by Elin Peer
“I knew that,” I scoffed.
“But did you know that I’ve been a protector before?”
“Yes, Christina told me.”
I thought I saw a crack in his happy mood, but it was short and he quickly smiled again. “Five days. That’s how long I spent with the witch.” He shook his head. “Did Christina tell you that Athena cursed me?”
Not taking him seriously, I asked: “You didn’t like Athena much, did you?”
“No. And it’s not because I don’t like women in general, because just for the record I fucking love women.” His face split in two when he laughed. “And I love fucking women.” Nudging his elbow in my ribs he wiggled his eyebrows. “See what I did there with my words – twisting them around?”
“Yeah, it was very impressive. You should be a poet,” I said. “But I didn’t think you had access to women here.”
“Nahh.” He shrugged. “But a true poet can’t let a small detail like the truth disrupt his creative flow.”
I didn’t fight him when he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer to him. “How about that fantasy of yours? Did you have any luck with Magni or Archer?” he whispered.
Marco and Archer were talking quietly among themselves on the other side of the fire pit, but Archer looked over when he heard his name.
“That’s none of your business,” he told Finn.
Finn smiled. “I see. Well, I’ll take that as a negative.” He placed a hand on my thigh. “Don’t worry, beautiful, I’m happy to step up and satisfy you.”
“What are you two whispering about?” Marco asked.
“Nothing,” both Archer and I said at the same time.
“Ah, that’s not fair.” Finn chuckled. “Why can’t Marco know that you have a sexual fantasy about being with two men?”
“Finn!” I said in my sternest voice. “It’s not funny and I really don’t.” I regretted ever lying about this and shot Shelly a head shake, feeling embarrassed that Finn would bring this up in front of her.
“Ahh, don’t be shy. We would never judge and from where I’m sitting, I see three grown, virile men at your service.”
Archer moved in his chair and pointed to Finn with a scowl on his face. “I don’t think Khan meant for you to come on to Kya. That’s not the role of a protector.” His tone was sharp, but Finn just chuckled again like he had no concern in the world.
“Khan’s hardly going to say anything, since both he and Boulder ended up marrying the women they protected.”
“Oh, I see, and now that you’re Kya’s protector, you think she’ll marry you?” The anger in Archer’s voice made me wonder why he would get so riled up when he knew I would never marry anyone.
Did Archer feel threatened by Finn? I almost laughed at the absurdity, since Archer didn’t even like me. Why would he act this jealous?
Watching Archer pull back and stare at the flames, I wondered if Nmen really attributed so much importance to marriage that Archer would marry someone he argued with constantly?
For a while no one spoke, but my mind was asking all sorts of inappropriate questions, like who would I pick if I had to choose between Finn or Archer.
Studying Finn for a second I decided his dark eyes had a warmth to them, and he was kind of charming with the way he often made me smile and laugh. Finn was definitely the most easygoing of all the Nmen that I’d met so far. As I watched him, he tucked his dark shoulder-length hair behind his ears, revealing that he had an earring in his left ear. It was a black circle, big enough to cover his earlobe, and from what I could see it was made of some kind of shiny metal.
Discreetly I turned my eyes back to Archer. Even brooding in his chair, I found him more pleasing to look at than Finn. Maybe because he’s closer to my age? I wondered, knowing that Archer was twenty-eight while Finn was thirty-two.
Archer smacked a mosquito on his neck. “Of all the species that we lost, why not the fucking mosquitoes?”
When he caught me looking at him, I quickly diverted my eyes, but I wasn’t completely done evaluating his looks and without wanting to I looked back at him.
Again, our eyes clashed, and this time he tilted his head slightly with a minuscule frown.
For a moment, I couldn’t look away. His features, which I had always thought too masculine and hard, had become… I dismissed the word “handsome” and replaced it with “familiar” in my mind. Yes, that was it. Archer had become familiar and safe to me. He might be annoying and frustrating, but he was also willing to sprint through the forest to save me from a bear attack. My face softened as I thought about an episode yesterday when he’d blown up at Nero because the boy had been disrespectful to me.
Without fully realizing it, I’d been staring at Archer for the past five or ten seconds, and the answer was very clear to me. I would definitely choose Archer.
“Why did everybody get so silent?” Marco asked and poked at the fire with a stick. “What were we talking about?”
“We were talking about me marrying Kya.” Finn swung his head to me. “You want to marry me, sweetheart?”
Archer broke our locked gaze and hardened his jaw.
“What did you say?” I asked Finn and blinked my eyes.
“Do you want to marry me?” he repeated.
“No, thank you,” I answered distractedly.
“Ahh, that’s disappointing.” Finn held a hand to his heart. “But I guess that since you’re a Motlander, you don’t technically have to marry,” he said pragmatically. “We could just have sex.”
I shook my head, but Finn wasn’t paying attention, since he had his eyes on Marco.
“How about you, would you be willing to have a threesome with me and Kya?”
Marco eagerly pushed to the edge of his seat and smiled goofily at me. “Just say the word, Kya.”
The small gasp from Shelly was followed by her scrambling clumsily to get out of the chair and excusing herself before she ran off.
“The word is no,” I answered Marco, with my eyes glued to Shelly’s fleeing back. This wasn’t the first time I’d picked up on her crush on Marco and it worried me. The last thing I needed was for her to develop feelings for him. Councilwoman Sheana Rene would never forgive me if one of her daughters chose to stay here.
I gave a sigh. At least Marco didn’t seem to reciprocate the interest one bit.
“I’m going to bed,” I announced and rose from my chair too.
“Alone?” Finn asked with disappointment.
“Yes, alone.”
“Hey now, don’t get all mad at me for coming on to you. You can’t blame a man for making you an offer.”
“I’m not mad at you, Finn.” My hands mechanically folded the blanket that I had been sitting under. But at the same time my senses were focused on Archer and the obscure way he’d made my heart race just by staring into my eyes before. He too got up and his closeness had me move back a little. Something strange was definitely going on.
“Are you okay?” he asked and searched my eyes.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered dismissively, and holding to a pattern practiced to perfection, I picked a fight with him. “You need to take it easy on the children for tomorrow’s run. You’re pushing them too hard.”
My demanding tone instantly put him into the role as the primitive, stubborn, and highly annoying male whom I wasn’t attracted to.
“I'll push them as fucking hard as I want to,” he told me with an attitude.
“You're being too hard on them.”
“And you are being too soft,” he retorted but there was no real menace behind his words, so I pushed harder, wrinkling my nose in disgust.
“This week you spanked three children!”
Archer took the bait. He narrowed his eyes and hardened his jaw. “I spanked Nboys who are used to that sort of punishment and expect it. But you know what struck me? You didn't volunteer to take their punishment, did you? Apparently, you feel differently about boys and girls.”
I moved clo
ser to him, lowering my voice. “Don't for one second make the mistake of thinking that I don't believe in equality. You might have issues with me, but I'm not going to make it easy for you to spank me just by punishing the children. If you have a problem with me, you’d better man up and come talk to me about it.”
“As if I was ever afraid of a conflict,” Archer hissed softly.
It was getting chilly and with the twilight drifting into night, the fire pit offered the only source of light. I had always found Archer's eyes incredibly beautiful with the sharp sapphire blue color and dark eyelashes. But now, with the shadows from the flames dancing across his face, his eyes looked black.
“Marco, why don't you and Finn go and check up on the children while Kya and I have a little talk?” Archer said without breaking eye contact with me.
“Do you need me to stay and protect you?” Finn asked from behind me. “You know, in case he decides to spank you again or something.”
Stay firm, I reminded myself and tried not to blink from Archer’s intensity. “It's fine, we’re just going to have a talk.”
We didn’t speak until the two men had entered the school and left us alone.
“It's about time you and I cleared the air between us,” Archer said in a deep voice. “You're still mad about the spanking, aren't you?”
“How could I not be?” My voice was full of indignation. “You humiliated me and scarred Sky for life.”
He scoffed. “Trust me, she'll survive and so will you.”
I turned my head when he started circling me. This was a typical move on his part because he hated standing still, but I still wished he wouldn’t do it.
“Just because you feel offended doesn't mean you're right,” he muttered. “You've been acting all civil with me in front of the kids, but most of the time you won't look at me and you hardly talk to me unless it's to criticize.”
It was an adrenaline rush. For someone raised to always be polite, I had gotten good at bantering with Archer.
Electricity sparked between us, but anger was much safer than attraction and I sucked in oxygen to fuel my angry words. “I'm not offended, Archer, I'm furious with you. What kind of man hits a woman anyway?”
“The kind of man who doesn’t like you undermining him in front of his students. I would spank you again if I had to, and don’t you forget that you asked me to.”
My voice rose to a high pitch. “I never wanted you to hit me, I wanted to protect Sky.”
Archer was in my face so fast that I didn't have time to step back. “And now you’ve made up your mind that I'm a monster, haven’t you?” he breathed, his eyes looking intently into mine before they lowered to my lips.
I swallowed hard, trying to find my voice and to make my brain work, but his closeness made parts of my body hum and tingle. “I think that…” I started with a voice vibrating with emotions. “I think that you are too hard on the children and that your approach is old-fashioned.”
“I'm not talking about the kids,” he said slowly. “I'm talking about you and me, Kya.”
Hot lava flowed down my spine and my core began to tingle. Memories of our kiss among the fireflies made my eyes fall to his lips; at least he would never know that I’d thought about him sexually.
“You're playing with me,” Archer spoke in a strangely pained voice.
“No,” I whispered. “I'm not.”
“Yes, you are, and I swear it, Kya, if you allow Finn or Marco into your bed, I’ll lose my shit.” His left hand closed around my shoulder and he shook me a little. “Do you hear me?”
“Archer, I…” Looking down, I licked my lips and thought of a way to explain my confused feelings to him. “Maybe if we didn't work together it would be different between us.”
He was silent for a while before he answered more softly: “Then I wish we didn’t work together.”
I had no reply to that.
“Did you know that I asked to be your protector when Magni had to leave?”
“No, but I figured you might, so I made sure Lord Khan knew that I didn't want you as my protector.”
My admission only upset him. “Why the hell not?” he demanded to know.
“Because it would only complicate our relationship.”
He cursed low. “We could've been lovers with no one looking over our shoulders.”
“Lovers? We can't even get through a day without arguing; how could you possibly think we could be lovers?” I asked, my eyes falling to his lips again, my chest lifting and rising in shallow intakes of air. How I wished things had been more simple and I could’ve slept with him to get it out of my system, but he was so angry – and despite my physical attraction to him, I had about one hundred internal alarm bells telling me that sex between us would be a bad idea.
Archer had to know that and yet he fearlessly leaned in to claim my mouth. It started as an angry and punishing kiss that made me push at his chest to get free. Only Archer wasn't in the mood to let me go.
“Archer.” I opened my mouth to tell him to stop, but he only deepened the kiss. Pent-up rage and indignation flowed through me, and a need to set him straight. I had my own emotions to deal with and my own unwanted desires to battle. But instead of pushing him away, my treacherous hands pulled him closer and in the darkness of the night, I kissed him back. It wasn't logical and it definitely wasn't smart, but I did it anyway, and not for one second did I worry about bacteria.
We stood like two hungry humans, feasting on what we had denied ourselves for weeks, my hands raking over his strong body and his hands exploring my breasts and buttocks, and finally finding their way to my hair. He pulled my neck back, planting kisses all the way from my collarbone to my ear, and whispered hoarsely: “You’re driving me crazy. I need you so fucking bad.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I objected, a small part of my brain still working.
“Maybe not, but we are going to do it anyway.”
“We can’t just have sex!”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure we can and I know we both want to.”
“Yes, but what about…” I didn’t get to finish my sentence before he picked me up and started walking with me in his arms.
“Be quiet,” he ordered in a whisper.
“But the children?”
“They’re sleeping, and Marco and Shelly have the night shift.”
“But Finn; he’ll surely come to check up on me.”
“Then you tell him to get lost.”
There was something excitingly primitive about the way he carried me off to his cabin with decisive steps. I was an adult and I could do whatever I wanted to. Chuckling against his neck, I teased him. “Finn might not be easy to get rid of; he probably wants to join us.”
“That’s too bad, because I’m not the sharing kind.”
“Okay, but just so we’re clear, this doesn’t change anything. I still think that you are annoying, and just because I sleep with you tonight doesn’t mean you have any rights when it comes to me.”
The hell it doesn’t,” he said and tightened his grip around me. “It means you’ve picked me.”
“No, Archer. If you can’t separate the two, we shouldn’t do it.”
He moved effortlessly up the few steps to his cabin. “Hold on to me,” he ordered when he used one of his hands to open the door.
“I mean it, Archer,” I said when we were inside and he’d closed the door behind us. “Just because we’re both curious doesn’t mean I’m yours, so you’d better make up your mind. Can you deal with it or not?”
He was pulling off his thick sweater and kicking off his shoes. “Maybe making love to me will change your mind.”
“Don’t count on it.”
He responded with a kiss and, like a man on a mission, trying to prove himself, Archer undressed me with eager hands. “Fuck, you’re so goddamn beautiful,” he said when he had me down to my panties. “How do you want to do this?”
“Huh?” I had my eyes closed but opened them. “
What do you mean, how?” I didn’t have much experience except for my monthly visits to the pleasure parlor where male sex-bots made sure I left relaxed.
“You want me to take you against the wall, do the reversed cowgirl, or maybe doggy style?”
My eyes expanded in confusion. “Ehhm,” I muttered meekly, because I had no idea what cowgirls and dogs had to do with anything.
“In my fantasies, we’ve done it in at least a hundred positions in this room,” he admitted and shook his head. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“It’s okay, I’ve thought about you too.”
“Yeah?” he asked in a sultry voice. “You did?” Every one of my nerve endings was on fire when he let his fingertips run up my arms to my shoulders and nape, before he cupped my face and gave me a deep and sensual kiss that sent shivers down my spine. “Then you must have an idea about what you want to do with me.”
An idea struck me, and although it was cruel I needed to push his boundaries a little like he had pushed mine. “In my fantasy,” I cooed, “I get to spank you back.”
“Are you serious?” He pulled back and his sultry tone of voice was replaced by a harder one. “If you’re asking me to bend over and let you spank me, then the answer is a big fucking no.”
I pouted. “You did it to me.”
“That’s different.”
With a seductive smile, I let my fingers play with his hair. “Not even if I would let you fulfill one of your fantasies afterwards?”
He chewed on his lower lip, his brows closely knitted together. “Any of my fantasies?”
“Any of your fantasies where you don’t hurt me.”
“Oh, so you can hurt me but I can’t hurt you?” A slow grin spread on his face. “I should have known you Momsies fantasize about dominating men.”
“I can’t speak for other women,” I said and trailed along his lips with my finger while giving him another seductive smile. “But I really thought a big strong man like you could take a little pain.”
“I can, that’s not the issue.”
“Then what is?” I asked innocently.
“It’s…” He narrowed his eyes. “It’s humiliating.”
My shoulders fell in fake disappointment and I took a step back. “I understand.”