40. Archer

W e drink endless glasses of champagne, eat more cotton candy than I care to admit, and play nearly all of the stall games, and by the time we stumble to the Ferris wheel, I have never seen Daemon looking so happy and free. I drag him onto one of the cages fit for four, and slip a hundred dollars to the attendant to stop us at the top. Then I watch in awe as he grips the rails, surveying the grounds in disbelief while we get higher and higher.

“I can’t believe people actually live like this all the time,” he grunts, watching the party below, before snapping away from the edge as we reach the top.

“I’d say you get used to it, but you really don’t,” I laugh, watching him with keen eyes, which means I notice the tightening of his jaw, as his fists open and close on his thighs. “You’re not scared of heights, are you, Forbes?”

His deadly stare snaps straight to mine. “Don’t fucking start your shit, Gray, and why the fuck are we stopping?” he curses, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Oh my god, you are.”

“Fuck off,” he snaps, and I stand to move to the other bench where he resides, shaking the cage in the process. “What the fuck are you doing? Sit down,” he demands, hands flying to the rails to hold on for dear life.

“That’s a lot of attitude when your boyfriend was just coming over here to help you,” I muse, cozying up to his side, and he cuts me with another lethal glare. “Go on, say it,” I add, eying him with a smirk.

“Say what?” he says on an exhale, still spiraling as he looks around. I reach out and grip his chin between my fingers, pulling his eyes back to mine.

“Say I’m your boyfriend,” I tease, leaning in and trailing kisses along his jaw.

“Are we still on that?” he sighs, tilting his head back and giving me access to his neck.

“I just let you fuck me in a maze,” I grit, nipping the juncture of his throat. “So yes, we are still on that.”

He huffs a laugh that turns into a moan, when I lap my tongue against the mark I’ve just made. “From what I recall, you were moaning my name and asking me to go harder,” he rasps, pulling my mouth to his and kissing me roughly.

“Yeah, and now I want you to moan my name and say you’re my boyfriend,” I mumble against his lips. “I’m yours and you’re mine, so say it.” I force my tongue into his mouth and tangle it with his, and I feel his body relaxing into mine, until I pull away with a smirk.

“My boyfriend is a cock tease,” he huffs, reaching down to readjust himself, and I smile wide.

“Say it again,” I dare him, and he meets my stare, sees my smile, and then rolls his eyes like I am being ridiculous.

“You’re my boyfriend, Archer Gray. Are you satisfied now?” he snaps, leaning in to kiss me again.

“Not as satisfied as I was in the maze, but yes,” I reply, and he laughs against my lips. Making him smile is one thing, but making him laugh feels like a damn miracle.

Daemon Forbes is my boyfriend. Life is good.

After kissing one another senselessly, the attendant finally brings us back down, and Daemon gets off on shaky legs, much to my amusement. We are making our way back towards the big top, when I hear Everest, Griffin, and Harden calling my sister's name.

“What happened, where’s Rora?” I demand, storming toward them, and they all share a look.

“That tool, Jason Miles is here,” Ever spits, looking lost in his rage, and his friends don’t look much better.

“Who is Jason Miles?” Daemon asks, and the three of them glare at him, until Griffin finally sighs.

“Some dick we go to school with. He’s got a hard on for Ro, wants to pop her cherry, and he won’t let anything get in his way,” he grunts, and his meaning isn’t lost on either of us.

Daemon and I share a look, and both our eyes flick to the maze, before he snaps, “Let’s go.”

All five of us move as one, searching high and low, Ever and the guys going one way, and Daemon and I going the other. It doesn’t take us long to reach the center, the fountain coming into view, and as soon as it does, I spy my sister. That prick, Jason, has her pressed into the same hedge where we saw the guys fucking earlier, his hand ripping at her dress, but it’s the tears staining her cheeks that have me seeing red.

I’m screaming my brother’s name in a rage before I can stop myself, already moving towards them, but before I can reach them, Daemon is there, ripping Jason away from my sister, and smashing his fist into his face. My eyes flare wide in shock, but one look at my sister’s crying face, and I am dropping down and scooping her into my arms. Which is how Everest and the other two find us, with Aurora crying and apologizing in my embrace, and Daemon with his knuckles bloody and busted, almost as badly as Jason’s face.

Everest is taking our sister from my arms as soon as he reaches us, which only makes her cry harder, and it’s then that I reach down, pulling Daemon away from the fucking predator on the ground. “It’s okay, baby, that’s enough,” I tell him with a gentle hand to his shoulder, and instantly his body relaxes, looking at the now unconscious dick on the floor, before rising back to his feet, breathing heavily.

Griffin and Harden stare between my sister and Jason, before the latter slams his foot into his ribs, no doubt damaging a few, and then they are at her side, wiping away her tears.

“RoRo?” I whisper, leaning into her. “How are we handling this? Are we making a fuss, or dealing with it quietly?”

She meets my stare, before glancing at Ever, and they seem to communicate silently, before she whispers, “Just get me out of here, please.” Her voice breaks on the last word, and my brother looks ready to level the fucking earth for her, which I can’t say I blame him, when I feel the exact same way.

“Take a photo of her dress and the marks on her arm, and then wipe her face and take her around the edge of the party, and we’ll meet you out front. I’ll tell mom she ate too much funnel cake,” I tell Ever, before I glance at Jason on the ground, and address Everest’s two friends. “You two deal with this prick, and then meet us back at the house.”

I drop a kiss to my sister’s head, and nod at my brother, before grabbing Daemon’s busted hand and dragging him away. We exit the maze and search for my parents, thankfully finding David first. I lean in and whisper in his ear, telling him what really happened, along with the story we are telling my mom, and his rage rivals his son’s, but still he nods, telling us to head home.

We meet Everest and Aurora at the end of the driveway, and we all climb into one of the limos silently, and head home. Once we are back at the house, Everest takes Aurora right upstairs, helping her undress, and putting her into bed. He doesn’t leave her room until she is fast asleep, and when he makes his way back to the kitchen, I am sitting at the counter cleaning Daemon’s hand.

He grabs himself a bottle of vodka from the fridge and moves to storm back out, before he pauses on the threshold and focuses on my boyfriend. “Thank you, Daemon, for what you did back there.”

Daemon nods, meeting his stare. “Anyone would have done the same,” he replies, his voice sounding unusual, and it’s only now I realize how he saw it. Someone was hurting my sibling, and he had to stop them. Like he tried, and failed, to stop his father.

“No, they wouldn’t have,” Everest replies, and I know he sees it now. What I see in Daemon, what I’ve always seen, and I know instantly that going forward, he will always have his back.

He heads back upstairs, and I finish up cleaning Daemon’s hand, before we head up to bed ourselves. We get undressed, each showering quickly, and when we slip into bed, I drop a kiss to his chest, as I ask, “So, how was your first outing with your boyfriend?” I tease, and he grunts a laugh, pushing me onto my side and spooning into my back.

“Like I’ll need a month to recover before I have another,” he grunts, and I smile in the dark, as I settle into his arms.

“Damn, already talking about our anniversary, I told you that you were obsessed with me.”

“Archer,” he groans. “Go to sleep.”

“Goodnight, boyfriend.”

“Goodnight, baby.”

For once in my life, I’m not excited to be back on campus. Daemon and I spent another day at home with my family, my mom even going as far as to crack out the damn baby photo albums, before we headed back to Fairfield in time for classes to start back up. For the last week, I have been enduring classes, getting back into practice, taking calls from David, and sneaking into Daemon’s bed every night, the latter being the only thing I actually want to do. So when my last class finishes for the day, I head straight over to the campus art studio, where I know I will find him.

As I cut across campus, I smile and wave at a few friends, a couple of them looking confused as to where I’m going, but my focus is only on my boyfriend. God, I love saying that, thinking that, fucking hearing that, and I wish I could scream it from the rooftops, but somehow our relationship is still just between us. Yes, Josh and Alexander know, and I’m pretty sure Nova suspects, though he hasn’t cared enough to ask, but for once I want to keep something just for myself. The last couple of weeks with him have been perfect, a little rocky at first, yes, but now he’s finally let me in. I can’t help but feel this is how things were always supposed to be, and once we deal with his father, everything else will just fall into place.

The scent of paint assaults my nostrils, as I push through the doors of the art building, one of Daemon’s professors smiling brightly at me on her way out, after seeing me here nearly every day this week. I stalk down the hallway to the last studio on the left, surprised to find everyone else has already left. His class finished over an hour ago, yes I bribed one of the women in the front office for his schedule, but I’ve learned that he likes to stay behind on the nights we don’t have practice. It answers my question as to why I never used to see him around. I stop in the doorway and watch him work, and I realize just how much I was missing out on.

Daemon is in just a tank and jeans, his discarded sweater on the stool behind him, that I’m sure he only took off once the rest of the class left. The soft tones of what I have recently learned is Mozart, pouring from the Bluetooth speaker in the corner, while Daemon is lost in his focus on the canvas before him. Both of his hands and arms are stained in flecks of paint, and he has never looked more beautiful than he does right now.

I can’t see what he’s working on from here, but I let myself watch him for a few moments, transfixed on the way he works, and downright addicted to the way he looks, until he finally pulls back and sighs, as if something isn’t right. That’s when his eyes meet mine, his frown turning into a small smile, as I finally allow myself to walk into the room.

“Now this is a look I could get used to,” I purr, stalking towards him, pulling him in for a kiss before he can even possibly protest.

“Is that right?” he grunts, taking over the kiss, and bringing his paint-stained hand up to collar my throat, no doubt leaving another mark. “You like me covered in paint?” he adds against my mouth, pulling back, before his eyes dance down my neck and his stare turns feral.

“No, I like you all messed up and filthy, looking at me like you’re ready to make me your art,” I toss back with a wink. “Anything can be a canvas, right?” I add, leaning forward to trail my mouth along his jaw, making him groan.

Especially when I drop to my knees at his feet and rip at his jeans, his stare flaring wide. “Archer, we can’t do this here,” he starts, but trails off as I palm his hardening cock.

“Then why are you hard for me, baby?” I ask, reaching into his boxers and savoring the heat of his length in my hand.

“Archer,” he groans my name again, and I know it’s meant as a deterrent, but all it does is spur me on.

“Don’t worry, Forbes, I’ll be quick,” I tell him, and then I swallow his cock, until the paint on his hands is stained in my hair and on my cheeks.

Once I’ve swallowed his cum, he returns the favor, the paint now staining my dick too, and once we clean up his supplies, with the promise of a shower when we get home, we leave the studio on a high. A high that is sadly short-lived, because as soon as we get outside, we come face-to-face with Jasper Forbes.

A man I know to be twenty-seven-years-old, and a fully patched member of the local motorcycle club we have here in town. When I tasked David with helping Daemon, he had to dig into his life, cursing when he found his medical records, and even more so when he found Ryan’s death certificate. Those copies are now sitting in a box under my bed. The one thing I don’t think I will ever be able to understand, is why Jasper left his brothers behind in hell.

I feel Daemon’s entire body flinch beside mine, his hand tightening in my hold, but still he sighs, as if resigning himself to the fact that he has to deal with him. Before he can even open his mouth, I am shoving him behind me and glaring at his brother.

“What the fuck do you want?” I spit in disgust, not even attempting to hide my contempt for him. His eyes dance across the two of us, before settling on Daemon, as if to dismiss me completely, and that only pisses me off more. “Don’t look at him, dick, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Archer, it’s okay,” Daemon tries, stepping to my side, but I ignore him completely, my gaze still locked on his brother.

I watch as Jasper takes in the paint stains across both of us, before it hardens. “I need to speak with my brother,” he states firmly, looking irritated, but fuck him and his fucking irritation.

“The time for speaking was when your father first laid a hand on you,” I start, stepping towards him. “The time for speaking was when you were eighteen, and you left your brothers in that fucking house to rot. The time for fucking speaking was when you should have called social services and protected them both.” I’m raising my voice, but I don’t care, not when the person I love has already lost so fucking much. I snap my gaze back to Daemon, and ask, “Do you want to speak to him?” He turns to his brother, eyeing him carefully, before focusing back on me and shaking his head. “There, you heard him, now fuck off,” I spit, tugging on Daemon’s hand and pulling him away, not stopping until we are half way across campus.

I feel Daemon’s stare on me every step of the way, but I’m too angry to even look at him. When he tugs me into the side of one of the buildings, I prepare myself for a lecture. I open my mouth to defend myself, but his lips steal anything I was about to say, kissing me roughly, as he pushes me hard against the concrete, before pulling back for air.

“What was that for?” I ask, returning to the lust-filled daze I was in when we first left the art studio, and his answering soft smile heals something inside of me.

“For having my back.”

Those four gentle words stay with me, all the way back to his house. When we head inside, we find Josh doing homework at the kitchen island. As soon as he sees us, he eyes me with slightly less contempt than normal, but when his stare flicks to Daemon, he frowns deeply.

“What’s wrong?” he snaps, now looking at me in an accusatory way, and I roll my eyes at the grumpy dick, while I simultaneously wonder where his wife is, so she can lighten him the fuck up.

“Jasper was waiting for me outside the art building,” Daemon replies, and if I thought Josh looked pissed before, it’s even worse now. Okay, maybe he’s less of a grumpy dick, now that I know how he feels about Daemon’s prick of a brother.

“What the fuck did he want? Was it about your dad?” he asks, his homework instantly forgotten. Daemon just shrugs as he moves toward the fridge to start making dinner.

“I don’t know, Archer told him to fuck off before he could say anything,” he replies, laying all the stuff he needs for dinner on the counter and then washing his hands.

Josh’s eyes snap back to mine in surprise, and I can’t help but smirk, especially when he also takes in the paint stains across our skin, before cocking a questioning brow. Not that he’s one to talk, I’ve heard the way that kinky fucker makes Mrs. Peters moan. He then peppers Daemon with a bunch of questions about Jasper, all of them pointless, because as he already stated, I told him to fuck off. Thankfully, it isn’t long before Hallie joins us, putting him out of his misery, and smirking when she sees Daemon and I together, and I pull her in for a hug, just to annoy her husband.

We all share a relatively quiet dinner cooked by Daemon, I can tell he is still on edge after Jasper's appearance. His somber mood lasts all the way to bedtime, even when we shower off together and I left him fuck me against the tiles, there is still a lingering darkness in his eyes. That should have been my clue, that the night was going to go from bad, to worse.

It’s almost two in the morning when the screaming starts, the pain in it so raw, that it feels like it’s being ripped from my own throat. It wakes me instantly, his body jolting against mine, and I move before I can even think, straddling his hips and gripping his hands in mine.

“Daemon, it’s me, baby, wake up,” I tell him, stroking his face, as the door bursts open, Josh storming inside. He meets my stare and I shake my head. “It’s okay, I’ve got him,” I tell him, but he doesn’t move, his feet frozen at the threshold of the room, when another scream rips from Daemon’s throat, so I focus back on him. “Come on, baby, wake up, you’re okay, you’re safe, just wake up for me,” I chant on repeat, until he startles awake, his frenzied eyes meeting mine.

“Arch,” he croaks out, voice hoarse and causing me physical pain in the pit of my stomach, but still I nod.

“Yeah, it’s me, baby, you’re okay, everything’s okay, I got you.” At my words he relaxes instantly, sinking into my touch, and I will my heart rate to calm down, glancing back towards where Josh is still standing at the door. “We’re okay, Peters,” I nod, and he eyes us one last time, before he retreats and shuts the door.

“Sorry,” Daemon whispers, scrunching his eyes closed, seeming utterly exhausted, and I release one of his arms and grab his chin, startling them back open.

“Don’t fucking apologize, not when you haven’t done anything wrong.” He nods, though I can tell he doesn’t believe me, so I don’t press the matter further.

Instead, I flop myself back down beside him, and pull him into my arms. He tenses at first, still not used to how touchy feely I am with him, but he’s getting there. I hold him tight until his breathing evens out and he falls back asleep, and only then do I reach for my phone.

Archer - We can’t wait any longer, it needs to be done now.

It only takes a few minutes for his response to come in.

David - I’m on it kiddo, trust me, Ellis Forbes will never see the light of day.

Sleep doesn’t come easy after that, and it won’t. Not until I know his father can never hurt him again.