Here With Me (The Archer Brothers #1)

by Heidi McLaughlin

  “You still with me?”

  I look over and smile at Evan. He’s not watching me, he’s watching the road, which I suppose is a good thing since he’s driving. I use this moment to study him. Since he’s been home I haven’t really gotten a very good look at him until now. He’s lost weight, not a considerable amount, but noticeable. His jaw line is more defined and prevalent. His hair seems to have a hint of gray. I won’t be able to tell for sure until he grows it out. His arms, one of my favorite features, are bigger but not bugling. You can tell he’s lifted a lot of heavy objects but not weights.

  Sitting here watching him, the urge to trace his jaw strikes me. I fold my hands in my lap to prevent me from reaching over to him and keep up with my staring. I’m sure he doesn’t mind because surely he knows when eyes are watching him. That’s what he’s trained to know. I want to run my fingers over his hair and feel the prickly sensation I used to get after a few days of growth has appeared after his buzz cut. I can see him now, closing his eyes as I rub his head, him melting into my palm as my fingers move softly over his scalp. I used to be able to lay there for hours and just run my fingertips back and forth, letting the softness lull me to sleep. He never once complained.

  “You’re thinking about touching me aren’t you?”

  If I didn’t know better I’d say he’s a mind reader, but that’s not the case. He’s a freaking pervert and only has one thing on his mind. I shake my head and turn my gaze out the front window. We’re close to the beach, in the opposite direction of our house.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he retorts.

  “It wasn’t a question, Evan; it was a statement that I’m not going to dignify with a response.”

  “Ah, she wants me,” he says as he starts tickling my leg. I have to grab his hand with both of mine to get him away.

  “Stop, Evan, you’re going to crash the car.”

  “Just admit it.”

  “I won’t.”

  Evan pulls into the parking lot and slams the car into park. He relaxes his hand allowing me to release my grip. “Admit it.”

  I shake my head.

  He slips his hand behind my neck and pulls me closer. “Admit it, Ry,” he says huskily making my palpations rise. I swallow hard and refuse to let him win.

  Evan pulls me forward, crashing his lips to mine. Before, our kisses have been simple and sweet. This is the opposite. The moment his tongue touches mine, I’m transformed back in time. I’m sitting across from him in the ice cream shop. I’m next to him on the Ferris wheel. We’re lying on a bed of blankets looking at the stars. He’s in my room, slowly undressing himself and me before he lies next to me. We’re in the grass, with this hand on my stomach and he’s asking me to marry him.

  My hands grip the back of his neck, my nails digging into his skin. He moans, and my body begs to be touched by him. I’m lifted out of my seat. My back is pressed against the steering wheel and I’m no longer a women in my thirties, but seventeen and horny. Willing and ready to get into the backseat just so I can feel my boyfriend inside of me.

  “We have to stop,” I say against his lips, but make no effort to push myself away from him. He senses this and pulls me in deeper. Hands are everywhere. His. Mine. Skin is touched and burning with desire. His thumb brushes against the valley of my breasts and I lean in, aching for his touch, missing the way we were.

  “God, Ryley, I fucking want you.”

  My nails rake through his hair. I grind against him, feeling his bulge press between my legs. We’ve been here before, down this path. The end result is what I want, but I can’t have. He knows this. I know this.

  I pull away slowly already missing the way my lips feel when he’s kissing them. His eyes are hooded and his breathing is labored. He’s at his tipping point. I carefully try to extract myself from his lap, but his hands clamp down on my hips.

  “Don’t move,” he says as he rocks his hips into mine. My eyes roll back as I bite down on my lip and meet him with each thrust. “Tell me you don’t want me. Say the words, babe, and I’ll stop.”

  I brace my hands against his shoulders, my lips against his neck. I trail kisses up until I reach his ear and gently pull his lobe in between my teeth. “I do want you, but I can’t. Please don’t pressure me to do something I’ll regret.”

  MY BREATH QUICKENS WHEN she grazes my neck, her teeth pulling on my ear lobe. This is her telltale sign. I know her body more than she does. I unleashed the sex kitten that she is. I trained her, honed her. My hands grip her hips as I press into her. I don’t care that it’s broad daylight and we’re in a parking lot. She could easily slip off her shorts and straddle me. I want this woman. She’s the only one I’ve ever wanted.

  But she stops me. She doesn’t tell me no. Ryley tells me that she wants me, but can’t have me. She asks me not to make her do something she’ll regret. It’s that word that makes me stop, but I don’t allow her to move. I want her to feel me. I need her to remember what it’s like for us, when we’re connected the way two lovers should be. I want her to know what she does to me with just her presence. This woman owns me: mind, body and soul.

  I want her to cheat on Nate. I’m not ashamed to admit something like that. I want him to know that she’s mine. She always has been and always will be. The only time he’s stood a chance is when he thought I was dead. Simple fact is, I’ve been gone for six years and I miss my girl. I need to reconnect with her on every level and hate that I have to because of a decision that was made. I don’t want to respect her choice. I want to be that asshole that doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s feelings but my own, and right now those feelings are dictating my thinking ability.

  “Ryley, if you don’t want me to take you right here, right now, please stop tugging on my ear.” I hate that I have to beg her stop. Any other time, and she’d be naked and writhing underneath me. I’ve never seen anything or anyone as sexy as Ryley when she’s sated.

  She stills and tries to move away. I only asked her to stop, not leave my lap. I happen to like the feel of her pressed against me. It’s the worst kind of torture and pleasure wrapped into one.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers against my neck before she rests her head there. I don’t have a clue as to why she’d be sorry.

  I wrap my arms around her and hold her to my chest. She sobs quietly while repeating how sorry she is. Maybe this is a breakthrough for her, or maybe I needed to remind her what we’re like together. It’s not that we just connect, we become one. From the first time we were together, we’ve been able to anticipate each other’s needs, wants and desires. Never has she had to question if she was doing something right or if I liked something. My body and my actions told her everything she needed to know.

  “Please don’t be sorry.”

  “But I am. I feel like I’m leading you on and that’s not my intent. I’ve missed you so much and I want to be with you, but I can’t.”

  “You can, but not yet,” I remind her. We may not be able to be together right now, but our time will come. I have no doubt in my mind that she’ll tell Nate that she can’t be with him and choose me. I’m not willing to think of a different outcome. She’s all I know, all I want.

  “You’re so confident.”

  I flex, showing her how confident I am. She leans back, her eyes red-rimmed, and it breaks my heart. I bring my fingertips to her face, wiping away her tears. “I love you, Ryley. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, to win you back, to show you that you’re meant to be mine. And as much as I love having you sit on my lap, the guys are on the beach and we’re going to eat by the fire and hang out. I already set it up with your dad to watch EJ so we can just hang out with our friends.”

  “I haven’t done one of these since the night before you left.”

  “Not even with –“

  She cuts me with a shake of her head, and I’m thankful. I never thought I’d cringe at saying his name, but I do. Aside from being b
rothers, we were best friends, unit mates. I could always count on him to be there when I needed him, and he felt the same way about me. At least that’s what I thought. But to hear that he never took her to the beach for a party or an outing sends waves of relief through me. This is still something she and I did, and he hasn’t tainted it.

  “Well, I guess he’s earned a point.”

  “Evan,” she drags my name out, her voice full of disappointment. I can’t help it. Whenever I think of them together I see red, and maybe a hint of green. No, I take that back. I see a lot of green. I’m jealous as hell that he’s spent the last six years with my girl while I’ve been fighting a losing battle in the jungle. And for what? There hasn’t been a resolution or even a debriefing on what we did over there. It hasn’t even made the news, nor have we been called in and relieved of our duties. A small voice tells me I should probably fear for my life right now. What if whoever is in charge considers me or the other guys a threat and takes us out?

  I try not to linger on that thought. The last thing I want to do is alert Ryley that anything may be amiss, but it’s definitely on my mind.

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Ry.”

  “He’s your brother.”

  “He was. I don’t consider him as such anymore. If he were acting as my brother, he wouldn’t have placed his ring on your finger. He would’ve stood by you, helped you raise our son as his nephew, and been there when you needed him. Pursuing you is crossing the line. I’m also having a hard time understanding how it is he knew about my location, but had no qualms trying to make you his.”

  “What if he didn’t know, Evan? Have you thought about that? You’re holding all this anger in, and he may have not known.” She pleads his case, something he should be doing, but hasn’t had the balls to come home and do. Your brother coming back from the “dead” should be enough for any commander to relieve you of your duties and let you return home. Yet, he’s not here. Maybe it’s because I called him last night and told him if he knew what was best, he’d stay gone. That could backfire though because I need him here so Ryley can dump his ass and restart a life with me.

  “Obviously we don’t have the answers, babe. But what he did? That alone is enough for me to disown him.”

  Ryley leans away from me, her back pressing against the steering wheel and her arms crossed over her chest. I glance around quickly, looking at the people passing by, keeping my eyes anywhere but at the scowl on her face. She pulls my chin in her direction and I can tell she’s pissed, which is fine because I’ve been in a perpetual state of pissed offness since I returned. I think I’m entitled to feel this way.

  “What if I sought Nate out? Have you ever stopped to consider that it might have been me who went after him?”

  I study her for a moment before my head starts to move back and forth. “Are you telling me that you’ve had the hots for my brother? That while we were together you secretly longed to be with him? Told our mother that you could do better than me?”

  “What… no,” she blanches. This is exactly how I know he went after her and not vice versa.

  “My point exactly, Ryley.” I push her hair behind her ear and caress her cheek. “I don’t want to fight about this. Right now, I want to go hang out with my buddies, our friends. I want to have a good time and just relax and pretend that everything is normal.”

  “Okay.” She hesitates a beat before answering with a smile while removing herself from my lap. I groan as I watch her ass wiggle in her stupid little shorts before climbing out of the car after her. We walk hand in hand to the beach, both of us carrying the necessities that I had hidden away in her car.

  River and Frannie are already set up and it’s comforting knowing that she and Frannie are so close. River and I hug it out before both popping open a cold one. He pats me on the shoulder and motions for me to follow him down the beach.

  “How are things going?”

  I shrug. “They’re all right I guess, considering the situation. Nate hasn’t come back yet, and I’m not sure if he’s staying away because he knows I’m going to beat his ass or what.”

  “Man our lives are so fucked right now.” River tips back his beer and takes a long pull. We stand, facing the ocean with our feet buried in the sand. This is the perfect place to talk because the waves drown out our voices. If anyone is lurking, we’ll be hard to hear.

  “I talked to Ryley’s mom today,” River starts and immediately has my attention. “She’s been digging and it’s not pretty, but she’s afraid to cause waves at the moment. She wants more evidence.”

  “What has she found?”

  River looks around and over his shoulder. “Our files were pulled months before we left, each one flagged. The initial mission was never logged. There’s no evidence that we went to Cuba. Everything about us being there…” he shakes his head. “Nothing. There’s nothing until they notified the families that we were dead. Our files were then transferred and that’s it.”

  I look at him dumbfounded. How are all the logs not there? The extractions? “What about the kids we put back on those Hercules’?”

  River shakes his head. “There’s no record. Clarke even searched for the kidnapped child and found nothing. There never was a police, FBI or CIA report. You’d think if a child of a U.S. Senator is kidnapped the damn media would be all over it, but there’s nothing. And all those children we rescued, no records.”

  “Where the hell did they go?”

  He shrugs and empties his beer. “I don’t know, Archer, but I don’t like it. Whatever we were told to do, we contributed to a crime.”

  I stand there in disbelief, questioning my commitment to the Navy. Maybe it’s not the Navy I should be questioning, but our CO. Where the hell is he? I turn and look over my shoulder at Ryley; she’s sitting in a chair talking to Frannie.

  “How’s that going?” River tips his head toward Ry.

  “It’s… difficult. I have fucking blue balls as in I really think they’re starting to turn fucking blue. I feel like I’m looking at a damn skin mag every time she walks in a room and we just had a serious make-out session in the car. It’s fucking high school all over again.”

  River laughs, earning a stink-eye look from me. “Is she shutting you down?”

  I nod and tip back my bottle. “It’s that damn ring. If it wasn’t there I wouldn’t hesitate, but I know if she goes that far she’ll have regrets and that’ll be bad for me. I’ve already pushed my luck with her, and she’s cheated on him. At least in my eyes she has.”

  “Do you think Nate’s not coming home because he’s waiting for her to screw up? That would give him an easy out.”

  I tip my bottle back and empty its contents. “He’s going to come home acting like he had no idea I was alive and be hurt. Shit thing is, my mom is on his side and kept reminding me that Ryley’s his. I beg to differ. That woman up there with your wife was made for me. It’s just a matter of time before I have her again.”

  “Frannie likes her. She was there for her and EJ. She said it helped her cope with my death.”

  “Man, this shit is so fucked up,” I say as I slam my empty beer bottle into the sand. “We’ve missed so much and for what? Nothing, that’s what, and no one is going to pay for the shit we’ve missed.”

  River pats me on the shoulder. “Rask and McCoy are here. Let’s head back up there and start the bonfire.”

  We walk back up the beach and as soon as Ryley sees me, her eyes light up. I don’t care what people think of me right now, this girl is mine. I either need to be patient or take that damn ring off her finger myself.

  I sit down next to her and place my arm around her. She leans into me, warming me instantly. I kiss the top of her head, letting my lips linger there for longer than necessary but not long enough to satisfy me.

  WATCHING THE SUNSET OVER the Pacific Ocean can only be summed up with one word: breathtaking. It could be the company I’m in, or simply the view. Either way, the pure beauty that is envel
oping my friends and me tonight gives me peace and a lot to think about. The more time I spend with Evan, the more I know I’m meant to be with him. He’s been home for almost two weeks, and it seems like it was just yesterday. We have so much to re-learn about each other, and he about EJ, but each day is like Christmas and we’re unwrapping presents one at a time.

  The fire crackles in front of me as the guys and Frannie sit around and tell stories from years that have gone by. We don’t talk about the past six years. Most of us are trying to pretend they don’t exist. We all want answers but none of us have them. Evan told me earlier that my mom has been looking into why this happened, but is afraid of snooping too deep without proper evidence. I don’t blame her. I have a feeling this is bigger than any of us combined and if someone can make four men from a SEAL commando disappear, they can do anything to the rest of us.

  “What if they come after us?” I blurt out before I realize what I’m saying. All eyes are on me instantly, and even though it’s dark I can see almost everyone’s eyes piercing through me. I swallow hard and look at Evan who’s staring at the fire with a scowl on his face.

  “Don’t think like that, Ry,” Evan says firmly, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. McCoy opens a new beer and downs it without stopping. Frannie is looking at me, and River is staring at the fire. Rask is rubbing his head, and Evan’s leg is bouncing.

  “I can’t help it and by the looks on everyone’s faces, you’ve all thought it too. Someone made you guys disappear for six years. You just don’t come back from the dead without there being repercussions.” I angrily wipe away a tear that’s falling down my cheek. I’m trying to be strong here, not weak and emotional. I’ve never feared for my life, but this situation is giving me a lot of concern. If my mom is investigating, someone is going to find out. That someone could want to remain anonymous and the easiest way to keep a secret is to eliminate the person or people who know. They’d have a lot of blood on their hands, but their secret would be kept.