Brazen and Breathless (Untouchable #6) - Heather Long Page 0,59
the right and lifted out a pair of my yoga pants. “Indoor skydiving.”
“Holy shit,” Coop said, bouncing upward, and Tiddles leapt off the bed with a note of disgust.
“Seriously?” Ian gaped at him, but there was absolutely no disguising the thrill on their faces or the wide grins they suddenly sported.
Almost instantly, they were peppering Archie with questions and warmth suffused me. Even as Archie answered them with this adorable little smile and indulgent look, he kept glancing at me. Oh, I needed to change.
I stripped hurriedly to swap outfits out. I had to toe off my shoes before peeling down my jeans, and once I was dressed again, I sat on the edge of the bed to pull on my shoes. “I didn’t think there was a place close by.”
“There’s one close enough,” Archie said.
“When did you plan this?”
“Multi-tasking is an art,” he told me with a wink. “Trust me?”
“Yes.” No hesitation at all. Not that Archie couldn’t still pick on me sometimes or tease me. I’d hate it if he ever thought he couldn’t play with me. But no doubt existed in me. I could trust him. Even when he drove me crazy trying to take care of everything… “Boyfriend privilege.”
“Yes,” Coop cheered with a fist pump before he high-fived Ian, and I laughed. “Told you she would come around. Boyfriend privileges rock.”
Ten minutes later, Jake was back and we headed down to his SUV to meet him. They’d briefed him on what we were doing, and I sat in the back with Coop and Archie while Ian rode up front. It took us ninety minutes of driving, but we sang along with the music, laughed, teased, and played.
You know what we didn’t do?
We didn’t discuss the letters, the results, none of it. It kept trying to creep back in, and then Ian would smile back at me, or Jake would switch the song right in the middle of one we liked that he didn’t, or Coop would decide to randomly tickle me. They were all looking after me.
When we got to the place…
I got to fly.
For real.
I forgot all about Maddy and the rest as we spent two hours learning how to ride the wind, and I even managed a couple of tricks. I might never dance in the air like Emersyn Sharpe or be an aerialist or super hero—and I was never, ever jumping out of a perfectly good airplane for real—but I could fly.
It was awesome.
Even better…
I was still humming when we hit an all-you-can-eat sushi place for lunch.
The buzz carried us on the drive back, and to the apartment. Someone had put the letters up before we left, and I didn’t look for them. I just went to get changed for my date with Archie, but he caught my hand and pulled me back.
“We’re going to do simple tonight,” he said. “So just grab what you need to spend the night?”
Simple was lasagna and garlic bread, followed by huge ice cream sundaes with Jeremy, who actually deigned to join us for fifteen minutes so we could talk about colleges with him before he told us to enjoy our “date” and leave him the clean-up.
In his room, Archie insisted we had to be naked to enjoy popcorn and the movies he’d picked out. For atmosphere…
“It’s Jurassic Park,” I argued as he queued up the first one. “Why do we have to be naked?”
“It’s a mood, an aesthetic. Our ancestors in the caves didn’t wear much either.”
“There weren’t humans in the Jurassic era.”
He paused to eye me, then reached up and pulled his shirt off. It hit the floor. Followed by his belt, then his jeans and his boxers. “Your point?”
I grinned. “You’re still trying to distract me.”
“No, babe, I promise. Right now, I just want you naked so I can hold you for all the jump scares and see how excited you get. Then we’re going fuck for an intermission before we kick off the next movie.”
“What if I want to do something during the first movie?”
“Then we’re not watching Jurassic Park because I will never turn you down, but it’s a sacrilege to ignore the movie.”
That did it. I cracked up, and he grinned. It was exactly what he meant. So I got naked—not like it was a hardship—and Archie nudged up the heat in his room so we didn’t freeze, and we curled up on the bed with the popcorn and drinks.
We made it about halfway through the movie before he proved to