15. Tinsley
CHAPTER 15
Tinsley
From Archer’s bed, I watch the moon fade and the stars slowly wink out while he sleeps.
I woke up earlier to featherlight kisses on my body. Turning in his arms, I sleepily kissed him back. Our touches were lingering and unhurried. And when he hooked my thigh over his and slid inside me, it was slow and sweet, prolonging being joined together until release came in a warm hush.
I shift in the bed, having not fallen back asleep. Archer’s relaxed face furrows at the movement. His hand that’s holding the inside of my thigh tightens. It’s not the first time it’s happened since he fell back asleep.
To soothe him in his dreams, I card my fingers through his hair and softly sing until I feel the restlessness leave him. Archer’s words forgive and assure me, but the wound I ripped open on his heart speaks the truth. Deep in the cavern beneath the scar, he’s afraid. He doesn’t trust I won’t leave him again. And how can he? He doesn’t know the full truth of what happened, of what Hunter did.
Archer’s pain eats at me but I’ll bear it. My heart may have been collateral damage in what happened, but I’m not innocent. Carrying the truth is my penance for the part I played and the opening I allowed for Archer to be hurt. It’s a burden I’ll shoulder far easier than I did the heartbreak of losing him. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. I’ll take the guilt and the blame for every ounce of his suffering, so long as it means he remains shielded from Hunter’s betrayal.
The alarm on John’s phone softly buzzes across the vacant nightstand, alerting me to wake up for my scheduled check in. I silence it, then slip further into the sheets, kissing Archer’s heart and slowly extracting his arm from me.
With my lips at the hollow of his throat, I promise, “I love you, baby; I won’t ever leave you again,” then quietly roll out of bed, grabbing his t-shirt from the floor as I tiptoe out.
On the stairs, I pull it on and gingerly make my way down to the first floor in search of the kitchen. What I find makes me grimace. There aren’t a lot of options in the pantry and fridge to make Archer breakfast, nor is there what I would deem adequate cookware. There’s not even an apron, which has me sighing as I start to pull out what is available. At least there’s a step stool—I imagine for Ellie and possibly Eleanor—so I don’t have to climb the counters to reach the top shelves in the upper cabinets.
Noting the time, I call Mikey, propping the phone against the paper towel holder as I start scrubbing potatoes in the sink.
He picks up on the second ring and we dance through his coded security questions and my response phrases, to include a damn hand signal. I guess this is what happens when your bodyguards are former SEAL operators and treat the management of your safety like securing nuclear weapons.
I bring the potatoes to the island and study the knife for a moment before doubling back to the drawer that had the grater in it. I’m not confident I can make the slices thin enough without a mandolin, so shredded it is.
“You look… happy, Miss Jacobs,” he comments.
“Mikey, is this your way of saying I look thoroughly fucked?” I tease, making him choke on the sip of coffee he’s taking.
He sputters and grabs a fistfull of napkins to clean himself up. “Definitely not.” He cringes while I giggle. In a rare showing of familiarity, he clarifies, “It’s my way of saying you finally look like you’re enjoying your life, kid.
“John and I have been with you eight years. Yesterday and this morning are the happiest I think we’ve ever seen you.”
I toss the potatoes with black and cayenne pepper, salt, onion and garlic powder, and paprika and repeat what I told Briar last night, unable to stop the massive grin that stretches across my face. “Archer makes me happy. Being here makes me happy.”
We chat for a few minutes longer while I grease a baking pan with what most would call an ungodly amount of butter and layer in the shredded potato. After we hang up, I crumble chorizo on top and then whisk a carton of eggs and pour that over everything. Sprinkling it all with cheese, I cover it in foil and put it in the oven to bake.
I watch the timer tick down, unsure what to do with myself. A part of me says to get back in bed with Archer. But as dawn begins to creep in and light up the rest of his home, curiosity wins out.
There isn't much to see though. His home is comfortably furnished but sparse. The only two rooms with any sort of personal touch are a bedroom for Ellie—if the small TV and stuffed animal on the dresser are anything to go by—and the one with all his books—the built-in shelves nearly bursting. Everything else is like a blank canvas waiting for a painter to come in and give it life.
He doesn’t even have pictures on the walls, though that’s not surprising since, given his memory, he always seemed baffled by the idea of taking them. Because of that beautifully loud and chaotic mind, he doesn’t hold onto things the way most people do. It’s why seeing my lyrics framed beside his bed and the picture of me on his mirror had me throwing up a wall before I could crumple to the floor in a crying heap.
Archer doesn’t need help remembering anything. Everything he takes in is permanently etched in startling clarity. But he held on to me—not just in his head but with actual, physical reminders. He held on to me not because it’s how his brain works, but because he wanted to.
The thought has a need for him forming low and warm between my thighs. There’s only the basement left to see. I could skip it, but the hyperfixation that has me working on the same song for hours until it’s complete tugs me toward it. A quick peek is all it’ll take and then I can go wake Archer up with my mouth around his cock—he always did enjoy that.
I check the timer on the oven right quick then go in search of the door that conceals the stairs to the basement. It sticks from lack of use when I try to open it. Hitting it with my hip, it creaks open. I flip the switch and as I should have guessed, the room is empty. It’s not even entirely finished, with framing still exposed. Something about the setup looks familiar to me, though, and I start walking down the stairs as if a closer look will give me answers.
In the center of what would be the larger of the two spaces is a work table. On it are blueprints for the house from ten years ago when Archer was having it built. I don’t understand a lot of what I’m seeing, but when I look at the page for the basement and read the notes on materials, the purpose of the room I’m standing in becomes clear.
Archer had the architects include space in the designs for a studio.
He was building an entire life for us, one that prioritized my music.
“Tinsley?”
I don’t have time to dwell on what’s here. Though no one else would detect it, I can hear the shake in Archer’s voice as he calls for me. He woke up alone and his anxiety crept in, now shouting over reason.
My heart thunders as I run up the stairs, and I’m angry with myself for having ever left the bed to begin with. The door bounces off the wall with a bang from how forcefully I throw it open. When I see him stepping off the bottom step into the living room—his jeans pulled on but undone and his hand rubbing the outside of his thigh in an attempt to draw out the anxiousness—I nearly tackle him in a bid to get into his arms as quickly as possible.
He stumbles back and catches us before we hit the stairs and he lowers down to sit with me wrapped around him like a koala in his lap. I grab the hand that’s still rubbing at his thigh and bring it to my hair, coaxing him to play with it.
It’s what he always did when we were together in town and his skin would start to itch and crawl with overstimulation.
Arms wrapped around him, I bury my face in the crook of his neck and begin to kiss, suck, and lick at him. Between each one, I murmur over and over again, “I’m right here, baby; I didn’t go anywhere; I love you,” until I feel the unsteady racing of his heart against mine begin to slow and even out.
He lets out a shaky exhale, and his hands slowly leave my hair to trail down my back. Up and down they go, counting the vertebra that makes up my spine.
When Archer’s hands begin to drift lower with every pass, reaching under the hem of his shirt and dancing along the crevice of my ass to my pussy, I uncurl myself just enough to look at his glasses-framed green eyes.
“Hey, Superman.”
“Hey, Shortcake.”
Another pass of his fingers teasing at my opening and a shiver rolls down my spine.
“I thought you left.”
“Never,” I swear, clenching around the tip of his finger.
He teases me some more, his other hand coming out to grasp my throat and keep my eyes on him when my head begins to lull back.
“Where were you?”
“I had, I had to call in,” I stutter, trying to sink myself down on his finger that refuses to touch my clit or go more than a knuckle deep into my pussy. “Archer, please.”
“And after?”
“I… I…” I can’t get the words out as my mind fogs with need but the timer on the oven answers for me with its shrill yell.
He pulls back, and through my haze I can see anger and hurt begin to melt away as he asks, “You made me breakfast?”
I nod, my hand drifting down his tight abs and into his open jeans where his dick is wet and waiting. Before I can get there, Archer pulls my hand free and drapes my arm around his neck, standing up with me in his arms. He brings us to the kitchen and sits me on the island counter to take the casserole out of the oven. Once it’s on top of the stove and the oven turned off, though, he forgets all about it.
He turns back for me and yanks me across the marble to the edge of the counter. His hands run up the outside of my thighs, grabbing the ends of his shirt and tugging it over my head.
For a moment, all he does is stare. Green eyes behind black framed glasses drinking me in as if I might be a mirage and he wants to savor the sight before cruel reality has me shimmering away at first touch.
I reach out for him, my palm laying flat on the center of his chest. His gaze follows me, his large hand coming up and covering mine.
“Let it out,” I whisper, afraid to disturb whatever thoughts are percolating through his mind. “Use me to let it go.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
I lay back on the counter, arms stretching over my head and legs coming up and opening, offering myself to him. “Try.”
Slowly, tentatively, his hands start to caress up the back of my calves. At my knees, he circles them to the front, his touch growing heavy as his palms drag up and around to the outside of my thighs. His mapping of my body is gradual and methodical, until he reaches my hips.
Finding the soft flares and curves, he holds me, his touch neither clinging nor possessive. I wait, watching him breathe, my own breath coming more quickly with anticipation for what he’ll do next.
“Tell me you want me.” Archer’s words are that of a wounded animal, pain and a readiness to fight coloring the rich, deep draw of his speech.
“I want you.”
His fingers sink into my flesh, dimpling the muscle with how tight his grip turns. He uses that hold to gently rock me on the marble, like he wishes he could shake me.
His hands start moving again, less gently now, more roughly as they make their way up my waist and cover my stomach. He reaches up for my breasts, lifting them and squeezing until I keen for him under the sharp current of pain that’s laced through the electrifying pleasure.
“Again.”
“I want you, Archer.”
No sooner do I offer the moaned assurance he seeks than does his hand strike out, collaring my throat. The pressure at my pulse is glorious, stealing my breath in the best way, my head tilting back in full offer.
Archer slowly leans over me, his other hand sweeping back down the silhouette of my body to lift my leg over his forearm. Fully slotted between my thighs and spread open for him, he guides me up, off my shoulders, by the loving possession he has around my neck. The stubble of his cheek is abrasive against my own when he puts his lips by my ear and growls.
“Tell me you’re mine, Tinsley. That you’ve always been mine.”
He squeezes my pulse before I can comply, holding it for several beats. As he lets go—his thumb stroking the column of my neck—he repeats, “Tell me,” a whisper of broken, desperate need seeping in.
I reach up and cup his face, keeping the warmth of him against me, and murmur, “I’ve only ever been yours, Archer. If you want me, you only need to take me.”
“How could I not want you?”
Brushing my lips along his stubble, I challenge, “Then take me,” setting free some of the storm that swirls inside him.
He pulls back and with a gentleness that betrays the harshness of his face, he slowly relaxes my body back onto the counter as he stands back to his full height.
When he lets go of my throat, I pout, a whimper slipping free over the loss of being pinned down by him.
“Shh,” he croons, dragging two of his fingers over my bottom lip before pushing them in so I suck on them. “I love how eager your pretty little mouth always is for me.”
Proving him right, I hollow my cheeks, trying to draw more of his fingers in, my tongue swirling up, around, and between.
He hisses and smiles down at me as he pulls them free, a small rope of saliva weakly clinging like fraying rope. “Perfect, baby.”
The small praise lights me up in delirium but I’m quickly flattened back down to earth before skyrocketing up when his fingers ghost over my clit and down to spread my waiting pussy.
“Mmm… so wet,” Archer observes, tracing my opening and coating his already slick fingers. Another pass and he pushes both in, my hips lifting with the intrusion. “And so damn snug. I could live inside you and it still wouldn’t be enough.”
He pumps and curls his fingers inside me—his thumb pressing on my clit each time he hits my front wall—quickly drawing more from me. The sounds my body makes for him are obscene and hypnotizing all at once, any mortification I can muster up melting away under how savagely and hungrily he watches between my legs.
My belly is curled up tight, and molten heat spreads down my thighs and up my chest when he pulls free, halting my pussy’s increasingly excited flutters. But I can’t complain because he’s pulled his cock out and is spreading what I’ve given him over his thick, veiny length.
Shoving his jeans down, he checks the hold he still has on my leg that’s bent over the crook of his arm and lines himself up with me, eyes trained on where we’re about to join. Once he’s notched inside of me though, Archer looks up and brings his hand back to my throat, his eyes boring down into mine as he drives home.
The collar of his hand keeps me pinned to the counter as he thrusts with brutalizing force that has me screaming for more. He takes me hard and fast, each push of his cock raw and ruining. He’s savage and possessed, pouring everything he’s let escape into me.
His grip adjusts on my leg as sweat mists my skin and he pushes it back until my knee is up on the outside of my breast. With the adjusted angle, he slips in deeper, my eyes rolling back as I cry out for him.
He squeezes my throat and commands, “Look at me,” drawing my immediate obedience as I swim in his green depths. “I want your eyes on me and my name on your lips when I make you come.”
It’s an order he doesn’t have to wait long for me to comply with. Every nerve in my body is a slave to his touch. And when it comes in the trifecta of his hand squeezing my throat, his thumb pressing my clit, and his cock thrusting so deep inside me it kisses my cervix, I go off, screaming his name and making him fall with me, the hot flood of his cum making me shiver with pulsing aftershocks.
Archer’s fingers replace his cock, plugging and cupping my pussy. He bends down and kisses first my sensitive clit, then my bare mound, making his way to my lower abdomen before resting his forehead above my stomach, taking time to breathe me in and slowly come back.
I card my fingers through his hair, my other arm wrapping around him, fingers softly dancing along his spine. And when he brings his fingers to my lips, I open for him right away, soothing myself into peace with our combined taste.
It’s only when his fingers fall free from my drowsy mouth does Archer look up. Kissing the rest of the way up my body, he hooks his arms under mine and lifts me. With my legs wrapped around him, he carries me to the couch, gently laying me down before stripping and molding himself along my back. And in the dawn’s rays, we drift off to sleep.