He whipped around to face her before she could find her sea legs, his expression dark and unreadable. “What was that?” he demanded.
Planting her feet—or rather, her heels—she went hands on hips. That was the only way to deal with him, just like one would when faced with an animal in the wild. Make herself as big and tall as she could and refuse to back down.
But as for what had come over her, honestly, she had absolutely zero idea. Maybe temper that he could read her like a map. Definitely frustration because he wound her up so tight that she sometimes fantasized about him deep in the night. Or all the time. And the hardest one to admit—embarrassment that she felt this way at all. If he ever found out, he’d be horrified and she’d have to move to Siberia. “Oh, please,” she scoffed, trying to hide her shame. Her only regret was that she hadn’t bitten him harder. “Don’t even try to tell me I hurt you. You’re impenetrable. A rock.”
“You think I can’t be hurt?” he asked with a whisper of disbelief.
“I think you don’t let it show if you are.” She didn’t realize they were literally toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose until she drew a deep breath and felt her chest brush his.
“What would you know about my feelings, Elle?” he asked very, very quietly, his warm breath brushing her temple.
And just like that, a new kind of tension came over her, something else as well, something that skittered along every single nerve ending in her body.
Bad body.
“Nothing,” she said. “I know nothing of your feelings because you’re an island to me.”
“Yeah? Well, you’re Siberia.”
“What the hell does that mean?” she demanded. “Are you saying I’m cold?”
“Icy cold.”
Which was funny because she was so mad she was hot and she couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, so she crossed her arms tight over herself, closing off, which was of course proving his words. And only because maybe way deep down she did want to know his feelings, wanted to know them more than anything, wanted to know that she mattered to him, that she could reach him, that she could indeed hurt him, she poked him in a hard pec.
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “Stop.”
Yeah, that would have been the wise thing to do. Definitely. But she’d never been all that wise when it came to him so she used her free hand to tell him he was number one. With her middle finger. “How’s that for icy, you overgrown, knuckle-dragging oaf—”
Swearing beneath his breath, he caught that wrist too and stepped into her, making her not only shut the hell up but also stumble back a few steps, off balance. A tree came up against her back and Archer used that to his advantage, pinning her there with lots of solid muscle.
Her breath caught. At the sound he froze, his gaze going heavy lidded as he stared at her mouth. Then he planted both hands flat on the huge tree on either side of her, framing her shoulders as he let out a long, careful exhale, resting his cheek against her hair. “You drive me crazy,” he murmured, his voice reverberating through his chest and into hers.
The words were such a contrast to his actions that it took her mind a moment to catch up. “Yeah, well, right back at you,” she managed, thrown off by the effortless way he was leaning into her, holding her there with his weight, completely immobilizing her.
And that wasn’t her biggest problem . . .
It was turning her on. “Move.”
He started to do just that and she would never in a million years be able to explain what she did next. She fisted her hands in his shirt, lifted her face, and . . . kissed him.
She felt his big body jerk in shock and tightened her grip, making a shockingly needy little whimper and he stilled. In the next beat he banded his arms around her and kissed her back. He kissed her slow and deep, taking his sweet-ass time about it too.
Tendrils of undeniable pleasure coursed through her, melting her bones away. She was still angry. So angry. And yet she couldn’t even remember why. That, coupled with her own sexual frustration and need, God, so much need, she literally went blank. Well, her brain did.
Not her body.
Her body reacted like it’d been deprived of touch for years, which was actually true. She moved against him, writhed really, trying desperately to get even closer, winding her arms around his neck to pull him into a better position to keep kissing him. When their tongues touched, they generated so much heat she nearly went up in flames and she tried to climb his body like he was a jungle gym.
This wrenched a groan from deep in his throat.
Sexiest sound ever.
Suddenly they were pulling at each other, grappling to get even closer, their hands furiously trying to gain purchase. She couldn’t get enough of him, his heat, the undeniable strength in every inch of his body. They were standing in a place not too far from the fire where anyone could come upon them and she didn’t even care.
When they were finally forced apart by their need for air, they stared at each other for a long beat. Elle would have liked to have the last word by casually pushing off and walking away, but she couldn’t. As in she literally couldn’t because the bones in her legs had gone on vacation, leaving her clinging to him. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said shakily. “I just can’t find my feet.”
Archer let out a low laughing groan into her neck and the movement of his mouth on her heated flesh had her toes curling. Since her hands were still in his hair she merely fisted them and tugged, and then they were kissing again.
Or still.
It was crazy, insanity really, but it was as if she’d die if she didn’t get her hands on him. Apparently he felt the same way because while she worked her fingers beneath his shirt and all over his chest and abs—and good God, those abs—he wrenched his jacket from her shoulders got his hands on her breasts, like touching her was more critical than the blood in his veins.
She’d have thought his skin would be chilled from his dip in the river but he was hot to the touch. He felt amazing and she actually got to the button fly on his Levi’s before he wrenched free and took a step back from her.
Good thing the tree was still at her back or she’d have slid bonelessly to the dirt.
Not looking all that steady himself, Archer shoved a hand into his hair and fisted his fingers in the silky strands, like maybe he’d gone crazy.
She certainly had. She was . . . stunned. Shocked. And wildly out of breath. She put a hand to her racing heart to see if she could keep the organ in her chest since it was throwing itself against her ribcage with every single heartbeat. “Next time,” she said unsteadily. “We do that without a potential audience.”
He just looked at her and then her heart stopped beating like a drum. It stopped beating period. Because she understood what his look said—there wasn’t going to be a next time. “Okay, scratch that.”
“Elle—”
“No. Never mind.”