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Archer tightens his hold and pins me to his legs when my temper would have me shooting up off the bed and storming toward the door.
Cato Malone knows how to protect himself and family—allegedly—but he has no clue how close to death he comes every time he speaks.
“Twenty-eight is not old!” I snarl to mymuch older, thirty-one-year-old husband. “I’m in the prime of my frickin life!”
“You need to calm the fuck down.” He slips a hand between my legs and cups my core until I come to a dead standstill.
My heart thunders, and the pulse I feel fills his palm.
“He’s goading you,” he murmurs. Sexy, in his deep, throaty tone. “He wants your attention, Mayet. And you play into his hands every single time.”
“He’s a child,” I hiss. But I’ll be damned if my breath doesn’t grow a little… pant-y. “He hits on me, but all I see when I look at him is a kid.”
“Which surely hurts his feelings.” Grinning, Archer closes the space between us and takes my lips with his.
He slides his tongue past and duels with mine just long enough to turn my temper to want. To need. To deep-seated frustration, when I acknowledge that it’s time to get up and head to work.
Pulling away so we part with a dramatic gasp, he licks his bottom lip, as though savoring my flavor, then gently pushes me up until I’m standing on my own two feet again.
“It makes me happy as a pig in mud that I don’t have to worry you’ll be tempted by a younger asshole who looks uncomfortably similar to me.” Tossing the sheet aside and showing meallof him—rigid length and muscular thighs—Archer climbs out of bed to reveal his taut back and broad shoulders, turning to the drawers and taking out a pair of black boxer shorts.
He slides them on, completely unfazed by the full-frontal show he puts on, then turns back to collect my forgotten towel, sending his abdominal muscles flexing and moving in the early morning sunlight.
Grabbing the moist fabric with his left hand, he takes mine with his right and carefully tugs me around until his thighs hug my backside, and his breath feathers against the tops of my shoulders. Slowly, he works the towel over my hair to collect excess moisture from the shower. “What have you got going on at the George Stanley this morning? Anything important waiting on your desk?”
“No.” Surrendering to this moment of tenderness, I ignore the boy in the hall, and focus instead on this. On us. On the world Archer and I have built together. “You and Fletch closed the Perry case yesterday.” Relaxing, I exhale and lean against Archer’s powerful chest. “Which means I was able to release the body for burial. I have a budget meeting coming up this week. And Doctor Raquel has a short list of lab techs for us to interview.”
“But no active cases?” he clarifies. “Nothing from the other precinct?”
“Nope.” I spin and rest my cheek over Archer’s heart, wrap my arms around his torso, and—though the movement hurts my healing shoulder—link my hands across his back, and breathe easier when he drops the towel and hugs me in return.
This is all I want. All I need. To touch, and to be touched.
And that’s a fresh development for a woman who, before meeting Archer Malone, never wanted physical contact at all.
“I have no actives,” I summate. “Aubree has no actives. A few of my other staff do, but they’re capable of working their cases without me standing over their shoulders and micromanaging them.”
“But you’re the one they come to when they’re stuck.” He rests his chin on the top of my head and sighs contentedly, so I feel his warm breath on my cool scalp. “You’re so fucking smart that, even at only twenty-eight, you’re the chief.”
I close my eyes, but my lips curl into a small grin. “Call me a cynic, but I think I got the job strictly because my predecessor needed out before an internal investigation was conducted, and I was young enough, she figured I wouldn’t dig below the surface of what she was presenting me.”
“Like I said,” he reiterates with a kiss on the top of my head. “Smartest medical examiner ever. You’re no dummy, Mayet, and you know exactly what a criminal she was. Chant rarely did right by the dead bodies who came through her door. You’re fixing that.”
“She’s still a free woman.” I take a step back when I hear a muffled thump from the hall. But I leave my hands on Archer’s hips and look up into his eyes. “I’m making sure the dead are respectednow. That doesn’t mean I’m helping those she already screwed over.”
“You helped Holly Wade,” he counters. “The young woman Chant declared a suicide was murdered, Mayet. So was her baby. Her sister was deemed crazy and problematic for not believing the report, and her husband was led to believe the love of his life was mentally unstable and suicidal.”
He brings his hand up and sets his palm beneath my chin. To ensure he has all of my attention. To make damn sure I’m focusing only on him, and not on thethump-thump-thumpfrom the hall. “You helped that entire family, and put a killer behind bars decades after she committed the crime and figured she got away with it. That’s why you’re the chief.” He smacks one last, fast kiss to my lips, then releases me so I sway on my feet, and moves to the closet to take out a shirt for me.
It’s time to get ready for our day, and he’s not opening that door until I’m fully dressed.
“All black today.” He turns holding a silky black blouse with silver buttons and cuffs. “Because you’re dark and dangerous and all that badass shit.”
He tosses the fabric with a smile, forcing me to catch it or let it drop to the floor. “Feels kinda weird we’re able to wake up and get dressed on our own time, huh?” He shrugs on a shirt of his own, covering the scars and ink that meld together on his skin so I’m not sure where one ends and the other begins. “Usually, Fletch or Aubs are here by now, knocking on the door and annoying us.”
“Right.”Thump-thump-thump. I roll my eyes and slip my bad arm through the sleeve hole. “Because this is much better. Peaceful.”Thump. Thump. Thump. “Swear to hell and back, you need to deal with your brother, Archer.”
“Cato!” Archer fixes his shirt and stumbles into a pair of jeans, then he stalks to the door and sets his hand on the knob, but glances back my way to make sure I’m dressed and buttoned up.
