CHAPTER 16 Millie Monroe
I’ll Make You Pay Now
“Are you okay?” Archer asks, and he’s by my side, kneeling down to check out the damage a moment later.
“I don’t know,” I say, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth together to try to create pain somewhere else than the one currently darting through my ankle. It’s futile. My eyes fill with tears.
“Let me take a look,” he says.
I let go of my ankle so he can see, and it doesn’t look broken even though it sort of feels like it is.
“It looks normal, no swelling, so I don’t think it’s a sprain. Can you wiggle your toes?” he asks.
I wiggle.
“Does this hurt?” he asks, and he moves my ankle just a bit from side to side.
“Fuck! Yes! Don’t do that! I need a medical professional!” I’m half-sobbing, half-yelling.
He chuckles a little, and I’m about ready to smack him. “It’s just a roll. You’ll be fine in a day or two.”
“How do you know?” I narrow my eyes at him as I sniffle and try to pull it together. If I could get the tears under control, that would be a good start.
“I’ve rolled my ankle a million times. So has every guy I’ve ever played with.” He rises to a stand. “It hurts the worst in the first few hours, so let me help you back to the bus. Can you bear weight on it?”
He helps me to a stand, and even in this moment of agony, I feel the clench pull deep in my stomach with his hands on me.
It gets worse when I try to take a step and cry out in pain. The pain doesn’t worsen, necessarily. It’s that damn pull in my stomach as he sweeps me up into his arms like some hero out of a fucking fairy tale.
He carries me back to the bus, and Ricardo stands by the steps smoking a cigarette.
“You okay, ma’am?” he asks.
“I twisted my ankle,” I admit.
“Can we board a little early to get her off her feet?” Archer asks. He’s not breathing heavily from carrying me down the steps and to the bus. I realize he’s a professional athlete, but even for one of those, his strength is impressive.
Ricardo nods. “Get well soon, ma’am. There’s another hour before we head out.”
“Thanks,” I mumble as Archer carries me up the steps and deposits me into a seat.
“Prop your leg up,” he suggests, and I do.
“Thanks,” I mumble to him, too.
“You’re welcome.” He sits across the aisle from me.
“You don’t have to sit with me for the next hour. I don’t want you to miss out on anything on account of me.”
“I’m not. How’d you fall?” he asks.
My cheeks burn bright red at his question, and I’m certain he knows the answer before I say a word.
“You were taking pictures, weren’t you? You missed the step because you were lost in your phone and not living in the moment.” He pairs his annoyed tone with an eye roll.
“Can you get off my ass about my job?”
“You told me you’re a bartender,” he says.
“I am. It pays the bills. Sort of. Some months. I started my blog just for fun when I was in college, and it sort of took on a life of its own until I realized it’s what I love. Like playing baseball is what you love. Right?”
“Right.” He sighs.
“So why aren’t you playing baseball right now?” I ask softly.
He folds his hands in his lap and stares down at them. “You didn’t look it up? It’s all over the news.”
“I don’t watch the news, and my feed is pretty curated to what I do,” I admit. “I heard you were suspended, but I don’t know why.”
He nods, his eyes still on his hands, and he draws in a deep breath.
“I was suspended forty games. I was detained for questioning in conjunction with an illegal underground gambling operation run by my father. He had me sign some paperwork, told me it was for taxes. I didn’t pay much attention.
It was all legal gibberish anyway. Turns out he was putting that underground ring in my name. ”
“My God, Archer. I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” My chest tightens with sympathy.
He still doesn’t look up at me. “Yeah. It’s on me. I should’ve read it. I should’ve known better than to trust him, but he played on my sensitivity.”
“How?”
“He used my dying mother to get me to sign the papers. Said some bullshit about wanting a reconciliation before she passed. It’s all so fucked up, and the media has been up my ass since it all went down late last year.”
I have the sudden urge to move across the seats and hold him in my arms. His head is sort of hanging, and it’s clear he’s hurt over all this. No wonder he came to Paradise to escape all that.
And then he runs into me, someone he sees as a person who would capitalize on his celebrity status without blinking an eye regardless of whether that’s true, at the very same time he’s trying to run away from the media. I guess I’m sort of starting to get why he hates what I do so much.
But I’m different. I’m not in the media the way he thinks.
“So where’s your dad now?” I ask.
He glances over at me, and I see the pain in his eyes. I see why he didn’t want to look directly at me—he wants to hide it. To hide himself. But I can’t help wanting him to see how his worth and value aren’t tied to what his father did, that he’ll pay the price and put this behind him.
“He was indicted and arrested. He’s out on bail until the trial, which should start in June.
Probably not long after the time I get back on the field.
” He turns his gaze out his window. “And I broke off a long-term relationship to keep her from getting hit in the crossfire only for her to turn around and marry one of my brothers a few months later.”
The tightness in my chest turns to an ache for him. Fuck my ankle, this man needs a goddamn hug. I shift myself and swing over to the seat beside him. I sling my arm over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for what you’re going through. For what it’s worth, and not that you care anyway, but I want you to know that I wouldn’t exploit you. I’m not like them.”
He presses his lips together but doesn’t say another word, and I wish I knew what to say to diffuse this, to make him feel better. To provide some measure of comfort. I glance up and see Ricardo walking away from the bus, and I take my chance.
I swing my leg over his so I’m straddling him, and he looks surprised as his eyes shift up to mine. I shift my hips so my pussy rubs over his lap, and he groans a little. I turn his hat around on his head so it’s backward, and I take off my own straw hat and toss it onto the seat beside us.
I take his jaw between my palms. “I’m serious, Archer.
Whatever you think of me…that’s not who I am.
I’m sorry for what you’re going through.
I’m sorry you think I’m only out to use you.
I’m not. I wish I could find a way to get you to believe that.
” I lean forward and shoot my shot by pressing my lips to his.
It’s gentle at first, and he’s not kissing back, but I feel him fighting it.
I keep my lips there, and after a few beats that feel awkwardly long, his hands come up to wrap around me.
I shift my hips again, only this time to feel his cock as it starts to spring to life.
His mouth opens, and he kisses me that same way he did the first night. It’s full of passion and sensuality as he sets a slow, languid pace. I could kiss him forever, but we don’t have forever.
We only have a month. And now, less than an hour until others return to the bus.
The ache pressing between my legs is nearly unbearable, and I start to gyrate against him in earnest, a rough spot on his shorts rubbing through the material of my dress and my panties against my clit with each shift of my hips.
He moves his hands to get the bottom of my dress out of the way, and then he reaches under my dress, slips my panties to the side, and shoves a finger into me.
I lean my head back, which only pushes my breasts closer to his face, and he leans forward to kiss my chest over my dress as he moves his finger in and out of me.
I moan softly, and I open my eyes to focus on him. His eyes are cloudy, but they’re on me, watching like a tiger.
“Have you been this wet since the last time we were together?” he murmurs.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” I say, my voice breathless as I try to keep from shrieking in pleasure.
He keeps moving that long, gorgeous finger in and out of me. “Good. You kept the truth from me, though, and you’re going to have to pay for that.”
“Make me pay later,” I groan, and I move my lips back to his as I ride his finger, my hips moving in time with his rhythm as I fuck his hand, wishing it was his cock.
“Mm,” he moans into me, and he pulls back from our kiss as he eases his finger out of me. “I think I’ll make you pay now.”
“Don’t you fucking dare stop now,” I warn, but he’s already slipping my dress back into place. “I didn’t keep any truth from you,” I complain.
“You weren’t straightforward with your career, and you said you didn’t know who I was.”
“I didn’t!” I protest. “Until you said your name. Then I put it together. That wasn’t a lie.”
“You still got into my bed knowing who I was, but I didn’t have the full picture of who you were.”
I mean…he’s not wrong, not that I’d ever admit that to him.
“Would you have preferred I gushed over you and said oh my God, you’re Archer Bradley, pro baseball player?”
“No,” he mutters, and maybe I’m just desperate, but it feels like vindication that he admits he wouldn’t have wanted that. The vindication could be coming from the fact that I’m fucking feral right now after he got me ninety percent of the way to an orgasm and then stopped cold.
I reach between us to rub his cock over his shorts. “Don’t pretend you don’t want this.”
“I do,” he admits. “And I hate myself for wanting it. I hate that I can’t stop thinking about our night together. I hate that I want it again.”
A thrill races down my spine at his words. He wants it again.
So do I.
“So then use me for your vacation fling. You came here for an escape, and I can give you that, regardless of what you think,” I say.
I’m begging. I realize that. But the dude pushed me into a sex haze, and I can’t leave it until I get what I need.
I’m desperate, and I’m saying what I think he needs to hear to finish the job.
“We can just have some fun together this month, and then we go our separate ways at the end with just the memories. No strings, no ties, no hearts involved.”
His eyes search mine as he contemplates it, but then I hear a voice. More voices and footsteps.
“Oh! Sorry!” someone says, and I clench my jaw as I know what this means.
The other people are back. They’re starting to board the bus. I have to climb off of him without a release and without an answer.
You know…just the two things I’m totally and absolutely desperate for.