Archie made me feel beautiful when he looked at me like that.
“Feel better?” he asked as he came to sit on the bed again, but facing me and with one hand massaging my thigh.
I thought about that, turning it over to examine the idea. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I do.”
“Good.” Then he squeezed my leg. “No regrets?”
“Nope,” I said. “Thank you.”
He chuckled. “My pleasure, babe. Seriously. I’m never going to get enough of you.” He ran his hand over the inside of my thigh and teased a finger over my labia. A shiver sent goosebumps racing out, and my nipples tightened. “Definitely never tired of that.”
But instead of continuing his caress, he settled his hand back on my thigh. The distraction helped. It had given me a little distance, and I didn’t feel quite so—awful.
“What’s the part you hate the most?” Archie prompted me, and I sighed.
“I want Mom to be happy. She seems happy right now, but it feels like another lie in a sea of them. I hurt her feelings today, pointing out that Eddie…” I grimaced and Archie winced. “Pointing out that your dad is still married, and that what she wanted me to celebrate was your family breaking up.”
His expression gentled. “You were worried about me?”
“You weren’t worried about me when you found out about them?”
“Fuck yes, I was worried about you because your mother wasn’t around and…” He sighed.
I covered his hand on my leg. “So, yes, I was worried about you. I still am.”
“Don’t,” he said, meeting my gaze. “Whether Edward and Muriel stay together or not—” He shrugged. “I don’t care. Maybe they’d even be happier apart. God knows they make each other and me miserable. We’ve never been that happy television family, babe.”
“Like I don’t know what that’s like?” I pointed out. “Mom and I are not posters for well-adjusted.”
He chuckled. “You’re pretty fucking awesome despite that.”
“I think you’re the awesome one.”
“Well, we’re a mutual admiration society, but since I founded it, you win awesome hands down.”
I smiled. “We’ll agree to disagree…”
“Frankie?” He leaned forward. “Forgive me yet?”
I sighed. After the last twenty-four hours? “Yeah,” I exhaled. “Don’t keep secrets like that again… don’t…”
“Don’t plan to get rid of some guy who thinks he can waltz in and take off with my girl?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Maybe just trust me.” A thrill went through me at being called his girl.
“I do trust you. I trust the guys. That’s a small circle, babe.”
His phone buzzed and we both glanced around for it, and he finally reached to the floor and pulled it out of his discarded shorts.
Jake’s name was on the screen.
“You’re on speaker,” he told him as he answered.
“Frankie’s still there?”
“Oh yeah,” Archie said, grinning at me, and heat washed over my face, and I set the coffee aside to go find my shirt and bra, but Archie tugged me back. When he slid his hand down to cup my pussy, I raised my brows and his grin grew almost devilish. “Maria get her to do it?”
There was a long sigh. “No,” Jake admitted. “So, I warned her we can fight fire with fire. She can take it down, or I’ll make sure she gets burned, too. I’m on my way to your place now.”
My eyes widened at the declaration, but Archie just teased his hand against my pussy.
“Don’t recall inviting you,” he said absently as he touched a finger to my entrance and raised his brows. My gut went taut, and all the earlier desire pooled again. Oh crap. I spread my legs a little for him, and he eased his finger inside, and I tensed. Everything was so sensitive.
“Rule #2,” Jake said.
What the hell was rule number 2? No sooner did that thought take root than Archie added a second finger to the first, and he began to thrust gently, skating his thumb against my clit. An embarrassing amount of dampness slicked around his fingers, and his grin grew.
“Frankie.” Jake saying my name pulled me back from the edge, and I clutched at the sheets, but Archie kept his hand in motion and I strained upward with my hips. Fuck, that felt good.
“Yeah?” I managed to push the single word out.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer you earlier, I didn’t want to give her fuel for the fire.”
Who?
“And I know you’re still mad but—think we could still have our date tonight?”
Our date.
Fuck, I was so close, and the combination of Archie’s shit-eating grin and bruised face was just adding to it as he pushed me harder. His cock was stiffening with every stroke of his hand against me, and I licked my lips.
Going to answer him? Archie mouthed, and I shook as I teetered on the edge, and Archie slowed his touch.
Bastard. I mouthed, and his grin just grew wider.
“Can we talk about it when you’re here?” I finally managed to get my brain to produce a reasonable sentence.
“Yes,” Jake said, and the relief in his voice almost instantly made me feel guilty. He was all worried about whether I’d want to see him, and I was about to get off—again. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Maybe ten if I hurry.”
“Don’t hurry,” Archie said. “Take your time. We need about twenty more minutes.”
“You asshole…” Jake said, but Archie had already hung up.
“That was mean,” I told Archie, but he eased his fingers out from my pussy and licked them off. I think a brain cell shorted when he did that.
“What was mean was he ignored you, good cause or not,” he retorted. “So a little punishment is good for him. I took care of that for you.”
I groaned, and he had another condom on, and then he tumbled me over onto my stomach and the simmering tension hovered right at the edge of boiling.
“Now I’m going to take care of this for us…” He eased my thighs apart. “Yes?”
Fuck. “Yes,” I panted as he pushed in, and the angle sent him deeper.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered as he urged me up, and then we were rocking together, and I spiraled up and over the edge as the tension burst. He chased my orgasm and came with his lips on my shoulder and his hand on my clit, pulling another orgasm out of me. When we collapsed this time, I was fucking boneless.
And Jake was on his way.
“We still have at least ten more minutes,” Archie murmured. “Can I see if I can make you come again?”
For real?
I glanced up at him. “I don’t know if I can.” Not after all that.
“Oh… that’s a challenge I want to win.”
I was on my back and his mouth was on my pussy and my brain melted.
I don’t know if I came, or if I ever stopped coming, but I was a wreck by the time Jake texted to say he was there, and we still needed to pull our clothes back on.
Chapter Eight
There are strings
“Take a shower,” Archie suggested as he dragged on his shorts. “I’ll take Jake into the entertainment room. Come find us there?”
“Sure,” I said, still on the boneless side, and then Archie leaned forward and kissed me again. “Arch…” I caught his hand when he pulled back. “Thank you.”
He grinned. “Always.” Another kiss, and then he had his shirt and tugged it on before using both hands to finger comb his hair. He didn’t leave via the door to his room, but through the door to the adjoining guest room. “Locking this,” he called, then he was out.
Sitting in the middle of the rumpled bed, I pulled my knees up and groaned. Oh, I was aching a little more than I had been on Friday. It was a good ache, but it made me leery of moving fast. Ten minutes and some fantastic water pressure later, I pulled my damp hair back into a ponytail.
The shower had helped. Dressed, I gathered up the leftovers of our burgers and fries along wit
h the rest of my coffee, and then let myself out of Archie’s room to go in search of them.
Jake’s voice carried. “Are you serious right now?”
“As a heart attack,” Archie said. “You’re just bitching because she called me.”
“I’m bitching because half of what’s wrong is your damn fault. If you hadn’t said anything to her…”
I sighed. Nudging the half-open door wider, I slid into the room. Jake and Archie sat on opposite sofas. Archie leaned back, expression—well the best description for it was relaxed and not giving a fuck, but not Jake. He leaned forward, scowling.
“If he hadn’t said anything to me about your plan for Mathieu,” I pointed out. “It wouldn’t have changed the fact you were planning to do something you shouldn’t.”
Jake jerked and stood. He was pale beneath his tan, and there were bruises under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept. I hadn’t really looked at that photo of him and Maria earlier. Not closely. But it didn’t look like he’d shaved today either “Frankie…”
Holding up a hand, I continued, “That’s not okay, Jake.”
“He still shouldn’t have dropped a bomb on you and left. If—if all of that hadn’t happened, last night might have gone differently.”
“Yeah, maybe I wouldn’t have seen bad meatloaf when I came here to yell at you guys, but it wouldn’t change what you were planning to do. He left because I threw him out. I didn’t want him there. Archie telling me the truth—it hurt. But his telling me wasn’t the thing you guys did wrong. Please tell me you see that.”
Groaning, he tipped his head back. “I hated the idea of you dating Frenchy.”
“I got that,” I told him, and pushed farther into the room. “So when does it become you hate me seeing Archie?”
Both of them stilled.
“Or Archie hates that Coop wants to see me. Or Ian. When does this… become all of us breaking up?”
Because that would suck. I would have officially torpedoed the one really great part of my life. Their friendships meant everything to me.
“That’s not going to happen,” Archie said quietly.
“You don’t know that,” I said, meeting his gaze. “Or maybe it’s just that I don’t.” I set the food and the coffee on the table and rubbed my hands over my face.
“So we work hard to make sure it doesn’t happen, and whoever you end up with—we all agree, no hard feelings.” The offer was right there in Jake’s voice. “I told you I wanted to date you, even if you are seeing all of them. What happened with Archie Friday night doesn’t change that.”
“Sex, Jake, you can say sex,” Archie corrected him, and Jake just gave him a baleful look.
“You want me to give you a second black eye?”
“And now you’re proving her point,” Archie countered, almost smug. I smacked his shoulder as I passed him to sit on the other sofa. “Ow.”
“Be nice,” I told him as Jake dropped onto the seat next to me.
“I was being nice, I’m being supportive.” But he dropped the smug act, then reached over and put a hand on my knee. “I’m—happy about Friday. I’m not happy about the stuff that followed on Saturday, but I’m really happy about Friday.”
It was hard to argue the sentiment when I felt the same way. Especially after the last couple of hours.
“Frankie.” Jake pulled my attention, and when he covered my hand, I threaded our fingers together. The tight frown gathering his brows eased a little as he stroked his thumb against the back of my hand. “I’m sorry. I tried to get Maria to get Sharon to take that crap down.”
“I don’t care, it’s fine,” I told him.
“It’s not fine,” he said.
“In the laundry list of things that bother me right now? It’s fine. I don’t have to look at it. And—even if they took it down, everyone has probably seen it anyway.” I should probably call Coop and Ian. The quiet stretched between us, but Jake didn’t let go of my hand.
Archie nudged the food toward me again when Jake said, “I know this is probably bad timing… but it’s Sunday.”
“I know,” I said, and Archie gave me an encouraging look. He’d already told me I shouldn’t cancel the date. “Our date.”
“Yeah.” Jake gave me a little smile and squeezed my hand. “I get that you may not want to go out. But… I’d still like to spend the evening with you.”
“I’m going to grab us some water,” Archie volunteered, and gave my ponytail a little tug as he stood. “You two hang out for a minute.”
Then he was gone, closing the door behind him. Shifting to sit sideways, I half-faced Jake and the hopeful, but worried look in his eyes set off a pang in my chest. “I don’t like fighting with you guys.”
“Yeah you do—just not about when we do stupid shit,” Jake teased. “Unless it’s the time we all jumped off the bridge into the creek.”
“That was not stupid,” I pointed out. “That was insane. You could have broken something.”
“But we didn’t,” he murmured. “Ahhh… Frankie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry we pissed you off and more sorry we hurt you.”
“I’m not mad… not anymore. I was, don’t get me wrong. I was really mad. But mostly hurt and confused. You guys have to let me make my own choices. Even if you don’t like them.”
His jaw tightened. “Can I agree to work on it?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t ask him to do much more, not really. Even if I’d like it if they just promised to never do it again. That might be unreasonable.
“Then I promise, I’ll work on it. Can we hang out tonight? Or… did you just want to stay here?”
“I promised you time.” That was what he’d wanted. Just us. “But not really sure where we can go. I—I don’t know if Mom is still home, and I think it might be weird if I took a boy home after today.” It also meant seeing her, and I wasn’t ready for that, either.
The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Weird, maybe. But it wouldn’t be our first time. I wanted to take you out out, so… if you’re game, I’d still like to.”
I still had all that homework to do, but… “Okay.”
Relief poured off of him.
“But,” I began, and he seemed to brace. “I have a ton of homework I haven’t done.” It was still mid-afternoon. “When did you want to go?”
“Now?” He grinned. “We’ll grab your stuff, go back to my house. Not sure where Mom and the girls are, but we can study in my room and I’ll grab a shower and get changed—maybe shave. Then we can take it from there?”
The door opened, and Archie came back carrying bottles of water. “So what did we vote on?”
Jake raised his brows at me. A part of me kind of just wanted to stay here and hide, but it wasn’t like I was really hiding. Half of bad meatloaf lived here.
“We’re gonna go back to his place and do homework, then probably go out and do…” I had no idea what we were going to do.
“Cool,” Archie said, handing over the water bottles. “You don’t have to leave to do homework though. We could—make a big study group right here.” At Jake’s dark look, Archie held up his hands. “I said study, that doesn’t mean I’m inviting myself along on whatever your date is.”
Slanting a look at me, Jake said, “Up to Frankie. I can stay here, my crap is down in the car. I never took it out on Friday.”
“I’m sorry about your game,” I said abruptly. It had been canceled, and then Archie and I hadn’t picked up our phones.
“No biggie,” he said, still holding my hand. “Bubba and I dragged Coop out to a movie.”
“What did you see?” None of them had mentioned that, and Jake gave me a blank look.
“When you went out to a movie, dude,” Archie supplied.
“I dunno—that thing with the robots. It was—bad. We left about halfway through it.”
“So, maybe we don’t go see that tonight?” I kind of wanted him to smile, particularly because I was bringing everyone down and we could cut the awkwardness in
the room with a knife. Or maybe that was me.
“Well, if we did see it tonight, we wouldn’t miss anything by making out all the way through it.” A glint flashed in Jake’s eyes.
Heat flooded my face, even as I grinned. Archie snorted. “You don’t need to go to see a bad movie to make out.”
“I dunno, Frankie said she wanted the dating experiences. Making out in a movie theater is on that list.”
“Wait—there’s a list?” I eyed them. “Is that what rule number two is?” That little tidbit had come up when he’d been on the phone, but I had been way too distracted to latch onto it for long.
“There’s probably a dating list somewhere,” Archie commented, cracking his water bottle open. He nodded to mine and said, “Check Buzzfeed? And do you want me to open that?”
“I got it.” Jake lifted my bottle and twisted it open. “Arch is right. Check Buzzfeed or just do an internet search.”
“Though, I’m surprised at you, Frankie—you don’t have a list of your own?”
I knew they were teasing and it was funny, but my face caught fire. It had been warm earlier, but it was scorching now. “I make a lot of lists.”
“So you made a dating one?” Jake poked me. “Are you holding out on us?”
“Well… no. I never wrote it down, specifically.”
“But you have a list,” Archie challenged, eyebrows raised. “Are we supposed to guess what’s on it? Is that how we pass or fail?”
“I’m not grading you,” I protested. Good grief. I’d wanted to make Jake smile, not encourage them to gang up on me.
“But you’re not telling us what’s on the list, so we’re flying blind here.” Jake had let go of my hand to open the water bottle, and I dug out my phone and took a long swig of water before googling ten best date ideas for teens and ignored Jake’s snort. “She’s looking it up.”
“Of course, she is. She always does her homework…”
I flipped Archie off, it was automatic. “Right now, I’m doing your homework.”
“Well, you do his homework, too.” Jake bumped my shoulder, and I laughed. Because it was true.
“Not just mine,” Archie argued.
Changes and Chocolates: Untouchable Book Two Page 11
