The amused tone made me smile, but I smothered it before I turned in his direction. The streak of blood had dried on his cheekbone, and the cut from his dad’s ring was bigger than I’d realized.
Archer chose to sit on one of the stools at the island, which put us nearly eye to eye when I approached. His body language was relaxed despite the tension of the last hour, his legs spread to accommodate me. He kept his hands on his thighs, eyes tracking every move I made with sharp focus. This was power, too, in a very different way, and mishandled, it would cause ancillary damage I wasn’t prepared for.
When I laid my hand on his jaw to angle his head, his skin was warm. As gently as I could, I dabbed the wet towel around the angry-looking skin, trying my best to clean off the blood without pulling at the wound.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
His eyes stayed on mine. “Of the things that man has done, this doesn’t even rate in the top ten.”
My hand lowered. “Did he hit you when you were younger?”
“No.” He lifted his chin, motioning me to continue. “Words were his preferred way to cause pain. I can guarantee this will heal faster.”
With even, steady strokes, I got the last of the dried blood off his skin. My heart beat hard and fast at the way he watched me as I opened an antiseptic wipe, and Archer’s eyes tracked my every move.
“This might sting,” I warned him, but he didn’t so much as flinch when I dabbed at the cut high on his cheekbone. As I finished wiping the area around it to make sure it was clean, I said, “I’m not sure I’d want to hear what’s on the top ten list.”
“No? What if it made you feel terribly sorry for me and you felt bad leaving me alone tonight?”
My hand paused, and I arched an eyebrow slowly. “You’re not alone. Your sister is here.”
His grin was quick and fierce, appearing like a lightning strike and fading just as fast. “Touché, firefly.”
Oof. That was an entirely different sort of powerful, one I didn’t particularly want him to know about.
“Tell me one,” I said, quite against my better judgment. “Just for reference.”
Archer’s palms slid up and down the tops of his thighs, like the motion helped him think. His eyes were unfocused, no doubt riffling through memories that weren’t so pleasant.
“I made my father the happiest when I was in college. Did everything he wanted of me. I played well enough to get drafted when I finished my undergrad, but he thought getting my master’s would play well with the media, and I had the grades to warrant it. Plus, I’d gain more experience, get drafted higher, which was what he wanted. My entire life, all I heard was that he relied on me to bring pride to our name.”
The blood was gone, but he didn’t know that, so I picked up the damp paper towel again, gently gripped his chin, and tilted his face like I needed a different angle. The stubble along his jaw was prickly against my fingertips, and his eyes closed briefly when I let them drag over it as I dropped my hand from his face.
“Did you?”
His eyes opened, and again, I was struck speechless by the intensity of that blue.
“I was a finalist for the Heisman my last year. Broke school records for passing yards and touchdowns in a single season. Went to Buffalo in the first round as a hometown boy who’d return glory to the franchise. Thirteenth pick.”
My hands lowered, but I didn’t move back. He shifted on his stool, the insides of his knees brushing along the outside of my thighs. Carefully, his fingers reached forward to play with the strings dangling from my denim shorts.
The air between us pulsed with unspent electricity, only made worse by the almost-touches of his hands a fraction of an inch away from my skin.
“I remember walking off the stage with my first NFL jersey in my hands, and the sight ofEvanson the back made me feel ten feet tall.” A wrinkle formed in his brow, and I wanted to smooth it out with my fingertips. “I’d fucking done it. All the practices and drills and studyingand years of my life that I sacrificed to makeour nameproud, all culminated in this. And I thought ... he’s going to be so proud of me.”
A sick foreboding twisted my stomach as I continued to listen quietly.
“When I came offstage, he was waiting for me.” His eyes were hypnotic, and I found it hard to breathe. “The first thing he said was, ‘You should’ve been drafted higher. I expected top ten.’”
I didn’t want my heart to break for this man. He probably didn’t want that either.
But it broke all the same.
For years, as long as I could remember, I’d denied myself the things I wanted because money was tight, or Gavin needed something more, or the devil on my shoulder wasn’t quite persuasive enough.
But I wanted to show him that his pain mattered. That he mattered to me.
The minutes and hours and days I’d spent resisting Archer—resisting his hold on me—were dust. Rubble.