CHAPTER TEN
KELSEY
“HEY.” DEAN WAS WEARING TRACK PANTS and a running jacket, his hands shoved into the pockets. He glanced at my clothes. “I thought you were going running with me this morning.”
“Oh.” I could hardly form a thought, let alone a sentence. “Sorry, I… uh, I guess I forgot.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’m early. I’ll wait for you to change.”
“No, I don’t think I—”
Dean’s gaze shifted past me. Warily, I turned. Archer still stood in the kitchen doorway, except now he was facing us.
Tension seized the air. My stomach knotted. I looked at Dean. I saw every single assessment clicking together in his brain. Archer was wearing his trousers and shirt from the previous night. He’d clearly just woken up. He was holding a cup of coffee. I was standing there looking like I’d just rolled out of bed…
I held up a hand. “Dean, I can explain.”
“You’re not the one who has to explain,” he said.
Archer frowned, his expression darkening. “I don’t have to explain anything to you, man.”
I stepped closer to the middle of the doorway. “Dean, it’s okay.”
He shifted his gaze from Archer to me. More than anger, I saw the concern in his eyes. And I felt Archer’s defenses locking into place like steel gates.
“I had her home by curfew, big brother,” he said, lowering his head to swallow some coffee. “Next time, you want to give me a monitoring bracelet? I’ve worn one before.”
Dean’s mouth tightened. Hostility sparked between them. It was my worst fear coming to life, and Archer and I hadn’t even done anything. Much.
I put my hand on Dean’s chest and shoved. The push caught him off guard, forcing him back. I stepped onto the porch and slammed the door behind me.
“Don’t,” I said. “We’re not in college anymore. I’m a grown woman. I know what I’m doing.”
I didn’t, actually, at least not where Archer was concerned. But I had to figure it out by myself. Not because Dean was launching into guardian angel mode.
“Archer’s had a lot of trouble, Kelsey,” he warned.
“I know.”
“Doesn’t that matter?” Dean paced to the porch railing, his shoulders tense. “Look, I take plenty of blame for his life getting messed up, but at some point, you have to man up and get your shit together. He never has. I doubt he ever will.”
“Wow. Nice show of brotherly support.”
Dean sighed, pulling a hand through his hair. “He’s had chances. Plenty of them. He mooched money off our mother for years. Never had a steady job, as far as I can tell. He’s here because he wants his inheritance money, but he has to actually work to earn it. He’s never lifted a finger to try.”
“It sounds like he is now, if he’s working on the house with you.”
Dean shook his head. “I know him, Kelsey. I know what he—”
“No,” I interrupted, and suddenly I’d never felt so certain of anything since the second I’d encountered Archer West.
“You don’t know him, Dean. You don’t. What you’ve done is just assume he’s been a fuck-up all these years. When was the last time you had a real conversation with him? When was the last time you gave him a chance?”
“I’m giving him one now.”
“Not if you think he’s incapable of change, you’re not.”
Silence fell. Dean crossed his arms, still frowning. I took a deep breath. The sky was starting to lighten to a pale gray. I backed toward the door.
“You don’t know him, Dean, but you know me. You know I don’t have any illusions or expectations. You know how strong my defenses are. And you know better than anyone how much I hate making mistakes.”
He didn’t respond.
“I’m not going to make one now.” I put my hand on the doorknob. “And I can’t change what you think about your brother. But I know you won’t ruin fifteen years of friendship by not trusting me.”
“It’s not you I don’t trust,” he said. “Just be careful. And you come to me if anything happens, okay?”
“No, I won’t. I’m an adult. I’m not that college girl who was so messed up she couldn’t think straight. I’ve been thinking clearly for years now. Any decision I make is mine. Now go run it off. I’ll call you later.”
I wasn’t at all sure he’d go, but he started down the front steps, his body still tense.
“Hey,” I called.
He turned. For a second, I couldn’t speak. I had to be straight with him. I approached him, mustering up the courage to tell him the truth even though I was having a hard time admitting it to myself.
“I’ve always been attracted to men like him,” I said. “But I learned a long time ago how to protect myself. And I wouldn’t start anything with him if I didn’t know I could handle it.”
Dean shook his head, slanting his gaze to the door again.
“It’s not like you and Liv,” I continued. “There’s no hearts and flowers here. No happy ending.”
“Then why, Kelsey?” Dean spread his hands out in frustration. “What’s the point?”
To feel alive. Exhilarated. To stand in the middle of the storm, breathless, your heart beating hard and your blood streaming hot.
I knew Archer would understand that. I knew we both wanted it.
Dean and I looked at each other for a long minute before he appeared to realize I wasn’t going to answer that question. I couldn’t.
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” he finally said.
“I won’t.” I tapped my chest. “Armor of steel, right?”
A faint resignation appeared in his eyes that made my stomach twist. Dean was never resigned, and I didn’t like that he was with me.
At the same time, I would hold my ground because everything I’d told him was the truth. And I would keep my promise to Archer by not using Dean as an excuse. This was about me, not him.
“You’re my best friend, Dean,” I said, disliking the anxiety constricting my chest. “You and Liv. If anything… I mean, if it would cause problems between us—”
“Kelsey.” Some of the tension eased from his shoulders as he closed his hands around my upper arms. “Archer and I have been estranged for years. I’ve never known how to fix our relationship. But if you think for one second I would ever let him come between you and me, no matter what happens, then I’m telling the university to fire you because you’re a complete bonehead.”
I smiled. The tightness around my heart eased.
“Okay?” Dean said.
“Okay.”
“I’m going to hug you now.”
“Okay.”
He enveloped me in a bear hug, then moved away and pointed to the door. “But you tell him if he hurts you, I’m going medieval on his ass.”
“I don’t think he needs me to tell him that.”
Dean nodded then headed down the street. I went back into the house, my nerves tensing again. Archer no longer stood in the doorway.
I found him sitting at the breakfast nook, coffee mug in hand. He was looking out the window at the garden, but he turned when I entered. I saw his defenses locking into place. Mine were still up.
“How much of that did you hear?” I asked.
“None of it. I want to hear it from you, not him.”
I let out my breath, rubbing my damp palms over my thighs. He eyed me warily. I joined him at the table, sliding into the seat across from him.
“So how is it your brother is Dudley Do-Right and you’re Mad Max?” I asked.
He smiled faintly, but his expression darkened. I sensed it wasn’t so much the question that caused his unease, but the answer.
“Dean never told you?” he asked.
“About what?”
“He and I have different biological fathers.”
“Oh.”
“My mother had an affair.” He sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “She got pregnant with me, but stayed married to Richard West. Dean and Paige’s father. He was up for a seat on the California Supreme Court. They needed her family’s money. Didn’t need a bunch of gossip. My paternity was a big secret. I might never have found out the truth if Dean hadn’t told me.”
“Dean told you?”
He nodded. “When I was nine. He was thirteen. I broke his video game console on purpose. We got into a fight, and he told me our father wasn’t my father.”
I tried to get my brain around that revelation. I couldn’t imagine Dean doing such a thing. “What happened then?”
“Everything got fucked up after that. But we kept the secret. No one knew.”
“Did you ever find out about your biological father?” I asked.
“My mother told me about him when I was nineteen. He was an old high school boyfriend she hooked up with. The affair lasted six months. She never saw him again.”
“Did you ever try and find him?”
“Once, when I was in my early twenties. He worked some office job in Sacramento. I never bothered contacting him. Didn’t see the point. My mother always told me Richard West was the man who raised me, fed me, et cetera, which made him my father. I finally figured out she was right.”
“But you weren’t close to him.”
“No. And when I figured out it was easier to be a troublemaker than to compete with Dean…” He shrugged.
I understood it, the pull toward rebellion. I’d rebelled for a whole host of very different reasons—to armor myself against other kids, to prove my independence from my parents, even sometimes just to clash with my father. And then I’d been hit hard by the realization of how badly such behavior could hurt other people.
I rubbed my finger over a crack in the table. I didn’t want to push this, didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know. But the question mushroomed in the back of my mind like a noxious cloud.
“Are you doing this to fuck with him?” I asked.
Archer lifted his head. “What?”
“Me.” I couldn’t look at him. “You know Dean and I are close. Are you…” shit shit shit “…pushing things with me because you want to get to him? Because you know it’ll piss him off?”
If I’d expected an instant denial, I didn’t get it. Instead Archer looked out the window again, almost as if he was actually wondering how to answer that. My chest constricted.
“I did that with Liv once,” he finally said.
“What?”
“The first time I met her,” he said. “Dean had brought her home for Thanksgiving one year. I knew they were getting serious. I figured out pretty fast I could get to him through her. So I did. I insulted her, and he beat the crap out of me.”
I wasn’t surprised. Not by Archer’s hostility or Dean’s rage. Archer would needle Dean every chance he got. And of course Dean would never let an insult go unpunished, especially one directed at Liv.
“He messed me up pretty bad,” Archer continued. “Broke my nose. But it felt good to light his fuse. To make the perfect Dean West lose his shit. It wasn’t the first time I’d done that.”
Pain and sorrow stabbed through me. I hated knowing that Dean and Archer’s troubles had lasted for so many years, breaking apart two brothers who might have otherwise been friends.
I studied Archer’s face, seeing the slight bump on the bridge of his nose that was apparently evidence of this epic beating. The imperfection only added to his rugged beauty, and I found my gaze sliding down to the wide sensuality of his mouth, the prickle of whiskers darkening his jaw.
“That…” My ridiculously active heart had increased in pace again. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”
“No.” He turned, a sudden and intense light in his eyes. “I’m not using you to get to Dean. Yeah, I’ve done stuff like that before. A lot. But I’m not doing it with you.”
With everything I had, I wanted to believe him. And with everything I knew, I wasn’t at all certain I could.
He knew it, too. I felt his gaze like the most potent of touches.
“Hey.” His voice was soft.
I looked up at him. I wanted to drown in the midnight dark of his eyes.
“I’m not using you.” He made an X over his heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“You’re still leaving in a couple of weeks, right?”
He nodded. “As soon as I’m done working on the house.”
“Okay.” I exhaled a slow breath. “I have rules.”
“I figured you would.”
“I don’t want to get into any more personal stuff.” I held his gaze, keeping my voice steady in spite of my wild, racing heart. “We only do it at my house and only at night. No motels or anything creepy like that. You can stay the night if you want to, but when I leave in the morning, you leave too. No calling me when I’m at work. If you want to reach me, use email. And I’m in charge of the remote.”
For what seemed like a very long time, he didn’t respond. He only looked at me with the morning sunlight sparking in his eyes and his arms folded loosely across his chest. When he finally spoke, his voice was smoke and honey sliding over my skin.
“No.”
I blinked. “No?”
“You don’t make the rules,” he said.
“Of course I make the rules.”
“No.”
“Archer!” I put up my hands in frustration. “I am this close to caving and finally agreeing to sleep with you after a week of you sniffing around me like a dog digging for a bone, and now you’re going to argue with me when I try to establish some boundaries?”
He nodded.
“Well.” I slammed my palms on the table and pushed to my feet. “If that’s the way you’re going to be, then I—”
He was out of his seat in a flash, faster than I could even take my next breath, and then he was pressing me up against the counter, all heat and dark eyes and that insane, potent masculinity that ran through his veins. He cupped my hips in his hands, his breath warm against my forehead, and then he pushed our lower bodies together.
Oh, god. He was already hard. So hard. A thick, heavy ridge against my belly. I struggled for air, reaching behind me to grip the counter.
“You don’t make the rules, storm girl,” he repeated, lowering his head to trail his lips against my neck. “You don’t do anything but what I tell you to.”
My heart crashed against my ribs. “Um… what?”
“We’re doing this my way,” he said, shifting so that his cock rubbed against me. He nipped at my collarbone, his husky voice muffled, his whiskers scraping deliciously against my skin. “You’re not allowed to tell me what to do. You don’t say where it happens or when it happens. You don’t even get to decide what happens. There’s only one thing you get to do.”
“What… what is that?” I could barely form the words past the heat filling my chest.
“Surrender.” He moved his lips up my cheek before capturing my mouth with his.
Lightning streaked through my blood. A moan escaped me as his warm, delicious lips moved against mine, his hands curving around to my ass. I couldn’t have resisted if I’d tried. I just melted, sliding my arms around his waist and falling into the kiss as if it were a place I’d already been and had deeply missed. My veins surged with desire, heat sparking as our mouths moved together with increasing urgency.
This… this was what I’d wanted since the moment I first saw him, the full press of his solid, muscular body against mine, the warmth of him engulfing me, the increasing pressure of his kiss as he parted my lips with his and drove his tongue in deep.
My heart hammered. I couldn’t remember ever being kissed like this, with such all-consuming fervor, like he wanted to possess me. I closed my lips around his tongue and sucked. He groaned, tightening his hands on my ass. My tight nipples rubbed against his chest, and pure, white-hot desire flooded me to the core.
“Oh, god.” I pulled my mouth from his with a groan. “All right, all right. I give in.”
“Don’t give in,” he murmured, brushing his mouth against my lower lip. “Give over.”
He lifted his head, his eyes smoky as he cupped my breast in his hand and pinched my nipple. An electric current rippled through me. I stared at him, flushed and so hot my entire body throbbed.
“You ready?” he whispered.
I couldn’t speak. I could only nod. He grasped my hips and lifted me onto the counter, pushing my legs apart and moving between them. He eased his hand beneath the hem of my stretchy shirt.
The second his callused fingers made contact with my bare torso, I shuddered in response. I could hear my heartbeat pounding, could feel the rush of blood pooling in my lower body.
I didn’t know what would happen next, if he’d slide his hand upward or… he went down, his fingers dipping below the waistband of my yoga pants. He smiled slightly, holding my gaze as he traced the lacy edge of my panties.
“You always wear sexy underwear?” he asked.
Jesus, his tickling touch was killing me. I squirmed, hooking my legs around his thighs and looking hungrily at the bulge in his trousers. “Most… most of the time.”
He traced a line from my belly button down between my legs, where the satin of my panties was already wet. I flushed, a little embarrassed by my easy arousal, but Archer’s quick intake of breath indicated his appreciation. He slid his finger down the crevice of my sex, once, twice, a slow easy rhythm that had me arching my hips toward him.
Tension coiled through me. I gripped the front of his shirt, wanting to unbutton it and finally, finally, touch his gorgeous chest, but I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but hold on and let him take me places I’d never been.
He slipped his finger under the edge of my panties, and then he was touching me with no barrier. I moaned, pressing my hot forehead against his chest, writhing to try and tell him I wanted his touch harder, faster. He dipped his head to the side of my neck again, capturing my earlobe between his lips.
“How often do you touch yourself?” he whispered.
I blushed. Blushed! Me, the hard-assed professor who took no prisoners. Archer West had reduced me to a quivering mass of arousal and blushing, and I’d fallen headfirst into the storm. I closed my eyes and pulled in a breath.
“How often?” he prodded, stroking his finger up to my throbbing clit.
“Often,” I whispered.
“Every night?” He kissed the pulse pounding at the side of my neck.
“Yes.”
“Do you use vibrators or your hand? Or both?”
My flush deepened, but the husky note of command in his voice indicated that not answering was not an option. He caressed me with slow strokes that made my nerves sizzle and ratcheted my urgency higher with every sweep.
“Usually just my hand,” I murmured. Sweat broke out on my forehead. I breathed in the scent of him, clutched his wrinkled shirt in my fists.
“Yeah? Why?” He slid his finger back down to the opening of my body.
“It’s… um, more efficient.”
I felt his smile against my neck. “Do you finger-fuck yourself or rub your clit?”
Heat poured over me. “God, Archer.”
“Both?” He started to press his finger into me.
“Both.”
“One day you’re going to show me.” He slipped his finger in farther, and I clenched around him involuntarily. He exhaled hard, his breath a hot puff against my shoulder, his voice hoarse with restraint.
“Damn, you’re tight,” he whispered. “I can’t wait to sink my cock into you. Watch you take me in deep. So fucking deep.”
I couldn’t breathe. My head was spinning. My whole body quivered.
Then Archer flicked his thumb against my clit, and I came so fast, so hard, that a scream lodged in my throat. Vibrations quaked through me, my blood rushed hot, and my world distilled to the heat firing inside me, the slow massage of Archer’s fingers, the rumble of his voice against my ear.
I drew in a gulp of air, my forehead still pressed to his chest. Another series of shudders filled me. I squeezed my thighs around his hand. The sound of our breathing rasped in the air.
When we separated, I was overcome by yet another foreign sensation of shyness. I couldn’t look at him as I adjusted my clothes and scrambled off the counter. Then I realized that I hadn’t returned the favor.
“Uh…” I pushed my hair away from my forehead, trying to regain my composure. “I’m sorry, I didn’t… you’re still…”
“Hard as a rock?” he supplied.
I smiled faintly, my tension easing. “Yes. I don’t want to leave you like that again.”
“Yeah, well.” He put his warm hand beneath my chin, lifting my face to his. “We’re not going any further until I give you the test results proving I’m clean. I don’t want there to be a single doubt in your mind. And I know a scientist like you needs proof.”
“But I—”
“It’ll be your turn soon enough.” He pressed his lips to mine. “I guarantee it.”
My heart kicked into gear all over again at the thought of what, exactly, my turn would consist of.
The pressure of his mouth increased again, and for a moment our tongues danced and swirled in another heady rhythm. Then Archer lifted his head, stroking one hand down the side of my face before he backed toward the door.
“I’m going to go,” he said. “For now.”
I nodded. I didn’t want him to go, but lord in heaven, did I need some time to myself. And he’d only be gone for now. I wondered what that meant.
And I realized, not without some consternation, that I hadn’t objected to his dictate about the rules.
“About those rules…” I said, trying to get some starch back into my spine. “We’re going to have to talk about that.”
He shook his head slowly. “Deal’s done, storm girl. You already surrendered.”
“I did not.”
“No?” He smiled, slow and easy, his eyes darkening. “Then I’ll have to prove it to you again next time.”
Next time. I was already throbbing with anticipation at the idea of next time.
“When is next time?” I whispered.
“When I say so.”
He disappeared into the foyer. I went to the kitchen doorway and watched as he opened the front door. Before he stepped outside, he turned back to look at me.
“I do have one rule,” he said.
“Just one?”
“Just one.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He shot me a very wicked smile. “Your body belongs to me.”