1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  I had been nestled against him.

  After the moment of Brutal Honest on the porch, Archer had decided we were all getting drunk. He fed us chicken and roasted potatoes and smirked when I was startled that he knew what the hell he was doing in the kitchen.

  Which, in hindsight, makes sense. He worked in the kitchens at Nora’s diner before he joined the Corps.

  But he hadn’t gloated. He’d grabbed some beers and tugged me against him, Eli sprawled on the floor next to us as we watched Monty Python, and I fell through time to those sun-soaked summers when this was our normal, and it wasn’t about sex or desire or control. Him holding me was only to ground me, in the moment, with my family.

  For one night, all our damage was gone, and I was Hazy and he was my Archer, and it was good.

  Until I woke up to a silent living room, and him, all around me, and I rolled into him, instinctive, my head tilting up to find bare skin with my lips and he groaned, a low hungry note that jolted me out of my dreams and back the fuck into reality.

  I almost fell on Eli in my haste to get the fuck away.

  The kitchen is spotless—Eli insisted on cleaning while Archer selected a movie for us.

  My brother is always going to be taking care of me. They both, will. In their ways.

  “Hazy-Eyes,” a low voice splits the dark and I almost drop the beer bottle. I do make a noise, a startled little squeak that I already hate myself for.

  Archer makes a noise that’s almost a laugh as he steps into the kitchen. His voice is sleep deep and rumbling, a rough caress against my skin and I want more.

  God fucking help me, I want more.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting ready for bed,” I answer, turning away to dump the empties in the sink.

  “You were sleeping, sweetheart. And keeping me warm. I don’t like waking up to find you missing.”

  It’s said so simply, a bald statement of fact that brings me instantly to that moment.

  He’s stretched out in bed, tattooed skin sprawled against slate blue sheets, his hand fisted under one pillow, an arm stretched across the bed. Sleeping, he looks almost young.

  Almost carefree.

  Almost.

  I can still taste him.

  I whisper softly into the dark room, and then slip out. My suitcase is in the closet by the door, and I grab it silently, ignoring the tears burning in my eyes as I slip out and into my little car.

  “Hazel?” he asks, soft and serious, and I blink out of the memories. He’s watching me, with that curious, waiting patience that tells me he’ll wait forever.

  Wait for me to come back to him, or tell him to fuck off or god only knows what.

  “Archer, I—”

  He prowls closer to me and his hands find my waist, clenching there and rubbing tight little circles into my skin through the think cotton of my tank top.

  “Come back to sleep, Hazy-Eyes.”

  I want to. God. I want it so fucking bad. Almost as much as I want to go on my tiptoes and kiss him.

  I still can remember exactly how he tastes and the sweet burn of stubble on my neck when he nuzzles into me.

  “Why did you leave?”

  “Because you were going to push me off the couch,” I say, immediately and his eyes go dark and hungry.

  “Then get closer to me,” he murmurs, and it rubs against my skin, a sweet caress.

  “Can’t,” I whimper, and he huffs softly, and then he’s kissing me. And god. God.

  I thought I remembered. I’d spent so many nights, hand between my thighs, remembering. So many second dates, comparing some sweet stranger to what I wasn’t allowed to have.

  And I was wrong.

  God I was wrong. Because this is real, all sweet sugar and tart mint and Archer and even my memories, as good as they were, pale in comparison.

  To the flex of his fingers on my hips, digging in with this delicious pressure.

  To the heavy weight of him, pressing me into the counter, his hand braced against the small of my back, keeping it from digging in.

  To the sweeping pressure of his lips, rubbing against mine, until he nips at my lower lip, catches it between his own and tugs and I gasp.

  And it’s all over. Everything.

  Archer sweeps in, like he did when we were kids and I needed to be saved, like he did when we were teens and a boyfriend made me cry, like he’s done every fucking time in my life.

  His hands come up and frame my face, angles me just the way he wants, and he drinks me down.

  Fucking devours me, his lips a goddamn tsunami force above me, knocking me out to sea, drowning me, ripping me apart and then.

  Oh god, and then.

  His tongue, soft and gentle, stroking along like a whisper, like a promise, his thumbs smoothing over my cheekbones, sweeping down to press against my throat.

  Tethering me as I moan, soft and hungry, into him, putting me back together as I shudder in his grasp.

  Make a tiny noise in the back of my throat, and he growls, a low rumble that hits me like a fucking fist, and shifts, lifting me until I’m on the counter, my legs wrapped around him, and fuck.

  Jesus.

  Better. This is better. I nip at his lips and he groans, jerking away from me to trail kisses down my throat, a hot path that has my head falling back and a low keen working its way up my throat.

  “Shh, sweetheart,” he murmurs against my skin, and I can hear the smile in his voice, can feel it pressing against my skin, “Don’t wake up Elijah.” Shit.

  Eli.

  I shove at him, hard and Archer laughs, a low rumble, before he kisses my throat again, scraping teeth against my skin, and sucking hard, until my hands are scrambling against him, holding him to me as I arch into the touch, and it’s not enough.

  “Archer,” I grit out, and his head comes up.

  His lips are bright red and wet, and I want them everywhere. I want everything.

  Maybe. Maybe because of the alcohol, or maybe because tonight has felt like something stolen—a secret we’re still keeping.

  But I reach for him, pull him to me instead of pushing him away. His breath shudders against my skin, and then he’s kissing me again and I’m wiggling closer, because fuck it’s been four years.

  “Missed you,” he pants between kisses and I swallow down the sob that’s threatening.

  More.

  I need more.

  “I need more.” I hiss, and his mouth drops, skating over my skin. Yanks my tank top down and his mouth covers me, sucks me deep. Twists around my nipple as his hands clench on my hips, yanking me forward and grinding against me and I can feel the scream, building and building, with every twist of his tongue around me and every hard draw on me and “Archer,” I groan.

  His hand slaps over my lips and I bite down as he draws on my tit, hard, and something deep inside clenches and twists.

  “Shh, baby,” he soothes, pulling back. “Shh.”

  He tugs until I’m on the edge of the counter, and then drops to his knees.

  And I almost fall off the damn counter because there is nothing in this world as unrelentingly erotic as Brandon Archer on his knees.

  Then he shifts me, yanks my shorts to one side, and thank Christ that I wore shorts, and his lips whisper over me and I swallow my scream.

  Let my head fall back as I fight to breathe. My hand is in his hair—when did that happen?—and his nose is nudging my clit and he whispers against me, something soft and secret and lost. I have a heartbeat to wonder what, before he licks, and my entire body lights up like a damn Christmas tree, tension and pleasure and want arcing through me.

  I’m a wire, and he’s the current, and he’s playing me like a goddamn fiddle. I’m rocking into him, into the tiny whispers and nudging caress, the gentle strokes of his tongue as his big hands come up, holding me open, and rubbing, and I do make a noise then, a low moan that sounds like sex and he laughs, the bastard laughs, making a shushing noise against my wet cunt like it’s a
game, and I snarl.

  So fucking close, and he’s teasing.

  I yank, pull at his hair until he obliges, rising to his feet, all grace and sex poured over muscles and wrapped up with a smile so fucking sinful it would make a nun fall.

  It made me fall.

  Head over heels, the first time it twisted into a wry grin.

  I fall into it now, kiss him as his fingers slide into me and he groans at the feel. Hisses against my throat, “Tight, baby. God, you’re so fucking tight.”

  I roll my hips, fucking myself slow on his fingers as I lick into his mouth and it’s different—he tastes like himself, like Archer, but also me, all sex and safety wrapped up in one, and his fingers are crooking, rubbing, his thumb pressing sweet slow circles that are driving me crazy, until— There.

  One hand on my neck, sweet and soothing, his thumb rubbing under my ear as he kisses me and I scream, into his lips.

  Come, shuddering around his fingers.

  And he takes it.

  Swallows down my scream like it’s nothing, his fingers slow and soothing in me, a gentle pet as I shudder and quake and he holds me through, coaxes me through.

  I’m sweaty and sleepy when he pulls away and his lips brush my forehead before he picks me up.

  Carries me back to the couch and tucks me against him, one arm a band around my waist, the other hand tucking my head to the crook of his shoulder where I’ve always fit.

  “Go to sleep, Hazy-Eyes,” he whispers.

  So I do.

  Chapter 6

  When I wake up, I'm alone on the couch.

  And, “Fucking hell, I'm tired of this shit,” I mutter, shifting on the couch and the too cold cushions.

  The thing is it's not a surprise.

  When I first moved in with Nora, I was a wreck. A fucking disaster walking, doing more damage than I did good.

  But then, Nora did what she does and I looked around. Like actually looked around, and saw what was happening.

  And it woke me up. Eli was easy. We got into a fight, I let him beat the hell outta me and I tugged him from his nightmares. Easy. A brother for life, almost faster than I could anticipate.

  The thing about Eli was that he reminded me that I needed someone else. That I wasn’t an island.

  I take care of people—it’s who I was. No real surprise that I went into the Corps and then later the force. It let me do the thing I did best--take care of people.

  And usually it was easy. As easy as breathing. People want to be taken care of.

  But Hazel.

  Hazel was an uphill battle from day one.

  The kid is like a ghost. A blonde, big eyed, vaguely violent ghost.

  Everyone thought I was too fucked to pay attention to anything but my own damage but everyone was fucking idiotic.

  She didn't buy that. I know because she watched me. She was almost fiercely protective of Eli, even if she was a year younger. She watches me with him, and I've seen the way she relaxes by slow degrees.

  After Eli punches me and we both have a black eye and a fist full of busted knuckles, she actually smiles.

  And holy fuck. I was lost, in that moment. Because when Hazel Campton smiles, which she never does, it's like a fucking revelation.

  Sunshine and laughter and this intoxicating flash of fuck-the-world bite to those big baby blues.

  I want to make her smile. Every day.

  I want to chase that ever present sadness away until all I ever see in her is sunlight and danger.

  And she? Wants absolutely nothing to do with me.

  Nora and Eli bought my self-destructive shit. And it was real. I was spiraling hard. But they also bought her fake smile and quiet ok.

  And that was bullshit.

  I watched her, when I was with Eli. When she was doing homework and reading and sometimes when she thought she was alone.

  I saw the way she held herself, too still and tight, like the wrong word would shatter her.

  I saw the way she dug her nails into her palms, and held knives a little too long and sat in the dim light of her room alone.

  Nora and Eli didn't see it.

  Whatever else she was, Hazel was very careful.

  Which made this hard. I couldn't pick a fight with her to win her trust. I couldn't do the dishes and stay out of the liquor, or hold the door for a few teachers. This was Hazel.

  It took me six months. Six months of sitting in near silence, bickering with Eli. Finding books for her and helping her clean after dinner. Handing her her lunch in silence as I herded her and Eli out the door. Putting up with ice cold feet shoved under my leg on the couch while she shouted abuse at the basketball game.

  Six. Fucking. Months of showing up when she went quiet and moody, sitting near her without pushing past my initial, “you good?” And her standard, “fine.” Six goddamn months.

  Longest months of my life.

  But some of the best, when I looked back. Hazel, when she gave someone her love and loyalty, did it completely and utterly.

  Eli was easy. He's impossible to not love and so fucking broken by the accident that she fell into him without thought.

  I earned it.

  Made it different. Special. I wasn't her brother and I was ok with that.

  I was ok with all of it until the night it changed. Six months and two weeks after I started the slow campaign to win Hazel over.

  She broke.

  Hard.

  Came completely and utterly apart, so shattered that I couldn't see my girl, my lost Hazy girl with her broken heart.

  It was her birthday. She hadn't told Nora, hadn't told anyone. Spent the week leading up to it quieter than normal, sinking deeper into herself.

  Hazel and I had an agreement. She wouldn't tell Nora when I was spiraling if I didn't fight or drink.

  I didn't tell Nora when she was lost in her own grief if she didn't cut herself.

  It was unspoken but it worked and we kept each other--not healthy, but not toxic.

  Sometimes I think that's all either of us could ask for. We were keeping each other’s secrets, even when neither of us had any real clue what that meant.

  That day, I found her in her room.

  She was in her room, wearing an oversized t-shirt and scrunched up socks on her skinny ankles and blood trickled down the inside of her thighs.

  She stared at me, all wide eyed fear and choking grief, and whispered one plea.

  “Don’t tell Nora.”

  “What the hell, Hazel,” I whispered and she flinched. Stared at me with tears in her big blue eyes.

  “He never missed my birthday.”

  And it slayed me. I hate seeing the people I love cry. So I pulled her into me, cradling her and she sobbed, these silent, heartbroken shaking things that left me so desperate to fix this, to fix her, that I’d have promised anything.

  I’d have walked through fire, to stop her tears and put a smile on her face. And she didn’t want that. She just wanted my silence.

  Easy enough to give her.

  Secrets. Those were the things that bound us, me and Hazel. Not the grief or the accident.

  It was our fucking secrets.

  She wept in my arms until she fell asleep, and I tucked her in bed, stealing away with her knife and her tears soaking my shoulder.

  I thought it would be what brought her to me. What finally made her trust me.

  The next day, she looked at me over the breakfast table, and her eyes were as cold as the winter sky.

  It’s not surprising, to wake up alone. What surprised me was that she caved long enough to come back to the couch, to let me finger her in the kitchen.

  Another secret in a long line of them, another retreat in an endless series of retreats.

  Hazel Campton was the girl I could never quite shake, and not just because she’s the one I’ve always cared about.

  A low groan from the floor pulls my attention from my thoughts and to the sleeping giant slowly waking up. He groans again and shoves up off
the ground, all long lanky limbs and shaggy hair flying a million directions.

  “Dude, why the fuck’d you let me sleep on the floor?” he grits out, giving me a frown. I shrug. “You passed out, Eli. And I wasn’t dragging your drunk ass to your room.”

  Because of course Eli had a room in Hazel’s house. He was her brother, the one she loved with a wild kind of reckless, the one she turned to when shit got rough.

  She liked me, even trusted me with her secrets and loved to get off against my fingers and lips, but I wasn’t the one she turned to.

  If it were anyone but Eli that she chose, I’d probably have shot them a long, fucking time. As it is, I swallow down the bitter pill and shift to stand. “Come on, brother. We’ve got to report in still.”

  “Breakfast first!” a sharp voice calls from the kitchen and Eli groans, rolling to his back, letting his head thump against the rug.

  Hazel appears in the doorway, a mug of coffee roughly the size of her head already cupped between curved fingers. Her hair is a mess of curls pulled to the top of her head, and she’s wearing one of Eli’s old college t-shirts and a pair of yoga pants.

  I swallow down my annoyance that she’s wearing another man’s clothes—he’s her brother, our brother—and cock an eyebrow.

  “Mama’s?” I ask, watching her carefully.

  Ah. There it is. Her expression goes flat and blank, the smile flickering for a heartbeat before she blinks, and it’s back, bright blinding, with just enough sarcasm to make me grin.

  “Fine,” she says grumpily. “But you’re buying and when she wants one of us to do the dishes, you two can flip for it.”

  She doesn’t wait for us to argue or take her up on the offer. She spins on her heel and whistles for Smith, yelling over her shoulder as she hits the stairs that she’s leaving in ten minutes.

  For a long minute, Eli and I stare after her and then he slides a curious look at me. “Take it y’all sorted out your shit?” he says, too casual.

  I give him a grumpy face. “Dude.”

  “She’s avoided you for months and then you pass out on her couch after she decides to let us act like a family again. What the hell am I supposed to think?”