As I walked her backward toward the bedroom, toward the very big bedroom and very big bathtub, she hummed. “Let me show you how much in about three minutes.”
I dipped, sweeping my arm under her legs and banding the other behind her back as I lifted her easily. “Three minutes?” I said with mock disapproval. “I need a little more time than that. Bath first.”
Remi bit down on her bottom lip, a devious grin pulling at the edges of her mouth as she toyed with the hair on the back of my neck. “You’re saying you don’t want me on my knees showing you my gratitude?”
I snatched her mouth in a hot, fast kiss, growling as I pulled away. “Putting that image in my head when I’m trying to take care of you. What a naughty girl.”
The bathroom was dark, but I stopped by the switch to flip on the lights over the vanity. Her eyes glazed over as they locked on the bathtub. I wasn’t sure she’d sighed that decadently when my hand was between her legs. “Oh, I take it back. Everything can wait until after we use that.”
I switched directions, heading toward the bedroom instead. “Never mind.”
“What?” Remi kicked her feet, trying to get down with a laugh. “I want that bathtub.”
I tossed her onto the middle of the bed, and she let out a breathless giggle that made my chest fucking twist. “I told you I was going to take care of you,” I said, dragging her to the edge of the bed and then dropping to my knees. “Will you let me do that?”
Remi braced herself on her elbows and stared down at me with her heart in her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I will.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Remi
Archer’s bathtub was as incredible as promised. If that thing had been in my home, I’d have used it every single day. We soaked until our skin was pruny and the water temperature had cooled, but I didn’t find that I minded much with his big, warm body bracing mine. He kept his arms around me, unwilling to let me sit opposite of him in the obnoxiously large space while we talked.
As promised, he washed my hair and carefully dried it with a bit of instruction from me. The sight of him in the mirror, shirtless, brow furrowed in concentration as he brushed out my hair and moved the hair dryer evenly, would have obliterated even the most daunting reservations.
But there were none to be found. Throughout the evening, I waited for them to appear. For a voice in the back of my head to slither in and remind me that this might not last. That he’d get bored and move on. That I was a selfish creature for wanting him the way I did. But there was never an opportunity.
Archer refused to concede an inch of space to any thoughts like that with the way he loved me through that first night.
Even when we were quiet, his hands dragging over my skin because he couldn’t stop touching me, I felt an ease that might have seemed too good to be true.
No. That phrase had no place here.
Too goodimplied that it wasn’t deserved, that it required a transaction to be earned. That we hadn’t fought to get here, when the fighting had begun long before we ever met.
The doubts stayed far away as we talked in the dark, facing each other in his bed. A small light on the nightstand allowed me to see his face, and him to see mine. Occasionally, he’d trace the line of my eyebrows and the slope of my cheek while I talked.
With his eyes steadfastly on mine, I told him about my conversation with Pops, and we traded confessions that becoming our parents was the thing we feared most. Then he kissed me. It wasn’t the kind of kiss that you dream about when you’re single and loneliness is threaded through your day-to-day to a point that you don’t even really see it anymore.
It wasn’t a passionate kiss, it wasn’t dirty or fierce. It wasn’t a prelude to something else, demanding that we be swept away into more. Those were the kisses I’d imagined for so long, when I’d lain in bed and told myself that a love like this was too complicated. That it was for someone else.
Archer kissed me soft and sweet and fleeting—a reminder that he was here. That he’d anchor me in place if those fears ever threatened to unmoor me again.
That was the irony. He’d already unmoored me so thoroughly that there was no going back. I didn’t want to.
Loving him wasn’t an act of rebellion or a selfish impulse to feed a fix. It was an acknowledgment that sometimes the universe gifted us the perfect person in the most imperfect way.
Sometime in the middle of the night, tucked against his chest with his arm around my back and my leg slung over his, we fell into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. This was a whole different kind of sleep.Anoversexed, just had four orgasms in as many hours, my body has never registered these muscles before but they’re sorekind. Sleeping naked was a big no for me, because I didn’t need to traumatize my child if he came into my room in the middle of the night, and I didn’t like the idea of a cool breeze over my uncovered ass. But tangled up with Archer, too exhausted to dig something out of his very nice closet, there wasn’t a stitch of clothing to be found.
When I woke, weak gray light filtered in through the windows. We’d moved to our own pillows at some point in the night, though they were pressed close together in the middle of the bed. That foggy half sleep didn’t let go of my brain right away, and I lay there for a few minutes with my eyes closed and simply rested. There was no to-do list today. The shelter was covered, with someone else on call. Nothing screaming for my attention.
Just this.
Burying my face into the pillow that smelled like him, I pulled in a deep breath and then studied him while he slept. He looked younger like this. Less serious.
The line of his jaw was too tempting to be ignored, and the edge of my thumb found it, dragging over the stubble. If I looked, I’d have redness on the inside of my thighs from that stubble, and my cheeks warmed at the recollection. God, he was good. He wasso goodat everything.
To think I’d gone so many years not knowing this kind of physical compatibility existed, only to find it with someone who cared just as much about protecting my heart. It was a gift. Something I’d never take for granted.