Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(20)

Fucking fuck.

She tasted as dark and smoky as her eyes and he liked that taste so much, he couldn’t stop himself from rotating her, shoving up against her at the door, going for her ass with one hand and bunching her hair against the back of her head in the other to give himself something while he let her have her way with his mouth.

She broke their kiss by sliding her tongue out and nipping his lower lip with her teeth, so he lifted his head and stared up close into her gorgeous eyes.

“Hey,” she said.

The word was kinda breathy, but mostly it was just cool, confident and Archie.

“Hey,” he replied.

“So I decided I didn’t wanna sit down with your ex for dinner without knowing what you taste like,” she shared. “Hope that’s cool.”

“You wanna memorize it?” he offered. “’Cause, if you do, I’m totally down with that.”

She grinned at him.

Then she said, “You still got a handful of my ass, boyfriend.”

He started to slide his hand up at the same time apologize.

She stopped him by saying, “Just making an observation, no need to react.”

Jag chuckled, but in the middle of it, he suddenly stopped because what he said next was serious.

“You look gorgeous, Archie.”

Her fingers in his shirt went up to brush along his jaw, and she whispered, “Thanks.”

“But even if the world deserves to see you in that getup, I gotta admit, I got no motivation to go to dinner now.”

She smiled and shared, “No pressure, but my fourteen-year-old self, and fifteen, not to mention sixteen, seventeen, you get the picture, up until just now fantasized a lot about what it’d be like to kiss you.”

He felt a lot, hearing those words.

But he didn’t know what to say.

“Good those versions of me didn’t know how good it actually is or I’d be even more pissed you were such a big baby about our falling out,” she finished.

That made him move his hand from her ass to give her ribs a rebuking squeeze. “It wasn’t me being a baby.”

“So was.”

“Totally wasn’t.”

“Soooooo was.”

Jag wasn’t doing this.

So he kissed her again.

Yeah, it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

She tasted that good.

He broke it that time, saying, “Okay, baby, even if I have zero motivation to go, this is my brother, so we gotta get going.”

She nodded, pressed up against him in a way that wasn’t meant to be sexy, just sweet, then she slid away.

He turned and watched her walk to a sofa that was in the middle of the room.

Then he took in the room.

Her place was mostly open loft space. Wood floors with some rugs. At the back, a bar with stools delineating the kitchen. Walls behind which he guessed housed a bath. Open racks that held her clothes. Windows at the back and side that had alley views, her outdoor space was a fire escape where she had a bunch of potted plants and flowers.

It was eclectic and groovy. Like her store. Like her skirt. Like the welcome mat that had Spanish and Japanese on it. He saw a hint of a lot everywhere. Moroccan. Native American. A big chandelier that looked made of gold leaves hovered in the center of the ceiling that gave a slap of Italian. Old West. Boho. Asian. African.

It was cluttered but still felt roomy, schizophrenic but it made sense.

He dug every inch of it.

When he stopped inspecting it and looked at her, she was standing, holding a compact in front of her face, and putting on lipstick.

Seeing that—and feeling the velvet smack of the extreme femininity of it—he wanted to tackle her and fuck her on her tapestry-draped, emerald green velvet couch.

He didn’t.

He asked, “What’s Archie short for?”

“Nothing,” she answered, rubbed her lips together, slapped the compact closed, wound the lipstick down, capped it, and bent to her couch to grab a bag made entirely of fuchsia pink fringe.

She shoved the stuff in and turned to him.

“Nothing?” he pressed. “Your birth certificate says ‘Archie?’”

“It isn’t funny, and it’s funny.” She started walking to him. “They made a deal. Mom got to name the first kid. And Dad got to name the second. My brother’s name is Elijah. Dad always wanted a boy named Archie. Thing was, I came out a girl. Dad said it didn’t matter. Archie was a cute name for a girl. Mom was having none of it. Sucks for Mom, but she was out of it from giving birth and falling in love with me after, so she was all about that, and he hijacked the birth certificate. Named me Archie.”

She stopped in front of him still talking, but now she raised her hands at her sides, the fringe of her bag falling over the one that held it.

“So, I’m Archie.” She dropped her arms. “Mom was livid at first. Then it got to be a joke, her giving him shit about it. But she admitted to me, she wanted him to have what he wanted. So once she calmed down, she was glad he got what he wanted, even if she wanted to name me Emilia.”

“You are so totally not an Emilia.”

Her expression was amused, but also nostalgic, and not the good kind.

“I like that I’m what he wanted, but also I’m her giving that to him. I remember that happening a lot, both ways, when she was with us.”