Archer was standing on my porch, two carafes of coffee in his hands, looking deliciously rumpled, my pussy throbbing in happy memory of his body pressed to mine, his cock driving deep.
His eyes, the color vastly diminished through my cell’s screen, flicked toward the camera. “I’m not going anywhere . . . Dominque,” he said, his voice slightly rasped and sliding over my skin like lace mixed with velvet. He rotated one hand enough for me to see the wallet gripped between the coffee cup and his thumb.
Which answered the question of why he was on my porch.
How he’d found my porch.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The noise made me jump and I watched as he bent, stared directly into the camera. “I have caffeine. And your wallet, Dominque.”
And he had my name.
The way he said my name.
Fuck. I was in so much fucking trouble.
I wasn’t going downstairs. I wasn’t. I couldn’t . . . but God how I wanted to.
He smiled, and I would swear to the computer gods that I felt it right between my legs, exactly where he’d licked me the night before. “I see how it is,” he murmured. “How about I just leave this”—he lifted the hand with the wallet—“here, and I’ll just leave?”
“Yes,” I muttered. “Just leave.”
Archer waited, eyes on the camera. “All right, Niki baby,” he said in that soft, rasping voice. “I’ll leave.”
Then he bent slowly, setting the wallet and the coffee on my doormat and backing slowly off the porch. I watched his retreat through my phone, waited several minutes after he disappeared off the screen, half-expecting him to reappear jack-in-the-box style, popping up out of nowhere and catching me unawares.
I crept downstairs and toward the door, peeked out the window, gaze searching my front yard for any traces of my bearded, hazel-eyed orgasm machine.
But—and I certainly wasn’t disappointed—Archer wasn’t there.
My fingers flicked the lock, tugged open the wooden panel, slanting another suspicious look at my surroundings, stifling more of that not disappointment. The scent of coffee, bitter and roasted, drifted through the air, and I stepped out onto the porch, snatched the cup and my wallet, skidding back inside like a cat darting away from a potential bath, slamming the door, flicking the lock—and checking it twice, for good measure.
Then I took my coffee and my wallet up to my bedroom and crawled back under the covers.
Forget the early start I’d planned.
I was going back to sleep.
Chapter Seven
Archer
I’d probably made a mistake in not sticking around, but I’d figured that Dominque wouldn’t appreciate me pushing her further than I’d already pushed.
The selfishness in me wanted to see her again, to confirm she was as beautiful, as intoxicating to me in the light of the day as she’d been in the apartment the night before.
The rest of me already knew the answer to that.
I had a chubby from a one-sided conversation carried out via a doorbell camera.
So yeah, I already knew I had it bad.
And she’d left before the sun had risen.
She’d left approximately thirty minutes after I’d come inside her. I’d heard the door shut, its click jarring me out of the sleep I’d sunk into, the condom around my half-hard dick, my bed empty, my heart . . . sliced.
It had no right to be feeling anything, sliced open or aching or hurt because she hadn’t hung around.
It should be happy to have had some great sex, glad to have found some peace post-May, and ready to get back to my art, my job, my life that didn’t involve lusting after a woman, who clearly didn’t want anything further to do with me.
One night.
Some fun.
A great orgasm.
Done.
I glanced behind me, checking for traffic as I pulled onto the freeway, making my way back to my house. I was in the middle of a piece, was itching to get back to it, that itch in my fingertips to have it completed. I could feel the smooth wood of the paintbrush’s handle on my skin, the rough bite of the canvas, the cool stroke of the colors mixing together getting on my hands as often as the canvas.
I was a messy painter.
But I was a messy painter who’d built a career.
And one who worked in a bar.
Grinning as I navigated through the rush hour traffic, part because May would hate that, and there was nothing I loved more at this point in my life than pissing off my ex-wife (Petty? Yes. Absolutely. But after the hell that she-devil of a woman had put me through, I was embracing the petty. It sure as fuck was better than going to jail for murder). Aside from making May angry, I was working at Bobby’s because Kace had asked, because I was new in town, needed a fresh start, and it wasn’t like my personal life was hopping. I had nothing to do most evenings except binge documentaries and fantasy shows on Netflix. And drink.
I’d done a lot of drinking over the last six months since the divorce was final.
Of course, it would have been a hell of a lot easier if I could paint at night.
But I was a morning person. Always had been, always would be. I worked best under natural light when the sun was rising, and I painted in a flurry until the clock struck about three, that big ball of gas having crossed the midpoint of the sky and begun its downward descent.
Then I showered, and for the last few months, I’d gone to Bobby’s to help with the dinner rush, leaving to head home and crash, to sleep until the sun rose and I began painting all over again.
I was one of the lucky ones with a nest egg, with galleries that actually wanted my work, with money in my checking account.
I had less than May did.
But the prenup we’d signed had meant that I’d kept the rights to my work . . . along with turning down any alimony.
I hadn’t needed
