14. Maggie
14
Maggie
A fter snatching up my sweatshirt, I pull it over my head as I race up the stairs, escaping to my room. With my back against the door, I try to calm my racing heart, unsure if I’m glad we got interrupted or frustrated at the horrible timing.
I have never come so hard in my life, and I’ve never been able to orgasm with anyone other than myself.
My God, the way he touched me, looked at me, like I was something precious, like he wanted to devour me whole. I have never had anyone make me feel so desired.
I slump down on the edge of my bed, touching my fingertips to the spot on my forehead where I can still feel his kiss like a brand on my skin. I can’t stop the dopey smile that crosses my face, and I flop back on the bed, feeling like a teenager with her first crush.
I blush as I play back the words he whispered in my ear. What did he mean ‘this isn’t over’? What is this ? This as in us or just what we were doing ?
Is there even an us?
I don’t know.
I feel so out of my league.
I wish I could call Jane, really needing to her voice, but other than a few texts, we haven’t spoken since Friday at work. I never told her about the attack or the break-in, and I am too afraid that if I get on the phone with her, she will be able to tell something is wrong by my voice.
Plus, how would I even explain where I am right now or who Archer is without confessing the whole story?
Sure he is off the phone by now and determined not to hide in my room like a coward, I get up and go back downstairs.
I find Archer coming out of his office. I start walking towards him but slow when he turns. My chest caves in when I see that, once again, he has his keys in his hand.
“Going somewhere?” I ask too brightly as I try to force a smile to my face.
“I—I have something I need to do,” he says, not looking at me.
“Oh, ok. When will you be back?” I ask, hating how my voice wavers.
“I don’t know, but it will probably be late. So…don’t wait up.” With that, he turns and leaves, never once meeting my eyes.
Confused, I stand there, staring at the door, as shame and humiliation coat the back of my tongue, making it hard to breathe.
What the hell just happened? Did I do something wrong ?
My insecurities press in on me from all sides, threatening to crush me into sand. My arms come up to encircle my chest in a desperate attempt to hold myself together.
This time, when tears fill my eyes, I don’t even try to hold them in. Instead, I watch as they fall in big, fat drops to the floor.
The dip of the couch beside me gently wakes me. I am curled on my side, my head resting on the arm of the sofa, and there’s a soft knit blanket covering me that wasn’t there before.
Blinking my eyes awake, I look over to see Archer sitting on the opposite end, his elbows on his knees as his head hangs in his hands.
I don’t think he knows I’m awake, and I use this moment of candor to take him in.
If there is one thing I have realized about Archer, it’s that he always has his walls up. Very rarely does he let his true emotions show, but right now, he seems unguarded.
He heaves out a long sigh as he runs his long fingers through his mussed-up hair.
Images of soft female hands doing the same thing pop into my mind unbidden, making my chest ache. I must make a noise of some kind because his head turns towards me.
He looks exhausted, dark circles rimming his eyes. A quick glance at the clock shows its after two in the morning, and I wonder where he has been. The lines between his brows crease, and his frown deepens.
I wonder if he can tell I was crying. I’m sure my face is blotched and puffy.
“Hey,” I whisper into the dim light, my voice coming out slightly hoarse; whether from crying or sleep, I’m not sure.
“Everything ok?” I push to sitting, my back against the armrest, legs tucked in tight to my chest. My attempts to put some space between us, my emotions still too raw from earlier.
“Yeah. Everything’s fine. I just…I needed to go into work for a little bit to take care of some things.” He leans back against the cushions, one arm slung over the back as he angles his body towards me. “I decided while I was out, I would stop by and check on your apartment.”
“Oh,” I say, sitting up straighter.
“It’s almost finished. The security system will be installed by Friday, so it looks like you may get to go back home soon.”
“Oh—that’s, um…that’s great news,” I say, my voice coming out hollow even to my own ears. What he says should be good news. That would mean I am able to go back to my apartment, get back to my normal life, see Jane and my friends. It should make me happy, but instead, his words leave me feeling depressed.
“But—wait, what about the attack? Is it safe to go back? If there is someone after me, I mean?”
“Trust me. You don’t have to worry about that guy,” he says. “As far as anyone else who may be looking for you, I’m not sure. Look, I meant what I said. I won’t let anything happen to you. If you’re not ready or you don’t feel safe going back, you can stay with me as long as you want to.”
Part of me wants to take him up on that offer, to use that as an excuse to stay here in this little bubble where things feel a little safer, but reality is looming, and I’m going to have to face it at some point.
“Thanks for the offer. If I’m being totally honest, I am scared, but at some point, I will have to go back to work. I really need to check in on Jane. I never told her about any of this. I’m actually kind of worried about her. She has a tendency of over doing it when I’m not around,” I tell him, and he nods.
“Okay. When are you supposed to be back at work?” he asks me.
“I’m not entirely sure. I was kind of forced into to taking time off, so Jane told me not to come back for at least a week, which I guess would be Friday.”
It’s crazy to think it’s been less than a whole week since everything happened, that I have only been with Archer for five days. So much has changed in such a short amount of time. It feels like so much longer.
I always thought insta-love was something only found in books or movies, but now I’m not sure what I think. While it’s not quite love, Archer has become important to me, my feelings for him growing deeper everyday. I can’t imagine never seeing him again. The thought of walking away and going on with my life without him in it makes me inexplicably sad .
Is it possible to feel this much for someone this soon? If you had asked me that before, I would have said no. But now…
“Okay. So Friday then?”
“Friday,” I say, my voice cracking at the end. He looks over at me, wearing a somber expression on his face. It’s not sad exactly, but it looks more like resolve.
“Now,” he says, reaching out to grab my ankles from under the blanket, pulling my feet into his lap, “tell me why you’ve been crying?”
I drop my gaze down to my hands, picking at the skin there, unsure how to answer, how to explain without giving away the depth of my feelings. What we did probably wasn’t a big deal for someone with his experience, but for me, it was huge. To allow someone to touch me that way takes a lot of trust.
It would destroy me to know that he was with someone else tonight, but the not knowing I think would be worse.
“Hey…” he says, hands lightly squeezing the soles of my feet to get my attention. Only when I give it to him does he continue. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”
“I know you told me you went to work, but I was wondering if you were with… If you went to?—”
He cocks his head, eyes narrowed.
“Are you…trying to ask me if I was with another woman tonight?” he asks in a frosty tone, and all I can do is nod. “Why would you think that?”
My eyes dart around the room, as if searching for an escape, any way to keep from having to answer that question but knowing there’s no way to avoid having this conversation.
“I don’t know really. You were acting sort of strange before you left. You wouldn’t look at me. Then when you said you would be out late, I just assumed that maybe… you were meeting up with someone. Which would be fine if you were. I mean, it’s not like we are together or anything, and I know men have certain needs, so I would understand?—”
“Stop,” he says through clenched teeth, tension radiating off him in waves. I clamp my lips shut, shrinking back into the cushions, both alarmed and confused by the thunderous expression he wears.
“First off, whoever put those words in your head, deserves to be punched in the fucking throat. Far too many boys, use that as some bullshit excuse to cheat,” he seethes.
“Second,” he continues, face softening, “it’s not fine—Maggie, together or not, I wouldn’t do something like that. I don’t hop from one bed to the next. You are the only woman I have touched in the past six months. So no, I did not go and meet up with someone else, and I am sorry if the way I left upset you. I can assure you, it had more to do with my own fucked up head than anything you did. Okay?”
“Okay.” His words ring with such sincerity, I have no choice but to believe them, and not for the first time, I wonder just what other demons he struggles with. I know he feels responsible for the death of his sister, but I feel like maybe it goes deeper than that.
The fixer in me wants to dive deep and get to the root cause of his pain, to discover what wounds lay beneath the surface that need stitching up. This man calls himself a monster, but from what I have seen, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Archer has been nothing but selfless and brave, caring and kind. Yes, at times, he can come off as cold or unfeeling, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a mask he wears to hide himself from the world.
“So—what are we reading?” His deep, husky voice pulls me out of my musings, and I look up, confused. He points to my e-reader face down on the floor.
Oh shit! I move to snatch it up, but he is faster and beats me to it.
“That good, huh?” he chuckles as he swipes up to unlock it.
My face pales when I remember what I was reading right before I feel asleep. It was a monster romance where the female main character is forced to marry a creature with horns and a skull for a face and a very long tongue that he does very wicked things with.
Archer’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise as he skims over the words, and my heartbeat hammers in my ears as I cover my flaming face with my hands. He makes a noise low in his throat, and I peek out through my fingers, expecting to see a horrified look on his face. I’m surprised, when instead, I meet dark, hooded eyes that are laced with an obvious desire .
My hands fall from my face to my lap, and a shiver of anticipation rolls down my spine at his hungry gaze.
“This is what you like?” he asks. “Is this what gets you off late at night when you lay in your bed alone? Tell me, Little Rose… Do you get hot and bothered when you read your filthy little books? Do you touch yourself?” His voice comes out deep and raspy, causing my nipples to tighten and a throbbing to start in my core.
“Answer me. Do you get so worked up while you’re reading that you touch your pretty little pussy and make yourself come?” I nod, biting down on my lip to stifle a whimper as my eyes flutter closed.
“Show me,” he commands.
My eyes pop open meeting his lust filled gaze, and something about seeing him so affected makes me feel brazen.
Slipping my hand under the covers, I slowly run my finger down my center and watch as his hands clench into fists at his sides, his chest heaving with heavy breaths. A moan slips past my lips as I circle my clit, and pleasure licks up my spine.
“Take off your pants,” he orders, and I lift up, kicking off my yoga pants, the blanket falling to the floor with them, leaving me in just my t-shirt and panties.
“Now spread your legs” I bend my knees up. “Wider,” he grunts out. I instantly obey, opening them as wide as I can on the narrow sofa cushion.
“That’s my good girl. Now, keep going.” I slip my fingers under my panties, stroking myself tentatively at first, but soon, I find my rhythm. My other hand trails across my stomach and up under my shirt as I pinch and pull at my nipple.
“Faster,” he tells me, and I follow his instructions as I start to circle my clit faster, and faster until my orgasm rips through me, and I come on a cry.
I ride out my orgasm as wave after wave crashes over me.
Once I start to come down, awareness begins to creep back in at the magnitude of what I’ve done, and I wait for the shame and humiliation to set in, but it never does. Instead, all I feel is pure bliss.
The look of awe and adoration on Archer’s face making me feel beautiful, cherished, like I might be something worth keeping.