She took his face in her hands, stared at him intimately, and kissed him thoroughly, her tongue pulling the heat from deep in his gut, and then she met him with half-lidded eyes. “You’re not soft at all.”
“No, I’m not. What are you going to do about that?”
He saw it then, the shift in her. When she realized he needed her. The warmth of her. The reminder that those cold memories of death and bloodshed were in the past. She reached for his T-shirt, removing it in a hurry, then she headed for her drawer next to the bed. He made quick work to rid himself of his remaining clothing. He followed her every move as she took out a condom, feeling happy to be there in the present, yet a shadow of himself remained back in the past. Both parts needed her.
He wondered if she knew that as she sheathed him with the condom, then straddled him. He thrust his hands into her hair while she lifted up and took him all the way in. One easy stroke.
But then there was nothing easy about the way she took him. She rode him hard, rough, passionately forcing the chill to leave and only the warmth of her to remain in its wake. His rough breathing followed hers, no space between them. He didn’t try to kiss her, and she didn’t try either; he simply stared into her steady, heated gaze, letting her pull him back from the dark place his mind had gone.
She brought them both to orgasm swiftly and urgently, leaving him bucking and jerking his release while she crashed over the edge, shuddering her pleasure, drawing out his. Until the chill was replaced with something sweeter, far more tender.
“You know what I truly think?” she said many minutes later, her forehead resting against his.
“What’s that?” he asked, sliding his hands up and down her back.
She leaned back, and he caught tears in her eyes. “That little girl was very lucky you were there to save her.” He was still deep inside her, and she made no move to shift off him. “I wish back when I was little, you’d been there to save me too.”
Emotion choking up his throat, he gathered her in his arms, holding her tight, doing what he could do for her now. “I wish I was there, too.”
Chapter 11
“Hide, baby girl,” Mom gasped, shoving Elise under the bed. “Hide and don’t come out. No matter what happens. Promise me?”
“Mommy, I’m scared,” Elise cried, clinging to her mother’s shirt.
“I know, baby, but you’re going to be all right. Promise me you won’t come out?”
“I promise.”
“Good girl.” Mom kissed one cheek and then the other and forcibly shoved her. “Go. Go now. As far into the corner as you can go.”
Elise slid back on her hip against the hardwood floor until she was pressed against the wall, tucking her legs in tight. Mom’s feet ran by, and Elise heard the window open seconds before the bedroom door slammed open.
“You don’t run, bitch,” Dad roared. “You never run from me.” Mom cried out in pain when Dad got close. “Where is Elise? Where did you put her?”
“She’s gone,” Mom yelled. “I put her out the window and told her to run. You’ll never get her.”
“You’ll never get her either,” Dad snarled.
Elise shut her eyes, covering her ears, bracing herself for the yelling to start. The screaming always came next. His fists followed.
But those familiar sounds never came. Other sounds did, soul-crushing sounds. Until…there were no sounds at all.
Elise jolted awake, sitting up with a gasp, clinging at her chest against the memory flooding her. “Jesus,” she breathed, forcing herself to remember she wasn’t that little girl anymore. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t out of control any longer.
“Nightmare?”
She started at the low voice and the warmth at her back. Until she remembered how she and Archer had talked late into the night and then she fell asleep, wrapped in his arms. He’d told her all about being raised by a single mom after his dad died tragically in war, his good childhood and his military life, and she told him all about her life with her aunt and uncle and everything she’d never told anyone but Zoey, Hazel, and Penny. They’d talked about their teenage years, the first kisses, their first times. All of it had seemed so natural last night. With Archer, it was warm and safe. She felt safe, something she’d really never felt before.
Suddenly, he sat up, sliding a comforting hand on her bare thigh, his brow wrinkling. “You okay?”
She nodded and laid back, breathless, catching sight of a sleepy Archer. He was many things. Strong, seductive, but this side of him, this sweet, almost boyish side was her favorite. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She ran her hands over her face, suddenly aware she was shaking. “It’s not a nightmare.”
“Sure looked like a nightmare.”
She dropped her hands and flipped onto her side to face him. “Sometimes I dream about the day my mom was murdered.”
He gave her a pained look and lay back down beside her. “That’s what this was? A memory of that day?”
She nodded. “It’s…jarring.”
He rested his head on his hand, sliding the other one along her exposed thigh beneath her nightgown. “No doubt it would be.”
She liked that touch on her leg, the comfort it gave. More than that, she liked how his expression didn’t drown in pity.
His steely gaze bore into hers, the boyish charm gone, only a resounding strength there now. “Are you seeing the dream from your eyes?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s like I’m an outsider, almost like a movie.”
He stroked his fingers across her skin, seeping warmth into her thigh. “And you see the whole thing?”
“I only see the part where my mom locked us in her bedroom. She shoved me under the bed and told me to hide. Then opened a window.”
“Why’d she do that?”
“To protect me.” Elise took a deep breath to settle the racing of her heart and to stuff back the rising emotions the memory always brought. “She told my father she’d helped me out the window and that I ran to get help.”
Archer’s brows drew together, thoughtful. “Amazingly brave of her to do that.”
“Very brave,” Elise agreed. “She must have been absolutely terrified, but I have no doubt she never would have expected he’d take her life and then his own.”
“Is that part in your dream?”
She swallowed. Hard. Then forced the words out, wanting him to know this about her. “Just the gunshots and the thuds of their bodies hitting the ground.”
“Jesus, Elise,” Archer said, pulling her closer, like he thought that would protect her. “That never should have happened to you.”
“It never should have happened to my mom either, but love screws people’s heads up.”
“Not a good kind of love.”
At that, Elise hesitated. “What is that? A good kind of love?”
“The love Rhys and Zoey have,” he said without hesitation. “The love I’ve seen with my mother and her new husband. Healthy love.”
“Have you ever had that?”
“No, but I also wasn’t in a situation to go all in with someone during the military. I saw how hard my mother had it as a single mom. I wouldn’t have done the same to my wife and possible children.”