Page 49 of Brother to Brother

“Don’t,” I said on a sharp inhale.

“Why not?” he demanded, freezing in place, his gaze boring into mine.

“I don’t look like I used to,” I said uncomfortably and he tipped his head to the side, his hands beginning their slow ascent to move the material out of the way. I felt tears gather at the corners of my eyes and he frowned down at me.

“This body did something amazing,” he murmured. “This body did something mine could never do,” he looked down and pushed the material out of the way. He smiled then, a slow smile full of appreciation and genuine awe. I was frozen and confused, he placed a gentle kiss against the cesarean scar and murmured: “This body carried my son and gave him life, nourished him; allowed him to draw breath and come into this world.”

Archer raised his eyes to mine and said, “This body,yourbody, is beautiful to me. Dressed in these ribbons,” he licked a wet line up one of the stretchmarks I found to be so ugly, “of sheer perfection… I love this body. Not only for what it’s done for me by giving me a son, but for what itwilldo for me, by giving me another, or for giving me a beautiful daughter. I swore to you today that I was going to love, honor and cherish you. In front of my brothers, in front of my president, and that’s just what I’m going to do. You see imperfection, I see life. I see something that, again, I could never do. I see strength, I see courage, and I admire you for it. This is my truth, this is my reality, and I really hope that you can get on board with that.”

His words devastated me in all of the right ways. I felt my walls and my fear crumble beneath the weighted gaze he held me pinned with. The only motion I could manage was the gentle rise and fall of my continued breathing as I stared in stunned silence. Tears slipped down my temples and cheeks of their own volition and when he realized I would make no further move to resist him, that I was capable of no further protest, he carried on with what he wanted to do; which as of right now was kissing all over my stomach. He kept on with those gentle, feather light caresses of his silken lips against my flesh which grew heated, awakening after its long dormancy.

The last man to touch me had been Grinder, and I was shocked to find that his much coarser brother touched me with more care and consideration than Grindereverhad. I didn’t quite know what to do with that except to watch, fascinated, as he drew the beautiful satin and lace shorts down my legs, his fingertips skimming my flesh, leaving trails of tingling sparks in their wake.

My mind may have rebelled against the thought of Archer touching me, against the idea of doing anything remotely sexual with him, but he’d eased my fears and had taken the very edge off my concerns with his carefully chosen words. My mind was warming up to the idea of having him touch me like this, but my body didn’t seem to care what my mind thought about it anymore.

My body certainly seemed to have a mind of its very own and it was all about having Archer’s lips on my skin. It liked it very much, thank you, and it showed it’s appreciation for the attention by arching of its own volition very muchintoArcher’s touch. I could feel him, hard and pressed against my throbbing pussy and I couldn’t believe how much I ached to have him inside me. I wasn’t sure I could completely chalk that up to biology, either.

He grasped the hem of my camisole and raised it up over my head. I lifted my arms to allow him to take it, feeling much bolder now that he’d made his position about the marks my body bore clear. He went back to kissing across my chest, exploring my skin, sucking one of my nipples into his mouth and tugging at it gently between his teeth all the while his green and gold eyes speared into the heart of mine.

He was so incredibly warm to the touch, and I let my hands do some of their own exploring, running them gently over his shoulders, tracing a weal of scar along his ribs, tiny pinpricks of white scar tissue riding above and below the rough mark where the wound had been crudely stitched back together.

“What happened?” I gasped and he stopped nuzzling my breast long enough to look at me and give me the truth, his voice rough with a cross between desire and annoyance at having to stop what he was doing.

“Got sliced pretty good around my second or third year with the Arizona chapter, a dispute with another club over wandering into our territory uninvited.”

“Oh…”

“No more questions, I’m trying to make my wife feel good and I’d appreciate it if she’d let it happen.”

I couldn’t help it, what he said made me smile. A for real smile that he echoed faintly before he resumed trailing his lips and teeth in tiny nips against my flesh in an ever downward trajectory. It took me a full minute for my brain to catch up to his intended goal and when it did, it was already too late. He had my thighs spread, using the breadth of his shoulders to keep them apart even as he fastened his mouth over my clit, his tongue teasing me carefully and gently into a fevered pitch.

I gripped the sheets and moaned, eyes squeezed shut as I just tried to concentrate on the feelings and shove the fact that this wasArcherto the back of my mind whichstilldidn’t want to come to grips with the fact that:This. Was. Archer.

“Oh god!” I cried and it almost sounded like a plea, at least to me. Archer hummed in satisfaction against my body and it added a whole new dimension to what he was doing.

“Archer!”I gasped and he took it as an invitation, sitting up and licking the palm of his hand deliberately, the motion both erotic and slightly intimidating as he reached down and stroked himself between my legs.

“I’m gonna go easy, I promise,” he murmured and placed himself at my opening, easing himself inside of me with restraint, letting my body adjust to take him comfortably.

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back, my breath escaping in a shuddering sigh. I hadn’t expected to feel notfullbut more like… complete. His body met mine and he was fully seated, as deep as a man could go in a woman and my body lost some of the tension that it wanted to hold onto out of fear, suddenly going limp instead. He leaned over me, and smoothed my hair back from my face, his hands rough with callouses but his touch so gentle.

“Look at me,” he said, voice rough around the edges with emotion that I couldn’t place. I opened my eyes and sucked in a sharp breath when he drew back and surged carefully, but firmly forward again.

He captured my gaze with his own and I wondered, briefly, if this was what drowning felt like. While I could breathe and just fine, I might add, I still felt as if I were being drawn inexorably down into Archer’s eyes. I forced my fingers to let go of the sheets, and instead, let them curve around his shoulder, drawing myself up, tucking myself into the shelter of his body even as he drove a slow, satisfied moan from somewhere deep down inside me.

I couldn’t ignore the truth, I couldn’t deny what he was doing… Archer wasn’t having sex with me, not one bit. Archer was as good as his word. With every slow and considerate thrust, Archer was making love to me, and I just didn’t know what to do… if it was okay, this early on, for me to do the same.

Chapter 22

Archer

I didn’t want her to be afraid, any other woman and I probably wouldn’t have cared, but this was Melody, the mother of Noah, who was nowmychild. She wasmywifeand would soon, hopefully, be the mother of more ofmychildren… that deserved a level of respect that I’d never had the occasion to show any other woman.

I nearly came undone when she relaxed, her body accepting my cock, her arms twining around my shoulders and pulling me gently down over the top of her. I held her as gently as I could, as if she were more fragile than a baby bird in my arms even as I fought to draw this out. I didn’t want to come too quickly, but it was hard holding off. For one, it had been a while for me, and two, I’d held a secret torch for my brother’s woman foryears. I could deny it out loud to my other brothers and to my club brothers all I wanted, but I couldn’t deny it to myself.

I sighed out in both passion and contentment and kissed the side of her neck. I wanted to kiss her for real so badly, but I wanted to wait, I wanted her to take that from me, I didn’t really have any other measure that she’d accepted me so I figured that would be as good as any when it came to an indicator.

God she was fierce, so beautiful, and despite the rough go she’d been having, so solid. She needed to reach out though, she needed to understand I would protect her, just as fiercely as she protected Noah.

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