Damn him to hell. As badly as I wanted to sneer and make Zoolander jokes, he really was made for this shit. His myriad of tattoos drew the eye in a dangerous way, and I found myself tracing the black and gray ink far too carefully.
I could see why the owner of the bar wanted him. He was dark, dangerous, and next-level sexy as he took a sip of his drink, his cool blue eyes tracking the camera as Nicky clicked like crazy. She was talking constantly, giving him directions, correcting his face angles, telling him where to look and when to look back, but he was totally unfazed.
Maybe there was hope for him yet... Apparently he could listen to a woman when he needed to.
I took a couple of steps closer, feeling the pencil-thin stilettos sway my hips more than usual, and Archer's gaze snapped up to me from the camera.
Nicky snapped a handful more photos, but he wasn't concentrating anymore. His gaze was laser-focused on me, raking over my whole body from head to toe like he was seeing me for the first time. Or seeing me with new eyes. It was unnerving as hell and made my step wobble slightly.
Suddenly, the intensity of Archer's gaze was all too much, and I cleared my throat to gain Nicky's attention.
"Did you need me somewhere?" I asked her in a tight voice, praying to all the fates she wouldn't decide she needed me in Archer's lap or something.
"Uh-huh, just a sec hon," Nicky replied, still clicking away as Archer leaned forward to place his drink on the table, then sat back against the velvet armchair with his legs still spread and that look still on his face.
"What?" I snapped at him when it became too much for my nerves to handle. "Are you having a fucking stroke or something?" I parked my hands on my hips and fixed a combative glare onto my face. After everything he'd done, he didn't deserve to look at me like that. Like I was a woman he wanted to fuck the daylights out of. That was firmly off the table for Archer and me.
His lips curled in a ghost of a smile, and he swiped a hand across his face—seeming to hide his amusement—as his eyes shifted back to Nicky and her camera. He'd always had some decently long stubble, but he'd let it grow out enough that it could probably be classified as a short beard now. I hated beards on men. Or... I thought I did.
Fucking hell, maybe it was me that was having a stroke. Or certainly some sort of brain misfire. Because as much as I wanted to deny it, I was already imagining what his beard would feel like against my inner thighs.
Yeah, I needed some therapy or something.
"Okay, yes," Nicky said, lowering her camera and flashing me a bright smile. "Hot damn, you look incredible. Can I get you over here?" She indicated where she wanted me—thankfully not in Archer's lap—and I let my brain switch off a bit as she positioned us and went to work.
For the most part, I was able to ignore Archer. Or at least pretend he was someone else. Some random, faceless, nameless model that just happened to be in the same photo shoot... but then Nicky called out her next instruction.
"Excuse me?" I replied, blinking at her. Surely that had just been an echo of my own thoughts.
Nicky quirked a brow at me like she was trying not to laugh. She'd just set Archer up on a backless bar stool in front of a cool light feature against a brick wall, and she wanted me to sit on his lap.
What the actual fuck?
My eyes narrowed, and my lips parted to tell her I was not okay with that—because my willpower only extended so far and I was all too aware it was possible to totally loathe someone and still fuck their brains out. But Archer gave me no choice in the matter.
His huge hands wrapped around my waist, and I let out a small squeak as he lifted me into his lap, my ass sideways.
"What the fuck?" I hissed at him, my teeth clenched to try and hide our animosity from Nicky and everyone else in the room. Most of them weren't paying close attention, thankfully, and I didn't actually give two shits if everyone knew I couldn't stand being within five hundred feet of Archer D'Ath. But I also didn't want anyone else—like Jase the creeper—sticking their nose into our fight.
He dropped one hand away from my waist, resting his wrist ever so casually on his thigh—the one I wasn't sitting on—and a small, mocking smile touched his lips. "Chill out, Madison Kate. It's just a photo shoot; I'm not going to go molesting you. I don't fuck unwilling chicks."
A snarl burned through me. "No, you just marry them while they're underage." My words were whispered, but the venom was clear.
Instead of releasing his hold on me, like I'd expected, his grip around my waist tightened, pulling me closer into his body. I wobbled, my arm shooting out in an instinctive reaction to save myself from falling to the floor.
"What is it that you're most upset about, Madison Kate?" Archer asked me in a dark murmur, his lips barely moving as he stared into my eyes. Somewhere in the background I could hear Nicky's camera clicking, but she'd stopped giving us directions. "Is it the fact that your father sold you? Or that I bought you? Or are you just pissed that I refused to fuck you when you were so clearly begging for it?"
Rage boiled within me, and I placed my hand against his chest, trying to shove him away—or me away from him, as it was—but his hand around my waist was tighter than the safety restraints on a roller coaster. Appropriate, given how I felt like I was on the most dangerous rusty, broken-down old roller coaster imaginable when I was with Archer.
"Let go of me, Archer," I snarled, pushing against his chest to show I wasn't fucking around. My other hand was on his bare shoulder, my arm around the back of his neck, and I deliberately dug my fingernails in as I retracted that hand.
A deep, muscular shiver rippled down his back as my nails gouged red lines across his flesh, but still, he didn't shove me away. Quite the opposite. A small, frustrated groan left his lips a split second before his free hand clapped against my ass, lifting me, spinning me, and resettling me across his lap with one stocking-clad leg on either side of his hips and my pushed-up breasts close enough to his face that his beard brushed them.
"What the fuck are you—"
Boom. Hell froze over.
Or close enough. Archer's lips hit mine in a harsh, demanding kiss while his fingers tangled in my hair. My brain short-circuited, and for a second, I kissed him back. I'd lie about it later if anyone asked me, but I did. He had one hand in my hair, the strands so tightly wound around his fingers that I may as well have been a puppet under his control. His other hand was splayed across my lower back, but his touch was possessive and controlling, holding me tight against him as he kissed me senseless.
Not totally senseless, though.
With every scrap of willpower I possessed, I jerked my lips away from his, turning my face to the side as I fought to catch a breath. Everyone had to have seen that. Certainly, Nicky had; she had her fucking camera on us.
"I thought you didn't fuck unwilling chicks," I snarled in a quiet voice, keeping my face turned away from Nicky's camera for fear of what she might capture there. It was bad enough that my pussy was throbbing where I was crushed against Archer's hardness and my whole body was lit up like I'd stuck my tongue in an electrical socket.
Archer let out an amused sound and ran his tongue over his lips but didn’t release my hair. In fact, he used his grip there to turn my face enough that our gazes locked once more.