Break the Sky (Spiral of Bliss Spin Off) (16 page)

He started to unbutton his shirt. I felt the sheer burn of his gaze on me. Unearthing some latent courage, I lifted my eyes. My heart crashed.

Beautiful. Oh, he was beautiful, his torso defined with muscles so sleek and rigid they looked as if a master artist had sculpted them. His shoulders were smooth and tense, his corded arms dusted with dark hair. Enhancing the beauty of his body were the elaborate tattoos inking his right shoulder, the design flowing up from the bird’s wing coiled around his upper arm.

I was too enthralled by the utter perfection of him to study the tattoos I hadn’t yet seen. Instead I let my gaze follow the slopes of his shoulders over his powerful chest, the ridges of his abdomen, down to where a line of hair disappeared beneath his boxer briefs.

I was shaking. Hard.

I tried to remember that I was a woman known for getting shit done. Taking a breath, I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his boxer briefs. My heart hammered as I pulled them down his legs.

I moaned. I actually moaned at the sight of it—his gorgeous, stiff cock projecting straight out. I wrapped my hand around the shaft, feeling the veins pulsing beneath his smooth, tight skin. Slowly I moved my hand up to the damp head, darkened to a deep red, and swept my thumb over the crevice at the tip. I squeezed my thighs together as I tried to imagine all that hot, hard flesh filling me.

“On your knees.” His voice was dark and smoky.

Unthinking, I slid to the floor in front of him. His hand pressed against the back of my head. Gentle but insistent. Blood rushed into my ears.

“Open,” he murmured.

I opened my mouth. He slowly pushed inside, past my lips, the taste of him flooding my tongue. He stilled, his breath rasping above me, his fingers stroking the back of my neck.

I could do this. I remembered how. By all accounts, I used to be pretty good at it, too. Except this was Archer West, a man who had crashed into my life like a lightning bolt and set it afire. I had the growing, unnerving sense that nothing would ever be the same again. Including me.

I closed my lips around his cock and sucked. His shaft throbbed, a beat that seemed to echo in my blood. I grasped the base and slid my lips as far as I could, stroking my tongue over the underside. His body tensed, and his fingers tightened on the back of my neck.

I moved one hand to cup the weight of his sac, tight and hard, before easing back and letting him slide out. I pressed a kiss to the smooth head and started to draw him in again. He clenched his fingers on my neck. I stopped.

“I’m going to fuck your mouth,” he said.

My trepidation increased. But I relaxed my jaw, my throat, and took a breath before he thrust. I squirmed. Oh, it felt good. His thick cock pumping in and out of my mouth, his hand gripping my neck. Above me, his breath sawed through the air. The salty, male taste of him spread over my tongue.

“Pretty mouth,” he whispered, brushing my hair away from my forehead, sliding his hand down my cheek. “You want more?”

I pulled back only long enough to nod. I wanted more than more. I wanted everything he could give me. I wanted to find out just how much I could take.

He buried his hands in my hair, his fingers digging into my scalp as he pushed into my mouth again. I pressed my tongue against the vein throbbing on the underside of his cock. A groan rumbled his chest.

He moved back, letting me slide my lips up the shaft again, licking the tip before I looked up at him. From my position kneeling on the floor, he was bigger and more intimidating than ever, his eyes intense and his tattoos blazing.

“One day soon I’ll come in your mouth,” he said, grasping my arms to pull me to my feet. “But right now I’m going to fuck you until you scream.”

A wave of heat poured through me. I backed up until my legs hit the bed, and then I fell backward, my arms spread out at my sides.

Archer’s gaze raked over me. I was so aroused I couldn’t even muster up any embarrassment over how I must look with my chemise half off, my lips swollen, and my legs already spread—a messy, disheveled slut aching to be fucked.

He undressed, pulling off his shoes and socks, pushing his trousers and briefs to the floor. Before kicking them aside, he reached into his pants pocket.

“It’s okay.” I struggled to push up to my elbows. “I’m… I’m protected, and I want… I want to feel you…”

He pushed his clothes aside and moved to the side of the bed. He grabbed my legs and tugged me toward him. Sweat glistened on his muscular chest. His eyes burned into mine.

“I won’t be gentle,” he warned.

Anxiety twisted in my belly. “I know.”

He grabbed the top of my chemise, which had been pushed down to my midriff. With one tug, he ripped the thin material right off me. My heart slammed against my chest. I was naked. Completely. He pressed his hands against my inner thighs and pushed them apart.

Oh, god. The preliminaries were over.

Archer took hold of his cock and pushed inside me, slipping past the entrance of my body. My breath stuck in my throat. I arched my back and spread my legs wider, opening for him. He hissed out a noise of pleasure and put his hands on my bent knees as he thrust hard.

“Oh!” The cry ripped from me as he surged, filling me, stretching me.

I squirmed backward instinctively, like I was trying to escape an invasion, drenched in sudden, overwhelming chaos. Archer clutched my waist and forced me down onto his cock. I shrieked. He thrust again. Our bodies slammed together.

I couldn’t take it. It was too much, he was too big…

“Take it deep,” he whispered harshly.

I twisted, unable to think past this onslaught of sensations, my hands fisting in the bedspread.

“I knew you’d like it rough,” he continued, and his voice was like a hot, drenching rainstorm pouring over me. “Ah, you’re tight… grip my cock hard… that’s it… Christ, you’re so fucking sexy all spread open and hot.”

I tried to drag air into my tight lungs. He throbbed inside me. So hard. If he moved again… he pulled back and thrust, jarring me to the core. A whimper escaped me. Sweat ran down my neck, my breasts.

He climbed onto the bed, pushing between my legs and coming over me like a thundercloud. He grabbed my wrists, pinning my hands to the bed, his flat belly hitting mine, his hair-roughened legs abrading my thighs.

I couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. I only wanted to feel his weight, his incredible strength, his thrusts inside of me. So good. More than good. More than I’d ever imagined.

I strained against him, bucking my hips as if trying to dislodge him. He was locked tight against me, his powerful body pressing me into the mattress, trapping me. He shifted, thrusting again and again and again, the friction of his cock driving my tension to breaking point. My body writhed beneath his, my legs aching from the strain of being spread so wide apart.

His grip clenched on my wrists. My breasts rubbed against his chest with every surge. Electric currents streamed through my blood, lighting me on fire.

He increased the rhythm of his thrusts, pounding into me so hard that the headboard slammed against the wall and all I could do was concentrate on accepting his heavy thrusts. I tightened my legs around his hips, moaning every time he surged into me, my fists clenching and unclenching, my wrists still trapped in his grip.

“Come on, storm girl.” His hot breath caressed my cheek, my neck, his chest a solid wall of sweat-slick muscles against my breasts. “Show me how hard you can come.”

Oh, god.
I barely felt that final tipping over the edge into bliss. I only knew that my world exploded with the sudden intensity of a supernova, and I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do anything about it. I was helpless, capable only of taking this man’s cock deep into my body, unable to silence the scream that tore from the very center of my being as I shattered beneath him.

All thought broke apart. His voice was a low rumble against my ear, but I couldn’t make out his words past the dizziness in my head. He was still pumping into me, still rock-hard, and he was so big it was starting to hurt, but I wanted it to go on and on, never ending. My muscles ached. Everything inside me throbbed.

He released my wrists. I groaned as blood rushed back into my arms with tingles and prickles. Archer planted his hands on either side of my head and stared down at me, his face a hard mask of restrained, burning lust. His eyes were so black I couldn’t see the brown of his pupils. I licked my dry lips. His mouth came down on mine, hot and possessive

“You want more?” he murmured, low and deep.

Heat flooded me anew. My throat constricted.

“I want more,” I whispered against his mouth.

He lifted his head and got to his knees, putting his hands on my inner thighs as he plunged into me again, all hot, sweaty, demanding male. More than I could handle. More than I could take.

My face was wet. I pressed my hands to my eyes. I was fucking
crying
.

Archer put his hand on my damp torso and slid it down to my clit. I jerked in reaction when he splayed his fingers over the sensitive flesh. He murmured something and stroked, urging me higher.

This time, the wave trembled low in my belly before it spiraled outward in ripples of sensation. I gripped Archer’s forearms, shuddering as I tightened my body around his cock.

“Inside me,” I pleaded, digging my fingers into his arms, urging him to lie on top of me again, positive he was the only solid element left in the world. “I want… need you to come inside me. I want to feel it.”

“You’ll feel it,” he growled, increasing the pace, his pelvis slamming against mine. “And you’ll take it all, as deep as you can… squeeze your pussy tighter… you feel so damn good, baby… fucking incredible.”

He plunged into me with a groan, his muscles tensing and contracting, and then his seed filled me. Shivers raced across my skin. Archer lowered himself on top of me, heavy and damp, his face against my shoulder, and his chest heaving.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. Tears still stung my eyes. I blinked them back furiously, refusing to let them fall again.

Slowly Archer rolled off me and onto his back. He threw his arm over his face, still breathing hard. I moved away from him, realizing I didn’t have anything within reach that I could put on. I started to ease off the bed when his arm clamped around my waist from behind.

“Archer, I—”

The words stopped in my throat as he dragged me back to him. With a low mutter, he pulled me hard against his side, burying his face in my hair. The bulk of his body blocked out everything but the heat of his skin and the smell of sex. He draped his arm around my shoulders and his leg across my hips. Trapping me.

Or… enveloping me. Before I could figure out which, his body shifted into the heavy rhythm of sleep.

And, before long, so did mine.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KELSEY

ARCHER WAS GONE WHEN I WOKE
the next morning. He hadn’t left a note or even made a pot of coffee, a fact for which I was inordinately grateful. I didn’t want any thoughtful little gestures. I just wanted some time to get my head together, and it was a relief to be left alone.

I was sore, of course, the pulsing between my legs reminding me of him with every step. I took a bath and scrubbed our mingled scents off my skin. Because I didn’t have to be on campus until my late-afternoon office hours, I spent the morning lounging around in a dreamy sort of haze. I logged in to my computer and tried to get some work done, but my brain was so fuzzy that all my thoughts kept slipping away.

The only work I did was changing a light bulb on my computer desk. I went to the basement to retrieve a box of new bulbs, which were stamped with a corporate logo and the words
Edison Power Company
.

Something tickled the back of my mind. Edison. Archer had used Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb to shut down my condescending colleagues.

Feeling a sudden kinship with old Mr. Edison and his string of failures, I changed the bulb and returned the box to the basement. I went online again and looked up Edison Power, curious about the structure and programs of the corporation.

Grant-Funding Opportunities.

I clicked the link on the menu bar and read about the grants and proposals Edison Power had recently funded. Nothing meteorological. I knew power companies were heavily invested in improved weather forecasting, as sudden storms, hurricanes, and tornados could damage electrical grids and impact power in urban areas.

Edison Power hadn’t funded anything weather-related, though that didn’t necessarily mean they
wouldn’t
. Maybe.

Somewhat heartened, I got dressed and walked to the Wonderland Café. It was past two, so I’d missed the lunch crowd, and the place was relatively quiet.

I sat in an empty seat at the counter just as Liv came out of the kitchen with a tray of edible teacups and ice-cream sandwiches.

“Oh, hey, Kels,” she said. “Hold on a sec. Let me drop these off.” She hurried past to distribute the food, then returned to the counter and poured me a glass of water. “What’s going on?”

“Just thought I’d drop by for lunch.”

“Oh.” She looked vaguely disappointed. “I thought you were here to meet Archer.”

My heart did a ridiculous sort of twirl that irritated me. “Why would I come here to meet Archer?”

Liv blinked at my annoyed tone. “He’s upstairs. Said he wanted lunch too, so I thought you were meeting him.”

Heart twirl.
Again.

“Archer is here?” I asked.

“Upstairs.” Liv nodded to the stairs, eyeing me with speculation.

“Liv, we got the new birthday party brochures in.” Allie Lyons came through the kitchen doors, her red hair swinging in a ponytail. “Hi, Kelsey.”

“Hey, Allie.”

“Check them out.” She handed the brochures to me and Liv, then turned to the cash register.

I opened a brochure and pretended to study it. Liv glanced at me, leaning her elbows on the counter. I sensed what was coming.

“So if you’re not here to meet him, tell me… how was the date?” she whispered, all brown-eyed curiosity.

“Date?” Allie turned from the register. “Kelsey went on a date? With who?”

“Whom,” I corrected. I guessed Liv’s question meant that Dean hadn’t told her about finding Archer at my house.

“Archer West,” Liv told Allie, ignoring my death glare. “That’s
whom
.”

“Really?” Allie looked at me with awe. “You went out with Professor Hottie’s brother?”

“And he wore a suit and tie,” Liv added.

“Oh, wow.” Allie shook her head, as if that image was too much to bear. “Where did you go? What did you do? Did he kiss you?”

“Answer that last one first,” Liv suggested.

I took a sip of water and tried to keep glaring at both of them, which wasn’t easy in the onslaught of their unbearably cute eagerness.

“He came with me to a university dinner because Dean couldn’t go,” I told Allie. “There was nothing romantic about it.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “You know he’s here, right? Archer, I mean. The girls almost got into a catfight over who’d get to serve him. What room is he in, Liv?”

“Castle Room.” Liv was looking at me with way too much perceptiveness. “Hey, Allie, could you get Kelsey her usual?”

“Sure thing.” Allie turned and went back into the kitchen.

Liv leaned closer to me. “What’s going on with Archer?”

“Dean didn’t tell you?”

“He said Archer was at your place the morning after your date.”

It was just like Liv not to have called me immediately, demanding to know all the details. She knew some things were private.

“Dean wasn’t all that happy about it,” I admitted.

“He has reason not to be,” Liv said. “But he also knows you, and he knows when to back off.”

I rubbed my finger across a crack in the counter. Though I’d told myself a hundred times that I was making up my own mind about Archer West, I was still on very shaky ground after last night. And Liv was one of the few people I trusted most in the world.

“What do
you
think of Archer?” I asked.

She was quiet for a minute.

“I think he got a raw deal,” she said. “That he was blamed for something that wasn’t his fault and that he’s probably made a lot of bad choices because of it. And I think he got stuck in a downward spiral he didn’t know how to get out of. But I also think he’s a good guy at heart. He’s Dean’s brother. I think he just got lost somewhere along the way.”

I knew all about getting lost.

I stared at my glass. A drop of water ran down the side.

“So… um, if I were to start something with Archer… you know, theoretically…” My mind flashed with images of me spread out on the bed with him. I cleared my throat. “…you wouldn’t tell me I was making a mistake?”

Amusement flashed in Liv’s eyes. “I would never presume to tell Kelsey March she was making a mistake.”

“But you’d never lie to me, either.”

“True.” She leaned her elbows on the counter, looking directly at me. “I love you, Kelsey. I don’t know if Archer is worthy of you. I don’t know what kind of future you could ever have with him, if you even wanted one. I don’t want to see you get hurt. But God knows I’ve learned some lessons in life, and one of them is that nothing ever changes if you don’t trust your instincts and take risks.”

Not until that moment did I realize how badly I’d needed her reassurance. The band around my heart eased.

“Can we hug now?” Liv asked.

“Only if you don’t tell anyone.”

She grinned, and we exchanged a quick, tight hug. Then Liv nodded to the stairs again.

“Castle Room,” she said. “I’ll bring your lunch up if you want me to.”

She picked up the birthday-party brochures and headed back to the kitchen.

Trying not to overthink it
again
, I slid off the stool and went upstairs. I was going to have to face Archer sooner or later, and the Wonderland Café with its tea parties and birthday balloons was about the safest place I could find. Not to mention I looked totally frumpy in old jeans and a T-shirt with minimal makeup on.

The Wicked Witch’s Castle room was at the front of the second floor, with windows providing a view of the distant mountains. An ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling, a twilight-colored mural of the mountains and castle spanned one wall, and the black-draped tables were topped with crystal ball lamps.

All the tables were empty, except for one by the window where Archer sat alone, half slouched in the high-backed chair. His worn notebook was open on the table in front of him, and his head was bent as he wrote something on the pages.

I looked at his profile, the strength of his jaw dusted with whiskers, the ridge of his nose with the slight bump, the way his hair curled around his ears and the back of his neck.

I couldn’t believe what I’d done last night. With
him
. For a second, it seemed hazy, distant, surreal.

Then he turned and looked at me, like a radar homing in on its target. All the breath escaped my lungs. I stopped, running my hands over my thighs.

“Hi,” I finally said.

In response, he pushed the chair opposite him away from the table with his foot. I went to sit down.

He closed the notebook and looked at me, his expression shuttered but his eyes glittering in the light coming through the window.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “What are you doing here?”

“I hadn’t seen the place yet, so I stopped by,” he said. “It’s nice. Liv offered to bring me lunch. I never turn down a free meal.”

“Who said it’s free?” Liv came into the room, bearing a tray with roast-beef-and-cheddar sandwiches and Scarecrow Straw fries.

“Oh, sorry—” Archer started.

“But you don’t have to worry about it.” Liv set one of the plates in front of Archer and winked at him. “I’ll put it on Dean’s credit card.”

She and Archer exchanged a fist-bump.

Liv put the second plate in front of me. “Whoops, sorry. I forgot your drinks. Be right back.”

She hurried back out. Archer watched her go.

“I don’t know why, but she doesn’t seem to hate me,” he remarked.

“Liv sees the good in everyone,” I said. “Unless you’re a total shit. Then she gets her ninja on.”

“Huh.” He picked up his sandwich. “Guess I’d better stay on her good side, then.”

“I’d recommend it.” It occurred to me that even if Archer were using me to get to Dean, he wouldn’t do anything to upset Liv. And he knew that using me would piss her off to no end. The thought eased my wariness.

Liv returned with a glass of lemonade for me and a glass of chocolate milk for Archer.

“Enjoy,” she said, putting the glasses on the table. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

She patted my shoulder and bustled out. I eyed Archer’s drink.

“What’s with the chocolate milk obsession?” I asked.

“When I was a kid I hated school,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Never could keep up,” Archer continued. “Didn’t like sitting at a desk. Acted out a lot. Teachers thought I had ADD or whatever. Elementary school was pretty bad. But every day we had what they called ‘milk break’ when you’d get a snack and some milk. For twenty minutes, you could do whatever you wanted. So I’d always get out a bin of Legos or whatever construction toys they had in the classroom. And I’d sit there drinking chocolate milk and building something. Best part of the day.”

My heart tightened a little. I could picture it, clear as day. I could picture him, a rough-and-tumble boy with a mop of black hair and snapping dark eyes.

Archer closed his lips around the straw and took a drink, then offered me the straw.

“Want some?” he asked. “It’s really good.”

I shook my head. Sometimes he was so cute, I couldn’t stand it.

Danger. Danger, Kelsey March.

I turned my attention to my food. “So you never learned to like school?”

“I always understood stuff when I was actually doing something,” he said. “Like in art or wood shop. Auto repair. Even computers. But I couldn’t get my brain around all the other stuff. I dropped out of high school my junior year.”

I felt his glance, like he was gauging my reaction to that revelation. I tried not to have a reaction at all, but it was impossible not to. No wonder the guy had major issues with his brilliant and successful older brother.

And Archer and
me
… He was a high-school dropout who repaired motorcycles, and I was a university professor who’d graduated with honors. The chasm between us was huge.

Which I’d known from the beginning. Which was just one of the reasons this was a temporary, very hot fling.

I nodded toward his notebook. “So if you didn’t like school, what’s in that?”

“Poetry.”

I caught my surprised
“Really?”
before it escaped my throat. Archer clearly sensed what I was about to say because he grinned.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire,” I said instead.

“Oh, my pants are definitely on fire, baby.”

I chuckled and let my gaze wander over him—the sunlight flickering on his strong features and glinting off his dark hair. His T-shirt was old, stretching over his chest and shoulders, a faded San Francisco Giants logo on the front. I wanted to slide my hands beneath the ragged hem and find the warm, hard muscles of his abdomen.

I hadn’t touched him much last night. I’d been so overwhelmed, so
taken
, that I hadn’t had a chance to take any initiative at all, to explore all the slopes and planes of his body…

I shivered. I felt him watching me.

“What?” I asked defensively, even as my brain suddenly flooded with worries that he was comparing the frumpy me of today with the… uh, fiery me of last night.

“You look good,” he said.

“Liar.”

“Not lying.”

I shot him a glower. “I’m not even wearing sexy underwear.”

“You are up here.” He tapped his finger against his temple and smiled.