by Viv Daniels
CHAPTER NINE
This one couldn’t properly be called a kiss either. Kisses were gentle, sweet. Kisses were things given on altars when you wore white lace and flowers. Kisses belonged to babies and friends and shy boys on first dates. This was mouths and breath and wanting so bad it might singe off their skin. This was hands clutching and nails scraping and clothes rent at the seams.
“Ivy,” he said or breathed or thought directly into her soul. She couldn’t tell. She didn’t care. “Ivy-mine.”
“Yes,” she gasped, though pausing for breath seemed so beyond the point. “Yours.”
The old plaid shirt went flying, and her sweater seemed to shred like fine silk. Maybe it was magic, maybe even dark magic, but Ivy barely noticed. She was too busy taking stock of every square inch of her skin that touched his skin, and thinking it was a miracle. Everything else about this night—the bells, the arguments, the threats—nothing else mattered. This was Archer, here, for her. This was the thing she’d told herself she didn’t want, couldn’t have, mustn’t crave. Ivy no longer cared.
“Bras?” he grumbled, his face buried in her collarbone. “I forgot how much I hated bras. You want dark magic? Whoever invented these things should be cursed.”
“Mmmm,” Ivy replied, and unhooked hers. She flung the cups away, and they landed on a bush halfway down the greenhouse walk. “Better?”
“Partly.” He glared at her jeans. “You’ve already seen me without my pants.”
She kicked off her boots, undid her jeans, then shoved them down too. “Now better?”
“Panties,” he said, smiling. “Not like bras. So much better than bras.” He hooked his fingers into the scraps of cotton fabric at her hips. “What happened to all those lace and bows and strings you used to wear?”
“It’s been three years since anyone’s seen them, Archer. Lace and bows are itchy.”
He fell against her, burning Archer on her front, the frozen glass at her back. “Ivy,” he groaned in wonder. “No one…?”
“I told you.” She pressed herself into his embrace, moaning. “I’m yours.”
And she was. They’d played games and they’d tossed about anger and accusations and yes, even lies, but they couldn’t deny it. He was hers and she was his and they had the same soul. Didn’t they know that? Didn’t everyone know? Her father had locked her away, the town had put up a wall of magic between them, but here they were again.
His beard scraped the skin of her face, her throat. This beard that he hadn’t had when they’d been teenagers but still felt as familiar as her own hand. His palms covered her breasts, hot and gentle, possessive and perfect. She whimpered when his thumbs grazed her nipples and his tongue delved into her belly button, she writhed when his hands slipped down to divest her of her underwear, she bit her lip over a scream when she felt him nuzzling her thighs apart.
Before she could stop him, he’d hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and his mouth moved against areas of her body that hadn’t felt the touch of anything but her own fingers in ages. And this wasn’t kissing either, exactly, but my oh my, she was fine with it, too.
More than fine. Way, way, way more than fine. Her hands glided over the steam-soaked panes of the glass, searching for something to grip. When she found nothing, she reached for him, swept her fingers through his mass of curls, threw her head back, and gave into the sensations he was sending through her with his lips and tongue and voice rumbling her name in a tone almost too low to hear.
Her nerve endings blazed and her mind was filled with memories of summer nights, the taste of creekwater and woodwine and salt from Archer’s skin, the evenings she thought she could live on nothing but sex and forest magic, and she didn’t care what the kids at school would say Monday morning, when her locker would be filled with leaves and pebbles, and her father would shake his head and tell her to be careful, be careful, be oh so very—
Archer’s tongue pressed against her flesh just so and Ivy cried out, shuddering in sudden, shattering pleasure, half here and half in the memories they both shared. If this was magic, then so be it. Ivy would cross her heart and hope to die and let Archer turn her to stone or smoke or rain. As long as she could feel this way for one more moment.
He rose before her, that wild look in his eyes. The one she was supposed to fear. But all she did was want it, and when she kissed him this time, it was a real kiss, full lips and breath and the tang of her pleasure on his tongue. She licked his bottom lip, and nibbled, and smiled against his mouth.
“I’m getting cold, Archer,” she begged him coyly. “Make me warm.” She rubbed her body against his. He was so hot. Hot like a rock in the summer sun. She wanted to spread herself over him and soak him up.
“Wait, Ivy,” he mumbled, fiddling with the fastenings on his own pants. “Wait, Ivy, I have to—”
She lowered her mouth to the hollow of his throat and bit, then quickly laved the spot with her tongue. The nice spot, the one he liked, had always liked. The one she knew because he was always hers.
And just as she wanted, Archer groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as she reached into his pants and took him in her hands. They fell against the glass. Steam rose around them, wafting through her hair and over her feverish skin. She felt his fingers between her legs, felt one slide slick inside her, testing.
“Three years,” she reminded him, and pulled him in for a kiss. “Don’t make me wait another second.”
Archer didn’t. He gathered her close, lifting her easily as she wrapped her legs around him. His pants still hung low around his hips, the waistband rubbing against the underside of her thighs. She felt him push inside her, the hard, hungry warmth of Archer filling her up. Ivy breathed out, her sigh swirling the steam that wreathed around them and radiated outward, cloaking this part of the greenhouse dome like a silver curtain. She couldn’t see the night or the stars or the snow. She couldn’t see anything but Archer.
She fought for leverage as he began to move inside her, pressing her spine against the cool, slippery glass at her back, sliding her hands up the panes to grasp at the metal veins crisscrossing the dome. Her skin squeaked over the glass, chilly water dripping down her shoulder blades in contrast to the fire building between them.
Her head overflowed with memories, Archer’s and hers blending, her feelings and thoughts mixing with his until she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began. Three years of wanting doubled in her head as she felt his desire and his wonder crashing over and through her.
And yet, how could it be a surprise? How could she ever want anything more than this, than him? She’d worked to deny it, forget it, and why? Nothing could compare to this, this spiral of pleasure, his and hers combined, reflected back and forth in an endless chain.
As soon as Ivy found a grip against the bronze bands, Archer allowed his hands to slip from her back, to grasp her hips and thrust with more force. Steam rose around them, thick and heavy and smelling of trees and earth and a raging fire, the kind that opens pine cones and scares town folk. Ivy didn’t want to feel the cold anymore. She just wanted Archer. Even as his ragged, half-formed desires filled her head, she wanted more. Some were fine and beautiful, and some were base and dirty, and she loved them all.
She pulled herself forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He staggered back and lowered himself to the ground, lying down as she straddled him. Ivy pressed down on his chest and moved on top of him, finding a rhythm that worked for them both. His moss-colored eyes stared up at her, smooth and even and filled with an emotion Ivy didn’t dare name. Her pale, blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders, and she swiped it out of her face as she leaned down and kissed him again.
His hands tightened on her waist and his hips thrust up, lifting them both off the ground. “Ivy, oh, Ivy…” And then, abruptly, he pulled her off him and gasped, taking his shaft in his hand as his orgasm hit. Ivy nearly cried out too, as the connection between them was severed.
At last he relaxed, his head lolling
against the ground as he sighed in pleasure. He reached for her and gathered her close, so her head was tucked into the hollow spot between his collarbone and his chest. She could feel his heart thumping against her temple, strong and fast. His contentment enveloped them both, and as she laid her hand on his chest, she saw herself through his eyes, lifted up against the dome glass, her head thrown back in pleasure. She closed her eyes, suddenly embarrassed, and he squeezed her.
“You all right?”
She nodded against his muscles. “You just surprised me… when you pulled away.”
“I wanted to protect you. I didn’t know if you still took those pills.”
She didn’t, and the fact that Archer had thought of that, that he could even remember it when Ivy could hardly remember her own name, amazed her. She pulled herself up and kissed him, long and gentle, running her fingers through the silky strands of his beard for the first time. “This is nice,” she said, stroking the bit of hair on his face. It was easier than everything else she wanted to say. “New.”
He stretched, smiling. “Yes, well, we can also discuss the changes in your breasts, if you’d like.”
She swatted him, and he shifted to avoid her. She heard the crush of plant matter.
“Archer, sit up. You’re crushing the redbells.”
He pushed himself up on his elbows. “What?”
She pointed at the flowers underneath them. “Get up. You’re ruining my crop.”
He looked, then let out a whoop of triumph. “I am!”
She crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “Yeah. It’s nothing to get excited about.”
“Of course it is, Ivy-mine!” he cried, and took her hands in his. All at once, he was the Archer she’d loved as a teen, bright and shining and full of light. “I’m crushing them, not burning them to a crisp. The curse is gone!”
It was true. Whatever remnants of dark magic had lingered in Archer, it seemed to have dissipated. “So what? I…we…” Had the sex somehow fixed him?
“Possibly,” he said, as if she’d spoken the thought aloud. “It did feel like magic.”
He grinned, but Ivy looked away and reached for her pants. This was a little too much magic for one night. Before, in the heat of the moment, she didn’t care, but come morning, there would be lots of questions, and far too few answers. Surely the council would want the bells to ring again. And she and Archer might be fine, this one timeless hour in her greenhouse, but then what? There were too many people in town who feared dark magic, and Archer had family left alone in a dying forest.
She pulled on her panties and jeans, and as she was slipping her feet back into her shoes, another question occurred to her.
Archer said George Potter had never warned them about the creation of the bell barrier, but she’d never forget the look on her father’s face when he returned from the forest and said the people there wouldn’t leave. It had made perfect sense to Ivy. After all, even now, with barrier sickness and a dying forest, Archer still claimed the forest folk considered it home.
But Archer also said he would have come to be with her, had he known, and Ivy believed him with a bone-deep surety.
So what was the truth?
CHAPTER TEN
The street outside the shop crawled with townspeople. Up and down the road they walked, examining the silent bells from every angle—every angle, that is, that existed on this side. No one yet had dared try to cross.
Wrapped in bathrobes, Ivy and Archer watched from the attached apartment’s bedroom window.
“There’s no way you can make it through without them seeing you,” Ivy said.
“What do I care?” Archer replied, shrugging. “I’m not trying to keep what I did a secret.”
“I care.” Ivy tied the knot of her robe more tightly and smoothed her hair. “What do you think they’ll do when they find a forest man on this side of the bells?”
“What can they do to me, Ivy?” He spread his hands, curling his fingers in, and the hair on the back of Ivy’s neck stood on end. What bloomed there, invisible in his palms? “If they come for me, they will be sorry.”
She grabbed his wrist, and got a static shock for her trouble. At least, she hoped it was just static. “No dark magic, Archer. What are you thinking?”
He blinked down at her grip on him. “I don’t know,” he said, honestly. “These days, I go quickly to curses. Last week, I killed a rabbit just by looking at it.”
Ivy winced. She’d heard more than one confession this morning of his time spent with the dark arts. This year had been a lonely, wretched one, and the more powerful he grew, the more even his own folk had rejected him, for their own safety. “That’s all over with. The barrier is down now. You won’t be doing any more dark magic.”
“It’s not that simple,” he began.
A knock broke the stillness of the shop. It was coming from the front door.
“Well, here’s something simple. Stay put and let me do the talking.” She headed out into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind her and trying to shake off her unease. If she had anything to say about it, Archer would never practice dark magic again. If she’d been with him in the forest, she’d have never even let him try.
Now she’d found him again, and she wasn’t letting go.
Waiting for her on her front porch was the head of the town council, Ernest Beemer, in a long, wool coat and a ridiculous pair of red earmuffs that only emphasized the size of his bald, fat head. Beemer had been one of the ones to first propose the barrier. He owned the quarry, and claimed bramble-men from the forest regularly broke his machinery and poked holes in the dam. His business had boomed since the bells began to ring.
Ivy sighed. She could do this.
“Mr. Beemer?” she asked, as she opened the door. “I’m surprised to see you at my shop. I’m not due to open for another hour…”
“Have you noticed anything, Ivy?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
“The bells.” He gestured to the forest behind him. “Some time in the night, they stopped.”
“Really?” She pressed a hand to her chest. “How odd? No, I had no idea. I sleep with this white-noise machine, see, so…”
“And there’s a break in the lattice. Right across from your shop.” Ernest stepped away and pointed at the hole where she’d found Archer. “It snowed last night, so we haven’t been able to find any tracks—”
Thank goodness for small favors, Ivy thought.
“—but the dogs have been sniffing from the break to your door.”
“Dogs?” Ivy blurted. “Why, Mr. Beemer, you don’t think anything dangerous came from the forest, do you? And cased my little shop? How wretched!” She pulled the lapels of her bathrobe closed, affecting a little shiver. “I’m so glad I invested in that extra padlock. Even if something tried to break in, they wouldn’t be able to.” There, that ought to do it.
Behind Ernest, on the street, she saw Jeb and Sallie walk by, looking equal parts confused and relieved. They saw her at the door and waved in greeting. She nodded, and turned back to the councilman, who was watching her, brows furrowed. He pulled out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it. “Hey, Ryder, I’m talking to the Potter girl now. She says she heard nothing, not even the silence.”
Must mean Deacon Ryder, another council member. He’d designed every poster that appeared in town while they’d campaigned for the barrier, convinced that forest magic was demonic, and that fighting for the bells meant fighting for the very soul of the town.
And though Ernest walked a few steps away as the reply crackled back, Ivy heard it anyway. “Check around the greenhouse anyway. You know that girl’s got forest blood.”
She really wished they’d stop calling her a girl. She’d been living alone and running a business for two years now. She wasn’t a girl when she paid her bills and worked for her customers. She hadn’t been a girl last night when Archer had made her come against the greenhouse dome.
But she wasn’t
about to point that out to the gentlemen from the town council.
“I should probably get dressed,” she said brightly to Ernest. “Overslept a bit this morning. Maybe that’s the effect of no bells, huh, Mr. Beemer? For the first time in years, we’ve all gotten a good night’s sleep?”
He grunted at her and she shut the door. That was true, at least. She hadn’t slept so well in years, though whether it was from the silence or from the fact that she lay in Archer’s arms, she didn’t know. It was as if she’d fallen through a time warp, and was seventeen again. The wild, cruel Archer who’d awoken on the couch had vanished, leaving nothing behind but cocoa and charm and laughter and kisses. Even if it was all a dream, Ivy wasn’t sure she wanted to wake up.
Back in her bedroom, Archer was already wearing his forest pants and had found an old sweater somewhere. Ivy was relieved to see him clothed. It would make this easier.
“We need to talk,” she said to him. She’d said it last night, too, while they were still half-dressed in the greenhouse, but it hadn’t exactly happened. Instead, they’d gotten snacks and settled down in front of the fire to eat, and then they’d jumped all over each other and the only words they’d spoken had been each other’s names and cries of pleasure until they’d drifted off into sated sleep some time before dawn.
But now it was daylight, and they really, really needed to talk. About the forest, and the bells, and the scars of dark magic that lay across her lover’s soul. The curses might have left him enough to handle her redbell, but Archer wasn’t free. Not if he truly had spent months cultivating dark magic in order to break the enchantment on the bells. Magic bore a price.
“Right. Let’s talk.” He grabbed for her, but she sidestepped him and went behind her closet door.
“You said last night my father never told your people about the bells.” She quickly changed out of her robe and into another pair of jeans and a sweater. “And it’s not that I don’t believe you… I’m just wondering if there could be some kind of mistake.” After all, if the forest was overrun with dark magic, maybe her father had walked into some sort of illusion and didn’t realize it.