“We haven’t seen who’s next door to Ella yet,” Nya said. “There could be a big, scary tattooed biker dude with a beard and a vicious dog or something.”
Ester purred and narrowed her sultry eyes. “Oh, don’t tease me, daughter. Maybe I should double-check that before I make my move on Georgie-Boy. Wouldn’t want to start on seconds.”
She wiggled her brows and winked again, making Nya laugh. “You’re incorrigible! You haven’t been on the market for long, give yourself some time. Has Pierre knocked up his girlfriend yet?”
Ester glowered. “Who knows? I’m keeping my ear to the ground. Haven’t heard anything yet.”
Pierre was the name of the last guy Ester had been with. The one who’d dumped her for the nineteen-year-old before Ester poked holes in all his condoms. “Archer will hear if he does.”
“I’m hoping there will be the patter of tiny feet closer to home soon,” Ester said and then returned to her scowl. “Though I don’t know how I feel about being Grannie Ester.”
Nya was still laughing. “Archer doesn’t want to get me pregnant yet.”
Ester sat up, folding her arms on her knees, she let the wine glass hang in her fingertips in front of her. “You’ve talked about kids?”
Nya lifted a shoulder and a pile of clothes as she stood. “In a kind of indirect way, yeah.” With one hand on the top of her clothes and the other on the bottom, she turned them over. “He’d said he’d knock me up if I asked.”
Nya had found that riling Ester was easy and could be a lot of fun. So after delivering that bombshell, she slunk to the bedroom to put the clothes in her drawer. When she came back, Ester was on her knees, with her arms stacked on the back of the couch. The wine hadn’t left her hand.
“Then ask him,” Ester said, shimmering with excitement. “Tell him it’s what you want and he’ll do it.”
“I don’t know if it’s what I want.”
“Sure it is!” Ester exclaimed. “Sure, sure it is!” Ester leaped onto her feet and drained her glass. “This is too exciting, daughter!” She rushed over to hug Nya and kept an arm around her as she rubbed her belly. “Oh, a little baby, a hundred of them! How incredible would that be?”
Ester screeched with enthusiasm and ran away to the bathroom. The volume of alcohol Ester consumed meant frequent bathroom trips, Nya was getting used to her newest friend’s habits.
She went into the kitchen and began to make coffee because she didn’t want to drink any more liquor. Archer should be coming home tomorrow and the last thing she wanted to be when he got here was hungover.
Nya was crouched at the lower cupboard in the unit that connected the breakfast bar to the counter with the stove, searching for filters. She’d just picked up a stack from the box when the front door slammed.
“Daddy’s home!” Archer declared and something heavy hit the floor. Pouncing to her feet, Nya was struck dumb as his eyes slid around to her. “And, Momma, you’ve got some explaining to do.”
But she didn’t care if he was pissed off. Tossing the filters to the floor, she would’ve vaulted the counter if she was able. Instead, she darted around the breakfast bar, sprinted across the room and leaped into his arms.
“Oh, Fella!” Nya squashed her mouth onto his. “Oh, you’re home. You’re home. You’re home.” She punctuated the words with a kiss, each one longer than the last. His splayed fingers ran up her back, one to her ass, one into her hair, and then they slid back the other way to switch places.
She didn’t know whose tongue made contact with the other first, all that mattered was the thump of her heart, echoing in his chest, making their bodies pound in time together. She moaned, a long, languorous sound of her pleasure, when the generous length of his dick grew hard against her core. Rubbing against him, she used her arms around his neck to build a rhythm up and down. Dry humping him through his jeans, she gained momentum toward a release she’d been deprived of all week.
“Happy to see me?” he asked when he gathered her hair in both hands to pull her face from his.
“I’m not done with the kissing,” she said, trying to consume his mouth again.
He gave her head a yank and pulled his own away. “I am pissed. We’ve got some talking to do.”
“Whatever,” she said. Her parted lips begged for his and she couldn’t take her focus from his mouth. “One more, baby, please?”
“Don’t wanna show me round your new place? Have a chat? Catch up?”
She shook her head. “Sex first.”
“I guess we can take the edge off, horny one,” he said, like he was doing her a favor, but she read the arousal in his smile.
He only got two paces forward when a scream stopped him.
“Oh! My baby boy is home!” Ester screamed out.
Nya had completely forgotten that the woman was there. She exhaled and Archer’s forehead fell onto hers. “A heads up, next time, maybe,” he grumbled.
Ester came over, put a hand around his head and pulled him down to smack a kiss on his cheek. Nya didn’t let go, she tightened her hold and let her head fall against her arm on his shoulder. “You need to treat this girl right, Chase,” Ester said, slapping the back of his shoulder. “You don’t piss off on her for some stupid job and leave her dealing with shit herself. The girl would’ve been lost without me here.”
“She has been a help,” Nya said.
Ester went to grab her jacket from the breakfast bar. “Now you two have got a job to do,” Ester said, winking at Nya, implying that she was referring to the baby making they’d just discussed. “I’m gonna get me a piece of Georgie-Boy, you two be naughty!”
Ester sailed out of the apartment and closed the door.
“Who the fuck is Georgie-Boy?”
“The guy next door,” Nya said. “Ester has plans to move in with him.”
“When did they hook up?” he asked.
Nya rubbed her face in his neck. “For the first time? In about twenty minutes if Ester gets her way.” That was as much of an explanation as he was getting. “You came home,” she said, kissing the corner of his mouth. “I thought you were coming in tomorrow.”
All week she’d been terrified he’d call to say there was a hitch and he’d be delayed. It turned out he’d been planning to be home early. He’d left on the Friday and they’d spoken on the Saturday, so when he’d said a week, she wasn’t sure which day he’d be back. Anticipating the Saturday meant she wouldn’t be disappointed, and she wasn’t.
With her limbs coiled around him, her eyes closed, basking in his heat that was all she needed to sustain her. Nya didn’t care about details. Dropping down, she took his hand and began to lead him across the room.
“The TV looks new,” he said, following her. “Nice.”
They both knew he’d provided it. “I don’t need cable,” she said, pulling him down the hallway. “It costs a fortune and I never watch TV.”
“The cable’s for me, not you, and neither of us are paying for it. I know a guy.” He gave her a shove into the bedroom and she was happy to go, but he stopped to frown at the layout. “You’ve got to move the bed,” he said.
Oh her love didn’t like anything to be out of place. His headboard was against the left wall, while she’d put hers against the far wall, beside the window.
“I like it there.”
He shook his head. She only had one nightstand; Archer went over and picked it up to take it to where his was in his bedroom. It took him less than three minutes to pull the bed away from the wall, turn it, and reposition it in the same place his was.
“Better.”
“Why did you do that?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips.
“Because…” He jumped up to land on the bed before he kicked his boots off the bed and sat up to pull off his tee shirt. “When I’m lying here, I’m between you and the door,” he said, stroking her side of the bed.
“And you think I might run away if you’re not in the way?”
“I think if
you piss someone off, they’re gonna meet me before they even see you,” he said.
Even in his sleep, he was protecting her. Thrilled just at the sight of him, Nya let her excitement drive her forward. There would be time for talk later and she’d missed their conversations in the wee hours, but that would come after their physical reunion.
She wasn’t wearing shoes, or even a bra, so she slipped off the straps of her dress, pulled off her panties, and threw herself on top of him to unite their mouths again.
He rolled over, putting her on her side of the bed, and taking his place on top of her. “I think I’m gonna deprive you a lot more often.”
Curling her nails into his hair, she pulled him down for another kiss. “You better fucking not,” she said.
“You get all excited and happy when you haven’t had any in a while.”
Tilting his hips, he thrust his concealed erection against her center and the mass of it was enough to make her moan. “Oh, I’ve missed you so bad,” she whispered, licking his lips, savoring his taste.
Letting her hands wander from his cheeks to his hair, to his shoulders, and his chest, Nya didn’t want to forget the texture of his skin or the warmth of his heavy form as it pressed her down into the mattress.
She wished his jeans were gone because if they were, he’d be fucking her already. “How much prep do you need?” he asked, shifting onto his side, so he could bend and suckle her as his fingers moved between her thighs that opened eagerly to accept his digits.
He squeezed the breast he’d been teasing and shifted away to kiss the one closer to him. “None,” she said, wriggling against his fingers that were drumming against her clit. One then the other, they sped up and slowed down, he was teasing her and she was amazed that he had the willpower to hold back because she had no restraint. “Fella, please.” Lifting her hips, she tried to force his fingers closer to her passage.
“You were naughty,” he said. “So naughty, I nearly got on a plane and said screw your friend.”
Archer licked her breast, kissed her cleavage, and traced his tongue up her sternum to her throat where he placed short, soft kisses to her tingling skin, distracting her mind. But Nya was jarred back into reality when two of his fingers shoved into her.
She gasped and grabbed for his hair. “Archer!”
“I’m not sure you deserve to be fucked,” he murmured near her ear.
Panic made her eyes open to meet his. “I’m sorry for the way it went down,” she said, rubbing his torso, kissing him and curling in to treat his chest, his neck, his arms, everywhere her mouth could reach.
Going onto his back, he left her form. She didn’t want this to turn into a fight, but it turned out that all he was doing was unfastening his jeans to pull them off. When he was naked, she breathed in, and sat up to bend, but he grabbed a fistful of her hair and hauled her back to toss her head onto the pillow. Then she was beneath him again and her excitement reached fever pitch.
“You’re in luck. I’m horny as fuck. So I’ll take what I want from you, Squirm. And then you’re gonna give me an explanation.”
She hissed in a breath when he pushed his dick into her. It had been a week and she’d behaved. Although she’d been tempted to play with herself a couple of times, she hadn’t. He scowled at the resistance he met.
“Relax, Ny. I’m playing, you know I want you, what’s wrong?”
She shook her head and grabbed for his hips when he began to pull out. “No, no, I want this. Please!”
“You’re tight as a vice, I won’t fit,” he said.
Nya took another breath and tried to force some of the tension from her body. She hadn’t realized how tight she’d been wound. “Again,” she said. He pushed forward, taking his time. “Just do it, Arch!”
But he pulled back. “I won’t hurt you.” How could she be so desperate for this and be putting up a wall? Arch pulled out and she hit the bed with both fists. “I’ve missed my Cheerios, that’s all it is.”
Sinking lower, he kissed her most sensitive spot. Playing with her, he licked and sucked her clit. Stretching his arms over his head, he stimulated her breasts with his hands. Curling her feet to his back, she stroked them up and down, arching into the pleasure of his mouth.
Her worries lightened, her body became loose, and she relaxed only long enough for him to push her into the spasm of orgasm. Before she’d even recovered, Nya sat up straight and grabbed for him to urge him onto his back.
Climbing over his body, she snatched his dick to guide him into her, and this time, he went all the way.
Sucking in his groan, he tensed. “Oh, your pussy’s fucking stubborn,” he said, grounding out the words as she began to move on top of him. “The bitch wouldn’t let me in ‘til she got hers.”
Nya grinned and bowed over him to taste herself on his lips. Sucking his tongue, the evidence of what he’d done for her made her move faster and work harder, building a sweat. Her hands went into her hair to lift it from her sticky neck.
Squeezing and groping her breasts, he sat up to bite one nipple and lap the other. “Oh, keep going,” Archer said.
The angle let her undulate her clit against his groin and after letting her play for a few seconds, he scooped his arms around her, and dropped them to their sides, giving them both a chance to control the rhythm. It slowed, drawing the pleasure promised at the end of their exertion.
With their eyes on each other, she felt more love coming from him than she ever had before. Combing her fingers through his hair, she welcomed the lazy pace of the next kiss. But it only lasted a score of seconds before his pelvis began to pound and she was forced onto her back for him to link his arms under her thighs. Pulling them higher, he forced his way deeper, and slanted her hips so his shaft could stimulate the cushion of desire inside of her that he’d learned how to torment.
Her volume grew and she was pleased that her upstairs neighbor would never complain about the way she screamed when her lover sent her into the spiral of climax. “Oh, you scream, baby. Scream louder.”
Her throat was almost hoarse as she did what she was told. Nya loved that he was happy for her to let go. Damn anyone and everyone who might hear her. Making a fool of herself, she screamed out the ecstasy he gave her.
Pulling her hips up, he slammed into her, and she curled her nails, scratching them across his shoulders, over his collarbone, to his chest. He swore at her and bit her lip at the same time he fucked his load into her.
When his seed was seeping into her every crevice, he pulled out and lay down at her side, saying her name again. “Did that take the edge off?” she asked, stroking his chest with one hand because she couldn’t move off her own back.
“Think it made it worse,” he said, still panting. “This is gonna be a long night for you.”
“Good. I missed you so fucking much.”
He turned his head to make eye contact. “Now it’s time to pay up,” he said. “I’ve paid the ransom, now gimme the goods. I want every fucking detail.”
seventeen
Nya told him everything. Covering everything between her getting into Hexam’s car and getting out of it again. She told him what happened, how it made her feel, her impressions of Hexam, and what it was like to look into the eyes of Jamie’s killer and know that she’d done the right thing by taking his life.
Archer didn’t interrupt much. He asked the odd question and had a sort of set expression of scowling concern throughout. But she didn’t let that slow her down, she was as clear as she could be about what had gone down. It hadn’t been her intention to ever lie to him, she just wanted to tell him the story in person.
“What did Hexam say?” she asked. “After our call when you got in touch with him?”
Archer had called her just once since their initial phone conversation. The conversation had been short and clipped; she could tell he wasn’t happy. But they’d ended with an “I love you” and Nya was confident that their relationship was secure.
“He tol
d me you killed him… He enjoyed telling me that he’d goaded you into it. He was proud of himself.”
While thinking about it this week, she’d concluded that Hexam had manipulated her into doing what she hadn’t been sure she was capable of. Nya was still uncomfortable with the idea that she’d taken a life. But she couldn’t feel guilty about exterminating such a monster.
“Are you mad?” she asked.
Nya was lying on top of him, her body between his thighs, so her abdomen was resting against his dick, which had been requesting attention for a while, but he’d ignored it. With her breasts pressed into him, she had both hands on his chest. One of his was at the back of his head, while the other played in the ends of her hair spread on her back.
“I’m mad at him,” Archer said to the ceiling. “He shouldn’t have put you in that room without me. And I’m mad at you.” He lowered his eyes to hers.
“Because I killed someone?”
And he was amused for a split second and then went back to pissed. “No. Because you did it in front of Hex. That was incredibly stupid, Ny.”
“What choice did I have? He said he was going to kill them either way.”
“So he didn’t need you to do it for him,” Archer said. “He wanted you to kill while he was standing there because after that you owed him.”
Exhaling, she didn’t like it, but knew it was true. “I know that,” she said. “I’m not naïve. He told me it wasn’t free. I know he’ll want something from me.”
Rolling over, he put her on her back. “Not anymore.”
Nya was confused. “What do you mean?”
“The point wasn’t to get to you, Squirm. It never was. The point was to get to me.”
Hexam had said how he wanted Archer on side and how frustrating it was that he insisted on staying neutral. She’d thought that meant Hexam would ask her to use her influence to persuade Archer into doing something. Now it didn’t seem like that was the case.
“What did you do?” she asked. Having spent all this time talking about herself, she hadn’t asked about what he’d been going through this week.
Scarred (Branded Book 2) Page 20
