Chapter 11 Archer
Archer
“She has to go.” I slam the games room door with a trembling hand and walk over to the drinks cabinet to pour myself a drink.
Torin and Callum look at me from the couch, in a room that none of us has wanted to admit has become our hiding place.
We like to leave the door partially open now and again, usually when we pretend to laugh as we play pool. We have two spies under this roof, so we spend less time playing pool and more on trying to figure out a way to free ourselves from this cage.
If we have to be miserable, Juniper Harrington gets to be miserable too.
Callum’s nostrils flare, and his eyes turn hungry.
I shake my head, slashing my hand out to stop him before he can speak. “I couldn’t stop myself. Her heat is coming, and I need to knot her. She has to go.”
I plunge the room into silence.
“We’ll figure something out,” Callum says.
“What’s there to figure out?” Torin tosses his magazine to the floor and gets to his feet, rolling his neck and wincing when it cracks. “We have a boot on our neck. Fall into line, or we lose everything.”
“How soon?” Callum asks me.
“Her heat?” I shrug. Her scent has been growing stronger. I’ve smelled it before, and can tell what rooms she’s lingered in. “Maybe a few days. A week at a push.”
Knotting is an intimacy.
You don’t give intimacy to a viper that just crawled into your bed or was put there by someone you trust even less than a poisonous snake.
I know what I’m asking of them, but I can’t have her under this roof anymore.
If I knot her, I’ll be driven to do it again, and again.
And fucking again.
I pulled myself away from her, walked into the downstairs half-bath, and fucked my fist. But I still smell her. Her scent is in my blood. I could shower for five hours, and it would remain.
“She has to go,” I say again.
I abandon making myself a drink; I’m too wired. A drink won’t help anything but lower my inhibitions and make me do something else I regret.
She’d been talking to the gardener. I’d seen them outside, her face tilted up; the sunlight bouncing off her cheekbones and the tiny tilt to her nose.
I hated myself for thinking she was beautiful. So damn beautiful. But I can’t trust her. None of us can.
The gardener had lust in his eyes.
He was thinking of lifting the skirt of her dress, pushing her down onto her back, and fucking her on that grass. I saw the look in his eyes, and I recognized it. I was thinking the same.
I’d snapped.
We have to get rid of her, but I can’t have someone else touch her or look at her.
But I fucking want her again.
“Archer…” Callum, concerned by the way I’ve started pacing, moves toward me.
I can’t have any hands on me. I’m too on edge.
I ignore Callum and Torin calling after me as I pull open the door, telling them, "I'm going out."
Across the entryway, my gaze clashes with Veronica.
She’s dusting the vase nearest the library. Her gaze drifts away from me, and she tilts her head slightly before turning to walk away. I watch her through narrowed eyes until I lose sight of her, then I head outside and get in my car.
I have no idea where I’m going.
Anywhere I won’t smell Juniper's scent. That’s all I care about.
Naturally, I end up in a bar, pulling myself onto a bar stool in the middle of the day and slipping a twenty-dollar bill from my pocket to slide across the counter.
“Scotch. Irish.”
The bartender nods and starts fixing my drink.
My gaze travels over the few patrons looking to hide from their ghosts in the bottom of a glass.
The bartender pushes a short, squat tumbler of amber liquid toward me and plucks the bill from the counter as I pick up the drink and take a small sip.
A chair leg scrapes along the wooden floor, the soft scent of vanilla drifts toward me, and a woman murmurs in my ear.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for at the bottom of that glass.”
Taking another sip, I turn to face the beta who drags her stool closer to mine.
Long blonde hair. Tanned everywhere. Strapless black dress with tits spilling out of the top. Sexy hooded green eyes and lashes coated with black mascara. Exactly the sort of girl a guy would want to toss onto a bed and spend a couple of hours with his cock between her thighs.
I’m not interested.
Miles away from Juniper, in a bar where I came to escape her, I ache to be inside her again. I don’t trust her. I will never trust her. But, goddamn, no other woman comes close to her.
“And what am I looking for at the bottom of my glass?” I take another sip of my whiskey.
Her eyes dip to my mouth, and she runs the tip of her tongue along her full, red lower lip. “To forget. And I am very good at making a man forget the things he wants to.”
Snorting, I turn away. “That’s not why I’m here.”
She laughs, a husky, sexy sound. “That’s why men always come here. The drink is a distraction until a woman like me comes along. You can lie to yourself about it, but you can’t lie to me.”
I drain my whiskey and make eye contact with the bartender as I lift my empty glass. “Same again.”
He nods. “Coming up.”
“I’m Isla. Aren’t you going to buy me a drink?” She drags her stool closer to my side, and her breast brushes my shoulder. It takes everything in me not to lean away from her.
Coming here was a mistake.
A drink isn’t helping. Talking to this woman only reminds me that she doesn't measure up to my scent match. No one does because no one could.
“I’m not looking for what you think I am, Isla,” I say, not looking at her.
The bartender is picking up the bottle of whiskey from the back to pour me another. I shake my head and push myself to my feet. “Don’t bother. I’m not staying. Keep the change.”
Isla is saying something as I walk out. Whatever she says passes me by completely as I open the door, and it slams shut behind me.
With my hands stuffed in my pockets, I start walking. I’m not ready to go back to the house yet, and it’s not wise to be around Juniper when her heat is coming.
So I walk.
Now that I know what it is to be inside her, nothing—no one—will ever be good enough to make me feel like that.
Hate, need, want… all of it has me wrapped up so tight there’s no escape.