1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  “Taking care of Eli includes me,” I protest. “It always included me. We take care of both of them together.”

  “Yeah, well. You left. You left so I had to take care of them by myself and I did the best that I could.”

  “Wow,” I say and I give him a fake smile, “Tell me how you really feel, then.”

  “Why don't you tell me,” he snaps, “why the hell you decided that you should sleep with me and then run away for four fucking years?”

  I swallow hard. “I don't want to have this conversation,” I say.

  “And we can we only do things on your timetable,” he says, bitter. Frowning, he shakes his head, “Fine. I’ll play your game. But I need your help.”

  “With what?” I ask, nerves in my belly. I’m used to seeing a lot of things, but Archer angry…I don't know what to make of this. Of him.

  He's never pushed me. Not when it comes to us. If there is an us.

  “I need to know everything you know or can find out about Morningstar. You're a journalist. You can dig deeper than I can, go places that legally, I can't. He's connected to this and I need to know how.”

  Of course. Of course, he needs to know. Now that I have Michael and John breathing down my neck and Gabriel—. I shake my head. I shut the thought down before it can cross my face and clue Archer in.

  “Okay. Give me everything you've got and I'll see what I can find out. I can't make any promises, you know that.”

  “Yeah. I get it. Just do your best—that's all I need, okay?”

  “Hey, where's Eli?” I ask, belated, my voice all fake happy.

  “He's at the station doing some research.” Archer goes quiet, and then, “Have you heard from Gabe today?”

  I nod. “Yes, he was in meetings with clients all day. If you don't hear from him, it's nothing to worry about.”

  Archer starts to turn away. It's the nature of secrets to be shared.

  “I left because it hurt too much to stay.”

  He goes still, the kind of waiting, watchful stillness that makes me nervous. And makes want burn hot and heavy in my gut. “What did?” he asks quietly.

  I shake my head, helpless, because I can't answer that question.

  Archer curses sharply under his breath and then crowds me against the kitchen counter.

  “Stop hiding from me Hazel,” he snarls.

  So I take the leap. I say, “It hurt too much to be around you. I couldn't just stay here and watch you work your way through all the women in the fucking County. While you came to me and told me your secrets. I was the girl who held you together but never the girl that you wanted. I couldn't do it. I had to leave.”

  He's staring at me like he's never seen me before.“ Hazel,” he says stunned,

  “What are you talking about? It was never like that. That's not what we were.”

  “That's always what we were. We saw each other's worst sides, Archer, and because we did we could show everyone else the best. I got to see both sides of you—the good and the bad. You know all those girls who fell into your bed love you because of every good thing about you. I hated it then. That's my secret, my Brutally Honest. I fucking hate it because they didn't know you. They knew the best sides of you but they didn't know everything. And I couldn’t stay here and watch you with them. So I left.”

  “Why haven't you said something? Why did you run away for four years instead of talking to me?” He sounds so hurt and betrayed, it twists my heart up a little.

  “What did you want me to say? Okay, I know we can't be together cuz you know, all the reasons, but I'm in love with you—” I freeze and he makes a noise like a wounded animal.

  “Hazel,” he almost groans and then he's on me, his lips on mine and I am lost, completely drowning.

  The thing that's always saved me. I’m drowning in it now.

  His hands are in my hair, fingers digging in and holding me where he wants as he kisses me, soft and sweet and slow. Until I snarl against him because it's been fucking four years and we're finally alone, without Eli five feet away sleeping, and I'm tired of wanting when he's so fucking close. I snarl and my hands, on his shoulders, curl into him, nails digging into his broad shoulders and he hisses, breaking away from my lips as he groans.

  He likes that, the bite of pain.

  “Don't tease,” I murmur against his lips and he groans.

  “No teasing, baby girl. Just us.” he kisses me again, these deep long licks that have me clinging to him and my body reeling. I want more. I want everything.

  I don’t get to keep him. I don’t get to keep this but I want it anyway.

  He kisses me, and I whimper as he does, and he takes my soft noises, swallowing down my little whimpers, his hands closing around my hips, holding me still and close. He holds me like I'm fragile and precious and like he can't get me close enough, like he wants to press me into his body, until we're not Archer and Hazel, and separate.

  And with his hands on me like that, his lips eating up every noise I make and the sweet taste of him on my lips, I can almost let myself think this means as much to him as it does to me.

  “Hey,” he whispers, pulling away a little. “I'm losing you, pretty girl. Stay with me, huh?”

  Tears sting my eyes and I lean into him, pressing open mouth kisses to his throat while I shove my emotions down. I scrape my teeth over his skin and he shivers, just a little.

  “Bedroom,” he mutters and I freeze.

  The one time we had sex, it was in my bedroom, wrapped in darkness and moonlight and so damn intimate and real it almost broke me.

  There is a very real fear that it will, if I take him there again.

  So I whisper, “too far,” and jerk away from him. Strip out of my tank top and sprawl across the couch and it’s a dirty trick but it does the job.

  Archer forgets completely about my bedroom, and sprawls across me on the couch. His lips suck sweet pressure against my throat, and I groan, my hand in his hair as he slips lower and jerks my bra aside, taking me in his mouth.

  And I scream.

  Archer groans, his tongue twisting around my nipple, and we’re loud. His mouth on me, his muffled noises, my pleas for more, please, more, Archer! Louder and louder, until it eats up the silence around us and it’s just him and his hungry wet mouth, and me, my body writhing under him, riding that delicious line of want and too much, and then he’s pulling away and I snarl.

  He kisses me as he yanks my pants down, and I scream again, into his mouth, as his fingers fill me. Fuck into me, hard and perfect because they’re rough, but sweet. I arch as his thumb brushes my clit, swallowing the noise that wants to break free, the one that is more sob than scream, more his name than anything else.

  “Hazel,” he murmurs, and I blink. Focus on him.

  Fuck. Bad idea. Shouldn’t focus on him. Not when he’s staring at me like that, like I’m the fucking sun and stars and every good thing. Like I’ve always wanted him to look at me.

  “You’re so perfect, baby,” he says, hoarsely, and his fingers twist, deep inside me and I moan.

  The orgasm startles both of us, arches my back off the couch and I’m shaking, my whole body wrapped up in the feel of his fingers on me, in me, and the pleasure that’s washing through me. Cresting. He doesn’t stop. His thumb keeps moving, that maddening little circular stroke that has my hips jerking up, into his touch, and my hand wrapped around his wrist, and I don’t know if it’s to drag him closer or push him away and I don’t think it matters anymore.

  Nothing matters but this.

  The second orgasm is slower. It builds, slow and sweet, while he finger fucks me and whispers dirty promises in my ear and licks a path down to my nipples.

  The third orgasm hits as soon as he covers me with his lips, tiny licks and the whisper of a pull on my clit, his fingers holding me open as he licks me, silent finally.

  And it’s not enough. I want more.

  I want Archer

  “Fuck me,” I whisper, when he slowly thrusts hi
s fingers into me.

  “Please, Archer, fuck me,” I moan, when he licks his fingers clean and goes down on me.

  “Dammit, Archer,” I snarl, when he puffs soft against my skin, “fuck me.” I scream, when he does.

  When he shoves his jeans down, and rips his shirt off, and he’s towering over me, all muscle and tattooed skin and I catch the tiny hoop hanging from his nipple and twist.

  His hips punch up, and I laugh, low and pleased, because he does like pain.

  My nails dig into his back, when he slides into me, and I sob. He breathes my name, like a promise. Like home.

  Like I am everything he’s ever wanted.

  Chapter 20

  When Hazel kisses me, it’s this quick, sweet press before she jerks back. Away. Eyes wide and worried. Like she’s afraid I’ll be…what? Mad? Does she think I’ll be pissed that she’s done what I’ve wanted her to do for years?

  Since I came home from the Corps and she punched me in the nose, and I realized my little blue eyed ghost had grown up and grown some balls.

  I fucked girls. They were in and out of my bed regularly, all sweet and willing and easy.

  But I didn’t get attached, and they fucking knew better than to. Getting attached was stupid—I wasn’t looking for long term. I wasn’t even looking for the weekend. I’d had too many people in my life disappear for me to want to invite some hot piece of ass into my life long term.

  There was one girl. In high school. Hazel fucking loathed her, which, looking back was kind of a tell. She was a sweet girl. Maddie May.

  Honest to god, that was the girl’s fucking name.

  Anyway. I thought I could have something with her. She was sweet. She liked Eli. Even Nora could tolerate her and Nora didn’t like anyone Eli or I brought home.

  But then she left. Said she wanted more than the County. I was invited, which I guess was some kind consolation prize. Maddie knew I wasn’t leaving the County. She knew I wouldn’t leave my family.

  She said we were codependent and dysfunctional and had a few unappealing theories about me and Eli.

  And she was right. Of course she was. Not about me and Eli—that’s just fucked up right there, the kid is my brother but about our dysfunction and dependence?

  Yeah.

  That was us all day.

  Maddie reminded me that I can’t have this. Not when I have them. And since I know Eli and Hazel and Nora will never leave me, I don’t mind too much, giving up the idea of stability with some girl who won’t ever really get me. Fuck a girl here and there.

  But my family is here. Always will be.

  Except.

  Hazel.

  Hazel was both. She was the girl I could be me with, and she was home. And when I came home and she let me know just how pissed she was that I’d left—it clicked.

  I knew she was in this weird place of want and distance. Like she was arguing with herself about what she should want, what she should let herself want.

  And I knew all the reasons we shouldn’t be together. Nora.

  Eli.

  She was my best friend, and I ruined every relationship—I didn’t want to ruin us.

  But then.

  She kisses me, and she looks so nervous. Body tense and ready for me to push her away.

  “Hazel,” I murmur, and crawl up the bed, until I’m leaning into her space. Her eyes are wide and watching me, confused. Until I close that space between us, and her eyes drift closed, a noise like a sigh slipping free.

  Like. Yes. And this is right. And Finally.

  So I lift her, and she makes this happy noise against my mouth, and I swallow it down, lick it from her lips, tease a whimper from her when I nip at her lip and slide along her tongue, and it’s not enough.

  It’s not enough.

  I shift, my knees coming up on either side of her, and she arches into me, all pliant soft heat pushing against my hard dick and—

  “Fuck,” I snarl, ripping away from her mouth, and she laughs.

  Throaty and low and fucking hell, I love that noise in her mouth. I love that I am the one who pulls it from her, and I’m the one who kisses it from her lips.

  She’s staring at me, her eyes hooded and glittering with hunger and this breathless excitement that I remember. Her pinky nail is caught in the silver hoop on my nipple, a relic from my years in the Corp and stupid fucking decisions made under the influence of too much alcohol.

  She tugs and I gasp, arching against her and she laughs.

  That noise hasn’t changed, not even a little bit, over the years. She still laughs when she’s turned on and desperate, and it still rubs against me like an electric wire of want.

  I want to take my time with her. Want to stretch it out until it lasts forever.

  I can’t go another four years, without feeling her tight and warm around me, her skin silky against mine, her lips sucking bruises against my collar bone.

  I don’t think I can go four days.

  She’s begging, and I almost come, when I thrust into her. When her body shudders around me, so close to the edge, that she’s almost coming just from that. I freeze, when I’m inside her, fighting the orgasm that’s crawling up my throat. Kiss her, slow and soft, and whisper her name like a fucking prayer, until she’s smiling, her lips lazy against mine.

  She drags a hiss from me when she rolls her hips, this filthy fucking motion that makes me see stars. Breathe a curse against her lips that she licks away and kisses until she breaks off with a low moan, arching into me as I fuck her.

  No.

  No.

  Not fuck.

  I fuck girls who don’t matter. The endless parade of them who will never matter.

  But this. As I thrust into her and she rolls up to meet me, her hand on my chest, tugging that fucking ring, her body a wave of motion that keeps tugging me toward climax, her eyes lazy and hungry and so fucking full—this isn’t fucking.

  I’m not ready to name this.

  But I know what it isn’t.

  She moans, suddenly, and her body freezes, even as she yanks hard on my nipple ring, and rears up, biting me, muffling her cry against my skin as she comes.

  Even torn up by orgasm, she’s fierce. She’s fighting, and demanding my own pleasure. She’s Hazel. My fierce, stubborn, beautiful ghost.

  I thrust into her again, and she whimpers, as I come. As I drop down on her, forgetting for a moment to keep my weight off her, and kiss her, pleasure blanking out everything but the need for her.

  I come, and she shudders, and if it feels like we’re holding each other together. If the way she clings to me, and the way I kiss her, is a little desperate—well.

  We both keep that to ourselves.

  The room is quiet, and she’s breathing, slow and even, against my chest. She’s pliant, so soft against me. For a long time, we lay there, in silence.

  But I know her. And I feel it, the moment she starts to pull away. The moment something trips in her pretty little head, and says, no. Dangerous.

  She doesn’t pull away from me.

  It’s worse than that.

  She gets closer. Snuggles into me, her grip turning impossibly tight, and her lips brushing against my skin once, as she sighs.

  Then.

  “Don’t you fucking dare,” I mutter, tightening my grip and yanking her back to me. She huffs a breath, like she can’t believe I did that, and shoves a hand between us, onto the bruises she sucked into my skin, and no.

  She’s not pushing me away, not after this.

  “Why?” I ask simply, giving her the room she’s asking for—enough of it, anyway, that I can look into those big blue eyes.

  I see the flicker of hesitation; the way she bites her lip.

  She used to do that, when Nora was demanding something, some piece of information that Hazel thought wasn’t good for her.

  She’s weighing the consequences of telling me the truth and protecting me.

  “C’mon, Hazel,” I murmur, sliding my fingers up her bare
back and into her hair. I get a grip and use it to pull her head back, gently, so she’s looking at me. “You don’t protect me, Hazy-eyes. Never did. We protect them, but we’re honest with each other.”

  “Leaving four years ago was to protect you,” she says back, her voice breathy and fuck, I love hearing her like that. All turned on and hating it.

  “Leaving was to protect you. Don’t lie to yourself.” I shake her head a little and her eyes roll up, pleasure chasing across her face.

  “I can’t be with you,” she whispers, eyes closed. Shit.

  I knew that. Knew that we couldn’t be more than this and what we already were. But fuck it hurts, hearing her say it out loud.

  “I can’t be with you because it would kill Nora and infuriate Eli and because you need someone—“

  “I swear to fuck, if you say better than you,” I say, casually, “I will turn you over my knee and spank your ass.”

  She smirks, a slow thing and I add, “And it won’t be the good kind of spanking, Hazy girl.”

  She laughs, and rolls away from me. I sit up with her, trace my fingers over her back.

  But the levity falls just as quickly as it rises, and she curls inward, slightly.

  She’s naked and sweat slick, her hair rumpled from my fingers, and her lips red from my kisses.

  And she looks, impossibly, like the ghost of a girl I pulled from her shy shell, so many years ago.

  “Archer we don’t work, like this.”

  “Why not?” I ask, against her skin.

  Her head tilts to the side and she pins me with that sharp blue gaze that sees right through me. “I can think of two damn good reasons.” Eli. Nora.

  Because this—fuck, this would devastate them. Nora would never understand, even if I could get Eli to. She raised us together.

  Hazel had never, not once in the sixteen years since we all ended up on Nora’s couch with a few ratty bags and a shit load of grief—she has never called me brother.

  I’ve never been her brother.

  I’ve been her partner, and her friend, and her ally.

  But I’ve never been her brother.