18. Archer
CHAPTER 18
Archer
Tinsley hugs the steering wheel of the sparkly blue truck I bought her. Even though we’re parked in the driveway of my house, she doesn’t turn off the engine. She just sits there—her chin resting on her folded arms—staring blankly out the windshield.
I think this is worse than the facade she was wearing when she first came back to me. At least the masks she wore hinted at there being something within. The despondent, near catatonic state she’s been in since we left Dark Horse is unnerving. It’s as if she’s retreated so far into herself, she’s become lost.
Tentatively, I reach my arm over the console and place my hand on her thigh. I don’t get so much as a twitch of reaction from her, so I brush the hem of her dress up and feel her bare skin waiting. Still, I get nothing. Not even when I squeeze her muscle. She’s just a beautiful and haunted shell beside me.
“Tinsley… talk to me,” I coax. “Baby?”
I call her Shortcake next and finally, that gets me a reaction. Her chin rolls to the right so she’s looking at me. Her normally warm eyes are flat and when she smiles, it’s broken, her lips hardly even curling up.
“Superman.”
“Shortcake,” I repeat, quietly sighing in relief when she sits back and drops her hands between her thighs, taking mine between hers.
She pulls our hands up between her breasts and places featherlight kisses to the tips of my fingers where they stretch far above hers. When she’s done, she twists our hands and lets one of hers fall away so she can kiss the double strawberry on the inside of my wrist.
“Let's go for a swim.”
“Whatever you want,” I say, grabbing the bag of takeout containers filled with the desserts Ames brought her before dinner turned to shit.
She’s out of the truck before I can come around to open her door and already walking down the path to the lake’s shore. Her heels sink into the earth several times before she’s hobbling on one foot, then the other, to yank off the strappy sandals.
Just shy of where the water meets the sand in languid ripples, Tinsley drops her shoes. In the moonless, star littered sky, she’s all shadows except for her white dress. She grabs it by the hem and pulls it up and off herself, letting it fall behind her. I watch her hook her fingers into the waistband of her panties and bend to pull them down her legs before kicking them away. Completely naked, she wades into the lake until she’s deep enough to sink beneath the surface.
Her head breaks the water’s smooth tranquility a few seconds later, hands pushing her hair back from her face.
“Are you coming?”
Even though she can’t see me, I nod and set the bag down, grabbing my shirt from over my shoulder and removing it and my hat in one go. Boots, jeans, and boxers off, I follow her into the cool water where she instantly wraps herself around me once I’m within reach.
Her thighs squeeze my hips tightly and her arms are locked and folded over my shoulders, her face hiding in the crook of my neck. Not even a whisper of space exists between us, and with my hand cupping the back of her head and the other wrapped around her waist, I hold her, my feet sinking into the wet sand as we become rooted to the lake.
The world is quiet as it moves around us, allowing us the time to come to terms with the inevitable end that we’ve been avoiding until tonight. That I’ve been avoiding.
Finally, Tinsley releases a long, measured exhale and begins to peel herself back from me. I start to hold her tighter, not ready to let go, now or ever, but the moment she can see my face, she stops and remains fused to me. The hands I thought about—wondering how they’ve changed and if our history still lingered upon her skin—find their way to the nape of my neck where her callused fingertips begin to scratch at my scalp and lightly pull at the short ends of my hair.
Through the dark, I can see her eyes briefly close, and against my chest I feel hers rise, pause, and fall, her breath fanning across my skin.
“I regret not trying harder,” she softly confesses. “I ran and I didn’t fight. I let everything go, gave you up because…” she looks off over my shoulder, teeth sinking into her lip. She needs time to process whatever the hell it is she isn’t telling me and as badly as I want to know—the pieces gathered in a pile at the front of my mind begging to be sorted and put together—I remain quiet and give it to her, hoping she'll trust me with whatever is eating away at her.
But she doesn’t, and it’s a sucker punch to the gut when she skips right over whatever she was going to tell me. I don’t want it to end, not again, and the thought of it, the premonition like feeling that after tonight I’m going to lose her all over again, has my chest seizing and blood rushing as my heart starts an erratic, useless rhythm that will go nowhere.
She curls back from me and it takes everything I have not to crush her against me as it feels like she’s slipping away. Like I’m finally about to wake up and find that this has all been yet another dream and she never really came home to me. Soft as the rippling water, though, she presses her lips to my racing heart and starts to kiss every inch of skin that surrounds the beating muscle before resting her cheek on me and clinging all the tighter to my body.
“I won’t make that mistake again, Archer,” she solemnly vows. “I’m not gonna let myself be deceived and torn away from you. I won’t run if I’m scared. I’m here and I’m yours. Then, now, always, forever. That will never, ever change. I know… I know it’s hard and you don’t trust me, not really, and I understand that—” she scoffs as if she wants to say more “—but please, find your faith in me and hold on to it.
“I don’t know what it’ll look like for us because I need to be in L.A., at least part time, but I want to figure this out so I can be with you.”
Smoothing my hand over her sodden hair, I tell her, “I do trust you, I just?—”
“I know, and it kills me that I’ve done this to you. Just know that if I have to fight against that night for the rest of my life, I’m going to do it.”
“Why’d you leave? Just tell me what I did because all these years and I’ve never been able to figure out how in one night we went from making love to you leaving me a goddamn note and running clear across the country to get away from me. I mean fuck, Tinsley!” I shout, making her jump in my arms.
Ten years of anger is finally breaking free of the dam I’ve kept around my emotions. For a decade, I’ve been too afraid that if I let myself fully experience the anger, I’d come out of it ready to move on and let her go. And losing what little I had left of her wasn’t something I wanted to risk.
Even though I want to hold her close, I untangle her arms and legs from me and step back. Submerging myself under the water, I try to cleanse the useless emotion by holding my breath until my lungs scream at me.
I shouldn’t be angry, not any more now that I have her back. Who the fuck needs answers? She’s here and she’s mine and she always has been, and that should be more than enough. Having her back is all I’ve ever wanted. But now that I do, there’s a seed of doubt that leaves me questioning if this is as real for her as it is for me. Am I going to have the rug pulled out from under me again?
Breaking the surface, I suck in oxygen as I scrub my hands up my face and into my hair, where I tug at the root. Turning away from Tinsley, I stare up at the stars and yell, “FUCK!” at the top of my lungs.
Head down, I can’t help the harshness that coats my words even as, distantly in my mind, I scream at myself for how I’m speaking to her.
“I wanted to marry you, Tinsley. It wasn’t just talk for me. The house, the babies we talked about having and the names we gave them, that shit was fuckin’ real for me. I wanted it all with you and was ready to follow you wherever you went so we could make it happen. You were my entire life, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have done so we could be together. Shit, I had already rearranged my entire fall semester so I could do my classes remotely and go with you to L.A. I was all in and I thought you were too and then you left me !” More quietly, I repeat, “You left me,” turning around to face her.
She’s bent over her arms that are hugging herself, sucking in deep breaths as she heaves through her tears, teeth in her lip trying to stifle the sound of her sobs.
It shatters me to see her like this and in an instant, everything is washed away and I’m tugging her back into my arms, holding her as she cries into my chest, my chin on her head and my hand caressing up and down her back.
“I’m sorry, baby; I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” I softly apologize, squatting to grab her thighs and lift her so she’s clinging to me again. “I’m so sorry.”
I wade out of the lake, leaving our things behind when I hit the shore, and carry her to the house.
Inside, I leave the lights off and take her up the stairs, water dripping from her hair across the hardwood floors as we go. In the loft, I lay her out on the bed, covering her naked body with my own, and begin to kiss the trail of tears from her cheeks, my hands framing her face to block everything out but me and her.
“Tinsley, baby, I’m sorry,” I murmur, chasing a tear as it races from the corner of her eye into her hair. “Please stop cryin’. It’s destroyin’ me to see your tears and know I caused them.”
“I never wanted to hurt you, Archer. I—” she hiccups and clings tighter to me “—I’m so, so sorry that we did. You never called, so I believed him. It wasn’t until Ames said, said you never—” her voice breaks off into a sob and she tries to hide in my neck, making herself as small as possible. “I thought keepin’ it from you after I found out would be… that it’d be easier than you knowin’ what happened that night and then a year later.”
Curling back from her, I smooth the drying wisps of hair back from her face and pull her out to look at me, those damn eyes of hers nearly glowing in the dark from how hard she’s crying.
“Baby, what are you talkin’ about? Who?”
She shakes her head, unwilling to answer me, tear stained lips reaching for me instead, a broken plea of, “Please,” passing between us. “Please, love me.”
“I’m always gonna love you, Tinsley. That will never, ever fuckin’ change,” I swear.
Fingers in her hair, I skim my hand down her side, hiking her thigh up around my hip, our mouths coming together. A sharp whimper of relief leaves her and she gives over to the coming distraction and affirmation of my vow. Her limbs cling to me and she presses her body in close, forcing out every sliver of space that exists between us. She seeps herself into my soul, making it her home as if it hasn’t been lingering on her memory and patiently waiting for her return.
Our breaths grow short the longer we go with only the other’s exhales for oxygen. I can’t let her go though. The caressing tangle of her tongue with mine is far more important than something so trivial as taking a full breath.
Small moans and quiet gasps fill the space, and my skin and hers begin to heat, banishing the chill of the lake. Between her supple thighs, my cock grows, finding its way home to her pussy.
Tinsley is wet and hot around me, and I glide through her lips with each gentle roll of my hips. My slick head massages her clit with each stroke, and she tries to pull away with a moan. Not ready to detach from her, I keep a secure hold on the back of her head and swallow the sound, letting it fill me up from the inside out.
Her raw, desperate anguish and apology washes away what remains of my anger, and all I want now is to heal her from whatever damage has been hidden within her. To take my time lavishing apologies I should have given her before now upon her skin.
Rolling us over, I bring us up toward the top of the bed. Our lips finally part as we move, but with each inch gained, one of us is chasing the other, hungry to reconnect.
Against the headboard, I drag her body up into my lap, sitting her over my erection.
Here in the dark, amongst unmasked truths, we’re driven by connection. We move in unhurried ease, her body slow and sweet as she works herself up on me without penetration.
Her arms wrap around me, drawing herself in even closer. She parts from our kiss, soaking in my nearness as she brings her cheek to mine.
“I could lose it all tomorrow but as long as I have you, I have everything,” she whispers. “I only wanted to spare you any more pain. I would do and sacrifice anything to spare you the pain of the truth.”
“Tinsley, losing you is the only thing that can hurt me.”
“I fear I’ll lose you if I tell you.”
I hold her to me as I rise to tuck my legs under myself and murmur, “Let me show you that you have nothin’ to fear, baby. Not with me.”
She nods her head—a single tear rolling down her cheek that I brush away—and lifts her hips up. With her hand between us, she guides me to her pussy and gradually begins to sink down on my cock.
Her face is exquisite as I fill her. Mouth parted, eyes struggling to stay open and on mine, her beautiful brow pulled together in sweet agony, and though I can’t see it in the lightless room, I know a rosy flush warms her cheeks, making her glow.
When I’m fully inside her, she stills and looks down between us at how I stretch her. Glancing up at me, Tinsley murmurs, “I love you,” and starts to move.
I meet every swivel and rock of her hips with unhurried upward thrusts, relishing in the feel of her around my bare cock. Her breasts move with the gentlest sway and her head lulls back, my name a soft devotion on her lips as she slowly takes us higher.
This is why I gave up on moving on with no real effort behind my attempts.
I could stay here inside her, holding her to me all night, and be more satisfied than I ever have.
This is home.
* * *
I’m still inside Tinsley as she traces the bridge of my nose with the tip of hers. At the end, she nuzzles her head under my chin and caresses her fingers down my left arm, silently worshipping my strawberry tattoo as I do her arrow.
I don’t want to disrupt the peace that has settled between us, but what brought us here still lingers like a watchful spectre—and I’m not the only one that feels it.
Her arms come around me, hugging me to her, and she lets out a shuddering breath.
“It’s my fault. Had I not left that night, everything that came after wouldn’t have happened. I deserve to carry the burden of it. I didn’t believe in you and what we had.”
I pull my head back and wrap a hand around her delicate throat, brushing my thumb along her pulse. With her eyes on me, I gently demand, “Tell me the truth, baby; all of it.”
Her tongue peeks out to wet her puffy lips, and after curling them in, she whispers, “I never should’ve believed him. He told me if I left, he’d make sure we were ruined.”
“Who?”
She tries to look away, but I squeeze her pulse to keep her eyes on me and repeat, “Tinsley, who told you that?”
“Hunter.”