Hear Me (17 page)

“I didn’t have a chance to put them on this evening.” Ivy resisted the urge to place her hand over her crotch. “Now what?” She was in real trouble if he wanted her to dance for him or something ridiculous like that.

The firelight flickered at his back, casting his face in shadow, though she was sure he could see every inch of her flesh in stark relief.

He straightened, casually, and strode forward, circling her like a buyer examining a piece of merchandise. He was aroused, but calm. She didn’t think he would even touch her. This was what a forest girl looked like at midsummer fires, naked before flickering flames. In the silence of the bell-free night, Ivy could almost pretend she heard the sound of forest drums. When they’d been teenagers, Archer had taken her away from all that, to their own, private, special space. Would this Archer be so considerate? Would he even think about what she needed?

He came around to her front, clamped his hands round her waist, and hoisted her up onto the counter. Then he stepped back, regarding her as one might a work of art.

“You are quite beautiful, Ivy Potter.”

“Thank you.” Ivy could say the same about him. Firelight was the only thing he should ever wear. It ignited the red streaks in his hair and beard, and made his pale skin glow like the sunrise. Even wrapped in enchantments, he was magnificent, a creature carved of myth. But he was too far away. She sat with her legs dangling over the side of the counter. The stone was cool against her butt, and it was hard to resist the urge to hop down and wrap herself around him.
 

“Touch your breasts,” he ordered.
 

She blinked in surprise, then leaned forward. “Why don’t you?”

Archer was silent, and those black eyes were a mystery. What was he thinking?
 

She sighed and cupped her breasts in her hands, lifting them and rolling the nipples beneath her thumbs. Her mouth parted and her eyes half-closed in pleasure.

“Are you imagining it’s me?” he asked wryly.

“Of course,” she murmured. Her inner muscles clenched as she continued to caress her breasts, picturing him watching her.

“You do that a lot, I assume.”

Her eyes snapped open to meet his. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Last night you said you hadn’t been with anyone in three years. You must be quite adept at pleasuring yourself, then.”

She nodded. “I suppose I am.”

Archer’s throat moved, as if he was swallowing, and his voice sounded rough when he spoke again. “Show me.”

He couldn’t actually mean…

“Lay back on the counter,” he went on, pointing, “spread your legs, and show me.”

Well, Ivy had said she’d do whatever he wanted. She leaned back on her elbows, drawing her knees up and bracing her feet on the counter.

“Spread your legs, Ivy,” he coaxed from his spot halfway across the room. “Let me see all of you.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and did as she was told. Her hand drifted between her legs, her fingers parting the damp folds.
 

“That’s right.” Was it her imagination, or did he sound a bit breathless? “Touch yourself.”

She inserted a finger and drew it out again, slick with moisture, and circled it around her clit.

“Touch yourself the way you have these past few years without me,” he urged.
 

“Why?” she asked him, without stopping the motion of her hand. “Why would I do this when you’re right here?”

“Because I said so.”

Ivy opened her eyes and tilted her face in his direction. He stood there, his hands tight at his sides, the tension evident in every muscle and sinew. Veins bulged at his neck and he held his jaw so tight it might crack. Odd, she would have thought he’d be stroking himself, too.
 

“Don’t watch me,” he ordered.

“Why not?” she asked innocently, as she trailed her finger up and down her folds, teasing her opening. “I’m picturing you.”

He sniffed dismissively. “You aren’t picturing this.”

“Yes, I am. I want you, Archer.”

It was like he was peering at her through a dirty screen, puzzling something he couldn’t quite make out. “You pushed me away.”

She bit her lip. He’d surprised her, was all. He’d kissed her so tenderly, she thought for sure she’d broken through. “I—”

“Don’t speak if what you’ll say is a lie.”

Her mouth snapped shut.

His mouth split in a cruel grin. “You don’t want me. You want the boy you knew.”

“Archer—” She began to sit up.

“Keep touching yourself. Don’t you dare stop.”

She lay back down and spread her thighs more, giving him as good a show as she could manage.

“I’m not that boy anymore,” he went on. “That boy who brings you flowers and treetops.”

That wasn’t true. He would always be that boy.
Her
boy, her Archer.
 

“Now, I’d throw you down before the fire and take you hard, Ivy Potter. You know I would.”

She whimpered, and he seemed to find the sound satisfying.

“Good.” He came closer, looking down at her, his black gaze sending shivers of dread and delight down her limbs. “Use two fingers.”

She obeyed.

“Deeper.”

She gasped. “Archer, please…”

He shut his eyes, as if he was at war with herself, and lay his fingertips on the counter, almost, but not quite, touching her. “I wonder what would happen,” he said suddenly, “if I opened the shades?”

Her eyes widened. He wouldn’t dare. She was lying on the counter, in full view of the street.

“I bet every man in town is guarding watch over the forest tonight, marching back and forth in front of your house. Don’t stop, Ivy.”

She growled, but kept going. An unbearable pressure built up inside her, a spring coiled tight.

“I could cloak myself in shadows. No one would see me. But oh, they’d see you.” His voice seemed to break on the words. “Spread out on this counter like the most delicious feast. Your hair tossed wildly, your mouth swollen and wet, the sound of your moans.”

Ivy moaned just then, as if on cue.

“Tell me truthfully, townie girl,” he drawled, “You didn’t wait for me all those years.”

“I did,” she gasped. “I swear. I love only—”

“Don’t lie to me.” His voice was sharp as a knife. “I saw the men in this town looking at you today. What would they do, do you think, if they saw you here like this?”

She stopped then, and covered his hand with hers. “Don’t, Archer.”

He shoved away from the counter, hissing as if she’d burned him.

She sat up, swung her legs back over the side, and regarded him. It wasn’t the men in town Archer was trying to tease with the sight of her, awash with pleasure and just out of reach. It was himself.
 

“I didn’t tell you to stop.” His head was turned away, his voice directed to the floor. He wouldn’t touch himself, he wouldn’t let her touch him. He wanted her to save him but the monster inside wouldn’t allow it.
 

“I didn’t sleep with anyone,” she replied. “You know that. I didn’t even want to.” She stepped down from the counter.

“Stay back.”

“I won’t lie to you. You cannot make me.”

His hands tightened into fists. “I said, stay away from me.”

But Ivy hadn’t moved. “I want you, Archer, whatever you are. Because we have the same soul. I’m in there with you, and I won’t be whole again until you’re free.”

He leaned against the other counter, his shoulders caving inward. “Please…” he begged, but couldn’t put the request into words.
 

“I love you, Archer. You can’t make me feel shame about it.” She took one tiny step forward, and when he didn’t move, she tried another. “Everyone in town tried when we were young. They called me a forest-lover, they told me I was foolish.”

Archer sounded like he was having trouble breathing, like he was locked in an invisible battle.
 

“And all these years with the barrier, when I thought I’d never see you again, when I feared you’d been consumed by dark magic—”

“I had!” The words burst out of him like a curse, but he still shied away from her.

“All those years, if I’d been told how to save you, I’d have stopped at nothing.” She laid a hand on his chest and pushed him back against the counter. “And so I will stop at nothing, Archer, to save you tonight.”

He raised his head and looked at her, with eyes of gorgeous moss-green. His face was full of hope, and fear, and unspoken pleas.
 

Ivy’s palms spread out over his chest. She could feel his heart beat beneath his skin, wild and quick like an animal.
 

“Trust me,” she breathed, running her hands down his torso, over old scars and rippling muscles. She dropped to her knees.

Some great, guttural cry of need escaped from Archer as she wrapped her hands around his cock. He reached for her head, then whipped his hands away. “Please,” he rasped, frenzied, “You don’t know.”

“Trust me,” she murmured against the head of his cock. Gently, she pulled his foreskin back, and kissed the tip, laving her tongue around the rim. Archer groaned, and she felt his hands brush her hair, then vanish again.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, trailing kisses up and down his length. “Grab me if you like.”

“Don’t say that,” he begged, his words barely human, “unless you mean it.”

“Archer-mine,” she cooed against his twitching flesh. “I mean it.” Then she opened her mouth and took him in.

His fingers wove into her hair, fingertips against her temple, her cheek, her throat, so he could feel the muscles shift as she moved along his length. He tasted salty and dark, like the deepness of the forest, and she felt him growing even harder and longer in her mouth, as she gripped the base of his cock in her hands and pumped it in time to the movement of her mouth, sliding his foreskin forward and back with her lips.

His hands tightened and released on her head in subtle echoes of her own movements, guiding her to the depth and rhythm he liked best. “That’s it, Ivy. Suck me…” and then language seemed to abandon him, and all she heard were gasps and growls.

You are mine, Archer.
She weighed his balls in her hands, and squeezed the base of his cock as she took him deep.
I will never let you go.

They couldn’t cast the spell on the barrier without her help, and she would never give it. Ivy belonged to Archer and he to her, and neither the town nor the forest nor the darkest magic in the world was ever going to part them again.

She sucked and licked him, feeling his hips flex into her face, his stomach muscles tremble and his balls grow tight.
 

“Ivy!” he cried, and grabbed her by the shoulders, dragging her up his chest. She kept hold of his cock, slick now with her saliva, and he thrust into her hands, burying his face into the crook of her neck, covering her hands with his own. “Yes, please, oh, Ivy, Ivy, Ivy-mine…”

He shifted his hips to the side and she felt him jerk against her, coming at last with a long and keening cry. Something dripped, warm and stinging, over her hand and she pulled away even as he tightened his arms around her in a giant bear hug.

“Ivy.” It wasn’t a word. It was barely a sound, but she felt it in her bones. “Ivy.”

“I’m here,” she replied, stroking his hair with her clean hand. “I’m yours.”

He lifted his head and smiled at her, a real smile, an Archer smile, full of charm and laughter and light. And then he kissed her, full-lipped and free. She searched his eyes and saw nothing but green, and she pressed her cheek to his chest to listen to his heart beating, steady and true.
 

He dropped his lips to her hair, murmuring words she couldn’t quite make out. Her eyes drifted closed and she breathed him in.

Firelight, bright and cozy. A warm and willing woman in my arms.
 

This time, I must make it last.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Ivy must have stiffened slightly, as Archer’s arms grew firm around her and he captured her mouth with his.
 

“What—”

“Your turn,” he smiled against her mouth, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the room, to where the stove fire warmed the sofa, and lay her back against the cushions, planting a hand on her chest as he knelt between her legs and tilted her hips up to meet his mouth.

All thoughts fled under the onslaught of his full lips and insistent tongue. Her desire already honed to a fine point by their earlier activities, it wasn’t long before she was writhing on the couch, reaching for him. His hand on her chest had her trapped though, and she rested her feet on his shoulder blades, clawing at the cushions of the couch in sweet agony.

The very moment that she came, crying out his name in ecstasy, he rose up before her, covering her body with his own and sliding inside her to the hilt.

“See what you do to me,” he rasped into her ear. “I’m ready for you again.” And then he began to thrust, and Ivy couldn’t form words.