under?”

“I didn’t sit on his face! God, you’re nasty beyond belief.”

“Oh, please. I’m not nasty; I’m a nurse. This is all clinical to me. Pretend like you’re at the doctor’s office. What happened?”

“I, uh, rubbed myself against his, uh, pee pee,” Kat said, feeling her cheeks get hot.

Jacky fell back against the cushions and burst into gales of giggles. “Oh, god, you said pee pee!”

“Would you stop!” Kat shoved her friend’s shoulder. “Look, I really didn’t mean for it to happen, but there he was all naked and muscular and angsty, and then I touched his scars, and then his, uh, penis”—she enunciated the word carefully, glaring at Jacky who unsuccessfully tried to stifle a giggle—“got all hard and he said he wanted me to keep touching him and I did. And I did not shtup him because I was worried that the berserker would show up. Plus, if you want to get all technical about it, he wasn’t exactly one-hundred percent himself.”

“As in not exactly conscious?”

“Whatever. So that’s what happened. The end. Could we please change the subject?”

“You know, this whole hypnotize-’em-and-make-’em-service-you thing is really an excellent idea. Think you could teach me how to do it?”

“Absolutely no way in hell.”

“Well, there is a rumor going around that we might be in hell, so you want to rethink that answer?”

“No. And now to officially change the subject—how’s Patroklos and what did you do last night?”

“I, not being as stank as you, slept. And my white boy is fine, thank you. At least I’m assuming he is. He was gone when I woke up this morning.” Jacky’s lineless brow furrowed. “I suppose I should find him and be sure he hasn’t gotten those stitches dirty or whatnot.”

“In other words, Patroklos stayed passed out all night.”

“Totally.”

“That ‘totally’ sounded kinda wistful.”

“Kat, you are displacing your stankish-ness on me. I’m not interested in the white boy like that.”

“Oh, that’s right. He’s all tall and young and muscular and handsome. Icky. Who would be interested in that?”

“He’s white. White boys think I have too much ass and attitude.”

“Uh, Jacky, you’re currently a skinny white girl, remember? So all you have is too much attitude.”

“Please. I’m in denial. What say we get something to eat and I work on filling out this skinny ass?”

“Good idea. I’m starving.”

“Rampant stankness will do that to you.”

“Jacqueline, your blond and flowing tresses are looking rather disheveled this morning. If you’re not good I won’t tell you how to deal with them.”

“Fresh,” Jacky muttered as Kat dressed. “So damn fresh…”