Epilogue
Ilie with Archer in the middle of our bed, my leg hitched over his thighs, my cheek on his chest, my heart beating against his ribs.
Most pleasurable of all may be the patterns he draws against the ball of my shoulder, or the gentle kisses he lays on my forehead for no reason except that he wants to.
It’s the middle of the morning, it’s the weekend, we’re ignoring the group chat constantly buzzing on my phone—something about Cordoza wanting to discuss New York—and we have nowhere else to be.
It’s my favorite way to exist.
The Checkmate crew has all gone home, without payment, and my building exists now with some kind of high-powered futuristic technology that the rest of my staff are giddy to test.
Personally, I just like that all the filing I’ve been meaning to do for the better part of a year has suddenly been taken care of.
“How are you feeling?” Archer changes the direction of his stroking fingertips, dragging them over my collarbone and along the length of my neck. “You’re on day four of Jen’s wonder drug.” He pulls back and looks down into my eyes. “Still doing okay?”
“Physically, I feel fine.” I exhale a lazy grunt and reach across his broad form, purely so I can fist his shirt and hitch myself up, stopping only when I’m sitting on his hips.
Too bad we’re dressed. I consider my sore knee and the stitches that bothered me not all that long ago.
They’re fine now. Then I study my husband and the chain he wears around his neck every single day since it was put there.
I drag it from beneath his shirt and slide my finger through his wedding ring, purely for something to do.
“I haven’t gone this many days without infusing since…
” I shrug. “Never in my memory. It feels odd not to schedule my life around the lows just before infusion, and the highs the morning after.”
“Now it’s just all high.” He massages my thighs, digging his thumbs in deep enough to make me groan. “Do you feel sick? Dizzy?”
God, I love him.
“Thirsty? Sleepy? Jittery?”
“Jittery, but only if I take the pill and don’t eat before lunchtime.” I fold closer so our bellies touch and my lips stop a mere two inches from his. “If I didn’t know better, I’d wonder if this was all a conspiracy you’ve cooked up together to ensure I have breakfast every day.”
“God forbid,” he drawls playfully. But because he’s a damn good husband, he lifts his head and presses a kiss to my lips. “Do you regret starting the M&Ms? Wish you could go back to your regular Factor?”
“Not particularly.” I release his wedding band and set my hands on either side of his torso.
My hair falls forward, curtaining us inside our own world, so as I brace myself on my fists and rock back just an inch until I feel the solid length he always has waiting for me, I grin.
“I like not having to schedule my infusions anymore. I like not losing every second night to a pounding headache and exhaustion. What about you?” I grind down against his cock and wish we had started all this without our clothes on. “Do you miss infusion nights?”
“I miss the morning after infusion.” He grabs my ass in both hands and squeezes tight enough to make it sting a little. “Watching you infuse always got me a little tingly, because it was a pretty sure bet I’d wake up the next morning with my cock in your mouth.”
“Pig.” I roll my eyes. And still, I rock over his hips. “You took my medical issue and turned it into your gain. Very Malone of you.”
He latches onto my bottom lip and nibbles, his exhaled chuckle bathing my tongue and making me tingly all over. “Being a Malone sure is a hardship, Minnnka.” He lifts his chin. “Sit up. I’m gonna take my cock out, then you can sit right back down again. It’s how Malone men conduct conversations.”
“All conversations?” I tease. “Is this why you and Fletch are so close?”
He throws me to the side, slamming me onto my back with a thwump and following me around until his knee rests between my legs.
“You’re trying to bother me, Chief. Trying to gross me out.
But the Malone in me makes it so my cock stays hard when you’re around, no matter what else is happening.
” He digs his hand into his shorts and tugs the fabric down just far enough to free his cock, then he suckles on my bottom lip and groans his pleasure.
“I haven’t gone soft since I met you. I honestly don’t think it’s possible. ”
“Even when I bring Fletch into the discussion?”
His eyes flash with hunger. Challenge. Defiance. Then he drags my shorts aside and slips two fingers deliciously deep inside my pussy.
“Ahh.” I squeeze my eyes closed and whimper. Too quickly, he wields magic and conjures spires of pleasure throughout my blood. “Shit, Archer.”
“We could invite Steve in to watch us, and I would still fuck you till your voice turns hoarse.”
“Don’t say his name!” I bark out a sound, somehow both pleasure and distress. Ecstasy and embarrassment. “Archer! Never say his name while we’re doing this.”
“You started this game, Chief.” He finds my puckered nipple, even with my shirt and bra still on. Taking it between his lips, he turns the sparks in my blood to lava. My choppy breath to a desperate pant. “Don’t try me. I’m too Malone to lose.”
“Fuck.” I drop my legs open and simply feel. Absorb. Mewl. “Archer…”
“Mmm.” He adds a third finger and stretches me wide.
It’s a delicious ache. A luscious sting I won’t ever shy away from.
“How do you want me, Chief? I could flip you to your belly and fuck you raw.” He nips at my chin.
“I could lie on my back and make you ride me.” He pumps his fingers and pushes me toward delirium. “Sit you on my face and let me feast.”
“Archer…”
“Set you on your knees and make you worship me.” He slips his pinky into my ass and growls his pleasure. “I love hearing you cry my name. But I looove seeing you choke on my cock. Makes me feel like a god.”
“You lovebirds better be dressed in there!” Felix’s unwelcome voice penetrates my senses.
It’s gone before it starts, so I could almost fall back into the things Archer does to my body.
But then a loud thud booms against the door.
Once, twice, three times. “I’m opening this door in three seconds, so cover up! Or don’t,” he giggles. “I’m game.”
Dazed, I blink, blink, blink, and search Archer’s angry glare. Already, his hand leaves my panties, and his cock disappears inside his shorts. “What…?”
“Three!” Felix pounds his fist again.
“Goddammit, Felix!” Archer drags my clothes back into place, tugging my top down and rolling off me, all within a single beat of my heart. “Fuck off!”
“Two!”
“Archer—”
“Sit up.” He yanks me to my butt so fast, my head swims, and my vision turns dark. Twisting me on the bed and positioning me so my feet touch the floor, he taps my cheeks and hovers directly in front of me. And yet, I’m not sure I see him. I only see the orgasm that was robbed from me. “Mayet?”
“Were we in a car accident?”
He coughs out a distressed chuckle and fixes his clothes, too.
“One!”
“Give me a minute while I shoot my brother in his fuckin’ face.” He bounds off the bed and crosses our room, reaching the door at the exact moment Felix somehow overrides the locks and becomes Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining.
“Bedrooms are private!” Archer slams his fist into Felix’s chest. “And you live in New York. What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Visiting my family.” He slips under Archer’s arm and strides into the room, revealing a content Zora curled into his embrace while a bow almost bigger than her head dwarves her tiny, chubby body.
“Chief Mayet. You look appropriately sexed up and bothered.” He thrusts the baby forward until she somehow becomes my problem, her wide, almost silver eyes staring up at me like I’m the strange one, and her lips curling into a taunting grin.
Yeah, she’s Felix’s kid, alright.
“I didn’t interrupt anything important, did I?”
My blood is still far, far from my brain, so all I manage is a blank-eyed stare and guppy lips.
“No? Excellent!” He scoops his hand under my arm and pulls me to my feet. “ZoZo wanted to visit with her Aunty Minka, so let’s go.”
“I don’t…” Have a good handle on thinking when I have sex on my mind. “What?”
His smile is broad and teasing, but it comes with a definite oops grit of his teeth, too.
“Really bad timing, huh?” He flashes a single middle finger at the seething Archer, leads me through the bedroom door, and into the hall.
“Sorry, Doc. I don’t have a great deal of time, since Christabelle is fed the fuck up with traveling coast to coast every three minutes.
We’re here for today only, then we’re gone again, so it’s important we soak up every second we’ve got. ”
“Felix!” Archer stalks out of our bedroom and into the hall a full twenty feet behind us. “What are you even doing here? Fuck!”
“Just keep walking, Chief. You’re my bait. He’s my shark. I need him to follow us.”
“I don’t…” Bewildered, I allow him to lead me past guards, past Harrison, past an ugly painting on the wall I’ve never noticed until right this second. He brings me down a flight of stairs, then a second. Maybe even a third, though I’m not sure my brain knows how to count anymore. “Felix…?”