“I figured I’d work my way round the building. Ester and I are having a race to see who can screw the most tenants.”
She squawked when her chin fell and she shoved him again. “You better be messing with me, Fella! I didn’t give you permission to screw around.”
“Permission?” he asked. “We haven’t been together for a month.”
“Twenty-three days,” she said, correcting him. “And you might have cut me loose, but I didn’t give your cock permission to sniff around.”
“So that’s how it is? You get to do what you want, and I’m supposed to sit here celibate?”
Smug, she liked his concise question. “Sounds good to me,” she said and wouldn’t apologize for being territorial.
He grabbed her hand to hold her wrist between them. “So why you wearing this again?” he asked about her cuff that she’d only ever worn to conceal her brand when they needed her to. “Finally realize you don’t want to be owned by me anymore?”
Nya was pleased that he’d noticed and her satisfied smile bridged the time it took her to unbuckle the cuff. “You told me to have it removed if I didn’t want to belong to you anymore.”
Pulling the cuff off, she held up her wrist, and he took a turn at being shocked. Leaving the door frame, he straightened back to full height and taking hold of her wrist again, he pulled it high enough for him to examine.
“So you went and did the fucking opposite,” he murmured, tracing his fingers around the lines on her arm.
The contact made her shiver and she closed her eyes, relishing the feel of his skin on hers. Instead of removing the brand as he demanded that she do, she’d gone to a tattoo parlor and had it outlined in black ink.
The original brand was still as it always had been, but now it was unmistakable. It couldn’t be fobbed off as any kind of accident. Archer’s initials were emboldened by the careful work. Nya insisted that the artist use deliberate thick lines around the outer edges and the insignia on the inside, accentuating the art of the mark she was proud to wear.
“Nya, what the fuck did you do?” he exhaled.
“I put the cuff on because it’s still healing,” she said, snatching her arm away from his judgmental grimace. “I got it done a week ago, it’s getting better.”
Attaching her cuff, she didn’t have to see him glare at her to know his expression was tight. “You don’t let go, do you? If I told you to suck my cock right now, you’d do it.”
“Yes,” she said, finishing with the buckle. “I probably would.” But she balled her fists on her hips. “If you hadn’t just been balls-deep in Ella’s pussy.”
“If you’d come round an hour earlier, I could’ve had you both…” He pondered for a second. “That’s an interesting factoid to record for later.”
She couldn’t tell if he was playing with her or not and while she was mad, it was easy to focus on that powerful emotion. Then she got an unwelcome flash of Archer’s body as it would be entwined with Ella’s.
Nausea made her hand pounce to her mouth. “You look sick,” he said. “Pale.” He put the back of his hand to her forehead. “Did you take your pills? Did you fill your script? You better be looking after yourself, Ny. If I have to come down there every day and force the goddamn pills down your throat, you know I’ll do it.”
His angry words betrayed a sensitivity that she hadn’t seen since they were together. “I might stop taking them just to see if you back that up,” she said because Archer coming down to her apartment every night was something she’d dreamt about. “Except if I collapse in the middle of my apartment, it would take weeks for anyone to notice. Sizzle would have to run out of beer first. I’d definitely be dead by then.”
The scowl he wore was a continuation of his worry. “Where the fuck is Tag?”
She shrugged. “With Farrah. He’s not really checked in for a while. I’m happy he’s so in love. I can’t argue with that. I know what it’s like,” she said, making herself smile because she did mean what she said, but she missed her friend too. “I know what it’s like to be caught up in a person like that and I can’t argue that he hasn’t gone to hell and back for her.”
“I don’t get it.”
That wasn’t surprising the men never saw eye-to-eye. “Tag didn’t get how I fell in love with you,” she said. “He’ll come back to me. Once him and Farrah settle into a groove and they get over the excited sex part at the start.” Nya grinned. “This is how it is with Tag and I. Sometimes we don’t talk much for a few weeks or a few months. If I needed him, I could call.”
“But he might not be there,” Archer said, still not happy. His tension was flattering. “The guy’s selective with when he gives a fuck about you, Ny. Your friendship isn’t equal. When he needs you, he wants you a hundred percent. But when you need him—”
“I don’t need him,” she said. “I mean, yeah, it’s been tough. I won’t deny that. I could never lie to you. But Tag can’t do anything to make it better. He can’t force you to love me. He could try, but we both know how that would work out.”
This time when he said nothing, she couldn’t guess what he was feeling, if he was feeling anything at all. But she did like that he was moving beyond his need to be so cold towards her. Although if what he’d said about Ella was true, he’d moved onto cruel and Nya didn’t like that any better.
Now that there wasn’t much he could say to that, it became awkward. “What’s the favor?” he asked, returning to her original reason for knocking on his door.
“It’s not a big one, not like before when I was the one sucking your cock. I need a meet.”
“With who?” he asked, so dubious that he tilted his head away from her.
“Hex.”
When Archer stood up straight to dig his hands into his pockets, he wasn’t enthusiastic. “It’s not safe.”
“What do you care?” she asked, stating what was obvious now.
If he was half as heartsick as she’d been he’d never have been able to stay away from her, especially given that she was in such proximity to him. From everything she’d seen, losing her hadn’t made him blink. It still ripped Nya apart to know that his love for her hadn’t endured. But after twenty-three days, she was getting to a place where she had to face the facts. Archer wasn’t coming back to her.
“Tomorrow night. At the club. I have to talk to Robbo and the guys anyway, so I’ll be around.”
“What are you gonna do? Jump in between us if he gets too close?” she asked, trying not to laugh because she’d love it if he was still that protective, but his leaving her at the club without a care showed her how little he valued her safety these days. “If he wanted to kill me, he’d have done it when he was holding a gun and we were alone with four corpses. And he has no interest in raping me, he can have any girl he wants.”
“He can’t have you,” Archer said, adjusting himself in the space between his door and its frame.
Everyone else got invited in to have a conversation like this. Nya didn’t get that courtesy anymore. Archer didn’t like to conduct business in public, but he kept her out here, separate from his personal life.
If he’d been having sex with Ella before she got here, maybe he didn’t want her walking in and witnessing whatever carnage they’d made.
“I’ll set it up,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Maybe they could be friends, maybe that’s what this was a sign of, that he was willing to give a little and maybe they could still be a part of each other’s lives. Or maybe she was just being filtered into Archer’s long list of contacts and that was why he wanted them to be on good terms.
She side-stepped because she was reluctant to leave, but there was no reason for her to stay until his next word reminded her of something she hadn’t considered, “Payment.”
“Right,” she said, nodding. A self-conscious quiver shook her windpipe. It hadn’t occurred to her, Archer always got paid for everything he did. Except, she’d just handed over all the mo
ney she’d managed to scrape together. “Sex on demand works for me.”
Her joke just came off as awkward. She folded her arms over her abdomen. But he smiled. “Been there, done that.”
Ouch. She didn’t say the word aloud, but she wanted to. So he’d had her and didn’t want her again. “I’d do no make-up for a week, but you wouldn’t be around to know if I followed through. I don’t have a lot of cash, but if you let me make payments… you know where I live and where I work, I can’t run out on you.”
“I don’t want your money.”
The certainty in his voice told her he had something in mind. “Then what do you want?” she asked.
He looked down the corridor toward the stairway at the end, but there was no one there. Then he licked his lips and came out of his apartment. It was thrilling when he chose to get close to her because it was his decision to crowd her.
Although he was looking at her, and she’d probably embarrass herself, Nya couldn’t stop her eyes from closing as she was drugged by his scent. There was no scent of Ella or any other woman. This was just Archer. Just her man.
He scooped a hand under her chin and dropped a straight arm onto her shoulder to shake her out of her daze. “The murder weapon,” he said. “I want the murder weapon.”
Why would he want that? Nya was so surprised by the request that she stumbled away from his touch and backed up to the hallway wall. “Why?”
But he was intent. “Do you still have it?” She nodded. “I need you to give it to me.”
Shocked and offended, she was confused. “Is this about your thing for knives?” she asked. “Because you have a thing for collecting them? You think—”
“Knives?” he asked, surprise and curiosity hit his expression at the same time. “Hexam gave you a gun.”
That was part of the truth. “He gave me both.”
Again, she was confused by his intrigue and he stood tall to peer down at her. “Nya, what did you use to kill him?”
Horrified that he’d said those words so loud in this public space, she rushed forward and pressed herself to his chest to urge him backward into his doorway. “We can’t talk about this out here,” she hissed in a whisper, searching for anyone who may be listening. “Why do you want the weapon? Does Hexam want it? Is he going to use it against me?”
Archer grabbed the back of her neck, backed through his apartment door and gave it a kick to close it. When they were inside, he planted her against it. “Answer my fucking question, Nya. How did you kill him?”
“I… I stabbed him,” she said, replaying their bedroom conversation, because she was sure he already knew this.
“Where?” he asked, picking up her hand and pressing it flat on his chest. “Where did it go in?”
With two fingers, she fumbled his shoulder and let them slip down. Closing her eyes, she tried to recall the image of the man before he fell. She pressed them to the top of Archer’s left pec.
“Right here,” she said. “I had to hit him hard.”
Her voice broke. She hadn’t grieved or thought about that night for a while because losing Archer had taken priority. Nya knew her eyes would be glistening, Archer hated emotional women, and she got pissed off at herself for being unable to stay composed.
She swiped at her tears, but he grabbed her hand and covering it with his own, he pressed the tips of those two fingers back to the same point. “You’re sure, Nya? Focus.”
“I think, I… I don’t know.”
This was important, she knew it because Archer was hyper-alert, but she wasn’t confident she could give him accurate answers.
“Was he bigger than me? Shorter?”
“He was kneeling,” she said. “I told you the room was dark and…” Her inhales turned into sharp, short pants. Nya didn’t want to lose it, but it was too much to be talking about this inside an apartment she hadn’t seen since she was happy, with the man who’d broken her heart.
Archer dropped to his knees, keeping her hand right there on his chest. “Like this?” he asked. “Show me what you did.”
Desperate, she wanted to forget, not relive the horror of that night. “Why are you doing this, Archer? Please don’t make me talk about this.”
“I want to see the blade. How long was it? Like this?” he asked, holding up his forefingers about twelve inches away from each other.
“No.”
“Bigger or smaller?” he asked and she took hold of his hands to push them closer until they showed the distance between the end of the blade and the butt of the handle. “This was the blade or the whole thing?”
“The whole thing,” she murmured in a small voice.
“Did you aim straight? Or did it go in at an angle?”
God, Archer seemed to think about everything. It came back to her now, the only thing she hadn’t done was describe the kill, she’d just said she’d killed him. Hexam was talking, he cut off the gag, the rapist angered her and then, “I killed him.” Those were her three words to Archer while they were lying together downstairs in her apartment before he ended their relationship.
He stayed on his knees but cupped her moist face in his hands. “It’s important, Squirm. I need you to think for me. Can you do that, baby? For me?” he asked, brushing his thumbs over the tracks of tears on her face.
“He told me to suck his cock,” she said, her words only just loud enough to be heard.
“And that’s when you did it?”
Raising her fist, she held an imaginary weapon toward Archer’s chest, as she had in that room. “I had it like this. He told me to do all I was good for and then I…” She lifted both hands together above her head then plunged them down, letting them come to rest against him, although her own blade had never gone that deep.
“Did it go all the way to the hilt?” he asked, clasping her balled hands in his.
She shook her head. “I don’t think I was strong enough.”
His disbelieving exhale was nearly a laugh and she cast off the haze of the memory. “Oh, Squirm. We’re fucking idiots,” he said, scooping both hands under her chin, he rose and captured her mouth in the same breath.
Nya didn’t expect his kiss, but there was no chance she’d reject it. Clinging to him, she wrapped both arms around his neck and angled her head to let his tongue delve deeper into her mouth. He tasted so good, like the essence of life she’d missed for twenty-three days. This was the medicine she needed to sustain her, and it came only from him.
The fervor in his kiss forced her hard against the door that had blocked her entry on so many recent days. When she curled her fingers into his tee shirt to hold onto him with tight fists, he broke away.
His stunned expression was quickly covered by the fist he pushed to his mouth. “Fuck,” he said. “Sorry, forget that happened.”
Feeling as bewildered as he looked, Nya struggled to get herself together, but was certain of one thing. “No,” she said. “No forgetting.”
She tried to pull his fist away from his mouth, but he uncoiled her fingers from his shirt and ran a hand through his hair as he paced away and turned his back on her. Nya stayed against the door, panting and trying to remember what day of the week it was and what reality she’d stumbled into because it wasn’t one she wanted to leave.
“Fella?”
Shutting down emotion was easier for him than it was for her. “Bring me both, the gun and the knife, and I’ll set up your meet with Hexam.”
“But I—”
“That’s it, Nya,” he said. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. It didn’t mean anything.” Just when she thought she was making headway, he shut her out again, returning to his discrete self. “Get out of here. We’re done.”
It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to leave. She searched behind her for the handle and released herself back into the hallway. Nya didn’t close the door, her mind was too messed up to think about courtesies.
“Nigh.” Turning to the sound of her name, she saw Archer in the hallway just o
utside his apartment.
Torn as he looked, she hoped to God that wasn’t pity she read on his face. “What is it?”
He took a breath and his lips moved, but no words came out. Maybe he’d thought better of saying whatever he was thinking. But on his second try, he did form a sentence. “I didn’t fuck her. I’m not fucking her.” He wouldn’t want her to be so thrilled by that news, but relief and excitement surged up inside her. Considering if she should go back to him for another kiss, she waited too long, and he got to cut her again. “There will be someone someday. Soon. Not yet. But someday.”
So he was making it clear that there was no hope for them, but he didn’t want to hurt her, and he did pity her enough that he felt it necessary maybe to lie.
Nya needed to see Hexam to find out what lay ahead for her club. Kissing Archer had given her hope. But every time she thought there was a chance for them, he’d put up a wall and she couldn’t figure out if she was making a fool of herself for no reason or if persistence would ever pay off.
twenty
Sizzle was nowhere near capacity. It was flat-out quiet and she couldn’t figure out why because business had been booming recently. Word could be getting out that Hexam had taken over, but she’d figured that news would be good for business until tonight.
There were maybe only twenty people on the dance floor and ten at the bar. They could take three hundred people at capacity and other than the ten or fifteen milling around at the tables in front of the bar, there was no one else around and it didn’t appear there were many queuing up either.
By this time of night, there were usually groups of guys and girls coming in, looking to hook up. But tonight, people seemed to be coming in groups of three or maybe four as opposed to ten or fifteen, and men outnumbered women five to one, at least.
There was one group of rowdy guys who’d just moved from a table towards the bar. There were four of them and Nya had noticed they were drunk when they’d arrived. But she didn’t mind guys like them on nights when she was looking for a distraction.
Scarred (Branded Book 2) Page 23