forced him to see a bigger picture and made him realize how lonely he was by pushing those who tried to get close to him away over and over again. I had never understood why he felt the need to pass the stories along in the form of a warning, but now I did.
No matter what, I was my father’s son. I just did my best to downplay the similarities because they didn’t fit with the image I’d been trying to live up to for so long.
Shaking my head to get my focus back where it needed to be, I followed Bowe into her cute little house. The lights were off except for the faint glow coming from her bedroom. I followed the light and stopped in the doorway so I could catch my breath. She’d stripped out of the tank top and short-shorts. She was left in all black satin and fishnet tights. If I had to pick how she would look in some of my dirtiest, raunchiest dreams about her, this would be it. I almost needed to pinch myself to make sure this was real and not a hallucination. I let out a deep breath, drawing her attention to me. Her honey-colored eyes widened when she saw the way I was standing there staring at her. She gave me a crooked smile and stepped closer. She was shorter without her boots on, but I still liked that she fit against me like she was made to do exactly that.
She put one of her hands on my waist and grabbed the hem of my shirt. She used her other index finger to lightly tap my chin. I didn’t realize my mouth was hanging slightly open.
“I grew up almost as well as you did, Archer.” She smirked at me while dragging me by the hem of my shirt toward the bed.
I gave my head a little shake and followed her obediently. “I think you grew up even better.”
We weren’t exactly children the last time we landed in bed together, but we had been young. We still were, but in some ways, we were both much closer to adulthood than we’d been when we initially tried to figure sex out. And everything that it changed after it was introduced into our friendship. She was curvier, taller, and had piercings, tattoos on both her shoulder blades, and one high on her hip that hadn’t been there before. She was also more confident and bolder about standing in front of me mostly naked. Bowe knew she looked good, and seemed to know exactly what she wanted from me. I found both of those things unbelievably sexy.
She worked on getting my shirt over my head as I kicked my sneakers off. I sucked in an audible breath when I felt her fingers trace over the lines that etched out my abs. Her eyes drifted over the intricate tattoo that scrolled down my arm, and her lips lifted in a soft smile.
“I always wondered if you were going to cave in and let your dad give you something you couldn’t get rid of.” Her eyes lifted to mine. “It’s pretty.”
It was hard to think of what to say because I was kind of confused by her words, but mostly because her hands were tugging my jeans open. There was no hiding my reaction to being this close to her or how much I liked kissing her. I was hot and hard, becoming even more so when I felt the brush of the back of her knuckles against the straining flesh behind my boxers.
“You’re pretty.” The last person I needed on my mind when I was seconds away from getting Bowe into bed was my dad.
I grasped her face in one hand and bent my head so I could kiss her. I backed her toward the edge of the bed, using my free hand to skim up her side and around her ribcage, following the line of her bra to her back so I could finesse the clasp open. I felt like she’d been teasing me all night with the glimpses of it peeking out from her shirt. Her risqué style suited her and inspired a lot of wayward thoughts.
When the slinky material slid down her shoulders and off her arms, I followed the progress with hungry eyes. I ran the backs of my fingers across the upper swell of her breasts, noting that those had changed a bit from the last time I had