“Minka—”
“You didn’t eventryto be gentle. You slammed me, Archer. You broke my heart, and no matter what we want, no matter how many times we argue, or how many dinners you crash, or how many times you force yourself into my space, we willneverput my heart back together the way it was before.”
She exhales a shuddering breath. Worse, she takes a step back, so her face is no longer mine to hold. “I understand you were scared when you found out about my involvement with Agosti’s death, and I understand arguments mean tempers run high and unkind words are said. I understandeverythingabout you, because I’ve spent the last eighteen months paying attention to your heart, even when it looked like I paid attention to nothing at all. When you’re hurt or scared or stressed out, youneed me. You need my body. You need to lay your ear over my heart to make everything feel better again. And even when I didn’t agree with your penchant for sex instead of discussing the things that really mattered, I gave you what you needed anyway.” She draws a deep breath, filling her lungs and looking me square in the eyes. “I can’t breathe without you, Archer. I can’t sleep without you. I can’t function without you. When I was sad, or lonely, or scared, I found peace just by being in the same room as you. When my past knocked at the back of my consciousness, intent on chipping away at my psyche, simply looking at you helped silence the critical voices in my head. You knew.” She shakes her head, turning and picking up her purse. “You sent me away anyway.”
My heart gallops painfully in my chest, burning and scorching with every thump. “Please, just give us another minute to work this out.”
“I wish there was a magical pill that could take us back a week,” she croaks. “I wish there was a way to undo this mess.”
“Minka—”
“Unfortunately, the problem with handing my soul to someone else and telling himexactlyhow to break me, is that when he does, inevitably, break me, I know without a single shred of doubt he did it with his eyes wide open.”
“Minka!”
“It wasn’t an accident. It was a choice. Youchoseto destroy me.” She starts toward the door, shaking my hand off before I can wrap my palm around her wrist and trap her here with me. “I don’t hate you.” She stops with her fingers on the doorknob, her forehead pressed to the solid wood. “Worse… I hate me. I hate me so much, I can’t bear to look at you, because there’s nothing you can say now that can compete with those voices screaming in my head. They mock me.” Her voice catches and breaks. “They taunt me. I’ve spent eighteen months trying to convince you to give up on me. And here we are…” She peeks over her shoulder, devastatingly beautiful and heart-achingly sad. “I hate myself for the prophecy I set in place for us. I hate myself for daring to fall in love with someone I would never get to keep.”
“I want a code word.” I stalk across the room and stop when her perfume is in my lungs once more. “You and Soph, you have Jericho. It means something, right? You and Aubs; you have something else. I don’t think it even needs a word, because she reads your emotions even before you understand them.”
Her brows pinch tight over glassy chocolate eyes.
“You and Fifi have a thing. You and Tim even have a thing. Fuck, Mayet, Felix can call you up and saydiabetes, and BAM, he’s got your attention.” I drag the chain around my neck up, bringing my wedding band outside my shirt to rest over my chest. “I want a thing. Right now. I want a word that makes us both stop.”
Her jaw trembles and bounces, the skin beneath her nose reddening. “A word?”
“No matter what we’re doing or how busy we are or how much pain we’re in, no matter if we’re angry with the other, or sad or stubborn or on a fucking mission to end someone else’s life.” I grab her arm and spin her around, pressing her back to the door. “I want a word as meaningful as Jericho, and I want it figured out right here. Right fucking now. I want it to be the word either of us can say, no matter what else is happening around us, and it’ll stop time. I want it to be the Hail Mary forour relationship and as fucking powerful as the vows we spoke on a yacht in the Caribbean Ocean.” I step closer and cup her jaw, tilting her head back so I don’t lose her eyes. “Give me a word, Mayet. I demand it.”
“Um…” Her voice crackles, and her lashes come down to kiss her cheeks. But with every blink, a fresh tear trickles onto her flesh. “What about Jamaica?” she rasps. “Jamaica could be?—”
“Good. Jamaica.” I dive forward and capture her lips, swallowing her breath and her fucking soul in one greedy mouthful, even when our touch feels more like rage, and less like desire. Folding closer until my chest crushes hers, I scoop her up and bring her legs around my hips, her back slamming against the door, and the taste of her tears on my tongue. “Jamaica,” I repeat, desperately cupping her ass cheeks and dragging the succulent globes apart. I settle her fiery core on my cock, the hard length trapped behind the zipper of my jeans, but when she drapes her arms over my shoulders and tosses her clutch to the floor, meeting my tongue with her own, I dive in and take more. More. More. “Jamaica,” I repeat our word, I fucking rely on it, even as my voice catches and my heart stumbles. But fuck, my hands know what to do. My cock. My thighs, supporting us both. Our tongues duel, our lips clash. Our teeth mark, so everything we do is a culmination of pain and desperation.
There’s no room for tenderness for us. I’m not sure we have it in us to give.
“You think this fixes what we did?” She slips her hand beneath my shirt, raking her nails over my skin so I know, tomorrow, I’ll look in the mirror and know she was here. Tonight, while we’re in Jamaica, we’re together. “Archer?”
“No.” I slide my hand between us and dig my fingers pasther underwear, plunging them into her lava-like core and holding on tight when she explodes. Crying. Whimpering. Begging. “Fuck,” I groan. “No, this fixes nothing. But I can’t let you go.”
She lays her head on my shoulder and rides my hand. I know the wall bites into her back, and that every hitched exhale is her heart pleading for mercy. I know what we are—insanely toxic—and that she deserves better than to love the murderous son of a fucking don.
But I can’t quit on us. Even when there are folks outside of us demanding I do. Even when the most powerful man in the country tells me to send her away…or else.
I lock my arm beneath her thighs and hold her up, knowing that when I put her down, this is over again. When I allow her a moment to arrange her thoughts, we’ll be relegated to the Minka and Archer whose pain is a mountain we haven’t quite figured out how to scale just yet.
Angry and raw, I fuck her dripping cunt with just two fingers, and slam my lips to hers so she’s all I taste. So she’s all I am. She’s all I want. “You’re so much more than the unkind thoughts in your mind.” I bite the strap of her dress and drag it to the side, all so I can nip at her collarbone. Her shoulder. Her neck. And when that’s not enough, I steal her release and earn her cry of devastation, pulling my fingers from her vicious heat and tearing her panties clean off her body instead.
Her legs tighten around my hips, dragging me in like a spider trapping her prey, and because she’s as needy as I am, she unfastens my belt with frenzied hands, whipping my zipper down and unsnapping my jeans.
“Don’t talk about the things that make us sad.” She drops her hand into my boxer shorts and fists my cock.
“Fuck!” I throw my head back and grip her thighs tight. God, I know my grip bruises her. “Minnnka.”
“We’re in Jamaica.” Panting, she pushes my pants down just far enough to make this work, then she pulls on my dick, squeezing and rolling her hand along my length. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry, or you’re lonely. Don’t tell me to come home, or not to come home. Don’t talk to me about the mean things my brain says.”
“Minka—”
“Fuck me until I forget.” She places the head of my cock at her fiery opening. “Fuck me the way a Malone fucks the woman he wants. That’s what I want right now.”
I groan, low and guttural, and pressing my forehead to hers, I look down at where we join and thrill in watching my cock disappear inside her blissful heat.
