He walked me to his suite, his arm around my shoulder. Words gathered again on my tongue. Holden and Bree and my mother and history… I turned into him at the door, a whole avalanche of truth perched on the tip of it.
He kissed me before a syllable slipped out, hands sliding around my waist. I found his lapels and held on tight. I had to believe this was real. Something this good couldn’t be wrong. Archer wouldn’t have left Brianne in the lurch. No—she’d broken his heart, not the other way around.
His forehead rested against mine. “Fucking missed you all day. I couldn’t look at you at the lodge without getting hard. Without fear someone would see how much I wanted you.” With one arm locked around my waist, he lifted me straight up and carried me inside.
“I missed you, too.” I whispered against his mouth.
We barely made two steps in before my back hit the door, his body covering mine, kisses urgent. The world fell away with our clothes until there was only the hot press of him through my slick seam—skin on skin, hard and deep, rough and needy.
“Yes, Archer. More—faster.” I wanted him to erase the melodrama. Tomorrow I’d tell him. Tonight, I wantedus.And I prayed the news wouldn’t break him again.
The scent of his cologne mixed with cigars and desire, wrapped around me, dizzying. A chorus rose around us, thesounds of our bodies in motion, our breathing out of control, moans and cries andfuck yes. The creaking door, too, taking every thrust of our bodies, until his growl echoed off the suite walls as his cum filled me up inside.
We weren’t done yet. He carried me to the bed, for more.
Tomorrow I’d face the truth. But tonight, I chose this—his hands, his heart, the possibility of happily-ever-after blinding me from anything that could break us apart.
RISE AND FALL
Archer
The snarlof horns and red taillights worsened—total gridlock as the city sprinted toward Thanksgiving and everything after. I loved this time of year, with the shop windows lit like stage sets, the air with a mean little bite, and the myth that New Yorkers got kinder.
Someone honked behind me for double-parking in front of Brier’s brownstone. I didn’t care.
The world could honk itself hoarse. This weekend, I had Penny Fair all to myself. Well, except for taking her to Friendsgiving to meet all my friends, my people. I wasn’t nervous about it—I knew they’d like her.
I only worried they’d resurrect the past and their concerns about her “Brianne adjacent-ness” again. They needn’t worry. Lately, I didn’t even think of the past anymore, as if Penny brought me out of the shadows I’d been in far too long.
When she came bounding down the steps, the wind lifted her hair, fresh as in a shampoo commercial. Smartly dressed in jeans and booties, with a camel-colored coat cinched at the waist. By the time she reached me with pink cheeks from the chill, her smile was bright enough to drown the skyline with sunshine on this dreary fall day.
I got out and greeted her at the trunk and grabbed her suitcase, packing it in the trunk. I ran ahead of her and opened the passenger door for her too.
“You’re fired,” I said on a laugh.
She snorted and stopped short, hand on the door. “What for this time?
“Company policy. I can’t take an employee to Friendsgiving—too many liability clauses. You could choke on a turkey bone or go sugar-drunk on Vivian’s desserts. Temper yourself around those.” I winked.
She laughed in her low musical tone that always found the cracks in my defenses. “Good thing I enjoy living dangerously. I’ll take my chances.”
When I slid into the driver’s seat, the car filled with her warm vanilla perfume and citrus-scented hair products. I leaned across the console. “Pay the toll. Kiss me.”
We met in the middle, lips and tongues, lingering there until another idiot honked behind us.
When I pulled back, her breath caught. “What do you say we get out of here for the weekend?”
“Great idea.” With my hand on her thigh, we braved the journey ahead. She’d point out things as we passed them, like wreaths with red bows hung from street lamps. She ooh’d and ahh’d at the tree set up in Rockefeller Center. We played a game of trying to find the shoppers carrying the glossiest, biggest shopping bags.
I liked this time with her. I’d spent too many years watching this season from my office window, very much alone and lonely, just another man sprinting toward deadlines. This year, I had someone beside me humming along to nonstop Christmas songs on the radio and drumming her fingers on her knees.
I grinned at her rendition of the Hippopotamus Song playing from the speakers. Maybe it was time to admit it—at least to myself. For once, I had a girlfriend during the holidays.
Girlfriend.And it felt crazy good.
I decided that’s what I’d call her in private for now, like a test fit before the final set. The word almost strange—too small for what she was, too big for what I probably deserved. Still, we made sense, like the last beam finally fitted into place on the remodeling of my heart.
She turned the volume up on the next song—Deck the Halls.
