Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
There’s Only One Right Answer for Fries
EMILY
I f I’d been hungry when we arrived, now I was legitimately starving, and my stomach betrayed me as I nestled close against Archie’s warm side.
“Hungry?” he asked, his voice low and rumbly, matching my stomach.
“Very.” The thing was, I hadn’t even noticed it until my body cued me and alerted Archie. My head was spinning around the implications of what we’d just done. I’d heard the phrase ‘sleeping with the enemy,’ and now I really understood it. However, it was impossible now to think of Archie as my enemy. Or anyone’s. And while my brother might not have been thrilled to find me sleeping with a friend of his, the time I’d spent with Archie just now didn’t feel like any kind of betrayal of Jake. Though I knew my father would see it as one.
“I’m hungry too.” His hand traced a line up my arm as he held me.
Archie slid from the bed and grabbed the bags we’d brought in and immediately forgotten, climbing back in beside me and dropping them onto the covers between us.
“I smell French fries,” I moaned, digging into the bag and finding one. It wasn’t hot, but it was delicious anyway.
“We need to discuss something,” Archie said, but the tone of his voice was teasing, and I knew this wasn’t going to be a serious topic.
“Okay,” I said, digging into the bag for another fry as he pulled burgers from the other bag.
“Tonight we obviously went for what was close and easy. But there are lots of options and opinions when it comes to fast food.”
“Right.”
“I need to understand your position.”
“You do?” I said this through a mouthful of fries.
“Yes. So let’s start with the obvious. There’s McDonald’s.”
“Always reliable.”
“Burger King.”
“Solid choice.”
“And In’n’Out.”
“In some states.”
“Sure. Please share your opinions.” Archie was making a very serious face that had me laughing already. One side of his mouth tipped up in a tiny smile as he waited for my thoughts.
I contained my laughter. “I mean...for burgers, it’s In’n’Out for sure. But there is only one right answer for fries.”
“McDonald’s, obviously.”
“Totally. I’m so glad we agree on that.”
“Me too. Any assertions about McDonald’s fries not being the best would be a dealbreaker,” Archie said.
“So you’re not kicking me out of the room for having the wrong opinion about fast food?”
He gave me a mischievous smile and shook his head. “I have plans for you.”
“More plans?”
He winked. “After dinner.”
My stomach twisted, and not from hunger. I looked forward to his plans.
But when we’d finished stuffing ourselves, we agreed that maybe a short break would be a good idea.We cleaned up and the we both climbed back into the bed, and Archie lifted the remote, a question in his eyes.
“Movie?” I asked.
“Yeah, let’s look.”
Archie skimmed through the channels as I tried to sort through the feelings mixed up inside me. When we’d arrived here, we’d fallen into bed so naturally, there’d been nothing else to think about or do. I hadn’t felt awkward or nervous—it had just happened. And it had felt like it had to happen, like if it didn’t, I might explode just from wanting him to touch me.
That hadn’t changed, and as he flashed through options on the screen ahead of us, his hand rested lightly on my thigh, sending a warm happiness through me. It was easy between us. Natural.
Archie settled on an old 80s movie—"Pretty in Pink” or “Sixteen Candles”? They seemed like the same movie to me. His hand rested on my thigh beneath the covers, his fingers tickling lightly along the skin close to my knee, making me wish for more.
We both leaned back into the headboard, angled toward one another, and after a little while, his arm went around me, and I nestled into his shoulder.
“This is nice,” he said quietly.
“It is.” I searched around inside me for the courage to broach what had happened between us, but it turned out I didn’t have to.
“And what happened earlier, that was really nice too.”
I glanced up at him, meeting those deep blue eyes for a second before turning my attention back to the television. I wasn’t really watching the movie, but it was easier to talk that way. “Really nice,” I agreed.
“I don’t want you to think I planned it or anything,” he went on. “I didn’t, though I can’t pretend to be very sorry for the way things worked out.”
“Wait, what?” I feigned surprise, turning to grin at him. “You didn’t orchestrate that storm and your sister’s labor just to get me into bed?”
He laughed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong—I’d been thinking about it. The getting you into bed part.”
“Oh yeah?” Happiness trilled inside me at the admission.
“A little, yeah. I’m not the kind of guy who probably would’ve done anything about it, though.”
“So I should be glad for the storm.”
He moved back a little, angling his body toward mine. “You’re glad it happened?”
I let my eyes find his and stay there this time, wanting to reassure him, to soothe the quiet vulnerability I saw there. “Yeah, I am. I mean, I didn’t plan it either.”
Archie’s lips tilted into a little smile, and then he leaned forward, gently tracing a line down my jaw before kissing me softly. “I’m glad I met you, Emily.”
My stomach tightened in anticipation as he moved back, and I suppressed a shiver. “Me too.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been willing to trust anyone,” he said, his voice softening.
A tiny bubble of guilt floated up inside me, dousing the happiness I’d been feeling as it burst. Would he trust me less if I told him our meeting wasn’t quite as coincidental as it seemed?
The guilt of the omission was beginning to weigh on me. Maybe he shouldn’t trust me at all. Wasn’t I already betraying that trust by not telling him who I really was?
He let out a sigh, and then the arm around my shoulders tensed slightly. “I haven’t even met anyone new in a while,” he said. “Besides the guests at the resort, and I try to keep myself apart.”
“Why?” I asked, already knowing the answer to some degree. Maybe this would be my chance to tell him. If he talked about things, maybe I could too.
“Not like I’ve gotten a professional opinion on this—not lately anyway—but I’m pretty sure it’s a self-defense mechanism. Instinctively protecting myself.”
“From people.”
“Kind of. From entanglements, maybe. From getting into a situation that requires stores of emotional energy I don’t have.”
“Yet, here we are.”
He laughed lightly. “That’s what’s amazing.”
“What?”
“With you, it’s different. I’m not worried, I don’t feel exhausted or like you’re going to ask for anything more than I can give you.”
I wanted him to voice the hesitation that was hovering around us in the room, to address the elephant he didn’t even know I saw. My brother.
But I wasn’t brave enough to bring it up and reveal that I already knew. And when Archie’s body turned more fully to mine, when those soft lips found my mouth again, when he slid us down so we were lying on the bed, I didn’t want to anymore. Instead, I lost myself to the sensation of Archie, his hands, his mouth, his body. I told myself that maybe this was something wonderful that was emerging from the wreckage of that terrible event, that we both deserved some happiness. I told myself maybe he didn’t ever need to know, that the past was in the past. But even as I gave myself to him again, I knew it wasn’t true.
This time, we were slow and calm as we came together, none of the urgency racing between us that we’d felt last time. Archie’s hands explored my body, along with his mouth, and I spent plenty of time doing the same. The man was put together from so much lean muscle, there was a new adventure to explore every time my hands slid across his skin.
I’d been with men, but maybe not with any as perfectly assembled as Archie Kasper. His perfection made me worry about the less-than-fit physique I brought to the equation, but his gentle exclamations at my body as he touched me had me putting aside any insecurities I felt.
When his mouth stroked and teased me, I arched beneath him, my thoughts flying in all directions, and when he plunged inside me, the slickness he’d coaxed from inside me easing the way, I moaned with pleasure.
We moved like one being, instinctively understanding what the other needed, and when I felt my release building, Archie’s body pulling the orgasm from me effortlessly, he followed me over the other side. It was like we were made to be together, his body asking and mine answering and vice versa. And when we lay together afterward, the movie forgotten on the screen behind us, the look he gave me told me he knew it too.
But as we lay curled together, I found myself thinking of my family, of the fact I’d managed to fall for the one man they would never accept. I wished there wasn’t a dark secret between us with the power to ruin everything. Because for once in my life, I’d found someone I could see a future with.