Chapter Seventeen

Weather in the Pacific Northwest could be a downright tricky bitch, Archer acknowledged as he let himself into a generic white hotel room by the Anchorage airport. Any conversations with Bridget about blow jobs or similarly entertaining topics ended up deferred on account of an offshore atmospheric river that had moved in and turned the promising sunny morning to wet, windy shit by late afternoon. Instead of making his second return trip of the day from Anchorage, he was grounded for the night. Bridget was well aware and already moving schedules around to accommodate the delay, but as the clock ticked toward quitting time, he dug out his phone and placed a FaceTime call to her. A discussion about exactly what he read into the fact that they’d resumed a physical relationship would wait until they could continue it in person, but he had another matter to discuss with her that couldn’t.

“Hey,” she answered briskly from her laptop, her attention focused on another part of her screen. “What am I supposed to feed this cat?”

Oh, yeah. That, too. “She ate everything I put in her bowl this morning?”

“Yes. She eats like a horse.” Apparently finished with whatever else she’d been working on, she switched her attention to him and dragged a hand through her hair. “I have dog food at home, but that’s all, and sharing it with her is a surefire way to send Key into a temper tantrum. Plus, I doubt it’s any good for her. I was tied up here dealing with the schedule—Mad’s stuck overnight, too—and not paying attention to much else.” She squinted at the top of her screen and frowned. “I missed my window to hit Watkins’s tonight and buy kitten chow.”

“It’s okay. I have food for her at home. Can I trouble you to stop by my place and get it?”

“Sure, but I don’t have a key.” Her lips quirked. “Which window are you least fond of?”

“Sorry to deprive you of an opportunity to vandalize my property, but I can code you in from my phone. Just call me when you get there.”

“All right. Give me twenty minutes.”

He looked around his bland hotel room. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sucks to be you.”

“At the moment, I have to agree.”

“Oh, and Archer?”

“Yes?”

One black brow arched. “I can still vandalize your property.” With that, the screen went dark.

Her parting shot put a smile on his face, because that’s the kind of masochist he was when it came to her. The amusement lingered while he lay on the bed, sipped a beer, and watched ESPN with the sound off. This wasn’t precisely the way he’d hoped to do it, but he was about to accomplish another step in his win-Bridget-back plan. Namely, get her to his house. Obviously, he’d hoped to be there when it happened, but this could be interesting, too.

In under the requested twenty minutes, his phone screen lit up with her number. “You made it?”

“I’m standing at your front door.”

“Awesome. One sec.” He keyed in the code, and the green unlocked padlock icon lit his screen. “You’re in.”

“I’m in,” she confirmed.

On impulse, he tapped an icon that brought up the home’s security cameras. After a moment of silence during which he watched her walk through the open, lofty entry with sightlines throughout the lower level, she said, “Jesus. Are you sure this is enough space for you?”

“Like it?” The architecture of the house leaned toward clean and modern, and the interior reflected it, but the design team had included natural elements to warm things up—wide-planked walnut treads for the broad iron staircase, stacked stone for the main fireplace, lots of glass to show off the views of the cove from the back of the house and the woods in front. Comfortable upholstered pieces in shades of tan, blue, and green mirrored the colors outdoors. But even with all the basic comforts of home seen to, there was enough of a blank slate to allow her to put her mark on the place.

“What’s not to like?” She moved through the entry and into the living room. And stopped. “Holy crap. Are those…what I think they are?”

She stood in front of the broadest of the living room walls, where a series of framed black-and-white shots of clouds and ocean extended across the expanse of white like a long, photographic tapestry. “Yeah. You took those shots with my camera the first time we flew together. Remember?”

“Half Moon Bay,” she said, stepping closer. “Such a clear, cloudless day. I couldn’t get over the visibility from that little Cessna. Views forever.”

“Not a bad way to fill a wall, huh?”

“As if you don’t have enough good views already.” But she didn’t turn to look at the views. She continued to stare at the photos.

“Well, it’s not just about the scenery. I’m fond of the memory. It was a really good day.”

“It was,” she agreed quietly. She slipped one hand into the front pocket of her baggy jeans.

“A day of firsts.” Their first time in the air together. She’d piloted that afternoon—he hadn’t known an altimeter from an airspeed indicator—and introduced him to the excitement of flying a small aircraft. Then, later that evening at his apartment, high on the day and each other, they’d shared another first. Their first time together. Her first time, period. He’d taken control for their second adventure of the day and introduced her to something more thrilling than sailing through the sky at five thousand feet on a clear, sunny afternoon. Even now, years later, he remembered the weighty responsibility. He’d wanted her first time to be special. Perfect. Epic. He needn’t have worried. Bridget was epic by nature. She’d brought the same fearless enthusiasm to sex as she brought to flying, or climbing a twelve-foot totem pole, or pretty much anything.

She cleared her throat, stepped away, and turned her back to the photos. “I have Key and your Satan-spawn of a kitten at my house, so if you could tell me where the food is, I’ll be on my way.”

“You just want to get off the phone so you can snoop through my house without me knowing.”

“Sorry, I’m not interested in checking out your medicine cabinet, your liquor cabinet, or your porn collection. Just the cat chow, please.” Despite the impatience in her voice, she wandered over to the window wall and stared out at the cove.

“You’re welcome to anything in my medicine cabinet or my liquor cabinet. My porn collection is stored entirely in my mind, but I’m happy to share it with you anytime you like. Seems only fair since you’re featured so prominently.”

The statement got a laugh out of her. Her shoulders relaxed. She meandered around the room. “That’s just sad. If you’re going to indulge in a sex fantasy, go for the motherlode.”

“What’s the motherlode?” He realized why she’d laughed. Relief. The conversation had shifted from a subject that scared her—their past and all the feelings it provoked—to a subject that didn’t worry her. Sex.

“I don’t know.” She shucked off her jacket and draped it on the back of a chair on her way to the base of the staircase. From there, she looked up and curved a hand around the bannister. “A threesome with Margot Robbie, Kate Upton, and Sophie Turner? By the way, I’m taking the grand tour.” As she said so, she started up the stairs.

“Mi casa es su casa. All blondes? Hmm. What would Margot, Kate, and Sophie do to you?”

“To me? Nothing. I wouldn’t be part of the fantasy. That’s precisely my point. Man, you’re bad at this.”

The stairway was a dark zone. She had to go into an upstairs room before he’d have eyes on her again. “Hey, you put the scenario out there, not me. Though I have to admit it has merit. Maybe a little busier than my usual, but you’d really stand out against a canvas of blondes.” He turned off the TV, propped his phone on his chest, and settled back to get comfortable. “Who kisses you first, and where?”

“You dirty perv.” She peeked into the first upstairs bedroom but quickly moved on. “Who said I’m participating in your prurient, misogynistic sex fantasies?”

“So again, I’m compelled to point out it’s not my scenario. This is your prurient, misogynistic sex fantasy. But since you obviously want to sit back and enjoy it rather than do any of the work, I’ll take it from here. Margot kisses you first. She comes up behind you and lets her lips linger along the back of your neck while she reaches around and slowly unbuttons your shirt. Kate’s around front, undoing your jeans, and Sophie’s off drawing you a bubble bath.” Just as he finished talking, Bridget stepped into his bedroom. She ran a hand over the nape of her neck as she crossed to stop at the foot of his big, sturdy paneled bed.

“This seems like a very one-sided fantasy. Where are you, while Margot, Kate, Sophie, and Mr. Bubble are preparing to get me hot and wet?”

“I’m right there in that bed in front of you.”

Immediately, she looked up, swiveled her head, and found the security camera mounted in a corner behind her. “Are you watching me?”

“Uh-huh.”

She turned to face the camera. To face him. “God, you really are a dirty perv.”

“Not yet. I’d need some cooperation from you to get me there.”

Her brows lifted. “Me and the girls?”

“Just you, actually. The blondes refused to share, and so do I. Take off your clothes and get on the bed.”

She turned and looked at the bed, considering. Not hesitation, exactly—at least he didn’t think so—more a contemplation of the logistics and the possibilities. Just to push her in the right direction, he added, “Come on. What’s worrying you about this?”

She shot him a long-distance glare, then turned back to the bed. “Nothing. I’m just not sure this is going to do anything for either of us.” She approached what he considered his side of the bed and switched the bedside light on. Then she sat, smoothed a hand over the dusky green velvet comforter he’d chosen precisely because she liked tactile fabrics. “I mean, you can see me, but I can’t see you. How is that fair?”

“Fair’s not really the issue. It’s science.” Yes, he was pulling this of his ass, but he really didn’t want to forfeit the camera. “Men are unimaginative creatures. We need visual stimuli. Women are more cerebral when it comes to seduction.”

She leaned back on his bed, folded an arm behind her, and shook her head. “That is, scientifically speaking, a large load of crap.”

Shit. “Does it need to be fair? I want to watch you while we do this. I’m two hundred miles away. You have total control of what I see, but if it’s too intimidating for you, then…” There. That ought to trigger her.

She sat up, stared at the camera while she shucked her work boots. Once they thumped to the floor, she straightened, put her phone on speaker, and placed it in the center of the bed. Very deliberately, she toyed with a shirt button. “I’m not easily intimidated.” With that assertion hanging in the air, she briskly unbuttoned her light blue flannel shirt and shrugged it down her arms. Beneath, she wore a white tank top.

“Lose the top, next.”

Running on full bravado, she whisked it over her head and tossed it to the floor, then reclined against his pillows in her skimpy white bra and jeans. “Does a striptease actually do it for you?”

“I’m not missing Margot, Kate, and Sophie, if that’s what you’re asking. You do it for me. The striptease is a nice touch, but again, if at any point it’s too intim…uh, uncomfortable for you, feel free to pump the brakes.” Yeah, he was playing her like a six-string, but at this stage she knew it. She’d either let herself be played because she liked the tune or she’d tell him to take what she offered and get on with it.

Running a hand down her body with a game-show hostess flourish, she asked, “What would you like me to remove next?” She wanted to play.

Anything. Everything. Just be naked in my bed. “This is a tough decision, but let’s go with the jeans.”

Teasing him a little, she lowered the zipper slowly, then slid the denim down her legs and off with the same unhurried movements. Finally, she leaned back against the pillows again, a long, lithe vision in tiny, unadorned underwear. “Your turn.”

“Me?” He looked down at himself—white T-shirt, jeans he’d already yanked open because the button fly had been torturing his hard-on.

“Yeah, you. What are you wearing?”

“Seriously. What am I wearing? And I’m the one who’s bad at this?”

She flipped him the bird. “I can’t see you.” Snuggling back on the bed, she closed her eyes and smiled. “Come on, Archie, paint me a picture.”

“Who’s Archie? Ask properly if you want something from me.”

He really didn’t know what she’d do with that, but he was through allowing her to needle him. Predictably, her smile faded, but instead of firing back with something sarcastic, she continued to lie there with her eyes closed and slid one hand into her bra and the other into her thong. “Paint me a picture, Archer.”

That was more like it. “I’m taking off my T-shirt.” He put the phone on the night-table long enough to do that, then returned it to his chest. She hadn’t moved, but the fingers inside her bra were doing a leisurely little dance. His skin tightened in response. A pulse in his balls pounded with unmet demands. He needed to see more of that. “Take off your bra.”

She lifted her long eyelids and aimed a slumberous gaze at the camera. “Would that do something for you, seeing me touch myself?”

God, yes. “Let’s find out.”

She sat up, covered her breasts with her forearm, reached around and unclasped herself one-handed, and lazily tugged the white cotton down her arms and onto the green comforter, where it lay like a flag of surrender on the field of battle.

His breath backed up in his lungs at the sight of her, nearly naked, in his bed, and then backed up some more when she got onto her knees, crawled closer to the foot of the bed, and sat back on her heels, facing him. Getting pressure off her injury probably accounted for the change, but all that slow-motion sway and bounce of her tits as she got into position mesmerized him.

She knew it, too. He figured that much out when she ran her hands up her sides, over her breasts, then let her head fall back, arched her spine, and reached her arms up to stretch like a cat. The evil smile she wore when she tipped her face to the camera again said it all. “What next?”

It took two swallows to find his voice. “I want you to touch yourself the way I tell you to—the way I would touch you if I was there to do it.”

The sly smile remained. “Sure you don’t want me to freestyle for a bit?” She demonstrated with some slow sweeps of her palms over her flesh and some truly hypnotic hip swaying. “Doesn’t it get boring, being in charge all the time?”

Asked the little control freak. He felt his lips lift in an answering grin. “I don’t know. Does it?” But ultimately, his answer was no. He didn’t want her performing for him, putting on a show that did nothing much for her but got him off. He aimed for something mutual. Getting him off wasn’t the difficult part. Getting her off might be, what with her out of his reach and well aware he watched her every move. He needed to establish a scenario that prompted her to do things she might not do if left to her own devices. “Try it my way, first. If it doesn’t work for you, we’ll do it your way.”

“You never give up, do you?”

She meant the little wrestle for control they were having right now, but he replied with bone-deep conviction. “No, Bridget. I never do. Never will, where you’re concerned.” Before she could analyze that too much, he went on, “If I was there, I’d come up behind you, put my hands at your waist, and run them slowly over your stomach…go ahead, do this.” He waited while she matched her movements to his words, then gave into his own body’s demands, reached into his open fly, and wrapped a fist around his cock. “I’d be torn on where to go from there, I’d be tempted to divide and conquer, but I’m not in a rush, so I’d take my hands up your body to give those gorgeous tits my full attention—stroke the soft undersides, feather my fingers over your nipples.” He watched, rapt, while she did as he described, a little more frustrated than he’d expected to be that the only thing his hands could actually touch were his own insatiable, all-too-familiar parts. “Then I’d cup them, take the full weight in my palms—yeah, just like that—I love having my hands filled with you. I’d lift and squeeze just enough to make you gasp.”

Stilling, momentarily incapable of concentrating on anything else, he watched her rise up onto her knees and do as he asked. “Higher. Lift them higher, squeeze a little tighter. Make me feel it.”

“God,” she panted. “I don’t know if I can do it like you do. You’ve got the knack. I don’t usually…handle myself like this.”

“I’m telling you how. Higher. Tighter. Right to the edge.”

Moments later, her eyelids fluttered. Her breaths grew choppy. He felt a triumphant certainty she’d given herself over to the fantasy. In her mind, those were his hands on her perfect breasts, eliciting sensations she couldn’t hide. “Your nipples,” he growled. “Rake your thumbs over them until you feel the tug of it all the way through you—to the tips of your toes.” While she complied, he did some lifting, squeezing, and tugging of his own, rougher and harder than anything he’d ever do to her.

“Do you feel it, Bridge?” The question came out hoarse through his dry throat.

“Yesss.” Her reply was a breathy sigh.

“Where?”

“Everywhere…”

“Where most?” His hand worked furiously where he felt things most.

“My pussy. My clit.”

He closed his eyes and dragged in a breath, reached for a modicum of calm before his own needs raged out of control. “I’m going there now. One hand stays at your breasts, because they love the attention, and the other’s going down the center, down cool, smooth skin, and into your thong.” He watched, mesmerized, as she executed the command, stared so long as her fingers dipped into her underwear that his vision blurred, and he had to blink. “What do you feel?”

“Hot. Wet.”

Her fingers were already busy. So busy. He needed to see that. Needed to see it all. “Your underwear is in my way.”

She shoved it lower, baring herself to his hungry gaze, and then resumed stroking, putting her hips into it and grinding against her own palm. “Jesus, you’re so wet. So ready. Aren’t you, baby?”

“Very…”

“Part your legs a little wider. I’m right behind you.” The grip he had on his cock was downright punishing, but he couldn’t let up. “I’m going to slide inside you now.”

She kept stroking but stopped grinding. “I don’t want…”

…him inside her. So that was an actual issue, not just a side effect of her injury. “Guide me in, Bridget. Feel me inside you, filling you, giving you everything you need to come. It’s okay. You’re still in control.”

“Fuck…” She lunged forward, gripped the footboard with one hand, and sent the other deeper between her thighs. Her entire body arched forward in a way that told him she’d just used her fingers to achieve the fantasy.

“Feel me?”

“Uh-huh.” Head back, neck and breasts presented to the camera, arm flexed to the trembling point, she rocked her hips in an urgent rhythm.

“Use me. However you need it—hard, deep, slow, steady. I’m giving you everything. Anything. Come for me, Bridget. On your knees, in my bed, with my cock inside you.”

There it went, the end of his control. His balls drew up in warning, his dick throbbed in his fist. His orgasm sped through him like an F-15 racing down the runway, and there was nothing he could do to slow it down. Forcing his eyes open, he watched her arch closer, watched her body tighten, tighten, tighten until she gasped, “Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh Jeezuuus…” and then she succumbed to an all-over shudder.

He succumbed, too, groaning her name as every pent-up need inside him thundered out in a rush that left him breathless.