Accidentally on Purpose Read online

  Her breath caught as if she desperately wanted to believe him but was afraid to. “I’m not her anymore,” she said quietly.

  “Yes, you are. Beneath the veneer, beneath the makeup and pretty clothes and badass sexy shoes, you’re exactly who you’ve always been. You just need someone to remind you.” He tugged her cute little sweater off her shoulders and tossed it to his desk. “Show me,” he said softly.

  “Show you what?”

  “Show me who you are beneath it all.”

  She laughed a little breathlessly. “What, I’m just supposed to put on a striptease for you?”

  “Reveal,” he corrected. “Reveal the real you.”

  She crossed her arms. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I’m going to do the same.” He checked the lock on his door and hit the intercom button on the phone on his desk.

  “Yes?” Mollie asked sweetly, knowing damn well that she’d sent Elle back here without warning him.

  “I’m unavailable until further notice,” he said.

  “What if any of the guys need you?”

  “If they like their jobs, they won’t.”

  “But you have a meeting in fifteen minutes—”

  “Unavailable, Mollie.”

  Elle stared at him as he disconnected, her arms falling back to her side.

  Archer did his best to look like something she couldn’t live without. He must have succeeded because she said, “You seem like a man with plans.”

  “I have you all to myself.” Finally. “I do have plans. Big plans.” Plans to make you want to keep me . . .

  “You’re . . . flirting with me,” she said, sounding surprised.

  “I’ve been in denial about that but yes. I’m flirting with you.”

  She continued to stare at him for a minute and then seemed to come to a decision. She stepped back and untied her wrap dress at her waist.

  It fell open.

  So did his mouth because she was gorgeous in nude-colored, sheer lace and a pair of black fuck-me pumps.

  Going up on tiptoe, she kissed him, soft. Slow.

  He wanted to crush his mouth to hers and kiss and nibble and suck on every inch of her body, but she was still giving him those teasing little tastes, her breath warm against his face every time she sighed in pleasure. She rocked her hips against his and when she found him hard—which he’d been since she strode into his office to call him out—she hummed in approval.

  A groan shuddered through him as she went on like that, torturing the both of them, her breathing becoming more and more labored. His would have done the same, but he wasn’t breathing at all, not even a little bit.

  Her hands slid up his back, bringing his shirt with them. “Off,” she said.

  Whatever the lady wanted. He yanked it off and had barely tossed it aside when she bent forward to kiss his knife scar, making his heart melt. Then she curled one of her hands around the back of his neck, wrapping the strands of his hair around her fingers as she slowly deepened the kiss, giving him her mouth, giving him everything.

  He wrapped his arms around her, keeping his hands pressed against her back, doing his best to let her dictate the pace. Not easy with her tongue in his mouth and her body rocking against his. When they finally broke apart for air, she gestured for him to lose more clothing.

  While she waited, he kicked off his shoes and socks and straightened, meeting her gaze. “Your turn.”

  She took in his chest and abs, and he was pretty sure her pulse took a good, hard leap as she bent to take off her heels.

  “Leave the shoes.”

  She straightened with an arched brow. “Really?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “You have some catching up to do,” she noted.

  Obliging, he unsnapped, unzipped, and stripped out of his pants, leaving him in black knit boxers that did little to hide how hot he found her.

  She was staring at that very evidence when she licked her lower lip, prompting him to groan and move toward her, stroking his hands up her torso. When he assisted her bra to the floor, she sucked in a breath.

  “Gorgeous,” he whispered, his mouth at her jaw, his hands gliding over her trembling body. “So gorgeous you take my breath away.”

  “Finish,” she said, a quiet demand that had him smiling because even when she was down, she was never out. She wanted him naked first and he didn’t have a single problem with that. He shucked the black cotton.

  This time her inhale was audible, a low feminine murmur of appreciation.

  “Now you’re overdressed,” he said, his mouth at her ear and he hooked his fingers into the scrap of lace masquerading as panties at her hips and slowly drew them down, crouching before her to ease them all the way down her legs. Leaning in, he brushed a kiss across one of her thighs, and then the other. And then a hip. Her belly button.

  And then just south of it.

  “Archer,” she gasped, her hands going to his hair.

  “Right here,” he said, and he kissed her again, this time letting his tongue snake out and stroke. He worked her over, following the clues of her body as her fingers tightened in his hair and writhed against him.

  He made her come that way, loving the breathy way she moaned his name. And when her knees gave out he caught her, lifting her to his desk. Sliding his palms up the insides of her thighs, he pushed them open and stepped into the vee of her legs. “One of these days we’ll actually make it to a bed.”

  “That will be hard to do since after this we’re going back to staying the hell away from each other.” She sank her teeth into his bottom lip and then slowly let it slide free and kissed him softly, which he felt all the way down to his toes and back.

  “Condom?” she whispered.

  He froze, eyes locked on hers, wondering how she felt about seeing a grown man cry. “I don’t—Christ.” Had he seriously forgotten about a condom for the first time in his entire life? “We used my emergency stash from my wallet the other night.”

  “I see.” She hesitated, eyes on his. “Before that, I hadn’t been with anyone in over two years. I’m on the pill.”

  His heart was in his throat. “Two years?” He cupped her face. “Why?”

  Her eyes shuttered. “You want to talk about that or do this?”

  Good point. “I’ve not done this without a condom . . . ever,” he said.

  She rocked against him again, taking him into her hands, giving a playful tug to bring him right where she wanted. Leaning into her, his hands on the desk on either side of her hips, his breath decidedly uneven, he teased them both until she moaned and wrapped her legs around him.

  “So what’s the holdup?” she asked, impatient to the end.

  Gripping her sweet ass in his palms, he jerked her forward and slid into her.

  Their twin gasps comingled in the air and he was pretty sure he blacked out for a minute. “Oh fuck, Elle,” he whispered, only vaguely aware of her nails digging into his shoulders where she was holding on for all she was worth, her head back, her hair brushing his forearms, her throat bared for his mouth. Her lips were parted, her breath came in little whimpery gasps and he felt her clenching tighter and tighter around him.

  God. He already couldn’t remember what it’d been like before her. He’d thought everything was great in his life but then he’d been thrown a curveball in the form of this gorgeous, passionate woman who he suddenly couldn’t get enough of.

  Which made it official. He was hers, completely. “You’re beautiful, Elle,” he said, pressing tight against her. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

  She shuddered, whimpering against his mouth as she came, and while she was still clenching and pulsing around him, he lost himself in her. When he was with her like this, he found himself. It was as simple and terrifying as that.

  Chapter 15

  #DidIShaveMyLegsForThis?

  After, when they were still entwined, hearts pounding against each other as they attempted to recuperate, Elle tried t