Chapter Fifteen

How sensitive was her soul?

Bridget couldn’t speak to her soul, but her body felt much too sensitive. She needed distance from him, and she needed it now, because this strange susceptibility following something meant to be a straightforward physical adventure shook her confidence to the ground. It was just plain ludicrous to get sentimental over a dick. She’d grown up with brothers, for God’s sake. Shared a womb with one of them. Basic male anatomy had never been a mystery to her—even less so since life after Archer. Still, she hadn’t prepared for the emotional fallout of touching him again in such a raw, intimate way. It reacquainted all her senses with him and transported her back to a time when every touch, every intimacy, had meant so much more than a straightforward physical adventure. The entire experience left her vulnerable and desperate for space.

But it couldn’t look like a retreat. Even shaking inside with needs she’d inadvertently stoked to uncomfortable urgency in the process of driving him out of his stubborn mind, she refused to let him see her scramble for safety. Kicking the corners of her mouth up into a bullshit smile, she said, “I don’t have a soul, Archer.” No soul, no soul mate. “What you see is what you get.”

“Do I?” He cocked his head. “Get what I see,” he clarified and ran his gaze down her body. “Because I see practically everything.”

And everything his gaze raked tightened. Clenched. Quivered. “I—it’s a figure of speech.”

He leaned in. She drew back, then felt silly when he simply reached behind her and turned off the water. The instant silence that followed only intensified the closeness of the small space.

“How ’bout this? I tell you what I see, and you tell me if I can have it?”

She arched her brows. “You’ve already had your dick in my mouth. What more could you want?”

His green eyes darkened. “A lot more.”

The bottom fell out of her stomach. She lifted her chin. “Such as?”

He captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger. “This mouth.” She shivered as he traced her upper lip with his finger. “Can I have this mouth?”

“What do you plan to do with it?”

“Kiss it.”

Such a bad idea, but her lips tingled from memories and anticipation. “One kiss,” she conceded.

He raised an eyebrow at that but said, “Okay.”

Much like the night he’d driven her home from the clinic—the night the whole debacle had started—he gently gathered her into his arms. Unlike last time, tonight he was wet and naked, and she was perilously close to the same state, so when he held her against him, she felt…everything. Banked strength lived in the hard muscles woven throughout his body. More power and leashed masculinity than she remembered. Four years had filled out the rangy, leanly muscled twenty-something guy she’d fallen so hard for. The arms holding her now belonged to a man. One she wouldn’t fall for. But the changes were undeniably exciting.

One big hand cradled the back of her head. One steely arm held her secure against him. Slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, he lowered his mouth to hers. With the barest of distance between them, he whispered, “One kiss,” and proceeded to claim it.

Warm lips covered hers, firm, but not demanding. He moved them, widened them, coaxing her lips wider. With a sigh of capitulation, she opened for him. As his tongue delved inside, she relaxed against him, let his big, strong body support hers, let him tip her head back to bring her mouth squarely under his. Basically, she let him have his way with the kiss, because his way totally worked for her. Always had.

His hands started to roam her body with the same sweet thoroughness his tongue roamed her mouth. They cupped her breasts, lifting, stroking, squeezing with a breath-stealing strength that he’d always managed to keep on the right side of too rough. Still did. Still could. Still paid perfect attention to whatever unconscious tells her body gave away to signify she’d hit the line. Closing his lips around her tongue, he drew it into his mouth. Heat settled heavily between her thighs while his fingers plucked her nipples to aching peaks. Restless, she moved against him, seeking relief from the answering ache building inside her. He offered her relief, in the form of a long, muscled thigh slid helpfully between hers. On her tiptoes, she moaned her gratitude into his mouth.

His hands smoothed down her torso, fingers tracing each rib before sliding around to spread his palms along the curve of her spine. His tongue speared into her mouth, again, and she closed her lips to hold him there. Some primitive instinct demanded she keep something of him inside her, intimately inside her, while he carefully lifted her, held her centered on his thigh. Oh, yes…

Tangling her fingers in his hair, she held on and rocked against him as vigorously as she dared. This could happen. Yes, it could. Her, coming on him, with his tongue in her mouth and his body supporting hers. All this bone-melting payout from one little kiss.

One kiss?

The sneaky devil. She agreed to one kiss and look what happened. Suddenly, she couldn’t do it. The thought of giving herself over to him, coming in his arms with her mouth fused to his, struck her as some sort of surrender. A dangerous one.

Turning her head, breaking the connection of their lips, she gasped, “One kiss. Done.”

Big hands closed around her head, trapping her in an endless, disconcertingly keen emerald gaze. “What can I get next?” he asked, voice gruff and labored. “I know you’re close. What would take you over?”

“I can’t…”

“I’ll be careful. I promise.” He backed away a step, depriving her of his thigh, and looked down her body. “Can I have your breasts, Bridget?” He tweaked one stiff nipple as he asked, and the back of her head hit the tile.

“Oh, God. Okay.” No more kissing. That made it safer, didn’t it?

He crouched and drew the nipple into his mouth—all the way in, wet slip, wet skin, all of it. His jaw flexed as he consumed her. His cheeks hollowed as he used suction to hold her there. Desperate, she tested the seal of his lips with a finger and sent her other hand down, down, down between her legs. A cry rose up in her throat as he slowly eased his mouth away by degrees, letting her breast spring free from his lips.

They both watched it fall back into position with a single, lung-hollowing bounce. A low, almost worshipful sound rumbled from him. Before she could even offer the other, a big hand grasped the front of her slip and tore it open to her navel.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” he muttered against her flesh and then proceeded to deliver the same treatment to her other breast while she stroked his jaw with one hand and her clit with the other. When he released her this time, her gasp echoed around them. On his knees now, he closed his hand over hers, holding her palm against her wettest, neediest parts. “Can I have this?” Green eyes flicked up to her face. “One more kiss, right here?”

She might die if he did. She might die if he didn’t. The struggle was real, and he totally picked up on it. “Trust me.” Moving her hand out of his way, he threaded their fingers together and held them against the tile. He slid his other arm around her leg and hitched it over his shoulder.

It should have felt too precarious, perched there on slick tile with only one leg under her. If she slipped, fell backward, she’d probably pass out from pain. But need overrode mundane dangers like gravity.

Apparently not for him, though, because he looked up at her, his expression solemn, and said, “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

He wouldn’t let her think, either—simply leaned in, put his mouth on her, and proceeded to drown her in sensations. Slow, sweet sensations so heavy they filled her to capacity, movements so familiar they made it hard to breathe. Then, without warning, he changed the angle of approach and brought his tongue into play, wrenching a loud, “Oh, God,” from her at the same time she grabbed a fistful of his hair. That relentless tongue never missed a beat, even as she started to rock her hips in an awkward dance—seeking, evading, seeking more. Again, with no warning and no break in the action, he released her hand, caught her other leg, and lifted her so she hung there, back against the shower wall, thighs splayed wide and braced securely on his arms, toes dangling in air. Jesus, when had he gotten so strong? So strong and so fucking fast?

She could barely keep up—panting, writhing, swearing incoherently while he held her open and kissed, bit, and whipped her into a frenzy. And then, once again with absolutely no warning, he shot her over. Hard. Her fist smacked the tile. Her cry bounced off the walls. Her body tensed to the breaking point before dissolving into helpless shivers of pleasure.

Through it all, she became vaguely aware he stayed with her, kept up the addictive assault with ever-gentler, ever-slower laves of his tongue, caresses of his mouth, gentle tugs from his lips. Through a thinning haze of orgasmic bliss, her senses came back online. Her hand hurt. Looking down, she saw she had a white-knuckled grip on his hair and forced herself to release her hold.

His warm mouth moved to the inside of one trembling thigh, loitered there for a long moment, then raised his head to smile with satisfaction at the red mark he’d put there. Too spent to object to the old game, she bit her lip and tried not to whimper while he applied himself to the other thigh. There’d been a time in her life when she’d rarely been without a mark on her somewhere, delivered by his mouth. Finally, he eased her legs down until she had her feet under her again. Thankfully, he kept his arms around her. Had he released her, she feared she would have slid to the floor and, maybe after a long rest, crawled away.

Lifting thousand-pound eyelids a fraction, she stared up and came nose-to-nose with a smugly pleased male. She considered slapping the superior smile off his face, but such a show of irritation would only let him know he got to her. That was no way to take back the upper hand. After all, this was her agenda, and it was playing out spectacularly if her orgasm served as any indicator. Secure in that knowledge, she raised her brows and shook her head. “I hate to break this to you, but I would have offered you a week of blow jobs for the chance to fly the Cirrus.”

To her surprise, his smile only widened. He lowered his forehead to hers and stared into her eyes. “I hate to break this to you, but I would have let you fly her for nothing. All you had to do was ask.”

…

Some walls came down, others held fast, Archer accepted as he stood on Bridget’s deck, clothed in his sweater, jeans, and socks, waiting for her to join him. She’d enthusiastically annihilated him with her mouth and hands. She’d permitted him a kiss—one they’d both lost track of—and allowed him to give her another orgasm—a more personal one this time, bestowed mouth to pussy rather than just his hands under her clothes. But afterward, she asked him to hand her a towel and waited to shimmy out of her ruined slip until she had the terrycloth shield wrapped securely around her. Then she’d kicked him out of her bedroom while she dressed.

She refused to be naked in front of him. He knew her injury accounted for part of her reluctance. She viewed it as a flaw. A weakness. One she declined to bare to him. He got that. Honestly, he did, no matter how frustrating he found it. She had her pride, particularly where he was concerned, and she didn’t want to let him see her vulnerable. A delicate part of her anatomy had suffered the indignity of a fracture, and she wanted to keep the extent of the damage to herself. So his need to take care of her, to actually see that she was healing, took a back seat to her need for privacy.

The other part of her refusal to be naked with him stemmed from sheer stubbornness. She thought keeping herself covered, even minimally, while he laid himself bare swung the power dynamic in her direction. In this, she couldn’t have been more wrong. She already had all the power. Her lack of confidence in that reflected more on her than him. He drove a hard bargain, but ultimately, he played by rules. “No” meant no. “I’m not sure” meant no. “I need more time” meant no. And she knew that about him. He’d demonstrated those ethics right from the start of their relationship. Any threat she perceived arose from her uncertainty in her ability to utter something along those lines in the heat of the moment than any uncertainty about his resolve to respect her wishes.

While all that sunk in, he stared out at the cold, quiet cove. Bridget was equal parts exhausting and entertaining, and he wouldn’t have her any other way. But he would have her. All of her. Eventually.

At the sound of the door behind him opening, he turned. She stepped out onto the deck, hair wet, a big, thick-knit white sweater hanging over white thermal leggings and black chenille socks. She looked sexy and cozy at once. He touched her bangs. “It’s cold. You should dry your hair.”

She looked pointedly at his wet hair.

“I don’t have a hair dryer.”

“I do.” Taking his hand, she led him inside. He closed the deck door behind him and followed her to a small desk in her room—a place he could easily picture teenaged Bridget doing Algebra homework—before she disappeared into the bathroom. She returned, seconds later, holding a hair dryer. Handing him the cord, she waited while he knelt and slid the plug into the socket. When he straightened, she gestured him to the chair. He lifted his brows. “You’re giving me two blow jobs in one night?”

She tipped her head in acknowledgment. “In a manner of speaking.”

He sat. “Is this one going to take any unsuspecting portions of my anatomy by surprise?”

Her laugh rippled along the back of his neck. “What’s the matter, Archie? Don’t you like surprises?”

“I’m cool with the occasional surprise. How ’bout you, Bridge?”

“Ha. No. As a general rule, I think anyone with a broken bone should avoid surprises.” She centered herself behind the chair and ran her fingers through his hair. “Are you growing it out?”

“No. I just haven’t found the time or the place for a trim.” Remembering her death grip on his hair during their “shower,” he asked, “Why? Do you like it?” His scalp tightened at the phantom tug of her fingers.

She shrugged. “It’s nice. You used to wear your hair shorter.”

He reached up and tugged hers. “You used to wear yours longer.”

“Looks like we’re switching it up.” With that, she flicked on the dryer and aimed it at his head. The heat, the noise, and the feel of her fingers sifting through his hair wove a cocoon of well-being around him. When she moved to stand in front of him, he curved his hands around the backs of her thighs and held her there, between his knees, while she blew his hair back from his forehead. A minute later, she flicked the dryer off but continued to run her fingers through the mostly dry strands. Her short nails gently raked his scalp.

“Hmm. That feels good.” Moving his hand from her thigh to her hip, he patted her there, then held on. “How are you holding up?”

“Fine.” She said it insistently, almost defiantly, then stilled and released a breath. He inhaled a waft of mint toothpaste or mouthwash. “Sitting for too long, even with the cushion you got me, is a problem. Standing is easier.”

With hands on her hips, he moved her back half a foot and got up. “Can you sit for a couple minutes, right now?” As he asked, he took the hair dryer from her.

She gave him a dubious look. “You’re going to dry my hair?”

“I think I can do at least as good a job with it as you do. If not, what does it matter? You’re just going to sleep, right?”

“I guess.” She waited while he got a pillow from her bed to put on the chair, then sat and finger-combed her hair away from her face. “Knock yourself out.”

He aimed to knock her out. Get her warm and unguarded and then pour her into bed and send her off to sleep in the comfort of his arms. Playing with her hair had always been a reliable way to relax her. Hopefully time hadn’t changed that. He flipped the dryer on and got to work, moving the heat slowly and steadily around her head while brushing through the silky strands. He kept at it longer than necessary, running his fingers along her temple, the shell of her ear, the back of her neck. Her chin dipped toward her chest. Her shoulders slumped. He turned off the dryer.

“Bridget?”

“Hmm?” Slowly, she raised her head.

“Ready for bed?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, then yawned. “I know it’s early, but I so am.”

“It’s understandable. You’re recovering. You need rest.” Moving in front of her, he put the dryer on her desk and then helped her to her feet and took the pillow back to the bed. The Snuggle Buddy occupied a prime position there on the mattress, exactly where he planned to be.

He looked to the other side of the bed to find her dragging the sweater over her head. His pulse spiked before he realized she wore a camisole beneath. “How’s the body pillow working out for you?”

She flipped the covers back, crawled into the bed, and curled herself around it. “It’s helpful.”

“It’s all about spine alignment. Maybe I could show you?”

“It’s a pillow, Archer, not a nuclear sub. I think I’ve got the hang of it.”

“Someone recently told me sarcasm is the most basic form of humor.” After moving her arm and leg from over the pillow, he tugged the thing higher so she could rest her cheek on it, then drew her arm over the middle. “Better or worse?”

She lay still for a moment, as if assessing difference, then moved her head slightly forward and sandwiched her hand between the pillow and the mattress. “Better,” she admitted.

“Okay.” He eased her leg over the pillow, knee bent, ankle in line with her hip. “Better or worse?”

“Better.”

“Good.” He turned the bedside lamp off, walked around the darkened room to the other side of the bed, stripped off his sweater, and got in.

“Hey…”

“No, be still. Relax.” Easing up behind her, he wrapped his arm over hers and slung his leg next to hers. “I’m just optimizing.” He backstopped her hips with his, snugged them in tight. Pitching his voice low, he asked, “Better or worse?”

She held herself stiff for several heartbeats, but eventually he felt each notch in her spine sag against him. “Better.” She exhaled the word like a sigh.

“Best,” he corrected.

“You can’t stay.”

His heart sank, but he pushed the disappointment aside. “I’ll leave once you’re asleep, just like last time.”

She nodded through a yawn and patted the forearm he’d draped over hers. “This is my family’s house. I don’t do sleepovers here. Nothing personal.”

Knowing that fact helped. “Just out of curiosity, where do you do sleepovers?”

Her tired laugh tickled the hairs on his arm. “I don’t do sleepovers.”

What did it say about him that her disclosure made him so happy? “Never?”

“Not since…not in a long time. I prefer to sleep alone.”

“Hmm. Except lately, with me.” It seemed fair to point that out.

“I’m still sleeping alone. You’re just providing a little help getting me there. It’s strictly, uh—what do you call it? Medicinal.”

If that’s what she needed to tell herself to feel like she wasn’t getting in too deep, fine. He, personally, planned to continue exploiting whatever opening she gave. He snaked his other arm under her until he could palm her breast.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking your heart rate.” Her nipple rose to a tight peak beneath thin cotton. He rubbed it. “Strictly medicinal. Go to sleep.”

Incredibly, she did. With him stroking her breast and cradling her body against his, she drifted off in minutes. He remained awake and semi-hard, listening to her breathing, staring at the silvery light washing the wall. At least he thought he did, but then he heard her say something, and realized he’d fallen asleep, and was now alone in the bed. Surprised and inexplicably alarmed, he shot upright and saw her standing by the deck door—the open deck door—talking in low, incoherent words.

He got up and carefully approached her. In the dim light, he could see her eyes were open and staring out at the night. As he watched, a tear rolled down her already damp cheek. “Wait.” With that word, she let go of the door and took a step forward, as if to go out onto the deck.

“Bridget.” He wrapped his hand around her arm. Her skin felt like ice. “Baby, who are you talking to?”

“Shay.” She didn’t look at him, and he realized she wasn’t responding to him. She was asleep. Sleepwalking. From downstairs, Key howled. A shiver skated down his spine. “Tell him you can’t talk to him out there. It’s not safe.”

“Shay?” Her brother’s name came out on a whispered sob this time.

Something in his chest clenched painfully tight. He tugged her arm. “Come back to bed.”

She turned to him, tears streaming, eyes dark and unseeing. “Gone.”

“I know, baby. I know he’s gone. I’m sorry.” Moving slowly so as not to wake her, he led her back to bed, helped her in, bundled her under the blankets, and then sat there for a long time, making sure she stayed put. Finally, he kissed one tear-stained cheek, eased off the bed, and crossed to secure the lock on the door to the deck.

Another howl rose from downstairs, and to his over-tired ears, it sounded as if Key wailed a name. It sounded like he cried, “Shay.”