Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 (13 page)

“I want this,” he whispered. “Want you.”

“You—you have—” She’d arched as far as she could, but he moved his hand with her body, keeping that teasing touch too light to push her over the edge, and she’d die of wanting if he didn’t have mercy. “
Archer.
”

He began to move, pulling away and then driving into her with slow, hard thrusts that taught her a new definition of need. He dragged her up and up, every touch building on the last. His mouth on her throat, on her collarbone, brushing kisses to her temple and cheek. His hand stroking her hip, her breasts, that sensitive spot along her collarbone that made her shiver.

He fucked her with the attentive tenderness of a man who’d learned every secret her body had to offer, and the hungry possessiveness of a beast that couldn’t get enough.

Somewhere in the midst of her broken pleas his fingers found her clitoris again, stroking with command and purpose, and she came with a sob of relief, her entire body trembling in the grip of pleasure magnified tenfold by sweet anticipation.

The first hours after the madness faded were like waking up without sleeping.

Archer knew he’d spent hours with his eyes wide open, staring at Grace as she slept, but he nevertheless woke to a muted sort of hunger. Not less, exactly, simply
different
, the same sort he’d grown accustomed to experiencing in her presence.

She stirred, and he smoothed a hand over her hair. “The sun isn’t up yet,” he murmured. “Rest.”

Her mumbled reply was incomprehensible, but her movements spoke clearly enough. She shifted toward him without opening her eyes, snuggling closer until she was half draped over him. Her lips found his shoulder in a sleepy kiss. “
You
need rest.”

Later, he’d feel the truth of her words, realize that he must have spent the bulk of the last three days in a sleepless haze, even if he didn’t remember it. “I’m not tired.”
Not right now.

She made another quiet, contented noise before her hip brushed against his erection. She laughed and closed her teeth on his upper arm. “Hungry again?”

How many times had he taken her? Did she have bruises? Archer grasped her wrist and turned her arm, peering at her pale skin. “Are you all right?”

“Of course.” She lifted her head to meet his eyes, her own narrowed in confusion. “Are you…?” She paused. Blinked. Understanding softened her features. “You’ve been very careful with me.”

“I’ve been out of my head.”

“I know.” She eased upright without pulling her wrist from his grip, settling against his side with her legs tucked under her. “You were more unrestrained on the first day. Then…” Another of those pauses, and this time the silence seemed heavy. Tense. “How much do you remember?” she asked finally.

Nothing.
He opened his mouth to say it, and he realized there
was
something he remembered.

Blood.

He shot upright, almost spilling her from the bed in his panic. “What did I do to you? Tell me, Grace—the truth.”

“Nothing!” The sheets slipped away as she rose to her knees, and she reached out to frame his face. “Vampires tunneled into the cellar. You tore them apart, and afterwards you were different. But you didn’t hurt me.”

“Vampires.” Flashes of memory rocked him, and yes, it made sense. He could remember them falling under his claws, and the rage—

Dear God, the rage. And Grace had seen it all, a witness to his violence in a time when he should have been bringing her pleasure.

“Yes.” She stroked his cheeks, her worried gaze roaming his face. “You didn’t hurt me. You were so very, very careful with me. A bit possessive and controlling.” Her smile begged him to smile too. “You managed to make that appealing.”

He’d protected her, and she hadn’t spent the last three days terrified of him. It soothed his anxiety, and he reached for her. “You’re not scared.”

She went into his arms willingly. “Not of you. Never of you.”

Those soft lips beckoned, and he slanted his mouth over hers. His hunger still burned, but for this more than anything—the taste of her, the sensation of her melting into his embrace.

Her teeth grazed his lower lip, then returned in a teasing nip. Not as cautious or uncertain as the way she’d kissed him a few days ago, but her body still pressed against his, soft and warm and so very willing.

Archer rolled her to her back and pinned her hands by her head. “How early is it?”

“Before dawn, I imagine.” She wiggled her fingers with a laugh. “This is what you spent the past day doing to me, by the way. Pinning me down so you can tease me for hours. Is that a new fascination?”

“Yes.” He’d certainly never been interested in it before.

“Truly?” When she tilted her head back, the electric lantern next to the bed illuminated the bite marks on her neck. “I admit, it’s becoming a fascination of mine as well.”

But would the fascination remain? Archer was beginning to suspect his attachment to Grace was anything but situational. If she’d wandered into Iron Creek, he’d have chased her until Wilder snatched him back by the scruff of the neck—and even that might not have dissuaded him for long.

Her smile softened. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“The impossible. Watching me as if you see through me and still see someone worth watching.”

Of course he did, but the words sparked a question. “What do you see when you look at me?”

She didn’t hesitate. “My lover.”

He cupped her cheek. “Do you want me to be?”

Grace closed her eyes and turned her face into his hand, her body suddenly still beneath his. “When this is over you’ll still be a hero and I’ll still be a liar. I’m selfish to want you at all, much less forever.”

He’d been a liar since before she was born. “Trust me, sweetheart, the heroics are recent—and more limited than you know. I could have taught you a thing or two about lies, but I’m through with that. Are you?”

“I’m ready to be.” She pressed a kiss to his palm before meeting his eyes, her own haunted. “But your crimes are paid for and forgiven. I can’t set foot east of the Mississippi without worrying that Clyde Howland and his gang will find me. I don’t have a place in this world that isn’t built on lies, except this moment in this bed.”

Lies didn’t matter, because the truth was that he’d never met a woman as strong or resourceful, a woman who could get through anything. “Then I’ll have to make this moment particularly special.”

“You don’t have to try.” She lifted her free hand and touched his temple before stroking her fingers through his hair. “Do bloodhounds ever get to settle down?”

“Not as such. Most have women, but it’s not the best life a man can offer.”

Her hand stilled. “Were you offering, when you asked if I want you to be my lover?”

“I…” It seemed selfish now that he’d described the arrangement in such unflattering terms. “Like I said, it’s not the best life.”

Her eyes were too bright in the uncertain light. “But we still have this moment.”

By now, his body knew what to do even if it would take him days to remember. It knew where to kiss, where to lick. How and when to alternate soft caresses with firm strokes.

Archer cupped her breast and teased his tongue over her nipple. “This moment? Or…this one?” He slipped his other hand between her thighs.

“All of them.” She shuddered and clutched at the back of his head, holding his mouth to her breast. “I have so many memories. Which one do you want?”

He pressed the edge of his teeth against her rigid flesh. “The best.”

“The first night.” Her voice had become flatteringly breathless, even as she shifted restlessly under his touch. “You made me beg, made me come so many times I couldn’t remember my own name. And then you put me on my knees and fucked me so hard, so
raw
. No masks, no lies. Just wanting.”

Desire. He’d been surprised to find his own mirrored in her. “I do want you. I haven’t stopped.”

She arched with a moan and tugged at his hair, trying to pull his mouth toward her other breast. “Tell me something true. Tell me a secret no one else knows.”

He had only one secret left, and what shocked him most was that he wanted to share it—with her. Still, the words left him in a whisper against her skin. “Paul. My name.”

“Paul.” Another tug, and she pulled him up until she could meet his gaze. After one silent moment she kissed him, open-mouthed and desperate. Underneath him her legs eased apart, hips pushing toward his hand in silent pleading.

That quickly, mad hunger loomed again. Archer locked it away and focused on Grace. He traced two fingers over her folds before teasing them just inside her cunt.

She moaned and bit his lower lip in quiet warning. “Are you going slowly and gently because you want to, or because you think you have to?”

It might be the last time. “I’m too contrary to fuck you slow just because it’s what I’m supposed to do, honey.”

Her breath caught, body tensing as he found one of the sensitive spots he knew without remembering how. She tilted her head back against the bed with another moaning noise. “So you must be doing it because you take perverse pleasure in forcing me to beg.”

“I take pleasure in you.” A little deeper, and he rocked his hand against her.

“In stripping me bare.” She bit his earlobe and tickled his skin with her husky laugh. “You’re still breaking into safes with your clever fingers.”

Heat shivered up his spine at the prospect of her orgasm, of feeling her squeeze tight around his fingers, his cock. “All it takes is a careful touch.”

“And patience.” Every time he rocked his hand, her nails dug into his shoulder, her clutching fingers as sure a sign of her rising arousal as the flush in her cheeks. She was squirming now, hips pushing up in furtive thrusts, as if she could force him to go faster. “How are you so
patient
?”

There she went again, mistaking determination for patience. He kept the same pace but stilled her hips so she couldn’t push higher. She whimpered and scratched his shoulders with a muffled curse.

Then she started to beg.

Delicious pleas, soft and desperate, that shuddered through him and made his cock pulse. He strung her along on that edge for a few moments more before flicking her clit with his thumb.

She came with a keening moan, twisting and trembling as her inner muscles clenched tight around his fingers. Broken sounds fell from her lips, words cut short by cries she wasn’t trying to hold back.

He drank them in, covering her mouth with his as he moved over her, and rode the end of her orgasm with a single, deep thrust that shook her from head to toe. She scrambled to wrap her legs around his hips and tore her lips free of his. “Don’t move yet,” she pleaded. “I need—I need to
breathe
.”

Archer stilled and scraped his teeth over her chin. She squirmed under him, gasping and panting. “So breathe.”

“I can’t.” Her lips brushed his ear. “When you look at me, when you touch me…I can’t breathe. I can’t think.”

Control slipped, and he closed his teeth harder on her skin. “In that case…” He flexed his hips and pulled back only to drive into her again, hard and fast.

She pressed her open mouth to his cheek as she moaned again, arms and legs still tangled around his body as if she was afraid he’d pull away. “Again. Again, never stop.”

One hand under her hips lifted her to his thrusts, and Archer buried his face in her neck as she came apart. Every part of her tightened in release, her cunt around his cock, her legs around his hips, her fingers on his back.

She pleaded in whispers now, his name and words like
love
and
forever
, words that took him over the edge too. Unfair, as he rode those waves of pleasure, that reality would intrude. But he couldn’t even fool himself into thinking he had more time, because the refrain pounding in time with his own heartbeat was stark. Unforgiving.

The end.

Chapter Nine

The surviving members of Crystal Springs—Diana and her accommodating gentlemen excepted—had passed the new moon in relative boredom.

If Grace had possessed any lingering doubts about the focus of the vampires’ interest, the sight of the untouched saloon would have banished them. Three endless nights with no bloodhound protector, and the worst the townsfolk had suffered was irritation at being trapped together in one building with no privacy.

In her weakest moments, Grace rather envied them.

With the journals tucked safely in the saloon once more, Grace felt at a loss. She’d tasted
goodbye
on the last kisses Archer had given her. They’d both known it was coming. Once he’d dealt with the carnage in Doc’s old laboratory, he’d be sending word to his home for help. More bloodhounds who would scour the surrounding hills for surviving vampires and take Doc’s last words…somewhere. Presumably beyond the reach of those who could use his work to do harm.

Then he’d leave, and take what was left of her heart with him. She’d go back to living as a proper teacher. A lady.

She’d go back to living a lie.

Grace didn’t realize she’d been staring at nothing until she blinked and noticed someone had stepped in front of her. “Diana.”