Break the Sky (Spiral of Bliss Spin Off) (11 page)

“She’ll find another way,”
he’d said.

What if that was also the truth? What if there was another way to fund the Spiral Project? What if I
did
find it?

I brushed my hand against Archer’s sleeve, right where the cuff exposed the skin of his wrist.

“I appreciate what you did,” I said. “More than I can say.”

There were a lot of things I felt around him that couldn’t be expressed with words.

We crossed a patch of grass toward my car.

“So, I’ll drop you off wherever you’re staying.” I dug into my purse for the keys. “Or you can drop yourself off, since you’ll probably insist on driving again.”

Archer extended his hand. I put the keys in his palm. I wondered why I wasn’t fighting his overbearing attitude more strongly. Why it felt almost good to have him insist on taking the reins. I went around to the passenger side and waited for him to unlock the doors.

Stopping on the driver’s side, he leaned his arms on the roof.

“You know of any clubs around here?” he asked.

“Clubs?”

“Someplace we could listen to some good music. Get a drink. Shake off the professors and small talk and whatever the fuck that fish was.”

I smiled. The long-suppressed pleasure of spontaneity rose in me at the thought of heading out for a night on the town.

I tried to think. There were a bunch of clubs on the outskirts of downtown that students frequented, but I didn’t want to go somewhere I might see one of them. Professor March didn’t hang out at noisy clubs, drinking and dancing with hot, sexy biker guys.

She didn’t frequent bars where she stripped such men with her eyes before blatantly stroking their tattoos and sinking into a kiss that—

Professor March didn’t do that.

I took a breath. My heartbeat ratcheted up a notch.

“I should…”
I should go home
. That was what I meant to say. Instead, I said, “I should be able to find somewhere we can go.”

“Good.” He shot me a smile, so warm and striking that I could almost feel my defenses falling away. He’d shed his jacket and tie, and now wore just the trousers and white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar to reveal the strong, tanned column of his throat.

“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” I said as we got in the car. “I know it’s not your kind of gathering. Not really mine, either, truth be told.”

“So why do you go?”

“I have to. Professional networking with the board of trustees and the chancellor. With the final tenure decision coming up, I need to prove I’m a team player.”

“Are you?”

“No. But if you hum a few bars, I’ll fake it.”

He laughed. The warm, rich sound stirred through me, making me feel like I’d just sipped a hot café mocha on a snowy night.

“So where are we going?” he asked.

I pulled up the browser on my phone to find a place. After directing Archer onto the highway leading to Rainwood, he exited near the downtown area.

We parked and walked to the Queen of Hearts club. The sidewalks were crowded with people out on a Saturday night. Laughter and music filtered through the air. Archer rested his hand on the small of my back as we wove through the crowd.

I appreciated that he gave me some space. I’d never liked it when men tried to hold my hand as we walked or put their arm heavily around my shoulders, as if they had to prove they were manly and protective. Archer didn’t have to prove anything. He just
was
.

He guided me into the club and paid the cover fee. Inside, colored lights lit the darkness, and couples gyrated on the dance floor. A reggae band was onstage, the rhythmic sounds of Caribbean music thumping.

After getting drinks, we found an empty table. Again, Archer sat close to me, but not too close. It was like he knew I still had boundaries and wouldn’t cross them.

Unless I wanted him to.

Which I didn’t.

Not even if he would make you ache and throb and probably scream—

Shut up.

I took a swallow of wine and turned my attention to the band. The reggae music was stimulating, the bass line thick and heavy. The beat of the snare drum began to echo inside me.

Archer leaned closer to my ear, raising his voice above the din. “Dance?”

I smiled and nodded. I hadn’t danced in ages, but there had been a time when not a weekend passed that I wasn’t out on the dance floor. Until I hit the straight and narrow with a precision that a laser would have envied. Anything
fun
got tossed to the wayside as I worked my way through grad school and post-doc positions.

I pushed the thought away and got to my feet. Archer closed his hand around mine, and we worked our way to the dance floor. It was easy to get into the rhythm of dancing with him. He didn’t get all up into my space, but took the lead in a way that made it entirely natural to fall into the music.

My blood warmed, and my tension slipped away, all the stress about review boards, proposals, and tenure decisions melting into the primitive beat. The lights flashed in a kaleidoscope of colors. I spun and twisted and twirled. Energy filled me. I welcomed Archer’s hands on my hips, his body brushing against mine.

My heart pulsed. Bodies gyrated around us. “Red Red Wine” pounded from the speakers, the heady beat pulling me closer to Archer. In the shifting light, his ruggedly handsome features looked sharper, harder, his eyes hot as coals as he raked his gaze over my body. My breath shortened. Our eyes clashed.

A current of electricity sizzled between us. He slid his hands down my sides, his touch burning a path clear through my dress. I drew in a breath, wanting him to pull me closer. I wanted to feel the length of his body against mine.

I closed the distance, unable to take my gaze from his, those midnight eyes in which I could see myself. My breasts brushed against his chest, a shock of arousal coursing from my hard nipples to my sex. He tightened his hands on my hips, the pressure evoking an unbearable craving to know what his touch would feel like on my bare skin. I wanted to put my arms around him. I wanted to press my cheek against his chest and let him take me to places that were dark, dangerous, and exhilarating.

The heat of his body enveloped me, drew me in. I moved where he moved, both of us swiveling our lower bodies, circling ever closer. My nerves burned. Then he was there, his hips pressed to my stomach, his chest against my breasts. We both slowed, still moving, the noise and dancing around us fading.

And then I felt the swell of his erection against me, a hard, unmistakable ridge pressing into my belly. Lust shot through me like a firebolt. He moved his hands slowly around to my ass and lowered his head, still guiding me to the rhythm of the music, his breath a warm trail over my cheek to my neck. I closed my eyes. My whole body went weak when he pressed his lips to my collarbone.

Oh, god. I was aching. I wanted him to slide his hands under my dress and caress my skin. I wanted him to push his knee between my legs and guide me to writhe against his strong thigh again. I wanted to feel his lips on my breasts, my belly, my—

A moan escaped me, barely audible under the noise of the music, the thumping bass line. I pressed my hand against Archer’s chest, felt the warm, rigid slopes of the muscles beneath his shirt, and then without thinking, I slid my hand down to cup the hard bulge pushing against his trousers. His breath hissed out. I leaned my forehead on his chest and closed my eyes.

I couldn’t do this. Shouldn’t do this…

His hands tightened on me, and when he spoke his voice was a rough growl.

“Let’s get out of here.”

We couldn’t move fast enough. He grabbed my hand and moved through the mass of people crowding the dance floor. I followed blindly, stunned by the intensity of my response to him, the hot fever coursing through my blood.

He got our jackets and hurried us out the front door, the rush of evening air a shock after the noise and heat of the nightclub. I shivered, struck by the sudden sense that I wasn’t losing control of this situation. I’d already lost control.

Archer tossed my jacket around my shoulders and led me back to the car. Before I could get in, he pushed me up against the passenger door, his hips hard against mine, his body so big and muscular I knew there would be no escape, even if I’d wanted it.

I didn’t. I wanted more. More of his body. More of his touch. More of him.

He stared at me, something feral lighting his dark eyes. He slipped his hand beneath my chin, tilting my face to his. My throat tightened with some indefinable emotion. I suddenly realized that the reason I couldn’t remember how long it had been since I’d felt like this was because… I never had.

“You’re beautiful,” Archer murmured, his husky voice rolling over my skin. He reached up with his other hand to touch the blue streak in my hair. “You’re like a creature from some exotic land that no one has discovered yet.”

I managed to find my voice through a laugh. “That is the strangest, most amazing compliment I’ve ever received.”

A responding smile tugged at his mouth before he lowered his head and captured my lips in a kiss of fierce possessiveness. I melted, falling against him, giving in to the urge to wind my arms around his neck and thread my fingers through his thick, dark hair. He shifted closer, his hands finding my hips again, sealing our bodies together. It was a kiss of command, of heat, of promise, of lust.

He urged my lips apart with the pressure of his, his tongue against mine bolting arousal to my core. A moan escaped me, sliding from my mouth to his. Our tongues danced as we kissed and licked and sucked. I pressed my hips against his and writhed, aching to feel the length of his hard cock, wishing desperately that I could see it, see him, touch all the planes of his body…

He lifted his head, breaking our kiss. His breathing was hard, rasping against my lips, tension coiling like wire through him. He leaned his forehead against mine and tightened his hands on my shoulders.

I couldn’t speak past the heat still filling my throat. I closed my eyes, unable to stand looking into the burning darkness of his gaze.

“What?” I whispered.

“We keep going, I’m going to fuck you right here,” he muttered, his voice rough with restraint. “You’re so goddamn sexy, you make me forget I have any control.”

“We could…” I swallowed hard and opened my eyes to stare at the unfastened buttons of his shirt, the V of tanned skin, the column of his throat where I knew his skin was warm and taut.

“We could go back to my place,” I whispered.

Oh, no. No. I couldn’t… I wouldn’t… no…

“Where do you live?” He nuzzled his nose into my hair, his breath stirring the tendrils around my temple.

“Back… back in Mirror Lake. I—I can tell you how to get there.” I knew I couldn’t drive. I could barely walk.

Archer moved away from me, the sudden loss of his body heat causing a cold shiver to prickle my skin. He reached around me to unlock the passenger-side door.

“Professor March?”

For a second, the world turned hazy. I blinked. Tried to take in a breath.

“Thought that was you,” said a young man’s voice. “Whatcha doing out here?”

A blond guy stood nearby with a couple of other college kids, all urban chic in jeans and T-shirts. I forced myself to snap out of the sensual heat in which I’d just been immersed.

I recognized the blond guy as one of my undergrad students from the previous semester. Matt. I cleared my throat and straightened, pushing away from the car.

“Hi, guys. Just out for a night. Thought we’d get out of Mirror Lake.” I sensed Archer behind me, but this time his presence wasn’t comforting. “Where are you guys going?”

“Over to a bar on East Street,” Matt said, his eyes flicking to Archer.

“Have a good time,” I said, then because I knew I had to sound like a professor rather than a horny woman who’d just been making out in a parking lot, I added, “Stay safe.”

“We will. Good seeing you.”

“You, too.” The college kids headed away from us toward the noise and lights of downtown. I was still cold. Behind me, Archer was silent.

I turned to face him. I looked at his beautiful mouth, the angles of his cheekbones, his thick-lashed eyes and eyebrows that mitigated the hard planes of his face. His eyes were shuttered now, as if he knew something had drastically changed.

An ache split through my chest. I wanted to curse, even as the rational part of my brain knew this was a reprieve I would again be grateful for in the morning.

Or at some point. Like a year from now, maybe.

“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I should go home alone.”

Archer tilted his head in the direction the guys had gone. “Because of a few college kids?”

“They probably saw us kissing.”

“So?”

“They’ll talk.”

“So?” Irritation darkened his eyes. “Kissing won’t get you in trouble.”

“No, but… I don’t need it getting around that Professor March was busy making out in a parking lot on Saturday night.”

He pushed away from the car. “You don’t need it getting around that you were making out with me.”

“No!” A spark of anger flared. “This isn’t about you, Archer, believe it or not. I’m a professor… a good one. No. A great one. My students respect me. I’ve worked hard for my reputation, and I don’t want it getting around that I’m anything less than professional.”

“Jesus, Kelsey. You need to be a professor even when you’re off the clock?”

“I’m always on the clock.”

Archer looked at me, his eyes filled with frustration. Then he yanked open the passenger-side door and indicated that I should get in. I did, my hands shaking as I pulled on the seatbelt and waited for him to start the car.

I didn’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t. It was more than just a few guys catching Archer and me in a parking lot. For all I knew, they’d forgotten about the incident already, and even if they didn’t, they probably couldn’t have cared less what I was doing or with whom.

No. It was slipping into the uncontrollable that scared the living shit out of me, the knowledge that I’d been about to take a wild, reckless plunge over the edge. And the unbearable, aching sense that I’d love every second of it, even knowing the fall would hurt like hell.