Scarred

seven-1

seven

“Stop thinking about it,” Archer mumbled.

Lying in his bed, fixated on a shadow on the ceiling, she fingered the ends of her hair spread on her breast. “I’m not,” Nya replied.

“You are,” he said, but she almost didn’t hear him.

“Hmm? What? No, I’m not.”

“You are. Have you even noticed what I’m doing right now?” Elevating her head from the couple of pillows it was propped on, it was only when she made eye contact that she realized his lips were on her c**t. “You’re thinking about what he said.” His arms were coiled around her thighs with his strong hands pressing on her hips.

But it wasn’t Tulio who was on her mind. “I’m thinking about Tag,” she murmured, and his mouth came into view a split second before he pounced over her leg and lunged up to lie on his side, his hard chest flush with her upper arm.

“We should talk about that,” he said, holding his head up on his fist. “We should talk about how we’re gonna pay for his funeral after I tie him to a swamp, cover him with honey, and let the insects do their work.”

“Archer!” she chastised. Unimpressed and impatient, she nudged his chest with her shoulder. “Why would you say something like that?”

“You tell me you’re thinking about another guy while I’m eating your p***y, you’re lucky that’s all I’m gonna do to him.” His fist slipped higher into his hair so his lips could descend to her ear. “It’s a horrible way to go, Squirm. Takes a long time for a guy to die like that. It’s agony.”

“You’ve never done that,” she said, forcing her eyes to the tops of their sockets as she tried to read the truth in his. “Have you?”

Archer rubbed her taut belly. “Why are you thinking about him?”

Talking to Archer would help her make sense of what was going on and how she should handle it. “This whole thing’s complicated. It’s one big mess. I don’t know how to protect everyone and do what I want to do at the same time.

“Maybe you can’t,” he said, stroking his fingers down between her legs, he opened them and pressed them up until they reached the apex of her inner thighs. “You have to prioritize, it’s what everyone else does.”

His tone implied that his suggestion was no big deal, but it wasn’t as easy as that in her world. “What if you’re right? What if Tag loves Farrah? We can’t make him dump her.”

“We couldn’t do that anyway whether it’s love or not. You can’t make a guy do anything. Especially when it comes to his d**k. We tend to listen to our little buddy before we listen to anyone else.”

She could already tell he wasn’t going to be a great help. “Forget it.”

Rolling away, in an attempt to move to her own side, he grabbed her hip and pulled her onto her back again. “Don’t sneak away from me just ‘cause I don’t tell you what you want to hear.”

But she was exasperated. “You asked me what was wrong,” she said. “Then you mock me for being honest.”

He exhaled. “I’m not mocking you,” he said. “I’m being honest too. If he wants to be with this girl, he’s gonna be. I don’t care who you are, nothing’s gonna change his mind.”

“So you’ve said already,” she said after a sigh, resting a hand on each of her breasts. “So Hexam finds out and Tag loses his head.”

“Sounds about right. But it’s his decision to make, Ny, you can’t make it for him.”

She couldn’t. Maybe that was why she was so upset. If someone told her to stop being with Archer, she wouldn’t be capable of just turning off her feelings. Tag had implied that leaving Archer was best for her, but Nya was glad she’d refused.

She loved how they could lie like this, so close, their bodies touching, pressing into each other, arms and legs twined of their own accord. Fingers found hair, and skin molded to each of their opposite grooves and ridges. They had every right to touch every part of each other and often did, even in a non-s****l way.

Like just now, while he had his hand over her s*x. It had been stimulating, but he hadn’t gone straight for the center, he just wanted to touch her in a place where no other person could.

“Will you find out about her? About Farrah?” she asked, choosing to roll towards him, cocooning herself in his body.

When she tucked herself in close, his pride and ego compelled him to protect and comply.

“About her? What do you want to know about her?”

“Well, we’re talking about Tag’s feelings, but, I mean, she dumped the last guy pretty quick. I don’t want Tag to fall in love with a woman who could get him killed only to have her reveal she never felt the same way. She could throw him to the dogs as soon as he becomes inconvenient. You could just ask a few questions—”

“Jesus, Ny!” he exclaimed, flopping onto his back and rubbing both hands over his face.

“What?” she asked, clambering over to straddle his hips.

Trying to pull his hands from his face, she had to fight his resistance for a good thirty seconds until he eventually let his arms stretch out perpendicular to his body.

“Being with you is a f*****g full-time job, you know that?” he asked. “What is it you want from me? My heart, my soul, my balls, you’ve got them all.” He didn’t sound particularly happy about that, he wasn’t pissed off, but he was certainly impatient.

“What’s the problem?” she asked, rubbing both hands on his chest. “It should be pretty easy to find out about Farrah.”

“I can tell you anything and everything you want to know about Farrah Hexam right now. She’s the least of your worries. Whether she loves him or loathes him, whether she’s using him for s*x, she has no power over telling her brother what to do, personally or professionally.”

“Okay.” Drumming her fingernails on his pecs, Nya considered this new information. “But will she go to bat for Tag—”

“Ny, it’s not your problem.” He grabbed her elbows. “It’s not our problem.”

More suspicious than curious, she clenched her thighs, digging her knees into him. “Is this because it’s Tag? Because you want to see him hurt?”

“Because I’m sick of hearing you talk about him? Yeah. Maybe. Could be.”

“He’s like my brother,” she said, but he still had ahold of her elbows, so she couldn’t go anywhere, and couldn’t react physically. “You have nothing to worry about. There’s nothing s****l between us.”

“You keep saying that,” he said. “But I’m not worried about you having s*x with him. You’ve had fifteen years to do that and you’ve chosen not to.” Pausing to look her square in the eye, he became stony. “And believe me, Ny, I didn’t take your word for that. I checked.”

This was why she was always suspicious, not because she didn’t trust him but because far more went on in his life behind the scenes than she’d ever be clued in on. “You checked up on me?” she said. “You didn’t even do that before the whole Sizzle incident.”

“No, because it’s not my style to go after a guy’s girl, I told you that. But now you’re my girl.”

And that warranted more interest, or less trust? “So you’re asking about me? You know, you could ask me about me.”

He scoffed. “There’s an idea. Do you know how many people are honest about their s****l history? Very few. They tell select details, the ones that make them sound good, and hide the real kinky crap. The guilty, dirty secrets don’t come out easily. Sometimes it takes days for me to get that shit.”

Either going for shock value or just to prove a point, she dug her nails into him and narrowed her eyes on his. “I had s*x with a college professor when I was nineteen,” she said.

And now it was his turn to be dubious. “You didn’t go to college,” he said.

“I didn’t say he was my college professor, but that’s how he earned his money.”

His lips quirked and he scooped his hand under her loose hair to capture her cheek. “He was number two?” She nodded, savoring the sensation of his hot hand cradling her head.

“He promised to teach me everything I’d ever need to know. I was coming off the back of my first major relationship and, well, yeah…”

“Where does Damien fit in?” Archer asked. “Was he next?” She shook her head. “Does your six include me or not?”

Narrowing her eyes, she was getting used to hearing details. “I told you five, you’re trying to catch me in a lie.” She emitted a huff. “How did we get onto this?” she asked. “How did we segue from going medieval on Tag to the order of my s****l partners? You’re good, Fella, I’ll give you that.” Tapping one finger on him, she let him know that she was wise to his methods while bringing them back to the present. “You think that this is not our problem, but it is. Because in case you’ve forgotten, we’ve one of Hexam’s ex-henchmen chained up across town. When we let him go—”

“If we let him go,” Archer said. “You wanted to do this and if we have to go all the way—”

“Not with him,” she said. “Yeah, he’s a bastard, and he probably deserves to die. But I don’t know that, he didn’t actually touch me or Jamie. What we need from him is information on the others. We need him to tell us who the other men were and if he can’t tell us…”

“If he can’t tell us,” he said, repeating her words each in a short, calm blast. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe we shouldn’t be looking for these guys?”

“Are you scared?” she teased while pouting.

Deadpan, he didn’t blink. “Yeah,” he said, completely unintimidated by her laughable suggestion. It wasn’t possible for him to appear further from afraid than he did right now. “I know Jonno, I know who he was working with. We have Tulio, he’s about the measure of the kinda guys that Hexam hires. He’s not the kinda guy Hexam would have in his inner circle, but… yeah, he works hard and he works cheap and he doesn’t make a mess, at least, Hexam’s men shouldn’t make a mess. Don’t underestimate how pissed Hexam was by the way things went down that night.”

She recalled what Tulio had said and got a chill. “I don’t.”

Not anymore. Hexam was pissed because evidence had been left at the scene, because men under his purview, men he’d hired had gone overboard in prioritizing their ya-yas.

Archer must have sensed her return to the disturbed thoughts Tulio had invoked because his voice slowed. “If those guys really wanted to hurt you, if they’d decided on r****g you and Jamie before they went in, they’d have taken you both out of there and they’d have done it as soon as they put bullets in those guys. Hexam’s orders were to get in and get out. No one thought you would hold out. Everyone thought you would buckle.”

“Even you?”

He didn’t lie. “Before I got there, sure,” he said. “To me you were nothing more than…”

“A w***e,” she said, while he took a breath. Archer had believed her to be Taggert’s girl, everybody did. Five guys bundling into her club, holding guns, and threatening their lives, she probably should have buckled. “If it had been anybody else, I would’ve. Back then Tag was the only one who had my loyalty like that.”

His eyes narrowed. “Back then?” Archer asked, sliding his hand down to her breast. “You better not be talking about me, ‘cause we’ve had this conversation.”

“I can still be loyal to you and give you up,” she said, but couldn’t imagine a scenario where she’d actually do it.

Skeptical, he peered at her. “I don’t know if I believe you.” Archer manipulated her n****e into a tight peak. “I don’t know what you thought you were achieving in Sizzle that night. I’m surprised that Taggert didn’t slap you silly. I would’ve.” When she pinched his n****e, he snatched her hand. “Anyone ever threatens you to get to me and you even think about trying to protect me. You even think about it, Ny. We’re through. You and me will be done. I’m serious, Ny, anyone ever asks you—”

“I know,” she said, tired of the lecture. “You don’t have to worry about that. Who would ever ask me?”