by Jill Shalvis
Not that her life was all that much better, she had to admit.
The warm palm cupping her butt felt . . . sexy and just slightly possessive. And Team Stay Strong took a slight hit because she liked it, way too much. She looked into his face. It was rare to be able to study him so up close and personal without him blinding her with the sheer force field of his personality, and she soaked up the opportunity. He looked so relaxed, even carefree. Not to mention sexy as all hell without an ounce of effort. Men really sucked in that regard. They had no idea how good they had it, while she on the other hand, required at least an hour of prep time before she could be seen in public. And with that in mind, she began to slowly inch away from the hot man who’d kept her dreams at bay for her, slaying her dragons all night long.
But the second she moved, she felt the subtle change in his breathing that told her he was now awake.
And sure enough, he opened his eyes. “You okay?”
If she’d thought his middle-of-the-night voice had been dead sexy, it had nothing on his morning growl. “Yes, thanks to you.”
Their gazes met for a beat and, as if they were connected by some unseen force, they leaned toward each other and—
His cell phone buzzed from somewhere over her head.
“Duty calls,” she whispered.
He didn’t take his eyes off her as he reached past her for the phone. Saved by the bell . . . But then she took in his frown as he accessed a text.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Your sister needs to see us.”
Archer drove himself and Elle to his office and watched the two sisters interact with each other.
Or rather, not react.
They sat in the two chairs in his office right next to each other, but emotionally they might as well have been miles apart. He couldn’t read much in Morgan’s pouty silence but he read volumes in Elle.
She was holding it together, but it was an effort. He met her gaze and maybe he was crazy but the emotion he read in hers warmed him, filled his soul, dismissing all the secret, buried-deep doubts he’d ever had about being enough for her.
“I’ve got a couple problems,” Morgan said. “Two men have been going around to the places I’ve stayed over the years, asking where I am now. And there’s no good reason for that. I just wanted to ask you both, if you’re approached, to play dumb.”
“Someone who?” Archer asked. “How and where?”
“I don’t know.” She paused. “But it escalated last night. Someone must’ve followed me back to the house where I’m renting a room. Because after I went out this morning, apparently they questioned my landlady and scared her to death. They told her I was trouble and that it would spread to her if she wasn’t careful.”
“Was she hurt?” Elle asked.
“No.” A note of amusement came into Morgan’s voice. “She has her husband’s beloved golf clubs in the foyer. She pulled out the nine iron and waved it around like a baseball bat. When they didn’t take her seriously, she swung at one of them. Connected too, sending him flying into her shoe rack.” She pulled out a cell phone and placed it on Archer’s desk. “The guy lost this. Ran out without it.”
Archer pulled out an evidence bag, nudged the phone into it with a pen, and called someone. Two seconds later, Trev strode into the office.
Archer handed him the bag with the phone. “Need everything you can get off this.”
Trev saluted him, winked at Elle, and walked out.
“You can’t stay there anymore,” Elle said to Morgan. “You can’t risk letting your past get your landlady hurt.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Morgan asked, eyes flashing. She nodded to the suitcase on the floor. “I already left.”
“Neither of you can stay in your own apartments,” Archer said. “Elle’s place was broken into as well,” he informed Morgan.
Morgan blinked, the flash of temper in her gaze gone now as she turned to Elle. “Were you hurt?” she whispered.
“I wasn’t home.” Elle blew out a breath and softened her voice. “We both got lucky. But Morgan, that luck won’t last forever, not as long as you’re still standing with one foot in that door.”
“I’m not.”
Elle just looked at her.
“I’m not,” she repeated and then sighed. “But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to bring you trouble. I thought it was all behind me.”
“It’s never all behind you,” Elle said with a grim finality that had Archer taking a longer look at her. He could see volumes of regret and tempered pain in the depths of her eyes. He’d had no idea how much of the past she still held deep, how much she held herself accountable for.
“New plan,” Archer said. “Until we’ve got this handled, you both stay with me.”
“Demanding much?” Morgan asked.
Elle’s mouth twitched. “He actually thinks he just asked nicely instead of telling us.”
“Huh,” Morgan said. “Cute.”
Elle actually smiled.
“Glad to see you two bonding,” Archer said. “But let’s get this handled once and for all.”
Elle turned to look at Morgan and he watched some silent sister communication going on. Then Morgan stood up. “I’ll give you two a moment,” she said and got to the door before turning back. “And really, I never meant to do this to you again. Either of you,” she said right to Elle, and then she was gone.
Elle stood up to follow her but Archer beat her to the door and put a hand on it, holding it closed.
She dropped her forehead to the wood.
Letting out a breath, he pressed up against her back, stroked the hair away from the nape of her neck, and brushed his mouth across her sweet skin. “Don’t blame yourself,” he whispered. “This isn’t on you.”
“Maybe not,” she murmured. “But I turned her away when she needed me. That makes me someone I don’t like very much right now.”
Pulling her around to face him, he slid an arm around her waist, his other hand along her jaw and into her hair to hold her head for a soft kiss. “That’s okay, Elle. I like you enough for the both of us.”
She rolled her eyes. “You like me because I tried to get naked with you.”
“I do like that, a lot.” He let a smile free. “And maybe you’ve got your pic in the dictionary under obstinate, stubborn, and mule-headed, but you’re also there under resilient, resourceful, and pretty fucking amazing.”
She stared up at him, looking surprised and . . . a lot less wary. Too bad what he was going to say next would probably ruin that. “So here’s how we’re going to play this,” he said. “You’re going to let me help you. In return, I’ll let you help me when I need it. And I will need it, Elle. That’s how this thing between us works, give and take. So let’s skip the freak-out from you that you’re doing all the taking because you’re not. You never would. You hear me?”
She just stared at him.
“Going to need you to say it, Elle.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I know,” he said. “Now say it. Say that you’re going to let me help you.”
She blew out a sigh. “I’m going to let you help me. Dammit.”
He smiled. “Are you angry? Because we do some of our best naked work when you’re angry.”
She pointed at him.
He smiled.
She rolled her eyes and slid out from between him and the door. “And don’t think I didn’t notice how you managed to get me and Morgan to both stay with you,” she said. “Which puts her and me under the same roof for the first time in a very long time. You’re going to owe me for that.”
“Sex or chocolate?” he asked, and to his surprise, she appeared to give it serious thought.
“What kind of chocolate?” she asked.
He smiled. “Shouldn’t you ask what kind of sex?”
She grabbed the front of his shirt. “Maybe I want both.” Then she shocked the hell out of him by kissing him hard and q
uick, and then she was gone.
Trev came back into the room. “You bribe your woman with chocolate?”
“And sex,” Archer said seriously. “Don’t forget the sex.”
Chapter 20
#HaveItYourWay
Back at Archer’s that night, Elle tossed Morgan a blanket and watched as she settled herself onto one long length of Archer’s huge L-shaped couch.
“He’s really quite a catch, you know,” Morgan said. “You two could probably make it work if you wanted.”
“How do you know either of us wants to?”
Morgan gave her a get-real look. “I have eyes in my head, don’t I? That man wants you, bad.”
“There’s more to a relationship than sex,” Elle said.
“I suppose,” Morgan said, not overly impressed. “But if a guy looked at me like he looks at you, I’d go for it. You’re lucky, you know that?”
Elle didn’t know how to respond to this.
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. If you were able to believe in Santa Claus for like, what, eight years, you can believe in yourself for like five seconds. You got this, Elle.”
“Hey,” Elle said. “I’d have believed in Santa a lot longer if you hadn’t made me stay up that year to watch Mom con our poor clueless neighbor out of his presents to his daughters, which she then put beneath our tree—and, by the way, our tree was a marijuana plant.”
Morgan laughed. “See? I protected you from some stuff.”
“I’m going to make tea,” Elle said. Instead of fight with you . . .
“You and your tea.”
“Do you want some or not?”
Morgan smiled. She’d always been amused by the little habits of comfort Elle had treasured. Tea. The same blanket she’d dragged to every place they’d ever stayed. The book of poems that had supposedly belonged to her father. Elle had no idea if that was actually true or not but her mom had always sworn to it and Elle had decided she had to believe in something.
“Fine,” Morgan said. “I’d love some tea. Really,” she added at Elle’s disbelieving look. “And, Elle?”
“Yeah?”
Morgan’s smile faded. “Thanks for not hating me.”
Elle sighed. “I don’t hate you, Morgan. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.” She paused. “Well, maybe something little and annoying, like every time you make toast it burns.”
Morgan laughed but sobered quickly enough. “I’m sorry I keep messing up your life.”
A stab of guilt settled in Elle’s gut. “You haven’t.”
“Oh don’t be nice now. We both know I’ve done exactly that. And I keep messing up my own life too. I’m having trouble with my Plan A.”
“Hey, at least there’s a lot more letters after A.”
“Yeah,” Morgan said and then hesitated.
“What?”
“It’s kinda nice not to be alone in this anymore.”
Elle had been doing her damnedest to hold on to her distance, but it was getting harder and harder because she was starting to understand just how alone her sister had really been. Elle had always thought of herself as being alone too, but that wasn’t really true. She had Spence and Willa and Pru and the others at her back.
And despite his deceptions, she was beginning to realize she also had Archer. And although she knew he was trying to back off and let her be her own strong capable self, the truth was that no one was better at watching her back than him.
“Think we’ll ever get this sister gig down?” Morgan asked.
When Elle didn’t say anything, Morgan’s smile faded. “Oh. Right. We’re not really sisters anymore.”
“Maybe that’s something we can change,” Elle said softly, surprised to find that she actually meant it.
Morgan stared at her, clearly shocked. “Yeah?”
Elle nodded. “Yeah.”
Morgan’s smile was tentative but utterly genuine, and it made Elle’s stomach hurt. Turning away to give herself a minute, she moved into the kitchen to get the tea.
Archer was in his shower. She could hear the water running. She could also feel the low-level hum of awareness skittering through her veins at the thought, which left her nipples hard and achy against the silk of her bra. They hadn’t gotten the message that nothing was happening tonight.
She’d gone through her adult life appreciating great sex when it came her way, but always being able to walk away and move on without too much trouble. Except she was having trouble walking away from Archer. Her problem was that she’d let him in her bed. Or more accurately, in her body and, she feared, her heart. And that was the problem. Because everything she thought she wanted was now sideways and she couldn’t figure out which way was up.
She filled three mugs with tea. She left one on Archer’s nightstand for him, glancing at the big bed tempting her to climb in. Instead she moved back to the living room, turning off lights as she went, before taking the other side of the couch from Morgan, who was already snoring softly. Apparently nothing disturbed her sleep.
A few minutes later Elle’s nipples did their happy dance again and she opened her eyes to find Archer looking down at her in the dark.
She hadn’t heard him coming.
He crouched at her side and set a hand low on her belly. “Why are you warming my couch and not my bed?” he murmured, his mouth at her ear, his warm breath giving her an all-over body shiver, the very best kind.
And there in the dark she felt him smile.
He knew exactly how he affected her.
“I’m not getting into your bed with my sister here,” she whispered.
“But you can’t sleep out here, remember? You end up needing my body. Bad.”
He thought this was funny. “I’ll manage,” she informed him stiffly.
But then he brushed his mouth across hers and her bones melted. Bad, bad bones.
“I’ll be waiting for you, Elle.”
“I’m not coming!”
His soft, sexy laugh ghosted against her lips. “I can promise you otherwise,” he murmured.
Incorrigible.
Impossible.
She flipped over, giving him her back with a huff that only made him laugh again as he left.
“Oh for God’s sake,” came Morgan’s sleepy voice, disembodied in the dark. “Go after the hot guy, would you?”
“The peanut gallery needs to shut up,” Elle muttered into the cushion.
“Just sayin’,” Morgan said. “I’d leave you alone out here in a hot minute to go have sex if I had the chance.”
“I’m not going to go have sex while you’re out here knowing I’m having sex!”
“Your loss,” Morgan said.
“Oh my God,” Elle said. “Stop talking!”
