AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Archie’s lips tilted into a little smile, and then he leaned forward, gently tracing a line down my jaw before kissing me softly. “I’m glad I met you, Emily.”
My stomach tightened in anticipation as he moved back, and I suppressed a shiver. “Me too.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been willing to trust anyone,” he said, his voice softening.
A tiny bubble of guilt floated up inside me, dousing the happiness I’d been feeling as it burst. Would he trust me less if I told him our meeting wasn’t quite as coincidental as it seemed?
The guilt of the omission was beginning to weigh on me. Maybe he shouldn’t trust me at all. Wasn’t I already betraying that trust by not telling him who I really was?
He let out a sigh, and then the arm around my shoulders tensed slightly. “I haven’t even met anyone new in a while,” he said. “Besides the guests at the resort, and I try to keep myself apart.”
“Why?” I asked, already knowing the answer to some degree. Maybe this would be my chance to tell him. If he talked about things, maybe I could too.
“Not like I’ve gotten a professional opinion on this—not lately anyway—but I’m pretty sure it’s a self-defense mechanism. Instinctively protecting myself.”
“From people.”
“Kind of. From entanglements, maybe. From getting into a situation that requires stores of emotional energy I don’t have.”
“Yet, here we are.”
He laughed lightly. “That’s what’s amazing.”
“What?”
“With you, it’s different. I’m not worried, I don’t feel exhausted or like you’re going to ask for anything more than I can give you.”
I wanted him to voice the hesitation that was hovering around us in the room, to address the elephant he didn’t even know I saw. My brother.
But I wasn’t brave enough to bring it up and reveal that I already knew. And when Archie’s body turned more fully to mine, when those soft lips found my mouth again, when he slid us down so we were lying on the bed, I didn’t want to anymore. Instead, I lost myself to the sensation of Archie, his hands, hismouth, his body. I told myself that maybe this was something wonderful that was emerging from the wreckage of that terrible event, that we both deserved some happiness. I told myself maybe he didn’t ever need to know, that the past was in the past. But even as I gave myself to him again, I knew it wasn’t true.
This time, we were slow and calm as we came together, none of the urgency racing between us that we’d felt last time. Archie’s hands explored my body, along with his mouth, and I spent plenty of time doing the same. The man was put together from so much lean muscle, there was a new adventure to explore every time my hands slid across his skin.
I’d been with men, but maybe not with any as perfectly assembled as Archie Kasper. His perfection made me worry about the less-than-fit physique I brought to the equation, but his gentle exclamations at my body as he touched me had me putting aside any insecurities I felt.
When his mouth stroked and teased me, I arched beneath him, my thoughts flying in all directions, and when he plunged inside me, the slickness he’d coaxed from inside me easing the way, I moaned with pleasure.
We moved like one being, instinctively understanding what the other needed, and when I felt my release building, Archie’s body pulling the orgasm from me effortlessly, he followed me over the other side. It was like we were made to be together, his body asking and mine answering and vice versa. And when we lay together afterward, the movie forgotten on the screen behind us, the look he gave me told me he knew it too.
But as we lay curled together, I found myself thinking of my family, of the fact I’d managed to fall for the one man they would never accept. I wished there wasn’t a dark secret between us with the power to ruin everything. Because for once in my life, I’d found someone I could see a future with.
Chapter Fourteen
How It Feels to Fall
GHOST
Emily was incredible.
I didn’t even know her last name, but I knew I wanted to find out. I wanted to learn everything I could about her.
It wasn’t in my nature to rush things—never had been. But with the woman in my arms, I felt the unfamiliar longing to say things that one should never say at this point in an entanglement, to offer things I knew were premature.
I wanted to keep her.
Maybe forever.
Was this what it felt like to fall?
