Archer
“Dammit! Ugh!”
I wake with a start, shoving up in bed and looking straight toward my closed bedroom door. Which is the direction Minka’s grunt and bad mood echoes from. But just to make sure, I glance to her side of the bed and confirm: she’s gone.
Flopping back again, I fall into my own sweat and groan.
The summer heat pelts the side of our building and leeches through the bricks until we exist inside nothing better than an oven.
My pillow is wet. My hair, wet. My sheets and boxers.
It’s like I’ve been for a swim in the fuckin’ ocean before falling into bed.
But I get none of the benefits of an ocean dip.
“Jesus, woman. Stop throwing a fit!” Cato’s voice hitches with a grunt. “You’re not being reasonable.”
“Move your shit! Clean it up.” Another grunt. “Stop living like a pig, and I won’t feel the need to throw anything.”
“You’re mad because you have to try on pretty dresses,” he giggles.
Giggles! But the sound cuts to a deathly quiet that brings me up in bed again.
To save his life? To hide Minka from a twenty-five-year prison sentence?
“If you don’t wanna go, tell them you’re not going.
Pick up the damn phone and take your bad mood out on the chick who insists on a second wedding. I did nothing to earn your wrath.”
“You left your shoes on the counter!”
I drag my legs to the left and over the side of the bed.
Then, pushing off the mattress, somehow more tired now than I was when I first lay down, I stretch my arms to the ceiling and stumble through the door without getting dressed.
I wear silk boxer shorts and not a damn thing more, and walking the hall with my eyes closed most of the way, I emerge at the end mid-yawn and completely fucking ready for a full eight hours of sleep.
But then Minka lobs a Jordan high top—just one—across the apartment and nails Cato square in the chest.
“You have no need for this many pairs of shoes!”
Cato’s desperate eyes swing to mine. “She’s cracked, Arch! She’s gone feral.”
“I’m not feral!” She spins, raccoon caught in a flashlight, wild-eyed and messy-haired.
She’s feral, plain and simple. “I woke drenched in my own body fluids, expecting to come to my living room in the middle of a workday. Midday! That implies my living room should be empty. Ya know, since most respectable human beings are at work or school at this hour.”
“It’s summer!” Cato exclaims. “I’m not in school right now.”
“But nooooo,” Minka snarls. “Couldn’t get time alone with my TV in my own living room.
Can’t sit on my couch, because Baby Mafia over here has worked his butt indent into the cushions.
Can’t use my coffee machine because Mafia Boy used the last of the beans.
And can’t make a sandwich on a clean counter, because…
because…” Frustrated, she slings her gaze back to him.
“Little Timmy?” he offers. “Fake Felix. Criminal Carl?”
“Criminal Carl!” She waves her arms in his direction. “Left his shoes on the counter. His shoes, Archer! On the counter. That’s gross.”
“So I admit, leaving shoes on the counter is a tad rude.” He raises his hands in surrender.
“That was my bad. But just so we’re all on the same page, they’re brand new, and I was fixing the laces how I like ‘em. I walked away to take a piss for thirty seconds, and in that time, the Feral Doctor over here woke up and went ballistic on me.” He slides his eyes back her way, pleading.
“I’m just a man, Mayet, wanting to enjoy an Ellen rerun while I re-lace my Jordans.
I’m sweating like a whore in church, because this godforsaken building is hotter than Hades, which means I’m drinking more water, which means I gotta pee more.
In fact, you should drink more water, too. Coffee is bad for you.”
“COFFEE IS NOT BAD FOR ME!” She tosses the second shoe and makes a run for him.
I dart in her way and catch her on the fly, lifting her feet clear off the floor and absolutely not laughing at her road-runner legs still scissoring in the air.
“Let me go!” She swings her arms, fighting for freedom. “He said coffee is bad!”
“He didn’t mean it, babe.” I bear hug and crush her to my chest, swallowing the mirth bubbling in my throat. “Sometimes, in the heat of an argument, people say things they don’t mean. He misspoke. He got caught up in his temper and spoke poorly of the caffeine gods. But he didn’t mean it.”
“Blasphemy! Uneducated, uncultured swine!”
I shoot a heated glare toward my brother. “Say you’re sorry.”
“For speaking ill of coffee?” He guffaws. “You’re cracked, too. You’re—”
I peel my lips back, pulling him up short and wiping the humor from his face.
So, he clears his throat and stares down at the floor.
“Yep, okay. I’m sorry, Chief Mayet. I humbly and sincerely apologize for besmirching the good coffee name.
I meant no harm when I suggested you should consume more water.
I merely intended to express my concern for your general wellbeing, and water is, as we know, fundamental to a human being’s healthy function.
” He brings his eyes up again and flashes a wide smile. “Good?”
Minka explodes anew, combative and wild. “He didn’t even mean it! You’re mocking me because you know it’s hot and I’m frustrated, and I didn’t sleep last night. You knew I’d wake up and want coffee, but you still used it up and didn’t replace it.”
“Let’s go.” I pick her up again, clinging to her the way I’ve clung to a tantruming two-year-old Mia in the past. “Time to cool off.”
“He’s mocking me!”
“I didn’t use the last of the coffee, babes.” Cato follows us, taunting at the mouth of the hallway. “I haven’t had a drop in days, because it’s already too fuckin’ hot out here and I don’t need help dehydrating myself. But go off.” He claps his hands. “Go. Off.”
“In here.” I walk her straight through the bathroom door, kicking it shut until the frame rattles and the wall hums, then deposit her inside the shower and flip the cold tap on. “Time to cool off.”
Water sluices over her head and into her eyes, down to darken her gray shirt and onto her bare legs. But she doesn’t scream. She doesn’t yelp at the icy cold. Because fuck, the water ain’t icy cold. The city is sweltering, so the water runs warm in the pipes.
“I admit…” Panting, her chest and shoulders lift and fall in a slow, rhythmic pattern. “I may have overreacted.”
“Ya think?” Chuckling, I simply lean into her, crushing her to the wall and letting the water slide over my back. “That was what we in the homicide industry consider the last big event before murder. You lost your ability to regulate and function, which allows you an insanity plea.”
“Are you suggesting I should off him and claim mental incompetence?”
“No.” I slip my hands beneath her shirt and along smooth skin, over her hips and down to her perfect thighs.
She’s my art, and my hands, the creators.
“I’m saying you’re a little on the unhinged side, and mixing no sleep, no coffee, and filthy heat is, evidently, where your limit lies. Now we know.”
Amused, she drops her head back, thunking it against the tile wall. But she looks up at me with a beautiful gleam in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have actually killed him.”
“Maimed him, maybe?”
She hums in the back of her throat, pleasure rippling in time with my massaging fingers.
“Maiming him is my right as a woman. As his unwilling housemate. As his sister-in-law.” She nibbles on her plump bottom lip, her dimples popping against her cheeks.
“And your other brother lit the fuse that began my bad mood, by the way. This is a Malone epidemic. It’s a problem I choose not to shoulder. ”
“My other brother?” I free her lip from her teeth, only to take it between mine. It’s my right, as a man. As her husband. “I have four, so you’re gonna need to be more specific.”
“Felix.” She drapes her arms over my shoulders and plays with the hair at the back of my neck.
Scratching and drawing patterns against the sensitive skin.
“He has called me no less than twelve times today. Twelve.” From lax and languid, to hard and harsh, her eyes flicker with fire.
“Twelve. I don’t even want you to call me twelve times a day.
In fact, I don’t want you to call me twelve times a week. ”
“You’re saying hurtful things because you’re mad.”
She snorts, softening again. “When a woman is dragged out of bed in the middle of the night and forced to see to the dead, then she has a right to sleep a few hours during the day. Undisturbed, unbothered, and unannoyed.”
“And yet…” I crinkle my nose. “Felix?”
“Felix! Zora is crying. Zora’s poop is green.
Zora’s face turns red when she cries. Zora isn’t sleeping enough.
Zora’s sleeping too much.” She exhales a huffing breath.
“Debbie is tired. Debbie is asking for juice too often. Debbie’s sugars are perfectly stable, but I’ve been watching her drink juice, which means they should spike, right?
Debbie’s breastfeeding a lot. Is Zora supposed to drink that much?
Is it safe to take the baby in the shower with us?
What about cream? Is that allowed on her skin?
What if her diaper leaks? That’s too much pee, right? Should we test for diabetes?”
I clamp my lips shut. Because if I snicker, my wife might maim me. “So he’s been a little needy, huh?”
“I am not a baby whisperer, Archer! I have literally never in my life hung out with someone who had a baby. I don’t have friends with babies. I don’t hang out at the local daycare. Even Mia goes to the toilet on her own. So why the hell would he think I have answers?”
“Because you’re a doctor?” I grit my teeth and dive forward, burying my lips against the side of her neck to save myself from her fiery glare. “Because he respects you. Because you delivered her.”
“I caught her!” she groans. “Literally caught her. That was the extent of my efforts, and if I knew this is how he’d treat me afterwards, I might’ve let her bounce against the ground instead.”
I snort. “No, you wouldn’t have.”
“Well, no… I wouldn’t have. But I might’ve considered drowning him in the lake. He’d already done his part with the baby making, and they’re married now, so Debbie’s set to inherit the house and assets upon his demise. She literally doesn’t need him anymore.”
“Perhaps she keeps him around for love, not necessity?” I suckle on her neck and drink the water straight from her skin. She quenches my thirst like no other. “Something about affections and whatnot? Though, I’d rather talk about us.”
“Us?”
“Mmm.” I cup her breast. “Call me a weirdo, but if I’m in the shower with my wife, I’d prefer to discuss my wife. Not my annoying brother.”
“He’s exceptionally annoying.” But she relaxes under my touch, exhaling her rage and relaxing against the wall. “Moral of the story is that he’s needy, he woke me up, Cato’s a messy house guest, and I don’t want to try on dresses today.”
“And there we are, arriving at the main issue.” I circle her pebbled nipple with my thumb and slip my leg between her thighs. “I knew we’d get there eventually.”
She harrumphs in the back of her throat.
“It’s just a dress, Minnnnka. It’s thirty seconds of trying silky fabric on to make sure it fits, then you can toss it away again and go back to your life.”
“But I have to stand there and ooh and ahh over everyone else’s dresses, too. I have to hang out with Fifi, even though she’s a traitor who left—”
“I thought we’d accepted that?”
“Not when I’m hot and tired and dehydrated.
” She angles her head back and opens her legs, vibrating and welcoming of my touch.
“When I’m in a bad mood, I’m cranky with her again.
Mia will be there, which means I have to cool it on the maiming stuff, and I can’t even tell Aubree I think weddings are dumb, because that’ll hurt Mia’s feelings. ”
And Aubree’s feelings, too.
I trail my fingers down her belly, over her hip, and across silky thighs.
And since we skipped the getting undressed portion of today’s shower, I tug her shorts down and leave them tangled at her ankles.
“What if I make you come?” I brush my fingertips over the small thatch of hair shielding her sweet pussy, then over her pulsing clit, and when she startles, I pin her to the wall and force her to feel it all.
To experience everything. “I could make you melt. Mellow you out. Use up your angry energy and leave you with just the Doctor Feel Good leftovers.” I slip two fingers into her pussy and capture her lips between my teeth.
“I could send you to that dress shop with a nice little pat on the backside and a goofy grin on your face. Doesn’t that sound nice? ”
“You could try, I guess.” Warmth fires in her cheeks, red stains spreading beneath her flesh and up to make her eyes dance. “Not sure you could make me come so much that I’d forget all my troubles.”
“A challenge?” I lower to my knees and bury my nose between her legs, fucking her with my tongue and earning her first release far faster than I could have predicted.
“You underestimate me, Mrs. Malone. I’ve been studying your body for a while now.
” I suckle her pounding clit between my lips, and because she needs the extra attention, I slip my thumb into her asshole and know she’ll walk away with that promised grin.
“That’s two. And I’m a dedicated man, happy to take as much time as we need to ensure the job is complete to satisfaction. ”