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I nodded as we separated, and moved in opposite directions, scanning the furniture and beginning to open drawers and examine the walls.
After about twenty minutes, we hadn’t found anything, but we’d managed to strip the bed and move the furniture around. We came together in the center of the room, both of us smiling and slightly breathless with the exertions of searching the room.
“What now?” I asked, realizing that I’d stepped close to Archie at the same time as he moved toward me, putting his chest just inches from mine. I could feel the heat coming off him, and my body began reminding me what it had felt like to be even closer to him.
His arms rose, finding my waist and pulling me into his body. “Are we totally sure we checked the bed?” he asked, a playful glint in his eyes ramping up my desire.
“Well...we could roll around on the mattress to make sure we didn’t miss anything there,” I said, my voice a whisper as I held eye contact. Guilt threatened to rise again, but I pushed it down, working to ignore it as Archie’s eyes promised the addictive closeness and connection we’d had in the hotel room.
As Archie moved closer, his lips brushing mine softly, the jolt of guilt hit me at the same time as a visceral desire to press myself into him, feel his arms around me, his body against mine. “I should...” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, but Archie silenced me with a kiss.
He pulled us closer to the bed, which was almost dust-free now that we’d stripped off the ancient covers, and I tried one more time to get words out, to try to explain who I was and why he might want to know.
“Archie, I need—” Unfortunately, those words came out breathy and low, and they were equally as appropriate to the situation at hand as to the confession I should have been making.
“I need you too,” he said, his teeth finding my earlobe and sending want rocketing through me.
We tumbled onto the mattress, and our bodies moved in frenzied tandem, our hands finding what they needed as our clothing found its way to the ground.
This time, the sex was almost desperate, each of us pulling, pressing, gasping with want and need. When Archie pressed inside me, the sheer sensation silenced the chirping voices in my head, the guilt that hounded me, the need to tell him who I really was.
It was replaced by a kind of contented satisfaction laced with urgency. I needed more, wanted more, but had so much right here. The duality of the feelings inside me made it impossible to think, to do anything but experience.
No one had made me feel this way before. No one had ever stimulated my mind and my body the way that Archie Kasper could, just by being himself. Why did things have to be so complicated?
As he moved over me, I lost myself to the feeling, letting my hands coast the hard planes of his back, his ass, letting the sheer glee of being filled by him over and over surge through me.
And when the sensations began to build into a wave I knew would overtake me, I held on tighter, feeling like perfection was an attainable plane of existence when Archie signaled his own release with a sexy groan.
Together, we hit our climax, each of us crying out, grasping the other, and finally, falling together wrapped in an embrace I hoped would never end. But as soon as I regained my breath, the guilt flooded back in.
I opened my eyes to find Archie’s face close to mine, his deep blue eyes clear and focused on my own. He looked young, his face unlined and smooth, and I lifted a hand to trace his handsome cheek, follow the angle of his angled jawline.
His hand found my face, and he drew a line from my temple to my chin, around the curve of my jaw. “You’re so pretty,” he whispered. “So smart.”
The praise warmed me, but it stirred the guilt too. What would he think of me if he knew who I really was? If he knew that the terrible secret he’d revealed to me in a moment of intimate confidence wasn’t a secret at all? I couldn’t stomach the thought of telling him now, of breaking the perfect closeness of this moment.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
“Maybe a kiss, I think,” he said, leaning in and taking my mouth.
I laughed against his lips, pulling away after kissing him back. “I meant about the hunt.”
“Ah.” He smiled, his fingers toying with my hair now. “Well, I guess we search rooms 525 and 535. The number on the tree was pretty faded.”
“I’m supposed to leave tomorrow,” I reminded him. “The conference concludes at lunch and then I’ve got a shuttle down to Denver.” I hated reminding myself of this, thinking about it.
His eyes squeezed shut for a beat and then popped open, and he looked so sad I wanted to say whatever he needed to take the sorrow from his expression. “Or you could stay a bit longer?”
I considered it. “I don’t know...” I had considered that I might stay longer when I’d planned the trip. Only now I was torn. It would give me more time to figure out how to tell Archie the truth, and potentially allow us to figure out this clue. But I worried about my parents. My mom, specifically. Managing Dad alone. I wondered how much worse he’d been, knowing I was here. With Archie Kasper.
“Why not? Your room is comped...you could just change your flight. You’re on assignment, right? We have to finish the hunt.”
There was an easy logic to his statement. The gnawing guilt in me told me that getting in deeper was the wrong move, though. I should tell him the truth, bear the brunt of his reaction, and run. But I didn’t think I could do it. I’d always feel like I’d left something behind here.
“Stay, Emily.” The words were simple and low, and Archie’s eyes didn’t leave mine.
I found myself answering despite the worry swirling in my mind. “Okay.”
