Page 65 of Knights Like These
“That I don’t want you. I can’t say it because it’s not true, and I’m a terrible liar, and you’d know.”
“Yeah.” His voice is low. “I’d know.”
“You’re supposed to talk me out of this, Archer. That’s how this works. I give the speech, and you agree, and we go back to being responsible adults who don’t—”
He kisses me.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, pulling me in as his mouth covers mine, and the speech—the three-day, shower-rehearsed, Lauren-approved, airtight speech—disintegrates on contact. I grab the front of his shirt with both hands, pulling him closer because I’m tired of being responsible, tired of being scared. His mouth is warm, and he tastes like mint gum, and I missed him. Three days of a road trip, and I missed him like a limb, and that should terrify me, and it does, yet I kiss him anyway.
He groans against my mouth—low, rough—and his arm wraps around my waist, lifting me into his lap, my knees on either side of his hips. His hands are on my waist, my fingers are in his hair, and we’re making out on his couch like teenagers who just discovered French kissing.
“Syd.” He pulls back half an inch, breathing hard. “I need you to know this isn’t—”
“I know.” I kiss him again. “I know it’s not a rebound.”
“I haven’t—” His hands tighten on my waist as I shift in his lap. “I haven’t been with anyone in over two years, and I’m, uh—” He exhales hard through his nose when I roll my hips. “I’m trying to be a gentleman about this.”
“How’s that going?”
“Badly.”
I laugh against his mouth, and he pulls me closer, one hand sliding up my back under my shirt, his palm flat against my bare skin. The contact sends a shiver through me that he feels because his arm tightens in response. His mouth moves to my neck, just below my ear, and I tilt my head back, feeling his teeth graze my skin. I make a sound that I would be embarrassed about if I could think, which I can’t, because his hands are under my shirt and his mouth is on my throat, and I am sitting in his lap, wanting this for more than a decade. It is better than I imagined, and I imagined it a lot.
His hand slides higher up my back, and I arch into him as he says my name against my neck like a prayer and a curse at the same time. I’m reaching for the hem of his shirt when I hear it.
A small voice from the top of the stairs.
“Daddy?”
We freeze. His hands stop moving. My hands stop moving. We’re both breathing hard, my hair is everywhere, and his shirt is twisted. We look at each other for one suspended second before I climb off his lap, and he stands up. We separate like two magnets yanked apart.
“Yeah, buddy?” His voice is wrecked, and he clears his throat, trying again. “Yeah, Luke. What’s up?”
Luke stands at the top of the stairs in his pajamas, holding his shark blanket, his face crumpled with sleep. “I had a bad dream.”
“I’ll be right there.”
I watch Archer take the stairs two at a time. Luke reaches for him, and Archer scoops him up. Luke’s face presses into his shoulder, his small arms wrapping around his dad’s neck. Istand in the living room, my shirt twisted, my lips swollen, my heart hammering, watching this man hold his son. I think: this is why I gave the speech. Because this is what’s at stake. Not my heart. Not his. Theirs.
Archer carries Luke down the hall toward his room, murmuring something low that I can’t hear, and I stand at the bottom of the stairs, waiting until I hear Luke’s door open and the soft sounds of Archer settling him back into bed.
I should go to the guest room. I should go to sleep. I should think about the way he just flat-out rejected my speech.
I walk upstairs. Archer is in Luke’s room, lying on the twin bed next to his son, one arm around him, Luke’s shark blanket pulled up to his chin. Luke’s eyes are already closing. Archer’s hand is on his back, rubbing slow circles, and he looks up when he sees me in the doorway.
I lean against the frame. He looks at me across the dim room, over his sleeping son, his eyes soft, his lips still red from my mouth, and his hair a disaster because my hands did that.
“Goodnight, Arch,” I say.
“Night, Syd,” he whispers.
I push off the doorframe, walk to the guest room, close the door, and stand there with my back against it, pressing my fingers to my lips.
He’s right. I didn’t say I don’t want this. Because I can’t, because it’s the biggest lie I’d ever tell, and we’ve both had enough of those to last a lifetime.
I gave the speech. The airtight, responsible, grown-up speech.
He kissed me right through it.
