Liar (Madison Kate #2)(83)
"Do you want me to tell you a secret, Kate?" he asked me in a husky whisper, his hooded blue eyes holding mine like a bear trap. Fuck. My iron core turned to liquid, and the tension flowed out of my muscles like the tide receding. He was going to hurt me again, I could already see it coming, but he was also pressing my buttons in just the right way so I’d let it happen.
"Yes," I replied, my voice barely more than an exhale. The promise of secrets was becoming an obsession for me, and I was powerless to walk away.
Archer moved again, bringing his lips just an inch from mine, and my whole body responded. The memory of kissing him was still so fresh, no matter how badly I tried to bury it.
"I don't hurt women," he told me in a secretive whisper, his blue eyes flashing with cruelty a second before his fingers twisted in my hair and yanked my head back sharply. A startled gasp escaped my throat at the sting of pain. But against all my better judgement, that gasp turned into a breathy moan when Archer's teeth brushed the flesh of my neck below my ear. "Unless they beg me for it." He finished his "secret" with a bite, hard enough to leave a mark, and it took everything in me not to tear his tiny underpants off.
"I'll never beg you," I replied with weak-level sass as warm arousal flooded through me and made me tremble.
Archer huffed a smug laugh. "Begging isn't reserved for verbal communication, Kate. Your body screams everything you're too stubborn to say out loud."
I scoffed, leaning far enough away from him to meet his eyes again. "In your fucking dreams, D'Ath."
His lush lips curled in a smirk. "Relentlessly."
I raised my hands between us to shove him away, but he was already moving. He swiped his robe and threw it on in a quick motion, but he wasn't fast enough to hide the way his Calvin's were strained by his thick erection.
He stormed out of the studio in just his robe, heading outside to talk with Steele, who still stood out there with a phone to his ear. Meanwhile, inside the studio it seemed like I was the center of attention. Kody stared at me with a deep frown pulling his brow, seeming worried. Nicky was holding her camera with a wide grin on her face, and Jase was scowling like he was plotting my death.
Luna, though, was nowhere to be seen—inside the studio or outside. She was just... gone.
30
God forbid I ever catch a fucking break. The week after the photo shoot, Nicky started posting some of the images to her social media. Images that included me, something I was pretty sure wasn't allowed, considering I hadn't signed any release forms. But apparently Archer had oh-so-helpfully taken care of that formality for me.
Legal? Hell no. Worth fighting about in court? Not even close.
Besides, even I had to admit the photos were pretty incredible, even if they had been taken without my knowledge or consent. The expression on my face while Archer's huge, tattooed form hunched over me, his face hidden in my neck... Ugh, fuck.
Of course, the day after I was tagged in the first image with Archer looking all too naked between my legs, a little MK replica Barbie was found attached to the front gate with zip ties. She was wearing the same outfit I'd had on the day of the photo-shoot—black woolen tights with a plaid skirt, chunky-heeled boots, and a low-cut gray top—but this time my stalker had scrawled a word across her forehead.
Whore.
"Great," I muttered, tossing the offensive doll back onto the kitchen counter after Kody showed me. I appreciated the fact that they weren't hiding my stalker mail, but also... fuck it all. I was so tired of the paranoia and feeling like we were making no progress.
The doll hit the pile of Christmas decorations that the staff had been hanging, knocking a few bells to the floor. I didn’t pick them up because I was in a shitty mood and all the festive decorations going up around the house only served as a reminder that my father never spent the holidays with me. Not even before my mom had died.
"Are you okay?" Steele asked me cautiously, like he'd been expecting a different reaction.
"MK, we're—" Kody started to say, but I cut him off.
"Forget it," I snapped. "We're no closer to working out who this freak is, are we? So, let's just fucking ignore these creepy fucking dolls. He wants to scare me, and I'm sick of it. I'm done. They're just dolls." Dolls that still scared the crap out of me and featured way too frequently in my nightmares, but just dolls nonetheless.
We'd been on our way to the gym when Steinwick had given the doll to Kody, so I just shrugged and continued through to the gym, where Archer was already on the weight bench lifting a heavily loaded bar. He was in full training mode with his next fight only a week away. Given that he wasn't getting any sly assistance from steroid powder this time, he was pushing himself so much harder.
I almost felt bad. But then he'd deliver some snarky barb, and I'd consider sabotaging him again.
But Kody and Steele had stayed true to their offer to prank Archer for me, and in the past week there had been more than a few explosive arguments in the wake of a bucket of ice water positioned above a doorway or, my personal favorite, laxatives in the coffee.
Kody had been dedicating just as much time to the gym as Archer, taking his role as trainer seriously and providing a decent sparring opponent as they worked through techniques, holds, and takedowns. But that meant he'd passed my self-defense training over to Steele.