Chapter 11
ARCHER
My eyes are dry from staring so hard, and my throat is thick with emotions and feelings I’ve never had before, never mind while sharing my bed with a girl. My lips are sore from the number of kisses I peppered across her shoulders while she slept.
Darcy Thompson is not a light sleeper.
I smile into her hair when she releases a little snort into the room—her version of a snore.
Like I promised, we went at it for most of the night before I let her sleep—or more like she passed out—and I wrapped myself around her, covering us both under the duvet.
And that’s where we’ve remained, the sun now rising and filtering into my bedroom, casting a glow on her long hair.
She’s like Rapunzel or something—and up until last night, just as mythical.
Since the second I laid eyes on this girl, I’ve been in a tailspin.
Knowing I can’t touch her because she’s off-limits, but falling deeper under her spell regardless.
I should probably feel guilty for going behind my friend and coach’s backs, but that would mean I had a choice to walk away from Darcy, which was something I could never do, especially not after I saw the look in her eyes when Jack spilled about Abbie.
That night in the bar, when I came between her and Harry, I was making steady progress, moving out of the friend zone and easing into flirting with her.
Then in came her brother with his big size nines, blowing everything up with an announcement that I had a girlfriend.
I wanted to scream right there that it wasn’t true, that I’d gone along with the lie to spend time with the very person I just crushed with it.
The only good thing to come out of the mess?
That was the catalyst that pushed me to pin her against Jack’s spare bedroom door and confess that I wanted to take her home.
I knew if I didn’t, then she’d eventually go searching for “fun” with the wrong guys, and there’s only so many times I can get away with punching them before they lay a finger on her.
I know there’s no going back now that she’s lying in my bed, and I wouldn’t want to. Last night was incredible, and this morning feels even better. I might be the first guy she’s been with since her asshole ex, but she’s the first-ever girl I’ve woken up next to.
Darcy makes me think about things I could never foresee myself wanting.
She elicits a feeling of home I haven’t experienced since before the time my parents started fighting.
Whenever I’m with her, my active brain is calm.
I’m not searching for the next hookup. I’m right where I want to be.
There isn’t another woman I want to talk to, lie beside, or draw soft moans from for hours at a time.
Last night only solidified those feelings.
Moving her hair to one side, I expose the nape of her neck, and she exhales a soft yawn into the room. With her back to me, I can’t be sure if she’s awake, although she’s definitely stirring.
“Stay with me today, here, in my bed,” I whisper against her skin, unsure if I’ll get an answer.
Darcy stretches out and then rolls toward me, still in my arms. Her blue eyes are sleep-dazed and satisfied, and when she offers me her sunshine smile, I melt further for this girl.
“Did you say something? Or was I dreaming?”
Full-on fucking giddy, I pull the duvet back over our heads and form a cocoon around us. The now-bright sun penetrates my white bed linen.
“You weren’t dreaming, Doll. I asked you to stay here with me, in my bed. I’ll bring you food in between sex.”
She suppresses a yawn, bringing a hand to her mouth and rolling onto her back. It’s then I notice the white gold bracelet she was wearing at the party, but never removed last night.
“I really can’t,” she replies, looking genuinely disappointed. “I’m actually out for lunch.”
She reaches down to her wrist, spinning the bracelet around a couple of times, and I wonder if it’s nerves.
I’m not ashamed to admit the pang of jealousy I felt when I first saw her wearing it last night.
And now that she’s talking about meeting a friend and playing with the bangle, I’m powerless to stop the words tumbling from my mouth.
“Do you have another guy, Darcy?”
Her head whips up to me, big eyes narrowing. “Okay, firstly, what do you mean by another guy? Because last I checked, I didn’t even have one.”
I go to reply, but she continues over me.
“Secondly, if I did, I wouldn’t be lying here, in bed, with you.”
I’m flooded with relief, although it’s brief, as it gives way to more unease. How do I get this girl to return to my bed?
“Where did you get this?” I ask, trying not to sound like a suspicious douchebag. I’m a possessive one instead.
Darcy rolls her lips together, shifting to face me. “Oh, this?” She lifts the bracelet between us. “This is from Emmett Richards, the hot-as-fuck defenseman on your team. I woke up with him yesterday, and he gave it to me as a birthday gift.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Darcy.”
She’s on her back in seconds, and I’m hovering over her, a caveman growl I’ve been fighting to suppress escaping my chest. I’m tempted to slide inside her right now and demonstrate how I’m the only man she needs.
Small hands rest on my shoulders as the bracelet slips down her arm.
“Did your dad get it for you?” I ask softly. I know from Jack that she doesn’t have a relationship with him anymore. That doesn’t stop me from hoping the guy didn’t miss his daughter’s birthday.
“No.” She shakes her head, a subtle sadness dulling her eyes. “I haven’t spoken to him in months. The bracelet is from my mom. She bought it for my twenty-first birthday, and I wear it on special occasions.”
Although I wouldn’t describe us as estranged, I’m not especially close to my dad. Darcy might be right to keep Elliott out of her life—just like Jack cut him out completely too—but that doesn’t mean there isn’t residual hurt.
“Do you miss him?” I ask cautiously.
She peers up at me like she hasn’t been asked that in a while.
“That’s a complicated question, Archer.”
I settle down between her parted thighs.
I know she can feel my hard cock as it presses into her.
Casually, I run my fingers down her stomach, holding myself up with an elbow braced next to her shoulder.
We’re both completely naked, but that isn’t the most intimate part of this moment.
I want to explore every part of Darcy, well beyond the conversations we’ve previously shared.
“We’ve got the time.”
She clears her throat and shifts beneath me.
“My dad is one of those people who always has an agenda with everything he does. When I was younger, I couldn’t see the games he played or the way he would emotionally attack Mum, not until I got older.
Then, when Jack joined the Blades and met Kendra, Dad tried to come back into his life after he learned what my brother was earning and how much his girlfriend’s family was worth.
Kendra told me all about it when I moved to Brooklyn, but I’d already hated his guts anyway.
” She pokes her tongue into her cheek. “And I don’t hate anyone. Ever.”
My blood boils on behalf of Jack and Darcy, two of the kindest people I’ve ever met. If they despise this guy, I can only hope we never cross paths.
“Did he hurt you?”
Shaking her head again, she presses her lips into a thin line.
“No, never physically. Dad doesn’t need to get physical to cause hurt.
He likes to weigh and measure people, and when he has a drink, the venom really starts spouting.
He once told me I’d walked away from a good relationship with Liam because of my ego. ”
“But he cheated on you,” I immediately fire back, my rage simmering.
“He did, although Dad never saw it that way. He said Liam was going to have a great career in finance.” She laughs darkly. “Funny, because that’s what my dad does—he’s a stockbroker in London.”
I remember Jack telling me his dad worked in Canary Wharf. A place where some of my own investments are run. He’d better not manage any of my offshore accounts.
“After Liam and I split, Jack admitted he could see more and more of Dad in Liam’s behaviors. Mum spent a lot of time detangling herself from Dad’s grasp, and Jack was afraid I’d go down the same route. I once failed a test at university—”
I release a mock gasp, and she swats me on the chest, giggling.
“Yes, Archer. Believe it or not, I did. Anyway, do you know what Liam’s reaction was?”
I shake my head, already convinced I’m not going to like it.
“He told me not to worry because a woman’s place is really in the home and with the kids, not out earning money because he could take care of that. It was a carbon copy of what Dad used to say to Mum.”
I can’t imagine Darcy ever accepting something like that from a guy. They do say love is blind.
When she looks up at me for a reaction, I know my jaw is clenched, molars grinding hard.
“There were plenty of red flags I chose to ignore because I’d invested so much time into the wrong person, but I didn’t want to feel like all of it was wasted, so I kept plowing ahead with him.
I guess that’s why now I’m not keen to get into anything heavy.
The next person I date, I want to be sure they won’t screw me over. ”
My tongue burns with the need to tell her that I’d never let her down. Then I consider the evidence of my past and what she has to go on.
“A woman’s place is wherever she wants to be.
” They’re the only words I can find in a sea of confessions I desperately want to profess.
“No one owns you or gets to tell you what to do with your life, Darcy. When a real man says, You’re mine, it’s because he can’t stand the thought of living a day without you in his life.
Not because you’re a possession he can show off to his friends. You’re a treasure, not an accessory.”
In the silence of my bedroom, she scans my face slowly.
“What?” I ask, unable to hide my smile.
Her hand cups my face, and I can’t help but let my eyes flutter closed at the touch. “You’re smart, smarter than you let on, Archer. Smarter than me in so many ways.”
I set a kiss against her forehead. “We’re so alike, Darcy.”
When she swallows thickly, my mind travels back to the conversation we had right after I basically told Harry to fuck off. This is risky, and I know it, but I have to shoot my shot.
“Let me be what you need, Doll.”
Pushing her head back into the pillow, she examines me. “What do you mean? Because I don’t want to get into a relationship right now. I—”
“No,” I cut her off, knowing she isn’t ready for that. “I’m saying I can be your Mr. One Size Fits All.” I swallow down the fear of rejection. “I’m saying I can give you the fun you’re looking for and we can be exclusive. I get you, I know what you need, and I promise I’ll treat you right.”
When she shakes her head again, my heart sinks into my gut.
“We can’t do that, Archer. One night we can get away with, but sleeping together on a regular basis?
I’m not so sure. I’ll say now that I have zero intention of telling Jack or Jon about what I get up to behind closed doors, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be caught at some point.
The fun we have with each other won’t be worth the pain you’ll experience when my brother and stepdad go crazy.
It’s the betrayal they’ll hate, Archer. I might know you’re not an arsehole to women, but Jack’s especially convinced you’re the wrong type of guy for me. He’s protective after Liam.”
She might be telling me no, but it isn’t because she doesn’t want to spend time with me, and that knowledge spurs me to keep going.
“Let me worry about Jack and Coach. If you want me to talk with them, I will, but I think if we’re careful enough, we can keep this just between us.
” I move my hand—which is currently splayed across her stomach—to her face, pushing strands of stray hair out of her eyes.
“Focus on yourself for a second. I’m asking you if you want to have an exclusive thing with me.
Yeah, we’ll have to be careful, and that kind of sucks since I can’t take you out when I want and spoil the shit out of you. ”
Darcy quirks a brow at me. “That’s what boyfriends do.”
I know I need to rein myself in here. “Listen, all I’m saying is, I want more of you, like this, in my bed beneath me, rolling around in the sheets and talking about our lives. I can be all of those things you want because I want to be them for you. You can trust me.”
I cut myself short before I say way too much and she bolts from my apartment.
A few more agonizing seconds pass before Darcy speaks again. “Like an exclusive fuck-buddy arrangement?”
Jesus Christ, I hate that description. Darcy is anything but a fuck buddy to me.
“If that’s what you want to call it, then that’s what we can be.”
I watch as she considers my offer, and I feel the way my heart hammers against my rib cage, wondering if she can sense how seismic this moment really is for me.
Another beat of nothing, and she finally makes a decision. “Okay, if you’re comfortable with the high stakes involved, then we can give it a try. I trust you and really like spending time with you, and last night was … it was amazing.”
I know I’m grinning like a fucking lunatic right now.
“BUT!” She holds up a finger between us, scolding me like a teacher, which is nothing but fucking adorable.
“We have to be really careful how we play this, and that includes you not turning up on my nights out with Kendra, Jenna, and Collins and giving random guys the death stare. You have to trust me.”
It’s not you I don’t trust, Darcy Doll. It’s the men who think the way I have for most of my adult life.
“Okay,” I say, agreeing to all the terms. They’re only temporary anyway until I make her my girlfriend.
“Okay,” Darcy repeats quietly, her shoulders relaxing into the pillow.
I’m aware she has a lunch to get to, and she’ll need to head home to get ready. Still, that doesn’t stop me from notching myself at her entrance.
“Are you sore from last night?” I ask, feeling how wet she is when I run a soft finger through her pussy. “I know my piercings make it amazing for us both, but they can take some getting used to.”
Drawing her lip between her teeth, she reaches down to fist my cock. “I’m sore in the best way.”
Slowly, we both feed my dick inside her, a low groan echoing in my chest. Darcy is the first girl I’ve slept with and not used a condom and it’s incredible, although I know so much of that is down to the girl I’m with.
“You feel so good,” she breathes out when I push deeper inside, stretching her delicious pussy out slowly.
I set another kiss against her forehead. “Yeah, well, get used to it. Because now you can have me whenever you want.”