He smiled back and put his lips against mine, mouthing, "I love you, too," against my mouth, as if he was breathing love into my body.

I kept breathing against him, and after a while, he started fidgeting slightly, adjusting me on his lap. My pulse rate quickened as my body reacted to his nearness, his smell, the feel of his big, hard body right up against mine, and specifically something hard and hot pressing into my hip.

I reached my hand down and rubbed the bulge at the front of his jeans and smiled against his neck. "Are you constantly hard?" I asked, my lips against his skin.

I felt him chuckle silently against my chest and smiled at the fact that the sadness and tension from a few minutes before seemed to dissolve as our bodies heated. I leaned back and looked at him, tenderness and desire shining in his eyes. He brought his hands up. Yes, when you're around–it's why I'm always grimacing. He faked a pained expression.

I tilted my head. "I thought that was just your natural personality."

That, too.

I laughed and when I put more pressure on the grimace-causing bulge in question, he closed his eyes, his lips parting.

When he opened his eyes, he asked, Do you miss hearing the sounds I might make during sex if I had a voice? He watched my face as I thought about that.

I moved a piece of hair off his forehead and then shook my head slowly. No, I don't think about that. I don't rely on the sounds you might make to read you. I watch your expression and your eyes. I leaned in and brushed my lips against his mouth and then leaned back. I listen to your breathing and the way you dig your fingers into my hips right before you're about to come. There are so many ways to read you, Archer Hale. And I love every single one of them.

His eyes glittered at me before he moved forward suddenly, grabbing my face in his hands and laying me back down on the couch before coming down over me. I had a feeling the time for talking had just ended. Butterflies took up flight between my ribs and my belly clenched. I moaned, a deep, breathy sound that came up my throat, and let him take over, arching up into him, my core beginning to throb insistently. How was it that this man had just started having sex, and only with me, a couple weeks ago, and yet I trusted him with my body over anyone more experienced I'd been with before? Archer, overachiever that he was. I smiled into his mouth and he smiled back into mine, although he didn't lean back to ask me what exactly I was smiling about. I swept my tongue inside his mouth, the taste of him making me feel like I was going to combust–how could the inside of someone's mouth taste so delicious that it made you instantly dizzy with lust? It had been hours since I'd had a sip of beer, but I felt drunk on him–drunk with love, with lust, with something indescribable that I couldn't even name, and yet it owned me, body and soul–some kind of primal connection that must have been there before I existed, before he existed, before he or I ever breathed the same air, something written in the very stars.

He ground his erection down on my core, making me gasp and tear my mouth from his, groaning as I threw my head back, intense pleasure vibrating through my veins.

"Archer, Archer," I breathed, "there will never be anyone else for me." My words seemed to ignite him, his breathing coming out in sharp pants as he pulled my t-shirt up and popped my bra open in one movement, releasing my breasts to the cool air.

He sucked one nipple into his warm mouth as I moaned and wove my fingers into his hair, sparks of electricity shooting from my nipple down to my engorged clit. My hips surged upwards, bucking into his hardness, and he hissed in a breath and pulled back, looking down at me with his eyes at half-mast. More wetness trickled down to my core at the look on his face alone and my mouth dropped open. Intensity and lust were stark in his expression, but so was his love for me. I'd never seen anything like it. The power in that expression was so jaw-dropping, that I could only stare for several seconds as the blood continued to course south, making me desperate with want. I felt like my entire body was a live wire–and so was my heart. It was almost too much.

Suddenly, Archer stood up and gestured for me to bring my arms up over my head. I did, and he pulled my t-shirt up and off and then moved to my jeans, unbuttoning them and bringing them down my legs. He took off my shoes and then pulled my jeans fully off, tossing those on the floor too. He stood over me for a few seconds, breathing hard, his jeans tented, his beautiful chest on display, and his eyes roaming my body. My own eyes widened and blood pulsated in my clit at the look of him alone. I couldn't help it, I reached my own hand between my legs and dipped a finger into my wet, needy opening. I moaned at the sensation. Archer's eyes flared as he watched my hand and then he was moving down over me, spinning me over so that my belly was now on the couch as I sucked in a surprised breath. I looked over my shoulder as he stripped his jeans off and came down on top of me again, just hovering over me so that I could feel his heat, but not his skin.

I looked back over my shoulder again and that intense look was still there. My brain was cloudy with lust, but I acknowledged that although I loved sweet, gentle Archer, I loved take-charge Archer too. Whatever had brought this side of him to life, I embraced it, and I wanted more. "Please," I said on a whispery breath and his eyes flew to mine, clearing marginally, almost as if he was coming out of a trance.

He took himself in his hand and rubbed his stiff cock down the crack of my ass, up, down, up, down until I was panting and pressing myself into the couch cushions.

He brought himself to my opening and pushed gently inside, slowly, inch by inch and I moaned out with relief. I couldn't open my legs because of the way he was pressing down on me and so the feel of him entering me was almost too much, too tight and his size too much for me to accommodate from that angle. But he stilled for a minute, letting my body adjust and when I breathed out, he started sliding in and out of me in slow, leisurely strokes.

I put my arms under the pillow my head was resting on and turned my face to the side. He leaned down further and took my lips in a searing kiss, licking and sucking my tongue to the rhythm that his cock was gliding in and out of my wetness. When he broke the kiss and leaned back up, I saw our reflection in the big window across from the couch–anyone could have seen in, but of course, no one could on this fenced in, remote property, and so I didn't worry about that. I just watched our reflection, mesmerized by the sight and the feelings.

Archer had one knee on the couch on the other side of my legs, and one foot still on the floor, knee bent as he drove into me from behind. The sight of it was primal and the feel of it delicious as his big, hard cock pounded into me and my clit ground against the couch each time he moved down. It was as if he wanted to own me, possess me, merge our bodies into one being. I couldn't move, could only take what he was giving, trust him with my body and my heart. And I did. I trusted him with everything in me.

I turned my face into the pillow and bit down on it, not wanting to come yet, wanting this to go on and on and on. He loves me, my heart sang. And I love him, and he owns me, body and soul. I don't care about all the other stuff. All of it will work itself out. And in that moment I believed it with every fiber of my being.

Archer started moving faster, pounding into me harder, almost punishing, and I loved it, loved it so much that I couldn't stop the orgasm that gripped me suddenly, moving through my internal muscles with almost-agonizingly sweet slowness, spreading outward through my core, up to my belly and all the way down to my feet. I screamed into the pillow, burying my face into it as my body spasmed and convulsed in ecstasy.

Archer's thrusts sped up and grew jerky, his breathing growing louder, and I felt a small aftershock in my core at the knowledge that he was about to come.

He took three long strokes, exhaling loudly with each one as he pressed into me, his hands coming down on the couch on the side of my body as he held his own weight. I felt him grow even larger inside of me, stretching me, right before I felt the heat of his release and he collapsed on top of me, half on, half off so that the majority of his weight was on the edge of the couch.

We both just breathed for long minutes, getting our heart rates under control. Archer nuzzled his face into the back of my neck, kissing down my spine as far as his mouth could travel without him moving his body. I calmed under the feel of his warm mouth, closing my eyes and sighing contentedly. He ran his nose over my skin and then I felt his lips again as his mouth formed the words, I love you, I love you, I love you.

* * *

A little while later, after we had gone to bed, I woke up alone. I sat up groggily and looked around, but Archer was nowhere in sight. I got up and wrapped the sheet around my naked body and went in search of him. I found him sitting in a chair in his front room, wearing just his jeans, his golden skin glowing in the moonlight coming in the window, looking beautiful and broken, his elbows on his knees and one hand massaging the back of his neck as he looked down.

I went to him and kneeled down in front of him. "What's wrong?" I asked.

He looked at me and smiled a sweet smile, one that reminded me of the man who had come out with a newly-shaven face, looking at me so unsure. He brushed a piece of hair back off of my face and then said, Do you want kids, Bree?