“This should have never happened. I’m so sorry.”
I trailed a hand down over his flank and let my fingers spread out across the colorful surface of his ribs. “I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. I need to learn to set boundaries with my parents and stick with them. It’s not worth sacrificing things that matter to me in order to try to make them happy.”
He took the hand he was holding and pinned it to the bed above my head, his pale eyes blazing into mine with a mixture of want and compassion. “Shaw, I’m the one who feels the need to burn the house down when the faucet springs a leak. I know I tend to go to the extreme and I need to back off. However, if you think I’m ever going to stand by and watch you purposely put yourself in danger with that asshole again, be prepared for us to do battle.”
I didn’t get a chance to reply because he kissed me, really kissed me, kissed me with an edge so that there was no mistaking he was serious and that I needed to pay attention to what was happening between us. There was a bite of teeth and the press of metal and all the goodness that was just Rule as our tongues slid together and hands began to roam. He caught my free hand and pinned it above my head with the other one so that I was stretched out beneath him. His eyes glittered with pure wicked intent as he leered down at me.
“I think I like you like this.” His free hand twisted and wandered over sensitive skin and moist creases. I whimpered a little because it felt so good and because I wanted to move but he held me still with the press of his much bigger body into mine. “I like having you at my mercy. I can do whatever I want to you.” He proved his point by taking the top of one breast in his mouth and sucking until it almost hurt. He’d left a hickey the first time we did this, too, but this one seemed different, more like a territorial marking, a claiming of sorts.
“Good thing for you I like all the things you want to do to me.” He pulled my leg up and hooked it around his lean hips. I felt the hot press of him ready at my entrance and tried to shift so that he came inside. He pulled back and grinned down at me.
“Always so impatient.”
I tugged at my trapped hands. “You have no idea.”
He chuckled again as he kissed me. “So tell me.”
I tried to pull him inside by sheer will alone but he kept moving just out of range with a taunting smirk. “Seriously, Shaw, tell me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut because there was only so much truth I was ready to hand over to him in one day. He moved my other leg and pressed in just a millimeter or two, making me start to quiver. “Tell me why we all thought you and Remy had a serious thing going on but I’m the one who was your first. Tell me why Rome seems to think you’ve had a thing for me for a while now. Tell me why, when we do this, it’s so much different than whenever I’ve done it before.”
I wanted him to move, wanted him to let me move, but when I pried my eyes open he was watching me closely, clearly in control enough to wait me out. I met his pointed stare for a heartbeat before whispering, “Because it’s always been you even when I didn’t want it to be, even when it broke my heart over and over again. It’s just always been you.”
My words changed something in him; his eyes flashed with a sudden, bright spark and suddenly he was in and moving and the rest of the world just stopped and faded away. All that mattered was what was happening between us in that moment and that it mattered to him just as much as it mattered to me. His tempo changed with each thrust. He was always a little wild, a little uninhibited in bed, but it was like my words had broken something loose inside him and this was the real Rule, the guy who used crazy hair and a body full of ink to deflect anyone getting too close. I gasped and moaned, finally calling his name out in a shaky voice as we raced toward the end together. It felt different, like he said, more powerful, more intense, and when he finally dropped his forehead down to touch mine it felt complete.
I sighed in contentment and wrapped my arms around him. He pulled me over him and rolled so that I wasn’t getting crushed. I closed my eyes and was about to go back into a very satisfied sleep when the entire length of his long body went board straight underneath me. My eyes popped open as I felt his hands tense in the ends of my hair and I forced my head up to look down at him.
“What’s wrong?”
“The bed’s wet.”
I just stared at him blankly. “So?”
“So that means we didn’t use protection. I haven’t had sex without a condom since I was a teenager and an idiot. Geez, no wonder it felt so good.”
“I’m on the pill.”
“Why?”
I made a face and rolled off him. “Because my mother made me. She thought I was hooking up with one or both of you Archer twins long before it ever happened. I’ve just stayed on it because it makes my period less crazy, so we should be fine.”
He pulled me back to his chest and brushed my hair away from my face. “With my history, you really wanna chance it?”
I exhaled. “You really know how to ruin a moment, Rule.”
“Hey, I told you it’s my job to protect you even if that means protecting you from me. We have to have clean health screens to work in the shop, since we work around bodily fluids, needles, and open skin, and my last one was crystal clear. And like I said, I never ever have unsafe sex unless it’s with a high-maintenance blonde with killer green eyes that make me so crazy I forget.”
I cuddled into the curve of his body and let him wrap his arms around me. The hand that had his name inked across the knuckles ended up resting across my chest and I used my index finger to trace over the bold letters. “I trust you and I think we’re good, so I’m not going to make an issue out of it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, because like I said it’s always been you, Rule, even when I really wished it wasn’t.”
“I’m starting to wish I had paid closer attention.”
I laced our fingers together. I liked the way they looked all tangled together. His were long and covered in brilliant designs, mine were small and tipped in boring pink polish, but next to each other they were more interesting, more vital. I fell back asleep listening to the steady inhale and exhale of his breath in my ear and thinking that even if I hadn’t been on the pill, having a moment of wild, uninhibited, and totally unprotected sex with him was most definitely worth any of the risks that were involved with that. I could think of worse fates than bringing the next troublesome Archer into the world.
CHAPTER 11
Rule
“The first time I came home and saw you sitting in the kitchen with Remy I remember thinking, what in the hell has he gotten himself into? You were so pale and scared, your eyes were twice as big as normal, and you looked like a little bird that had fallen out of the nest. Remy had always had a soft spot for the neglected so I wasn’t surprised, but I was flabbergasted at how quickly the rest of the family took to you. I always thought it was going to be us Archers against the world forever and then there was you, and it all kind of broke apart and I became even more of the black sheep than I had been. Rome adored you, Mom and Dad just accepted you and Remy as a unit, and I was left out in the cold as usual. I think I just took all those feelings of separation and alienation and transferred them onto you. Remy and I were always two parts of a whole and when you came along that went away to some extent. I think I was jealous that he spent so much time and effort being your hero and not being my brother.”
“The first time I saw you I was terrified. I had seen you and Remy around school and everyone always talked about the Archer twins like you were some kind of mythical creatures.