Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 (10 page)

Here were the answers she couldn’t bring herself to ask of Archer. “He seems nervous. I don’t know if he’s worried about hurting or scaring me, or something else entirely.”

“Scaring you, maybe.” Diana sighed. “The whole experience is so intense. I can’t even imagine what it must be like on the other side of it, not really.”

“If it’s not about sex, what
is
it about?”

“It’s about sex and pleasure, just…more.” Diana seemed to consider it. “Touch. Closeness. Peace, in a way. Knowing I can still do something besides hurt and kill.”

Nothing Grace couldn’t handle well enough, even with her limited experience with sex for the pleasure of it. “What about you? Where will you pass the new moon?”

“Same place I have been for a while now, with George Gilchrist.” Diana’s cheeks colored in a blush. “And perhaps Jesse Samuels. They’re both quite fond of me, you know.”

“And why wouldn’t they be?” Grace shook her head. “The world’s spinning too fast for me to keep up. I know he’ll be gone soon, and my heart may be bruised, but I want this. After so many awful months, I want a few days of selfishness.”

“Then take it,” Diana advised. “Take it and don’t look back. None of us have that luxury right now. We have to live for
this
moment, right now.”

“Not yesterday or tomorrow.” Reaching for Diana’s hand, Grace smiled. “Are you helping oversee the rest of the preparations?”

“For as long as I can stay.” Diana gave her a serious look. “Doc kept a journal. Do you think Archer could find it and decipher it for me? I—I’d like to have it.”

The girl survived. Her name is April.
What would reading about the earliest days of her transformation do to Diana? Would it strip away the comfort she’d taken in Doc’s care? An impossible question to answer, and not Grace’s decision to make. “We found the journal. I don’t know if he’ll need to copy what’s inside, but if there’s any way for it to go to you…” Surely Archer would feel fondly enough toward her to consider such a request.

“Thank you, Grace.”

“Of course.” Grace hugged Diana, hugged her as much for her own sake as Diana’s. “After the new moon, after this is over, I want to tell you everything. All the things you never asked. I need someone to know me.” Someone other than Archer, who would be gone.

“I’ll listen to anything you want to tell me,” Diana promised.

“And the same goes for you.” Between the deciphered journals and the new moon, they’d both have plenty of things to talk about. At least they wouldn’t have to be alone.

Chapter Seven

Every surface had been dusted and cleaned. The coldbox was stocked with easily prepared foods. Enough wood to run the boiler for a week had been stacked in the small lean-to.

Even the bed had been readied.

Grace had blushed the entire time Cook had helped her fit the fresh sheets to the feather mattress. Not Diana, because Archer and Diana had grown increasingly irritated by each other’s presence as the day progressed, to the point that Grace had begged her to see to final preparations back in town.

Sunset might mark the start of the new moon’s worst fury, but Grace had begun to suspect the storm inside Archer would break much sooner.

“We have supplies enough to last us through the week,” she said, tucking the last covered dish into the coldbox. Her voice seemed to tremble between nervousness and anticipation, and she could only hope he wouldn’t interpret it as fear. “Is there anything else I need to do?”

“No.” He spoke from directly behind her. “You’re nervous.”

No lies between them, that was the agreement. “Yes, a little. But it’s the good kind of nervous, I think.”

His breath blew across the back of her neck. “Would you tell me if it wasn’t?”

“Yes.” Maybe she should have taken her hair down, or left it in a simple braid. Something easier for a lust-addled man to deal with. But the heat of his mouth so close to the vulnerable nape of her neck made her skin tingle. “Only honesty, Archer. I promise you.”

“Mmm.” He licked his way to the side of her neck and drew her earlobe between his teeth.

She braced both hands on the kitchen table as arousal weakened her knees. “Should I go to the bedroom and undress?”

Archer growled, reached around and covered her hands with his. “No, don’t move.”

His voice sounded rougher. Low and intense, as barely restrained as the arms that caged her in place. Her heart thumped as she realized the storm had already broken. Archer was sliding into madness, and a sudden move might send him there hard and fast.

She forced herself to relax, to soften as she tilted her head forward. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Not even moonrise yet.” His chest heaved against her back. “I won’t make it ’til nightfall.”

“You don’t need to. Everyone’s hunkered down in the saloon. Everything’s taken care of.” She leaned into him as well as she could with her hands pinned, and shivered when she found him already hard. “I’m yours for as long as you need me.”

“You’re mine for as long as the moon is dark,” he corrected in a rumble.

Pleasure sliced through her at the thought that his need wouldn’t easily fade, followed by loss at the reminder of how short their time could be. “So what are you going to do with me?”

“No. No more words.” He slid his hands up her arms to her shoulders. “Soon, no more clothes either.”

It might have been prudent to leave her hands on the counter, but she couldn’t keep from reaching back to cling to his legs. “Very soon, I hope.”

In the span of a heartbeat, he lifted her off her feet, spun her around, and dropped her to sit on the edge of the table. “I don’t know what I want.” He gave lie to the words by slipping free the top button on her bodice.

She’d never been naked in front of him. Clothing had been jerked askew, or nightgowns shoved up around her hips, but she’d never been stripped bare. Never been defenseless, and she should have felt wary now. Instead she was excited, eager as she stroked her hands up his tense arms. “You want me.”

Archer didn’t pause in opening her bodice. “I still have my mind for now, and yet…” He held out a shaking hand. “Look at that. Trembling like a leaf.”

Grace dipped her head to kiss his fingertips. “I never have my mind around you, not completely. It drifts to the most obscene places, even when I’m not asleep.”

“If only that were it.” But he didn’t elaborate. Instead, he pushed her dress down off her shoulders and toyed with a ribbon on her chemise.

“Archer?” She caught his hand. “Are you all right?”

“No. But I will be.” He bent, caught the top edge of her chemise between his teeth and ripped it away.

Her heart skipped into her throat.

Sweet Lord, he was magnificent. Fierce and feral and hers, and she braced her hands behind her on the table and offered her newly bared breasts to him. “Better?”

He caught her lips with a growl, holding the back of her head as he plundered her mouth with a rough kiss. So rough that his teeth bit into her lower lip, so rough that it shocked her when she realized he was carefully pulling the pins from her hair.

Not out of his mind yet, but wild enough to leave her gasping for breath in the tiny moments between deep, unbridled kisses. Her toes curled as she reached for him,
clung
to him, her entire body throbbing with the rhythm of his tongue over hers.

When he pulled away, he sighed roughly. “You’re beautiful.”

“So are you,” she gasped, already regretting the loss of him. “I’m so selfish, I want this so much. You, all to myself.”

That made him laugh, though it was a strained sound. “You have me. All to yourself.”

Throwing caution aside, she slipped her hands under his shirt and dragged it up with a hungry noise, desperate to feel his skin against hers. He helped her for a moment before reaching for her dress, pushing it down until he had to lift her against his chest to slide the fabric under her hips.

Skin. That’s what she wanted. When he settled her against the table again she managed to distract him from his focused attempts to undress her long enough to get his shirt over his head. His broad chest had scars on it, and she spread her fingers wide against his skin and marveled at the heat of him.

Burning. He was a living flame, and she was the moth ignoring danger for a taste of his warmth.

Archer groaned and pulled her closer, pressing her bare chest to his as he bent near for another kiss. Both of his hands spread wide on her back, and with his strong arms encircling her, it felt like he was doing his best to wrap himself around her, to cover every inch of her body with his own.

She shouldn’t rush him. He’d take her soon enough, take her enough times that her body would no doubt be ready for respite, no matter how delightful the resulting soreness might feel. But the urgency that bubbled up inside her had no basis in logic or reason. It drove her to groan, to scrape her nails up his back as she nipped at his lower lip.

He grunted and tipped back his head. “Bed.” The word came out on a low rasp. “We need a bed.”

The door to the freshly cleaned room stood open, only a few paces away. It seemed too far as she squirmed a hand between them to fight with his belt. “I don’t mind the table.”

“I do.” He lifted her with one arm and crossed the room. “It’s too hard. You need something soft.”

“I don’t—” No. She bit her lip to keep from arguing and let him carry her over the threshold. “I’m not fragile. I promise.”

He held her there against his chest and smiled. “I know. It’s for me, not you.”

“Then I shall endeavor to let you be as selfish as you want.”

Instead of dropping her to the bed, he let her slide slowly down his body. “Good.”

When her feet touched the floor, Grace stepped back toward the bed. Her torn chemise slipped down to catch on her hips, and her hair was a disheveled mess without its pins. She must look half-wild, and she’d never cared less. “Will things change when the sun sets?”

“Probably.” Archer’s only movement was the rise and fall of his chest with each quick breath.

She moved slowly, stripping away the remains of her underthings as he watched with a barely restrained need that had her blushing. “Are you holding yourself back now?”

“Yes.” His hands clenched into fists. “I don’t usually, but…”

Still careful, she reached out to press one hand to the scar that cut a path across his chest. “Don’t hold back.”

“I have to—this time. I want to.” His eyes darkened. “So I can remember more.”

So she’d give him a sweet memory. Hunger and ready passion, and no hint of nerves or fear that might follow him into madness. Lifting herself to her toes, she slid both hands into his hair and kissed him.

He picked her up, and the room spun as he turned and dropped to sit on the edge of the bed with her astride his lap. “My boots,” he whispered against her lips.

This was a seduction she knew. One she’d played before, but without the fluttering in her belly and the trembling warmth that had invaded her limbs. She slid to the floor, to her knees, and relished the way he watched her, as if only sheer force of will kept him from reaching for her again.

He spoke. “You’re plotting something. I can see it in your eyes, honey.”

She smiled as she worked his left boot free. “Perhaps.”

“No question, Grace, except to wonder what sweet torment you have in store for me.”

The first night she’d been with him, she’d tried to keep control in the best way she knew how. The power would have been in the pleasure, in the tricks she knew to make a man beg, even as he fancied himself the one in charge.

Not now. As his other boot fell away, she measured her power in his shallow breaths, in the way his thighs tensed as she traced a slow but inexorable path toward his straining cock. No clever tricks required, not when a man truly cared.

Of course, they couldn’t hurt, either.

She traced her finger along the top button on his pants as she gazed up at him. “I want you to come in my mouth and remember every moment of it.”

He sucked in a breath and clenched both hands in the quilt spread over the bed. “Grace.”

The button popped free without much coaxing, and she stroked the backs of her fingers over the bulge of his erection as she moved to the next one. “You stopped me the first time,” she whispered, still holding his gaze. “I forgave you, considering how good your mouth felt between my legs. But now it’s my turn.”

“I didn’t stop you before,” he insisted, his jaw tight. “It wasn’t that I didn’t want your mouth on my dick. There was just something I wanted more.”

For the first time, she truly understood how the pursuit of someone else’s pleasure could be the greater satisfaction. Nothing had ever felt this right, this
good
, her own arousal magnified by the way he bit his lip against a groan as she finally freed his cock and stroked her fingers up its length.

“Harder,” he whispered.

Instead of obeying, she took him between her lips without taking her eyes from his.

Archer reached for her hair, stroking it before winding the locks around his hand. “Grace, love. Have a little mercy on me.”