Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Duvet-Focused Marathons
EMILY
F or two days, Archie and I stayed in bed. We paused to shower, for a walk around the neighborhood when we realized neither one of us knew whether it was even day or night, and to make a quick run to the grocery store. And I called my parents to reassure them everything was good. But other than that? Bed.
It was as if we were making up for the days we’d spent apart, for the time we’d been emotionally separated, and for the time we were together, but without the full context of our identities revealed. Now, we weren’t simply naked physically, each of us was exposed completely in other ways too.
And it was the most meaningful, tender, and fulfilling time I’d ever known.
As the sun tracked across the wall of my bedroom, we laughed, slept, and loved one another as if no one else existed in the world.
And we made plans.
“I brought you something,” Archie told me as I nestled against the solid warmth of his chest.
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been enjoying it for the last couple days,” I said, dropping a kiss against his warm skin as a laugh rumbled through him.
“Not that,” he said, smiling down at me as he pushed my hair away from my face. “I brought you a gift.”
“Well, excuse me for saying so, but that is quite a gift, you know.”
He laughed again, a beautiful pink tinge coloring his neck and cheeks. “I’m very glad you think so,” he whispered. “But it’s something else. Hang on.” Archie slid from my grasp and walked across my room to where his backpack sagged against the door frame. He squatted, every muscle in his back and powerful legs on display and giving me ideas about what I might do to him once he slipped back into bed. I wasn’t done with him yet. I didn’t feel like I’d ever get enough of touching him, feeling him inside me.
“This,” Archie said, presenting me with a square of folded paper before rejoining me.
I slid up to sitting, propping myself against the mound of pillows pressed up to the headboard, and he sat beside me, his eyes glowing.
“What is it?” I asked, taking the thin paper in my hand, and staring at it. It felt old, delicate, like it might crumble if I wasn’t careful.
“So traditionally, when one is presented with a gift, it is customary to open the gift as a means of discerning its makeup and identity.”
I whacked him hard on the shoulder. “Smartass.”
There wasn’t a lot to open; it was more of an unfolding. But I did so gingerly, careful not to rip the paper, laying out the item across my lap. It was, indeed, a piece of paper. It was beige and the edges were torn and weathered. It looked like a treasure map, except for one thing.
“It’s blank.”
“Not entirely.” Archie pointed to the single item in the center of the map. It was a line drawing that looked like a building of some kind. And a couple of evergreen trees were drawn on either side of it, along with a hill beneath it.
“Is that Kasper Ridge?”
“See? You really are good at this treasure hunting thing.”
That earned him another whack.
I turned to look up into his gleeful face, the “map” between us. “I want to love it and to get as excited as I can see you are,” I told him. “But I’m so confused.” The end came out as a whine and Archie reached out to stroke my jaw and plant a careful kiss on my lips.
“It is a map,” he said lifting it to hold it up. “And it’s blank because it’s up to us to fill in.”
“Oh.” I still didn’t really get it.
“Don’t you remember what Uncle Marvin said? Life and love are the treasure.”
I nodded, beginning to understand as love for this man swelled inside me.
“This is my way of asking you if you’ll go on an adventure with me. I know my time at Kasper Ridge is done—at least, I know I don’t need to be there all the time now. There’s a whole world out there, waiting for me to discover it. And I want to do it with you.”
Confidence brought the thought I’d been considering to my lips at last. “Maybe we should put Costa Rica down here?” I asked, pointing to the bottom of the map.
Ghost frowned and moved my finger higher. “Better scoot it up to leave room for Antarctica.”
“Antarctica?” I laughed.
“You never know,” he said, grinning at me.
“I love it,” I told him, carefully folding the map back up and setting on the table next to the bed. “I love you.”
He pulled me close and kissed me. “I love you too.”
“When should we start our adventures?” I asked. I needed to get to Costa Rica in the next two weeks.
“I’m going right now,” he said, ducking under the covers and shifting his weight, pulling me down onto my back as I shrieked.
He pushed my T-shirt up my torso, and covered my stomach with kisses, lingering on one breast as his hand cupped the other, his thumb working in tandem with his tongue as I arched beneath him.
“How do you do that?”
Archie could take me from zero to desperate in less time than it took me to form a sentence.
His only answer was to slide lower, his hands and mouth everywhere as I lost the thread of my thoughts. My body was like an instrument he’d been training to play his entire life, and when his tongue swiped one hot, long stroke across my most sensitive parts, I moaned with pleasure.
Soon, Archie’s tongue was working me as his fingers arched inside me, coaxing me ever closer to a release I didn’t even know I was capable of after I’d climaxed so many times already.
“Oh god,” I moaned, vaguely recognizing that if my next-door neighbors weren’t out of town, I’d probably have to move after the non-stop noise we’d made the last few days. “Oh my god.”
Archie’s relentless rhythm continued, and everything inside me coiled, tensed, tightened, until he shifted something infinitesimally, and I exploded beneath him. Streaks of light and dark shot across my eyelids, and I let the sensations work through me, savoring every second.
“I don’t know how you do that,” I whispered. Archie had pulled more orgasms from my body in the last two days than I knew I was capable of having, and I felt boneless and more relaxed than I could remember being. It was reciprocal, of course. I’d done my fair share of giving, and realized that one of my favorite pastimes was making this careful man lose control completely beneath my hands or my mouth, or my body. It made me feel powerful and sexy.
“I don’t know,” he said, his head joining the pillow next to me as he smiled. “I’m just glad I can. I don’t think there’s anything I like doing more.”
I sighed, rolling into his arms again. We lay there, dozing, as the light shifted yet again in my room, and the next time I woke, it was to a gnawing ache inside me.
“Hey,” I said, jostling the handsome man with the messy red hair. “Wake up, Archie.”
One of his eyes popped open and a slow, sexy smile spread over his lips. “Every time I wake up, I worry it was all just a dream.”
“I’m real,” I laughed. “And I’m really hungry.”
“Hmm.” He stretched and yawned, and then sat up. “Me too.” He looked around the room, and then glanced down at me. “What day is it?”
I sat up and looked around too, as if the answer would be there on the walls of my room. “Umm, Saturday? Maybe Sunday.”
He frowned. “Do you think we should venture out into the world and see?”
I sighed, part of me sad to leave our private nest. “Probably should. I feel like anything could have happened in the world and we wouldn’t know.”
“Okay,” he said. “It’s decided. We have sex three more times and then go out.” He flopped back, pulling me with him.
“Archie,” I whined. “I can’t. I’ll die of starvation. We have to go now.”
He tightened his hold on me and kissed me hard, and then let me go. “Okay, fine.”
“I’m gonna shower really fast.” I hopped out of bed and showered, eager anticipation making this all seem like a fantasy. I pulled my damp hair into a knot and swept on sunscreen, mascara, and lip gloss after brushing my teeth.
“My turn.” Archie was even quicker, and soon we were back in the elevator, heading downstairs.
“Remember our first time in an elevator together?” Archie asked me, taking my hand and kissing the palm.
Shivers went through me as I looked up at him. “Of course. I like being in elevators with you. I’m just glad none of the elevators after the first one got stuck.”
We ventured out into the sunshine to discover that it was Sunday. I took Archie down to Seaport Village and we found a little cafe serving waffles and eggs on a heated patio overlooking the marina beyond.
“Out there is Coronado,” Archie pointed past the bridge. “I flew in and out a few times.”
“Yeah?” I stifled any surprise I felt that Archie was talking about his time in the navy. As far as I knew, that was a topic he never spoke about.
“Yeah. Gorgeous, every single time. I always hoped I’d end up stationed out there, but I was a Lemoore guy. I guess if I’d been on a different rotation, I would never have met all the guys, though. Your brother, Fake Tom, Sass, Brainiac...”
I nodded. “I think about that all the time. My mom held me back a year when I was in second grade. And at the time, I was really upset about it, but she wanted to give me time to mature because I was so small. When I graduated, I thought about what would have been different if she hadn’t done that. I wouldn’t have known any of my best friends in school. I can’t even imagine it.”
“Exactly,” Archie said. He lifted a bite to his lips and chewed thoughtfully, staring out at the bridge, but then turned back to me. “If I’d been stationed here, I might not have had the accident, though,” he said, an echo of pain in his voice.
“And if you hadn’t, we would never have met,” I reminded him.
Our eyes met, and we exchanged a look that told me we were both thinking of the incredible irony of being alive—the way tragedy and love and serendipity all combined on a daily basis to form the stories of our lives. I never would have chosen to lose my brother, but I’d also never choose a life in which I didn’t meet the man across from me. Fate chose those things, so I didn’t have to. We were all just passengers on an unpredictable and mysterious ride through the universe.
We ate in silence for a little while, letting the wonder of being together in that moment sink in and surround us. And then Archie pointed his fork at me, his eyes narrowing. “Let’s plan,” he said.
Lightness sparked inside me, excitement for the next adventure, and for the partner I’d share it with.
“I told the editor I’d get down to Costa Rica in the next few weeks,” I told him. “I’m guessing I’ll talk to the resort owner in the next couple days to set it up.”
“Okay,” Archie said, tilting his head. “And you’re sure it’s okay if I come?”
“You’re coming,” I told him. I didn’t want to go anywhere without him if I didn’t have to.
He nodded, an easy smile lighting his face. “Good. I think I need to go back to Kasper Ridge for a bit first. Kind of say goodbye.”
“You’re really moving away?”
He shook his head. “I’m just moving. Not away. Toward.”
“Toward what?” I asked.
“You tell me. We’ll go together.”
Happiness made my heart feel too big for my body as I soaked in the acceptance and love and hope I felt for the future. “We’ll go together.”