Chapter 192

Archer’s gaze is heavy on my skin. I can feel it caress me as surely as if he was touching me with his hands. It trails down the column of my throat, stopping at the curve of my bare tits. I make no move to cover myself. I want him to see.

After being so close to death, maybe I want to feel alive again.

But then, unexpectedly, that same heavy gaze slides farther down, until he is inspecting the bruises of my ribs. Slowly, he reaches out and gently touches his fingers to the bare, unblemished skin of my lower abdomen. It’s one of the few places left on me not purple and painful.

Then he begins to walk around me. He moves at a glacial pace, circling around. He drags his fingers along in his path, sliding across the side of my tummy, then up around the curve of my hip. Down along the side of my thigh. Just above the cleft of my right ass cheek. My left. The other thigh. The other hip. And then my abdomen again.

I’m breathing heavy by now. I know he’s just inspecting my wounds but it feels so sensual, so intimate.

At my front, his gaze lifts up to my face. His eyes are stormy but otherwise unreadable. Archer doesn’t give much away on his best days. The only thing I can discern is that he is feeling some kind of conflict of emotion.

I prefer that, honestly, to the alternative. When he looks at me with nothing behind those eyes, when he’s closed himself off from everything, that’s when I worry.

When he’s like this, I feel more excited than afraid. He’s letting his emotions storm. He’s pushing his way through them rather than pushing them to the side.

I’ll wait. For however long he needs to weather this storm.

I expect it to take a good amount of time.

Instead, he slides his hands around my hips and tugs me closer. Getting straight to the point, huh? I want to laugh.

But then he stops.

His hands are on the small of my back. He’s keeping me pressed against him.

He lowers his head down to my shoulder. He curves so that his nose is at the juncture of my neck and shoulder and he is breathing me in.

He doesn’t otherwise move.

And I stand still, both swallowed completely in comfort, as well as totally confused.

Archer… is not usually this gentle with me.

He holds me for a longer time than I would have thought possible. I always thought Archer had an insatiable appetite. With his specific kinks, maybe I wasn’t enough to satisfy him. I tried not to take it to heart, but I did consider it.

But when he holds me like this, so tenderly, so gently, like he actually cares for me… It’s so much harder to understand him. Maybe everything I assumed about him was incorrect.

I couldn’t dare allow myself to think he actually care for me. Archer doesn’t seem… capable of that emotion. He seems to cut himself off before anything gets too serious. Didn’t Beau warn me of that, long ago?

But here now, it is almost like the damn is breaking, and he’s letting that emotion flow out.

Then, just as slowly as he has moved from the start, he lowers his hands down and unbuckles my pants. He carefully, slides my pants and panties down my legs, until I am totally bare to him.

He stands again, comes closer, and grabbing my ass, lifts me up off the ground. Instinctively, I wrap my arms around his shoulders as he inches us closer to the bed. He gently lowers me down, then crawls over me.

My wounds are tender, but his movements are more so. By now, he has clocked my every bruise and mark. He avoids them all as he lowers his mouth down onto my breasts, sucking a nipple up into his hot mouth.

I arch my back, eager for more, but the quick movement gives me pain and I gasp. He immediately pulls back and away.

“If you want it,” he says, “You have to stay still.”

Gods, that was a tall order. Especially with that hot mouth and those calloused hands now rubbing soft circles into the meat of my thighs.

But I could do it. For him, and for the pleasure that would come back to me by pleasing him.

I focus on the command, and tell him, “Yes, Daddy.”

He smirks a little. “That’s my good little slut.” Then he lowers his mouth again, and I am lost to bliss.

He makes me cum three separate times, twice with his mouth, and once with his clever fingers. He evades my own searching hands for a while, but I finally manage to bring him to his own climax. He growls in my ear as he comes, and that gives me almost as much pleasure as my own releases.

Then, after cleaning us, he helps me wrap the bandages back around my ribs. After that he lifts the covers over the two of us. His arms wrap around me, and he holds me safe and strong throughout the rest of the morning and early afternoon.

When I awake again, it is to the dimming late afternoon light. My bed is cold. Archer is gone.

I’m not surprised, but I am disappointed. Whatever vulnerability Archer showed me this morning is likely under lock and key once more.

With a sigh, I get out of bed and change. Then I head down the hallway to check on Neil.

When I arrive at Neil’s door, he’s still fast asleep.

Steven is already in his room. He looks nervous, pacing back and forth. He looks at Neil on every turn, as if expecting him to awaken in the next moment.

“Steven?” I ask. I try to keep my voice soft, not wanting to rouse Neil before he’s ready to wake. After the ordeal he’s suffered today, I wouldn’t be surprised if he sleeps the entire rest of the day and night.

Steven however seems like he can’t wait nearly so long. He comes closer to me, then turns away to begin pacing again.

“Is everything okay?” I ask.

“I need to speak to Neil,” he says, and even his voice sounds manic. “It can’t wait. But it needs to. But it shouldn’t.”

I see. Steven is trapped in indecision. “Come out into the hallway with me,” I say. “You can tell me, okay? Then maybe we can figure out what to do.”

Steven looks at Neil again. He still hasn’t awakened. Then, with a sigh, he agrees and follows me out into the hallway. His nervous energy comes along right with him.

Whatever’s on his mind, has really got him spooked.

“What’s the matter?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” he replies. “But my news is not.” He takes another breath, as if to ready himself for what he’s about to say. “I’ve been continuing to search through Wyatt’s correspondence with my father, and I found a rather disturbing set of letters…”

That didn’t sound good. “What did they say?” I ask.

He looks at me, and the worry is clear in his eyes. “My father is also searching for Mia’s mother, and he’s much closer than us to finding her.”