Secret Sins (7 page)

How often had she listened to her father and grandfather chuckle in amusement over
the number of women chasing after Archer? Marisa was merely one in a long line of
women who thought they could break Corbin County’s favorite stud, her grandfather
had drawled in amusement, unaware that Anna had been on the balcony above them, her
heart breaking at each amused observation made.

She’d loved him since she was a young girl. As a teenager, he’d been the man she measured
every boy against and, as her interest in the opposite sex began maturing, it had
been Archer she’d dreamed of kissing, touching, loving, and nothing over the years
had changed that. And now, here she was, uncertain in the face of the needs she couldn’t
seem to make sense of, the building pain of the desertion of her family, and the certainty
that what was left of her heart would be lying in tatters, just as it had been left
that morning.

“You’re too quiet,” Archer observed as he pulled into the sheltered parking pad next
to the house he’d inherited from his parents.

“What do you want me to say?” Shaking her head at the bitterness she couldn’t seem
to fight, she pushed open the vehicle’s door and jumped out.

“For starters? ‘I’m sorry, Archer, yes, I’ll let you practice all those manners your
momma beat into your brain before her death and sit nice and still while you open
my door and help me from the vehicle,’” he quoted with an edge of mocking censure.

Anna looked from the door to the seat as he rounded the front of the vehicle.

Drawing in a deep breath, she knew there was no way in hell to fight not just what
she felt for him, but also the physical need for him.

It was mixed up with her need for this county, the need for her family, and the need
to just belong.

“I’m sorry, Archer.” She sighed as he glared down at her. “Unlike you, my momma didn’t
teach me all the finer points of responsible manners.”

“No, but I know damned good and well all those fancy girls’ schools you attended taught
you that, and more,” he grunted as he gripped her arm and moved to lead her up the
steps from the front curb to the porch.

“I’m not a child.” Pulling her arm free of his hold she stared up at him archly. “I
know how to walk on my own.”

His touch did something to her that she had no idea how to combat. She wanted to throw
herself in his arms, beg him to touch her, to take her, to drive her crazy with his
kiss.

“Hell, woman, you’re going to drive me to drink.” He sighed as she moved up the steps,
strode quickly across the small front yard, then up several more steps to the front
porch.

“Do you really think I will?” Cocking her head to the side she watched as he stepped
on the porch and unlocked the door.

“Well, let’s hope not,” he stated. “But if you do, it’s my fault alone, and none of
yours.”

Stepping into the house, Anna looked around at the heavy dark wood of the furniture
and matching dark curtains that kept the room to a bare glimmer of light that managed
to spill into it.

As Archer stepped into the house and closed the door, Anna watched in complete wonderment
as a huge, dark brown shadow stalked slowly from the hall. Body crouching in predatory
mode, belly low to the ground, golden brown eyes, nearly identical to those of his
owner, peered around the side of the couch.

Anna deliberately ignored him as she hoisted the strap of the backpack higher on her
shoulder and followed Archer through the foyer to the sunlit kitchen at the far end
of the large entryway.

“Oscar, be a good kitty,” Archer chastised the cat behind her as they entered the
bright, roomy kitchen. A wide archway led to the living room, another to the dining
room beside it, and then what appeared to be a study from the other side of the room.

“You can put your things down,” he told her as he moved to the coffeepot. “I’ll show
you up to the guest room in a minute.”

After the inevitable interrogation, she guessed.

“I’m not in the mood for twenty questions, Archer,” she informed him. “This hasn’t
been one of my better days, and I’d like to just lie around and feel sorry for myself
for a while. I have a feeling you don’t consider your guest room pity-party central,
though. Right?”

His gaze was like a heated caress against her flesh. A caress she had no choice but
to pretend to be unaware of.

“What happened, Anna?”

The question hung between them as she dropped the backpack and purse at her feet.

She’d known he was going to ask. Archer should have been a prosecutor rather than
a sheriff.

“What makes you think anything happened?” Wrapping her arms across her breasts, she
turned and paced to the wide sliding glass doors that looked out to the private balcony
beyond.

“Now, what would make me think anything happened?” he asked mockingly. “Could it have
been the fact that you were walking down that damned mountain road like a little waif?”

Like a little waif—

“A waif is defined as a person, especially a child, who has no home or friends,” she
murmured mockingly. “I actually had cause to have to define the word last year.”

She could hear the tears in her own voice, feel them tightening her throat.

“Anna, tell me what happened.” The gentleness in the demand almost broke the hold
on her tears.

Lifting her eyes to his reflection as he moved to her, Anna watched as his hands,
so large and broad, settled against her shoulders, his thumbs stroking gently beneath
her nape.

“Do you know your mother called me?” he asked when she didn’t answer.

“What did she say?” Jerking her gaze to the reflection of his eyes, Anna felt her
heartbeat becoming sluggish and heavy as her chest tightened painfully.

The sound of her mother’s tears earlier had cut at wound in her soul that still bled.

“She said your grandfather had thrown you out and you were walking alone toward Sweetrock.”
The sound of his voice left her wondering if perhaps her mother hadn’t had much more
than that to say.

Tightening her lips as they threatened to begin trembling once again, she said, “I
refused to take the job in France that Jacques Dermond extended. That damned pervert.”
By now she was barely holding back the tears as they filled her eyes. “I wanted to
come home. I worked myself almost into exhaustion to cram eight years of classes into
six, so I could come back home. So I could get to know my parents and grandparents.”
She swallowed tightly, inhaling with jerky breaths. “I was supposed to be in college
four years, Archer. Just four.” Outrage colored her voice. “Do you know John Corbin
changed my major when I refused to go to France that summer?”

“I heard,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, Anna.”

“What did I do that was so wrong, Archer? That was so bad?” There was no holding back
the pain that filled her. Her voice echoed with the consufion inside her. “What was
so horrible about wanting to know family? The Slasher hasn’t struck out at family,
only lovers.”

“Nothing that I could ever imagine.” He sighed heavily, his arms lowering to wrap
around her stomach and pull her back against him. “I honestly believe they wanted
nothing more than to keep you safe, sweetheart. They’ve gone about it the wrong way
perhaps, but it was done out of love.”

A bitter laugh escaped her.

Turning from his reflection she faced him, a certain knowledge rising inside her.

“He never regretted losing his only grandson. Why would he regret losing one worthless
granddaughter?”

“John Corbin has more regrets, I believe, than he admits to,” he stated as she pulled
away from him.

The loss of his warmth, the loss of that feeling of not being so alone in the world,
caused the battle with her tears to only become harder.

“It doesn’t matter.” Drawing in a deep breath, Anna forced herself to shrug it away.
“None of it really matters now, Archer. And things are really no different now than
they ever were, other than the fact that I now know they never really wanted me with
them.”

All the years of vacations in exotic locales, and pushing her off on business associates
when they couldn’t accompany her. The times she had cried and begged to come home,
and the excuses they had given, all well-practiced and regretfully voiced.

If she had looked like a waif earlier, then it was because that was what she had always
been, and that wasn’t how she wanted Archer to see her.

“This isn’t going to work—”

“You’re not leaving,” Archer spoke over her, his expression, his tone, suddenly more
arrogant than before.

“Excuse me?” Crossing her arms over her breasts, she fought to push back the need
for his touch and the arousal that look sent spearing through her traitorous body.

“You heard me, Anna.” Neither his expression nor his tone eased. “You’re not leaving.
You can stay right here, where I’ll know you’re safe.”

Safe?

“From what?” Incredulity filled her. “Or do you think I need to be saved from my own
poor choices just as my family does?”

He snorted at that. “I think leaving that house is the best decision you could have
made.” His gaze became smoldering then, dark and intently sexual. “That doesn’t mean
I’m going to let you spend the last penny you probably have on a hotel room, or that
I’m going to let you forget what happened the night you nearly came on my fingers.
I think I’m ready to collect on that promise now.”

She couldn’t breathe.

Anna felt her body heating instantly. Her breasts swelled, her nipples tightening
and beginning to ache with the overwhelming need to be touched.

Her stomach clenched, her womb flexing as a surge of electric sensation raced through
her clit.

“I don’t remember extending a rain check, Archer.” She stared back at the smoldering
sensuality in his expression as though she had never seen it.

The truth was, that look of lust and hunger had her creaming her panties so furiously
that it was all she could do to keep from throwing herself in his arms. To keep from
begging him to finish what he started in that little grotto.

“Oh, baby, the rain check was there,” he countered. “In every drop of your response
raining on my fingers—”

Her lips curled mockingly. “Every drop of my response?” She sniffed delicately, though
her body ached in response to his words. “Does that line actually get you anywhere?”

Delight flickered in his gaze.

Oh, hell, what had she managed to ignite in his evil little brain?

He advanced on her, one predatory step at a time, as she fought to stand her ground—and
failed miserably.

Anna felt her back flat against the refrigerator, his front pressing against hers,
the hard wedge of his cock imprinting through their clothes to the aching depths of
her womb.

Oh God, she needed to come.

“Actually, I was trying to be a good boy,” he murmured as he caught her wrists and
stretched them over her head, securing them against the cool metal of the appliance
with one hand.

The other pressed beneath her shirt, easing up until his palm cupped her breasts.

“You know how to be a good boy?” Anna widened her eyes in surprise. “Why, Archer,
I’m certain I never recognized that quality in you.”

“I’m going to push my cock so deep inside that slick little pussy, Anna, that you’ll
wonder how you ever breathed without the feel of me fucking you.”

Yep, there went her breath.

“But first.” His head lowered, his lips caressing the lobe of her ear as he spoke.
“I’m going to spread those pretty thighs and eat you until you’re screaming with pleasure.
Until you’re coming on my tongue and begging for my dick.”

“My, how confident we have become.” It was all she could do to push the words past
her lips. “Were you going to do that before or after I put your balls up in your throat?”

She’d managed to slide her knee between his legs, lifting it until it rested against
his balls.

He didn’t release her.

He grinned.

A slow, anticipatory grin that should have warned her.

Before she realized what he was doing he shifted, lifted her, edged his hips to the
side and, before she could do more than take a breath, had her thighs at his hips
and his erection grinding the seam of her jeans into her clitoris.

Oh, hell, it felt good.

The heat of him seemed to surround her.

The heat of his cock speared through the clothes separating them, causing her clit
to swell further, to ache in need as her juices flowed from her vagina.

“Now, where are my balls going to be?” His voice caressed her senses, the hoarse,
hungry timbre of it stroking against her senses.

“Shouldn’t you know?” She couldn’t stop the grin that tugged at her lips. “They are
your balls, after all.”

His chuckle was one of amused surprise.

“So they are,” he murmured, his thumb stroking against the tight hardness of her nipple
and sending waves of electric sensation surging to the sensitive bud of her clit.
“I’d say before the day is over they’ll be pressed against the entrance of that snug
little pussy as it tightens and milks my cock with your release.”

The tender bundle of nerves clenched and ached with painful pleasure. The need throbbing
through it was a hunger she had no idea how to process.

The explicit earthiness of his words sent heat flashing through her, weakening any
objections she might have pretended to have and leaving her weak against him.

“You’re all talk,” she said, panting as his fingers flicked open the buttons to her
top. “You’ve been promising to teach me not to tease full-grown men since I was eighteen.
I have yet to figure out why.”

Her thighs tightened at his hips, her hips rubbing against him, grinding against the
thickness of his erection as it pressed tight and hard between her thighs.

“Oh, baby, I absolutely intend to show you exactly why pretty little girls such as
yourself should never play games with full-grown men.”