Page 77 of Sinful Seduction
“Get out, Cato!”
“I’ll be home in a few hours, Sweetpea.” He kisses his palm and makes a show ofbundlinghis offer, bouncing it like it’s a basketball, then tossing it the way I’ve seen him throw a three-point shot. “Love you, Snooky.”
“I hate him.” Minka stomps after the pair, enraged and violently furious. She shoves his back and slams the door with a resounding crack. “I hate him!”
“No, you don’t.” I snag her hand and drag her toward the hall. “Shower. Relax. Food. Medicine. In that order.”
“He had a woman in our bathroom just to annoy me!”
“Mmhm. And you make it so easy.” I press my hand to the small of her back and push her from the wooden flooring to the tile. “Breathe. De-stress. Wash the stench of death out of your hair.”
“Listen—”
I flash a beaming smile and swing the bathroom door shut. “Love you!” Then I stalk along the hall and whip the apartment door open, glowering at an amused teenager who lacks common sense and healthy boundaries. “There’ll come a day when Idon’tstand between you and the reaper, dickhead.”
He lifts two fingers,peacing out. “Vote for Pedro.”
MINKA
Iwake the next morning before the sun has a chance to fully come up, sweat pooling where my skin touches Archer’s and burning heat pushing my internal temperature higher.
Too high to sleep.
But Archer’s broad chest moves with a rhythmic up and down that creates an almost meditative-like relaxation for my brain. His breath streams from his nostrils on every slow exhale. His lashes, long and pretty, kiss his cheeks.
Factor pulses through my veins anew, the same medication that makes me sleepy on infusion night, forcing my adrenaline and energy to spike in the morning.
I’m awake, while the rest of the city is asleep. And for just a minute, before the world encroaches and everyone else’s eyes open, I get to be the only person on the entire planet lucky enough to study this man while he rests.
I push up to my elbow, careful not to jostle the bed. Dragging the sheet down, I study Archer’s tattooed chest in the shadows, my memory easily filling in the lines hidden by darkness. I trail my fingertips, feather-soft, over the drawings he had penned on an eternity ago. The scars he had covered, like he no longer wished to remember them. The pretty words he wanted to live his life with. And then I trace the wedding band hung around his neck, the shiny, unblemished gold I’m not sure he’s evernothad attached to his body for a single moment since we exchanged them.
Smug with power, I inch closer and slide the tip of my tongue over his exposed nipple, thrilling in the goosebumps that spread across his skin, pleased with the way his nipple hardens, and, further down, his cock thickens beneath the sheet.
I swallow my silent snicker, shaking my head from side to side.
Archer Malone will always be ready for me. It wouldn’t matter if he were in a medically induced coma; I know he’ll forever respond to my touch.
“You start playing, Mayet, you better make good on your promises.”
My pulse hammers in my chest, pounding against my diaphragm and sending bolts of electricity all the way to my toes. But I bring my eyes up again, my smile stretching my cheeks, until I meet his barely opened gaze.
His lips quirk up on the side. “Morning after infusion turns me on. Now, how are you gonna fix what you did?”
“What did I do?” I lower again and suckle his nipple. “What’s the problem?”
He slips his hand beneath the sheet and fists his dick. “You existed, mostly.” He grabs the back of my hair with his free hand, pulling me away from his nipple, but only so he can have my lips instead. He brands me with his tongue, swallowing my soul and grinning because he knows it. “You taste good in the mornings.”
“I should brush my teeth.” I nip at his jaw and glide my palm along his ridged abdomen. The hard lines and sporadic puckered scars that hold a lifetime of trauma. Of pain. But he doesn’t speak of them. “I need a shower.”
“You showered last night.”
“I sweated while I slept.”
“Which makes you taste all the better.” He throws me over and crushes me to my back, then he follows with a chuckle and hungry hands, his fingers roaming my thighs and his lips trailing my belly. He lays over my good leg, careful not to hurt my bandaged knee, and pressing his palm to the inside of my thigh, he parts my legs and hums his pleasure. “You smell like a garden of roses, Minnnka.” He does to my clit what I did to his nipple, taking the hardened nub between his lips.
“Ah.” Breathless, I fist the sheets and dig my head deeper into the pillows, staring at the wall behind our bed. “Shit. Archer.”
“Tastes like dessert.” He drags his tongue from top to bottom, feasting on my body and groaning. “Tastes like I wanna drown in you.” Without warning, he slips two thick fingers inside my pussy and pins me to the mattress. “You’re so tight, Minnnka. How could I possibly resist you?”
