AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I snigger. “Now, some of us choose to have a man in our lives because we like them, and not because we need them.”
Archer turns from his work and drapes his body over my back so his cock rests against my ass. “But youneedme, right, Minnnka? You’d be miserable without me.”
“Mm-mm. Iwantyou.” I turn my head, and grin when he leans closer and takes my lips in a kiss. “I like to keep you around. But I assure you, I can pay my bills on my own.”
“Did you hear that, Arch?” Cato turns on the couch in faux-offense, only to scowl when he finds his brother practically dry-humping me from behind. “She disrespected you. Belittled your contributions to this home.”
Archer chuckles, awake now, and inches his hand dangerously close to the apex of my thighs. “Sometimes being disrespected is an aphrodisiac. When it’s the right woman, being disrespected isn’t disrespect at all, but a challenge you either step up to and meet, or slink away from like a fucking pussy.”
“Ugh. Happiness creeps me out.” Cato points the remote at the TV, but instead of unmuting it, he turns the whole thing off and tosses the clicker down again. “I’m gonna make bad choices today just to spite you both.”
“Wait!” Archer practically springs away from me, sending my own instincts sprinting into action. “Cato—”
“Nah, fuck you, Arch. I came here to hit on your wife. Not to see her happy with you.”
“No, stupid.” He charges around the counter and toward the living room. “Turn that back on.”
Archer himself leans over the back of the couch, shifting the whole thing forward, but he stands again, victoriously brandishing the remote control. Finally, he switches the TV on and unmutes the segment.
My eyes narrow, because it’s still Miranda London speaking, but I pad around the counter with my first coffee and come to a stop behind Archer.
“Ms. Waters,” Miranda drones, “what has the Copeland Condors basketball team got to do with Anna Switzer’s death?”
Gina shoves her hand in front of the camera’s lens, but the viewer still catches glimpses of her between the gaps of her fingers. “I have no comment to make.”
“Detectives Archer Malone and Charlie Fletcher are primaries on Ms. Switzer’s case,” Miranda pushes on anyway.
“I can’t stand her,” I grumble, my lips wrinkling in distaste. “I seriously want to punch her in her stupid face whenever I hear her voice.”
“Yeah right.” Cato rolls his eyes, then looks at me the way adults look down on children when a little girl says she wants a unicorn, or when a little boy declares he’ll be an astronaut. “Careful you don’t chip your nails, Chief.”
“I have no statement to make on Ms. Switzer’s murder,” Gina insists. Mere inches in front of me, Archer’s shoulders lift as if filling with adrenaline. “Her friends and family wish for privacy and respect during this time of tragedy.”
“Why were the detectives seen at the Condors stadium?” Miranda is a bull and seems literally incapable of hearing the wordno. “We know this is a high-profile case, and we can assume they’re focusing all their efforts on Anna’s death. So why would they come here?”
“I already told you,” Gina snaps, releasing the camera and starting away. “No comment.”
The screen flicks away from the recorded clip, to the studio where Miranda sits now.
“That was exclusive footage that my team and I documented yesterday afternoon,” Miranda yammers. “We the people demand full disclosure. And when the police refuse to comment, the victim’s publicist does the same, and each member of the Copeland Condors has been wrapped up in a gag order, it makes me wonder…” she looks directly into the camera, and stares hard, “what is everyone covering up? And why? This is Miranda London, reporting from the Channel Seventy-Nine studio downtown. Stay tuned for exclusive and breaking news as it happens.”
“She’s old.” Cato scrunches his nose, and heads toward the coffee machine to snatch up the coffee Archer began making. “A raggedy old bitch who does her makeup to look twenty, but who’s actually forty-five under the foundation.”
“She’s in her thirties,” I mutter.
But my eyes remain focused on Archer’s broad back. My brows, pulling tighter the longer he stares at the television screen.
“You alright?” I ask.
“Yeah.” His mind is far away. Distracted. He turns slowly, with a frown that only confirms my suspicion that his mind is nowhere near this apartment. “I gotta go, though.” He cups my face, presses a noisy kiss to my forehead that knocks me back a step, then he takes off down the hallway at a run and bolts into our bedroom.
Mere seconds later, he’s out again, a shirt covering his chest, his shoes and socks in one hand, and his phone in the other.
“I gotta get to the station,” he says hastily, sitting on the edge of the couch and dropping his things. He unlocks his phone and navigates to a screen I can’t see, but it takes only a moment to realize he hits dial and sets the device down again to pick up his socks.
“Yeah?” Fletch answers his call and audibly sips coffee. “What’s up, Arch?”
“I think I know who killed Anna.” He slides one sock on, then his shoe. “I just don’t know why yet.” He picks up his second sock and repeats the process. Sock, shoe, tie. Sock, shoe, tie. “So I wanna pull Vance Perry in today and see what shakes loose.”
