“I look dry,” he retorted.
River looked at him as she dipped lower and lower into the waters, until all that was visible were her eyes. She kept staring and staring, and Archer kept staring back, neither of them willing to back down first. It was a battle of wills, and River was willing to come out of the water and drag Archer into the lake herself, but then he sighed and stood, giving her one last, unimpressed look.
Archer hesitated for one more moment before he shrugged out of his coat and laid it across the blanket. Then he bent to pull off his boots, setting them beside it before rolling his stockings down.
There was nothing remarkable about the act itself; men removed boots every day. Yet River found herself watching far too closely, tracking his every movement, the way his fingers moved over the laces, the way his dark hair swept over his forehead.
The problem was that she had spent most of their marriage wondering whether Archer even noticed her existence, and now she possessed entirely too much knowledge about the shape of his hands, the roughness of his voice lat at night, and the way his hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck when the air was damp. Where there had once been a vague idea of him in her mind, now he was solid, concrete, realer than anything else.
“By the time ye get yer boots off, I’ll have turned into a frog!” River called, just because she couldn’t handle the building tension. “Seems to me like we’re afraid!”
Archer glanced up and their eyes met. He seemed to pay her teasing no mind, though, as he walked into the lake without so much as flinching at the freezing water. The lake reached just below his knees, darkening the fabric of his undershirt. The evening sun caught against the water moving around him, turning each ripple bronze for an instant before it faded.
He stopped several feet away, close enough that she could see the droplets clinging to his forearms; close enough that she could see he was trying not to smile.
“Ye wished for company. Well…here I am.”
The breeze swept across the lake, carrying the scent of water and pine, and for the first time that evening River became acutely aware that they were alone—not in the way they were at the castle, where anyone could barge into any room, separated by corridors, servants, obligations, and carefully maintained distance.
Now they were truly alone, with no one near enough to interrupt them.
River had not expected victory to arrive so easily. The moment Archer was close enough, she bent, scooped up a handful of water, and flung it at him. The splash struck him squarely across the face, which was not exactly where she had been aiming, and for a heartbeat, he simply stared at her.
River only grinned as Archer looked up at his soaked hair that now hung over his eyes, then back at her.
“River.”
The warning should have concerned her. Instead, it made a shiver run through her spine.
“What?”
His eyes narrowed as he regarded her. "Ye have made a mistake.”
Before she could retreat, he thrust both hands into the water and sent an entire wave crashing toward her. River shrieked as cold water drenched her from head to shoulder.
“Ye brute!”
Archer's laugh echoed across the lake, startling her so much that she nearly forgot to be offended. The act, though, demanded retaliation, and River splashed at him again, only for him to duck and avoid the worst of it.
“Ye are enjoyin’ this far too much,” she said.
River opened her mouth to answer, but at that exact moment her foot slipped on a smooth stone beneath the water. The world tilted around her and a startled sound escaped her. Before she could catch herself, though, Archer’s hand closed around her arm, strong and certain, pulling her forward and flush against his chest. River froze, and for what seemed like an eternity, the two of them stood there, in the middle of the lake, staring into each other’s eyes. Her fingers traced the lines of his shoulders, his chest. In turn, Archer’s hands held onto her waist, keeping her steady.
The kiss, when it came, was not a surprise, though River couldn’t say who started it.
Archer kissed her deeply, without urgency. There was need behind it, of course; there always was. But now there was something else, too, something deeper, something more fundamental—a desire to be close to each other, a desire for the comfort they could only give to each other.
River shivered, partly from the cold and partly from that kiss, from those hands that were so hot against her skin, a complete contrast to the water around them. Archer pulled her even closer and began to move closer to the bank, half-swimming and half-walking them both there. Once there, he helped River out of the water, and she was suddenly too aware of the way her shift clung to her body, soaking wet as the fabric was, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Archer noticed too, of course. His gaze fell on her curves, on the nipples that peaked through the fabric. Then, he was upon her in an instant, pulling her into another kiss, his hands closing around her rear as he pulled her close.
The warmth of his body was like a wildfire, spreading over to hers. Without another word, he continued to kiss her, his hands roaming over her body to squeeze her ample breasts, to tease her nipples over the fabric. River gasped, leaning into that touch as much as she could, her fingers threading through Archer’s soaked hair to pull him back for another kiss.
“Can I…can I touch ye?” she asked, and Archer huffed against her lips as if he found the question amusing.
“Anytime.”
With a tentative hand, River reached under his undershirt to find him already hard and leaking. She wrapped her fingers around him just as she had the last time, squeezing his length gently as she dragged her hand over it, the movement aided by the water lingering on his skin. Above her, Archer groaned, pushing into the touch, and River couldn’t take her eyes away from him—away from that lost look in his eyes, away from the tip of his manhood appearing and disappearing through her fist.
