Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Archer found Jolie in her room, sitting on the floor across from the bed, knees drawn up and her arms hugged around them. The pose was so full of despondence—despair even—that his chest tightened with a painful squeeze.
When he entered, she lifted her head and went stiff. “What happened?” she asked.
“Nothing yet.”
Her gaze darted to his hand and the black hood he held.
“That is not comforting.”
He approached her in measured steps the same way he’d get near a frightened animal. He held up the hood.
“I’m leaving now?” Her voice faltered.
“Not yet. This is a surprise.”
She eyed him warily. “SEALs don’t do surprises.”
He extended a hand to her. “Trust me.”
After a beat of hesitation, she slipped her hand into his and let him pull her to her feet.
“Am I dressed for whatever this surprise is?”
He huffed out a laugh. “You’re perfect.”
Her eyes turned warm as melted chocolate. And he wanted to kiss her so goddamn bad.
But he held back.
“Come on.” He took her by the hand and led her out of the room and down the hallway, turning corners until they couldn’t anymore.
He stopped and lifted the hood. “Let me put this on you.”
She paused only a second before nodding.
He slid the blackout hood over her head and adjusted it so she could breathe easily while seeing nothing.
“Archer.” Worry tinged her tone.
“I’ve got you.” He clasped both hands in his and led her out of the hallway…and up into the ski resort above base.
Her steps were slow and careful, and her grip tense on his palms. He guided her through a narrow service door most people assumed was flat concrete.
The air changed immediately, turning cooler because they kept the heat low in the ski resort.
The smell of dust and the stale scent of a building that had been closed up a while filled his nose.
She lifted her head. “This doesn’t smell the same.”
“Because we’re in a different part of the base.”
“It smells old and abandoned.”
He smiled and tightened his grip when the stairs rose beneath them. “Step up. Twenty steps to the top.”
She obeyed, fingers clamped tight on his. They climbed slowly, and he was prepared to catch her if she stumbled. The higher they went, the colder the air became.
“The temperature’s changing.”
“Good observation.”
“It’s getting colder. Why is it getting colder?”
“You’ll see in a moment.”
He guided her onto a landing and up another set of stairs. “Thirteen more steps.”
“This adventure gets stranger every day.”
He chuckled.
“Where are we going?”
“Keep moving.”
“Are we leaving the base?”
“Not exactly—but it’s different than the base you’ve seen.”
“Rome told me about YouTubers and ghost hunters coming around.”
Archer’s boot landed harder on the stair than he intended, making a louder thump. “Did he?”
“Yes. I didn’t understand what he meant—I still don’t.”
“You’re about to see.” He opened another door and guided her through.
It was time to share this with her. “The truth is the base is located in an old ski resort that closed years ago. We hide in the rooms beneath it—the ones that used to be service tunnels, storage and maintenance areas.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I don’t have enough imagination to make that up.”
She made a soft sound of surprise mixed with amusement. “The government repurposed the ski resort into a ghost ops base?”
“You got it.”
“That is the most man version of renovating I’ve ever heard. Is it called the Montclair?”
He looked at her. “How did you know that?”
“There’s a stamp in the front of one of the books I saw in the common room.”
“You’re observant, I’ll give you that.” He laughed quietly, and they moved down one final corridor where the air shifted again—this one warmed by the sun and tinged with the smell of dry soil.
Jolie inhaled sharply. “What is that smell?”
“Almost there.” He stepped into the space, and she shifted her boots on the slate tiles that lined the floor in contrast to the concrete below.
He touched her arm. “I’m going to take off your hood now. Keep your eyes closed.”
When he gently removed the hood, his stare fixed on her beautiful face. Hair messy from the hood, long lashes sweeping low over her cheeks.
“Open your eyes.”
She did, blinking at the bright sunlight that flooded the space. She recoiled, squinting, and he caught her against him.
“Easy. I’ve got you.”
She slowly turned her head, taking in the towering glass walls and a peaked ceiling latticed with old metal beams. Beyond the panes, the world blazed white with snowy fields and distant slopes.
Her focus landed on the rows of raised beds sitting dry and empty. Flowerpots were lined up in rows and dead stems curled brown in planters left untended for years.
Jolie’s lips parted. “A greenhouse,” she breathed.
He nodded, drinking in the wonder in her eyes and trying to ignore how his heart was exploding.
She stepped out of his arms and pivoted in a slow circle, drinking it in.
She moved toward a line of pots near the windows and crouched, touching brittle stems with reverent fingers. “These were tomatoes. Or peppers. Maybe some of both.”
Pushing to her feet, she continued on, trailing her hand over a table layered in dust.
“You could grow vegetables here. For the team. Fresh herbs. Lettuce in winter and berries in containers if the light’s right.”
She turned, eyes bright. Then her gaze fell on him and the light dimmed into hurt so quickly it punched straight through him.
“Why did you bring me here?” The whisper was almost a wail.
He opened his mouth, but she plowed on.
“No—don’t.” She shook her head hard. “Why show me this like it’s a gift when I’m leaving?”
“Jolie—”
Her shoulders heaved as the sadness of a moment before turned into resolve. “For the first time in my entire life, I want something for myself.” Her voice cracked with anger. “Do you understand that, Archer? I want something.”
She swept an arm around the room. “I want to bring this back to life. I want to grow things that keep everyone fed. I want to belong somewhere again.”
His lungs clamped so hard he could barely draw breath.
“And I want—” She stopped.
He stepped closer. “Say it.”
Tears sparkled in her eyes. “You know what I want.”
He did.
In two strides he crossed the distance. He framed her face in his hands, and suddenly his mouth was on hers. Hard and desperate and hungry.
With a gasp, she clutched his shirt, meeting him with equal force, all the hurt and desire between them catching fire at once.
“I brought you here,” he muttered against her mouth, “because I needed one place on this mountain that can be just ours, even just for this moment.”
She dug her fingers into his shoulders, her eyes blazing with unshed tears, and he kissed her again, deeper now, tasting tears and fury and the woman who had somehow become the center of every thought, the one thing his rigid discipline couldn’t touch.
She ripped his shirt free of his waistband. The shirt hit the floor. Her sweater followed.
He pressed her up against one of the old potting tables, their mouths fused and their hands everywhere. The ache of the coming separation made every touch feel sharper.
When he slid his palms under her bra, she arched into him with a broken sound that almost undid him.
“Archer!”
“I know, baby.”
She stilled, searching his eyes. “No, you don’t.”
“Then tell me,” he grated out.
“I’m so angry at you.”
He laughed once, rough and stripped raw. “You’re not the only one. Get in line.”
She yanked his head down and kissed him hard enough to erase his smile and make his blood pound in his ears and his cock batter his fly.
He found the clasp of her bra and sprang it free. Dragging the cloth off her beautiful body, he stared at her for five heartbeats…ten…and slowly lowered his lips to her hardened nipple. When he closed his mouth around it, her knees nearly buckled.
He caught her under the thighs and lifted, setting her on a table among clay pots and old seed trays. She wrapped her legs around his waist as if she’d been made for this.
Made for him.
His chest burned with all the things he couldn’t say, and he threw himself into loving her as the reflection on the snow flooded the room and the glass walls turned into a brilliant sanctuary all their own.
As she worked the button of his jeans, her fingers were shaking too much to work it free. “Help!”
He stripped them both with frantic efficiency until their clothes lay scattered among the dust. Laying her down on the weathered wood table, he paused to drink her in.
Cheeks flushed, hair wild. Eyes locked on his.
So goddamn beautiful it wounded him…and left behind a fresh scar.
“Why are you stopping?” Her whisper was a rasp in the silence.
He swallowed hard. “Because if I keep going, I don’t know how to stop.”
She issued a low sound that snapped the last restraint in him.
Scooping her off the table, he took her down to the floor with him, cushioned by old canvas tarps he’d barely noticed before, and Jolie moaned when he settled between her legs and kissed her again.
He took his time exploring the way her skin flushed under his fingertips and goosebumps broke out under his mouth. Her silky thighs held him against her, and his cock surged against her slippery folds.
“Condom,” he gritted out. “In my jeans.”
She released him long enough to stretch out an arm and locate his jeans. In seconds the condom was in place, but he slowed again to worship her with kisses, spattering them over her throat, shoulders, breasts and stomach.
She stroked him with the same fixation, kissing scars and sucking his skin to leave a new mark of her own.
Neither of them could pretend this was simple anymore.
“I don’t want to leave.” Her confession spread across his neck and struck him square in the heart.
He closed his eyes. “You don’t belong in this world.”
“I know.”
His lips hovered a breath over hers. “I hate that you know.”
She drew back enough to search his face. “Then give me something worth missing.”
He made a sound low in his throat that didn’t belong to a civilized man.
Outside the glass, wind drove snow across the mountain in white sheets.
Inside, Archer lowered his mouth to hers and slid home in one slick glide.
* * * * *
Jolie clung to Archer as he moved over her, every thrust driving her deeper into the truth she had been trying not to name.
She was falling for him.
The greenhouse blazed with winter light, fields of snow glaring beyond the glass, but all she could see was Archer above her—hair fallen over his forehead, jaw tight, eyes fixed on her as if looking away would cost him too much.
He braced one hand beside her head and threaded the fingers of the other through hers.
“Look at me,” he demanded, voice rough.
She already was.
His hips drove forward again, slow and deep, and the breath tore from her lungs. The movement wasn’t frantic. It was deliberate, almost punishing in its intensity, each stroke like he wanted to leave himself inside her bones.
“Archer—”
“I know.”
He always said that when he was feeling too much.
She tightened around him and felt the shudder race through his body. His eyes closed for half a beat before he forced them open again.
“You do that on purpose?”
“I can’t help it.”
“Liar.”
Despite everything, she laughed. It changed into a moan when he shifted the angle and found some hidden place that made her body flash hot all over.
He dropped his head to her throat, mouth open against her pulse.
“You’re killing me,” he muttered against it.
“You brought me here.”
“I know.”
“Then suffer.”
That drew a breathless sound from him that might have been a laugh. He kissed down the center of her chest before finding her mouth again, driving into her with a stronger rhythm now.
Dust drifted from somewhere overhead.
Outside, wind still chased snow across the mountain.
Jolie wrapped her legs higher around his waist and held on.
She had wanted him from the beginning. But this was different now. Want had become attachment somewhere between breakfast in bed and stories of scars told in the shower.
It terrified her.
It thrilled her more.
Something fierce broke loose in him.
He surged into her, deeper, faster, every careful wall stripped away. She arched up to meet him, taking everything he gave, the pleasure building.
He lowered his forehead to hers, breath ragged.
“If things were different…”
She stilled beneath him. “What?”
“If I’d found you sooner…” His voice dropped lower, nearly lost beneath the sound of their bodies. “Maybe we might have had a chance.”
Her heart clenched so hard it hurt.
She kissed him to stop the ache of hearing it.
“We have this,” she whispered against his mouth.
“It’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to be.”
He made a low sound that seemed torn out of him. Then he slid a hand between them, finding the place where they were joined, touching her with practiced pressure that shattered whatever control she had left.
Pleasure crashed through her so suddenly she cried out.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Give it to me.”
She came with his name on her lips, shaking beneath him while he held her through it, still moving slowly, drawing every tremor from her body as if he couldn’t bear to waste a second.
When she opened her eyes again, he was watching her like a starving man offered one meal.
She touched his cheek.
“You’re not gone yet.”
“Feels like I am.”
He thrust once, twice, then buried himself deep with a groan that rumbled through both of them. His body locked, then shook as release took him. He hid his face in her neck, breath harsh against her skin.
She held him there.
For a long moment neither moved.
The greenhouse was silent except for their breathing and the hiss of wind against glass.
Finally he lifted his head. His hair was damp, his expression unguarded in a way she’d never seen.
She brushed the lock back from his forehead.
“What happens now?”
He searched her eyes, and whatever answer he had hurt enough that he couldn’t speak it.
So he kissed her instead.
And Jolie understood that sometimes silence was crueler than the truth.