by Jill Shalvis
own.
Mollie smiled at her from behind the reception counter. “Hey, you. Great dress and pretty little crop sweater to go with. But aren’t you cold?”
Elle looked down at her sleeveless baby blue wrap dress and the lacy sweater that wasn’t really a sweater so much as something that was too pretty to leave hanging in her closet. “Freezing, actually,” she admitted, “but I bought some summer stuff on sale and this one didn’t feel like waiting for a season change.”
Mollie laughed. “What’s a little discomfort to looking good, right?”
Exactly Elle’s thinking.
“So what’s up?” Morgan asked. “What can I do for you?”
“I just need a moment with your boss to strangle him—er, talk to him.”
“Oh, do go for the first,” Mollie said. “I could really use the rest of the day off.”
Elle smiled grimly and headed back. Archer’s office door was closed but she didn’t let that stop her. He was in the middle of a meeting with Joe, Max, and Trev, the four of them bent over a set of plans. Carl was sprawled across the middle of the floor, taking up nearly all of it, snoring. The big Doberman lifted his head, eyeballed her, and leapt to his feet, eyes hopeful and on the lookout for a treat.
Elle patted him on the head. Archer had been listening to something Joe had been saying but his eyes cut to hers and held, making her heart kick hard as the previous Friday night came flooding back to her, the sexy erotic memories doing a number on her temper.
The message in Archer’s eyes said he might be thinking about that night too, which didn’t help.
“Clear the room,” he said.
“Aw, man,” Max said. “Just when it’s going to get good.”
Trev smacked him upside the back of his head.
Joe rolled up the plans on the desk, and as he turned to follow Trev out, he smiled at Elle. “Who ate your bowl of sunshine this morning, thundercloud?”
“Bite me, Joe.”
He winked at her. “I would but boss man would object.”
“Out,” Archer repeated in a voice that had Joe hopping to attention.
Max snapped his fingers at Carl, who’d gone back to snoring on the floor. The dog stretched, farted, and then, his work clearly done, trotted happily to the door.
“Sorry,” Max said, waving the air. “He ate Mollie’s Egg McMuffin and it didn’t agree with him.”
“No shit.” Joe coughed and choked. “Literally.”
Elle wrinkled her nose. “Is he a dog or an elephant?”
Max just grinned and walked out.
This left Archer and Elle alone, which wasn’t going to be good for his health, a fact he seemed blithely unconcerned with. In fact as she moved toward him, he came around his desk and then leaned back on it, legs casually crossed, body language deceptively relaxed and calm.
The leopard at rest.
He wore faded jeans that fit him in all the right places and a soft-looking black T-shirt that stretched across his chest like it was made for him. He stood close enough now that she felt that intangible thing happening again, the old and undeniable pull of his personal force field. It was a combination of the intensity of his personality, the power of his will, and the focus of his attention. And it all added up, binding her by her own attraction to him. She took a step back to try to break the spell before she threw her arms around his neck and it wouldn’t be to strangle him.
“I’m putting a temporary hold on the ‘stay away from me’ thing,” she said, “just for a minute while I yell at you, and then we’re definitely going right back to it.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, eyes glittering with an emotion she couldn’t place. Determination maybe, which gave her pause because that made no sense.
“You saw Morgan?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation, which took some of the wind out of her sails.
“So you admit it.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
“You’ve omitted and avoided,” she said. “Sure thing.”
His expression said they disagreed there. “She came to me for help,” he said. “And she went to you first, so you can’t be surprised she’s here.”
“But I am surprised. I’m surprised that you would help the one person who destroyed both of our lives.”
He stilled, eyes on her. Then he pushed away from his desk and shifted past her to shut and lock his door before turning to face her. “We need to talk.”
She crossed her arms and hugged herself. A revealing stance, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself. “I told you, there’s nothing to talk about.”
“I think there is.”
“The thing that happened between us didn’t happen,” she said.
“I beg to differ but we’ll circle back to that,” he said. “Morgan didn’t destroy my life, Elle.”
“Fine. Then I did.”
“No,” he said.
“You were a rookie cop, fast-tracked by your captain dad on an undercover sting that should’ve defined your career and set it into motion. I was a stupid teenager on my own fast track—to nowhere. I not only jeopardized the whole operation, I got you fired.”
He stared at her for a very long beat. “I didn’t get fired,” he finally said. “I quit.”
This was so off the rails from what she’d expected from him that she could only gape. “What?”
“You’re right, I was a rookie,” he said. “That night was my first experience on a joint task force. I shouldn’t have even been there in the first place but my dad pulled some strings and cut through all the red tape. He was . . . intent on my career.”
This, she knew. His dad was a lifelong cop. He’d lived and breathed the life, and he’d wanted the same for his son.
“Everything was carefully choreographed that night,” he said, “with no room for error, no room for the unknown. I had explicit directions, I was to observe and stay the fuck out of the way even though everyone was so certain, from the top to the bottom, that it would go smooth, textbook.”
“Except I showed up,” Elle said quietly, remembering the terror of it all, knowing she’d been in so over her head.
“Yeah, there you were, right in the middle of it, young, scared . . . out of your league. I knew you’d get pulled in along with everyone else on that takedown. What I didn’t know was if anyone would care that you were innocent or if they’d consider you collateral damage.” He looked right at her, into her, and she knew he was seeing her as she’d been that night—in a ragged tank top and shorts, hands and knees bleeding from a fall she’d taken, a bruise blooming on her face where Lars had hit her.
She still hated that Archer had seen her like that, hated it to her very core. She’d worked so hard to become the person she was right now, the person who had her shit together, who would always have her shit together.
But the depressing thing was, no matter how far she ran from her past, no matter how much she changed, grew up, matured . . . Archer would always think of her as that girl, a secret humiliation she could hardly bear. “Go back to the part where you weren’t fired.”
“I disobeyed orders,” he said. “I broke protocol and rules. I didn’t respect my dad’s authority.”
“Right,” she said. “Because of me.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I’d have done it for anyone I thought innocent in that situation. And I should’ve been fired. Everyone knew it, but everyone also knew my dad wouldn’t do it. Instead, he suspended me.”
“You were only suspended?”
“Yes. But I couldn’t go back to the job.”
She stared at him. “So you quit?”
“Yes and you need to know that it was the best thing I ever did. So if you’re harboring some secret guilt, let it go. It’s unfounded.”
If Elle knew one thing about Archer, it was that he did what he thought was right, not what was easy. He’d saved her life and maybe he hadn’t been fired because of it, but regardless of what he said, she w
as still responsible for the change in course his life had taken.
She’d cost him so much.
She couldn’t bear to cost him another thing and yet Morgan was back. Which meant it was only a matter of time now before they ruined his life again. “You can’t trust her, Archer,” she said. “I don’t understand why you would.”
“I don’t trust her,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to know what she’s up to.”
“Fine. It’s your life, but—”
“But you’re still going to tell me what to do?” he asked, a small smile on his lips.
She went into defense mode at his amused tone. “Well, I’m sure as hell not going to be quiet about it.”
“Duly noted,” he said dryly. “And for the record? I never want you to be quiet, Elle.”
She felt her face get warm. They both knew he’d inspired all sorts of noises from her that night, both while clothed and unclothed. “I told you, we’re not discussing that. Because it didn’t happen.”
“You know what I think?”
“That I’m right?” she asked with false sweetness.
He snorted. “Elle, you’re always right. It’s your world and we all just live in it.”
At that, it was her turn to snort.
His tone was amused. “I think you get off on yelling at me.”
True story. And although she’d come in here to do just that, they were now somehow smiling at each other, cynically or not, and they were also standing close.
Very close.
She stared at his mouth, remembering how it had brushed against the sensitive skin beneath her ear, whispering dirty promises as he’d driven her to heaven and back.
Twice. Okay, three times, but who was counting?
That mouth smiled. “You want to yell at me some more, don’t you?” he murmured.
Yes. But that wasn’t what troubled her. It was the other urge she had—to take off her clothes and climb him like a tree. “I don’t always give in to what I want,” she said stiffly. “For instance, I wouldn’t mind wrapping my fingers around your neck right now and yet I’m not. Admire my restraint, won’t you?”
His smile widened, the sexy ass, and then he shifted so they were actually touching, chest to chest, toes to toes. “Go for it,” he murmured.
Chapter 14
#CantHaveJustOne
Archer watched, fascinated and mesmerized as always by the energy that shimmered off Elle in waves. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes flashing as she slapped a hand to his chest and opened her mouth, undoubtedly to let him have it, and he couldn’t help himself.
He kissed her.
Maybe it’d been to keep her from letting him have it, but mostly it was to get his tongue in her mouth again because he needed the taste of her more than he needed anything on the planet.
Elle held herself still for all of a single heartbeat and then in typical fashion she dove right in, flinging her arms around him with that soft, sexy little moan that came from deep in her throat.
She undid him, every time. Desperate for her, he held on tight. Her breath fanned his face, her lips just grazing his as she pulled back to look at him, her mouth wet.
He stared right back, unable to move, hell, unable to so much as fucking breathe until he had her again. To that end, he slid his hands over her body, knowing now how to make her gasp and writhe against him with that sexy little needy whimper. He had his hands gliding up the back of her thighs when she stopped him with one word.
“Wait,” she gasped.
He froze. “Wait? Or no?”
She hesitated at that and then dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “Okay, here’s the thing.”
Oh good. There was a thing . . .
“I’m still really mad at you.”
“Understood,” he said, wanting to be agreeable.
“I mean really, really mad,” she said. “But now it’s all sort of mixed up with something else.”
“And that is . . . ?”
“I want you,” she said, stirring him up with nothing more than the words. “But,” she said when he started to talk. “I want you on my terms.”
“I’m listening.” In truth, he didn’t care what the terms were, he’d give her whatever she wanted.
“We do this,” she said, “but only with the understanding that it’s within our temporary hold.”
“The temporary hold of me, and let me quote you here, ‘staying the hell away from you’?”
“Yes,” she said. “You good with that?”
No. Hell, no. But he’d worry about it on the other side. He wrapped his hand in her hair and gave a gentle tug so that she was looking at him.
“Archer? You hear me, right? This is happening in another time continuum only?”
“I hear you.” He just happened to disagree. Lowering his head, he leaned in to kiss her but once again she stopped him.
“Another rule?” he asked.
“The light’s on,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But it’s already full daylight and these are fluorescent lights. No one looks good under fluorescent lights, Archer.”
“You do. You look good under anything.” He flashed a grin. “You’re going to look amazing under me.” He leaned in to get started on showing her but she put a hand to his chest.
“I’m serious.”
“I know,” he murmured soothingly while dragging his mouth along the slope of her collarbone, thinking the sooner he got her naked, the sooner she could start to fall for him the way he was falling for her . . .
“Look, I know I carefully cultivate this whole ice queen thing”—she broke off with a moan when he nibbled at her throat—“and that you might think I’m perfect and all, but—”
He snorted against her skin and she smacked him in the chest. He caught her hand and she played tug-of-war with him, giving up when he placed her hand flat on his chest.
“Elle,” he said. “You always look perfect to me.”
“But this is what I’m trying to tell you! It’s all an illusion. It’s the magic of good clothing.” She peered into his face, sweetly earnest. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
“No.”
She sighed. “I just don’t want you to . . .”
Cupping her face, he lifted it to his. “What?”
“Be reminded of that girl I used to be,” she whispered.
He frowned at that, completely lost. He’d thought they were playing but clearly they were not. “What are you talking about?”
“The girl who came from nowhere and had nothing and didn’t have any direction or even know who she was,” she said. “That girl! I don’t want you to see her when you look at me.”
He stilled in shock. “Elle, that girl was braver than anyone else I’d ever met. She was willing to do anything to protect her sister, to save her sister, in spite of having zero odds in her favor.”
