Page 59 of Grave Kisses
Archer stands and goes to the small bathroom area before coming back with wet wipes. It hardly registers when he takes care of me. I just lie here and stare at the ceiling until he pulls a blanket out from under the cot and covers my body.
“Sleep, Kendra. I’ll wake you when he comes back,” Archer says. I don’t fight it. I just close my eyes and accept that I am stuck here. This is my life now.
Chapter Twenty Two
Chrissy
I sigh heavily beforegetting into the car. Decan is driving, and Andre is riding shotgun. He looks back and smiles at me, but I scold the butterflies when they start fluttering in my belly. “How have you been, Chris?” he asks.
“Okay,” I say simply.
“That’s all I get?”
“What else do you want, Andre? I’m focused on Kendra,” I snap.
“Chrissy,” Decan says simply.
“Fuck. I know. I’m sorry,” I sigh. “You fucked with my head, Andre. I don’t know how I am doing.”
“How so?”
“Because you made me feel like an option,” I admit, looking out of the window. “Bellamy and Declan are the only consistently good things in my life… I am a huge disappointment to my parents.”
“How do you think my parents feel?” Andre laughs. “Baby, I built my empire. It wasn’t given to me. My mom was an elementary school teacher, and my father was a professor of English. When he found out I was running the streets… Disappointed doesn’t cover it. You live your life for yourself and no one else. You are the only one who should matter.”
“Easy for you to say,” I sigh. “You were already going to help, weren’t you?” I ask.
“I was. Bellamy called me shortly after the apartment fire to just keep an eye out for Kendra because she was struggling,” he says. “Jeff was the new piece, though.”
“How could he possibly be connected to Archer?” I ask.
“I don’t know, but the word is… Archer is missing. Just… vanished,” Andre says.
“When we get there, do we need to be on alert?” Decan asks.
“Uh… No. I think we will be fine. They’d be stupid as hell to come out here,” Andre says.
“He has search teams out tonight, I think,” I say. “It’ll be interesting to see if anything comes up.”
We ride in silence until we stop in front of Alan’s home. He was a nice man. I hate that he passed away. He would be a wonderful grandfather to those twins.
We get into the house without any issues. By the looks of things, it was just abandoned. Before we start to clear the house, I pull my pistol from its holster and have it at the ready, but pointed down. I don’t expect to run into anyone, but I’d rather be safe than sorry. We spread out and sweep through the first floor, room by room. I take the stairs up, and they follow behind me as we ascend. Once again, we go room by room and sweep.
“I feel like he would have kept it somewhere close by,” I say when we walk into the master bedroom. “Or somewhere important to him.”
We start searching high and low, looking for anything that might hold secrets Alan left behind. When I grow bored with this room, I move on. I don’t know which room was Kendra’s, but when I walk into one with bright pink walls, I am guessing this is either hers or Kimberly’s old room. This place has six bedrooms, so it’s possible.
I go through and search every inch of the room, leaving nothing unturned. I sigh heavily and turn to leave but gasp and fall back on my ass when I run smack into Andre. “Christ, dude. You can’t sneak around,” I sigh and lay back to rub my hands down my face.
“You think an attacker is going to give you a warning, Chris?” he asks.
“Are you an attacker?” I ask as he steps over me so he has a foot on either side of my hips.
“Maybe,” he says, going down on one knee positioned between my thighs. He continues as he drops the other knee and pushes my legs apart.
“Sir, we are supposed to be looking for something,” I say. He smiles deviously as he leans down. I instinctively place my hands on his chest, and my breath hitches when he presses his hips into me, letting me feel how hard he is.
“Trapdoor,” he says before softly kissing me.
