10. Archer
Archer
Inside, the big house was cool and quiet when we returned.
Eve scooted away from me the moment the door closed behind us, disappearing up the stairs.
I let her go, knowing that people seeing us together spooked her.
We’d packed the kitchen up together earlier in the day and I knew she’d want to get the evening meal on shortly, but she’d said we were up for a day of chores.
I wandered about the bottom floor, respecting Red hart’s unspoken no non family members upstairs for once.
The Christmas tree needed water. I topped up the firewood, split a little extra and topped up the rooms inside.
My arms ached from swinging the axe, but in a good way.
I preferred work to sitting around. Driving a desk had never been my style, but I’d done the job for the last few years, anyway.
I paused, slugging a bottle of water. Sweat trickled along my spine beneath my jacket, but I wasn't stupid enough to shuck the thing off until I was back inside.
Behind me, the weight of the mountain's gaze weighed on my back. I placed the axe carefully by the split rounds I’d already cut, and turned to face the behemoth that had been there far longer than the ranch or any of the people on it.
The white capped peak was invisible behind a fluffy bank of clouds, but that didn’t disguise the mountain's harsh gaze that watched me, anyway. I stood still, letting the mountain see me. We hadn’t talked last time I was here.
Then I'd thought I was a temporary fixture.
Now that I sought something more permanent, it was time.
Travis spoke to the mountain. I knew that because Jude told me so.
He had his own understanding with the presence that watched over the land Eve’s family lived on for the past few generations.
Len, too, from what I’d understood. Her father respected both the sense of peace and brutality that Red Hart existed on.
It wasn’t in me to do anything less.
“She’s been here for much longer than I have,” I acknowledged, speaking softly, unclear if I meant Eve or the land Red hart stood on. “And I’m new. But I’ve been here before. I’ve seen a season here, and I’ve protected those I love. I’ll do it again, as many times as it takes. That’s what I give.”
Everything.
I’d never been much for speeches. Not even with new rangers. My unit could testify to that. I’d been fairly abrupt with my scant words of wisdom. But the mountain, with its bare face and thick foothills, offered no recourse at all.
Only a promise.
I'll be here long after you become dust in the dirt on which you stand.
The mountain’s silent reply was humbling and powerful.
I stared up at it, awed rather than cowed. When the air chilled, I returned to the house, my tools packed away for the afternoon. It wasn’t until I’d reorganized the entire log pile out the back and restacked my new rounds inside that I realized Eve hadn’t come back down at all.
Breaking my promise about house rules a few scant hours after I made them, I grabbed the gift I’d brought in for her from my jacket and took the stairs two at a time, her name ready on my lips.
My boot kicked her door open, I half lunged inside, prepared for whatever scene would greet me, and froze.
The fact that I’d just invaded the space of the woman I loved, the woman who I had scared less than a week ago by barging in without an invitation, slapped me in full.
Outside, I swore the mountain rumbled, laughing at me.
Hell, maybe I should be laughing at myself.
I leaned one shoulder against her doorway, inhaling the pine and pomegranate scent that seemed to follow Eve around every time I saw her, Mind, that had always been at Christmas, but it was something I knew I would associate with the thought of her for the rest of my life. The perfect Christmas morning.
She bent over her bed, stretching for something on the other side, and treated me to a damn fine view of the curve of her ass.
I cleared my throat before I left my perch and did something far too inappropriate.
“Eve,” I stared, pausing when she leapt straight, whipping around to face me, armed with a cushion.
“Archer,” she gasped breathlessly. “I didn’t hear you come up.”
“Yeah that’s me, silent tracker and all.” I grinned.
“I wouldn't know,” Eve murmured, gripping her pillow tight between both hands. It strained in the middle. Her gaze was guarded, but nothing could hide the pain that seeped in from the sides, as though begging to be healed.
I frowned; I’d thought that with the extra help coming into the ranch, she wouldn’t be quite so stretched. Taking a slow step into the room, I waited on her reaction. But she gave me nothing at all. I risked a second step, and another.
“You should know. We’ve spent some good moments together.”
“Have we?” Eve looked up at me blindly, desperation creasing her brow, tightening the corners of those lush pink lips I’d dreamed of kissing for so long back in Texas.
And damning all the risks of her pushing me away to any hell, I didn’t care which, I pulled her into my chest, wrapping my arms around her tight.
Eve stood stiff as a length of wood for a long moment, but as warmth transferred from my body to her colder one, she sank into my embrace, pressing her cheek to my chest.
My heart might have burst with pain or relief. I didn’t bother working it out as I kissed the top of her head, catching her chin with my knuckle to tip her lips up to meet mine.
Christmas.
Eve smelled and tasted like Christmas.
I groaned as she opened to me, trying to take it slow, but it was damn hard when her light kisses turned hotter, and she pressed closer into me. Winding my arms tighter around her, I breathed her in, reveling in the tiny mewls beneath my lips.
“This wasn’t what I came in here for.” I smiled against her lips to soften my words.
“I don’t care, Rhys. Please,” she begged.
Fucking begged.
I inhaled sharply, and claimed a lungful of her scent for my efforts, hardening me past the point of painful. Those dark lashes lifted, exposing the need in her eyes that matched her voice, and I was gone.
Well fucking past gone.
I speared my fingers through her hair, tangling her silken curls around them to tug her head back. My mouth crashed down on hers as a groan tore from my throat as I loosened my grip on my need for her, fitting her curves against me, replacing memory with present moment.
Eve lifted onto her toes, pressing her mouth against mine as hard as I kissed her. Her fingers worked at the buttons on my shirt, tugging them apart to run her hands beneath.
I gripped her shoulders a little too tight, drawing her back from me a fraction of a breath. It was all I could stand to be apart from her.
“Eve, if you start this…”
One gorgeous, arched eyebrow raised, bringing the corner of her lips with it.
“If I start this? Is that what we’re calling it?” She swayed those Lucious fucking hips against mine, and it was all I could do not to grab her ass and pin her to me.
If all I had to do to get you to smile was turn you on, then wish granted, honey.
She scraped her nails over my stomach and lower. Pleasure obliterated all rational thought as she dragged those nails over the hard ridge of my cock. Even with the stiff material between us, I felt her contact on every hard inch.
“Fuck, Eve,” I whispered, the blood already departing my brain and heading south.
Tugging her closer, I slid my hands down her back, pulling her shirt free of her jeans. Eve wriggled to assist me, still torturing me with scrapes and caresses.
“Months, Rhys,” she murmured against my mouth. “Three months without you when you promised you would be here.” The hand left my cock, and she slapped my shoulder hard.
“Ow, Eve.” I laughed as I frowned, finally getting that stubborn material out of the way. My palms hit warm skin, and my laugh became a groan. “It’s been a hard year here, too,” I caught her mouth again, tracing my tongue over her bottom lips.
“You should have fucked me the first time.” A hard accusation laced her tone.
Dark curls cascaded down her back as Eve arched into me, her tongue dancing against mine in light caresses that hardened me painfully.
“I’ll give you that.” I broke the kiss, spinning her around in my arms to hold her against me. The curve of her ass pressed against my denim encased cock distracted me as I worked my way along the row of buttons that dipped between the rise of her breasts.
Eve wiggled not-so-helpfully as the material parted. I ran my hands that had ached for her for so long across her stomach, over her lace clad breasts as she pushed into my touch. Our moans mingled in the flickering firelight, shadows dancing over her body as I explored every inch of exposed flesh.
I traced over her mound with light fingers. “I thought I might return the favor,” I murmured, stroking over the seam that aligned with her clit.
Eve’s head fell back onto my shoulder, cushioned by a mass of chestnut waves. She moaned, writhing against me.
“I think that goes both ways,” she gasped, rubbing her ass against me.
“Damn, girl. This isn’t the time to tease,” I murmured into her ear, sucking the lobe between my lips.
Her low moan gave me everything I needed about her. I stroked over her denim covered pussy quickly, then slid my fingers down the inside of her jeans, already slick with her own arousal.
Eve bit off a yelp as I slid two fingers past her panties, impaling her to my knuckles. Her body clenched uncontrollably.
“Rhys,” she whimpered, her body torn between the need to bear down on my fingers inside her and pressing back into my chest to escape the building pressure that I controlled in her.