Still, I ground my teeth together, seething. "Yes, I fucking mind. Get out. Go home. You've got that big old mansion that you were passing off as my father’s. Go sleep there if you're so tired."
He blinked at me from heavy-lidded eyes, shrugging one of those huge, muscular shoulders covered in ink. Goddamn he'd spent a bit of time under the needle for that many tattoos.
"Can't," he replied in a slurred drawl. "You're stuck with me, wifey."
Frustration was spiking my temper to violent levels. I wanted to stab him with that pretty, purple knife he'd given me. It was right there on my dresser, within reach...
But my curiosity won out, as it always did.
"What does that even mean, Archer? Why can't you go home? Don't you mean you won't?" I narrowed my eyes at him. His chest was bare, my rumpled blankets tossed over his waist. Had he put any pants on before climbing in there? Or was he totally naked? Why the fuck did I care?
He yawned again. "Can't," he repeated. "Kody and Steele threw me out and told me not to come back until I'd resolved my issues, so here I am." He spread his hands wide, indicating that all his issues centered around me. "Resolving."
Irritation pricked at my skin, and I mentally cursed out those two fuckers. Had their excuses for not being here tonight just been bullshit? No, they’d promised not to lie to me anymore. I doubt they could have known this was how Archer planned to deal with his baggage.
I folded my arms, glaring at the intoxicated bastard in my bed. "So, consider it done. Issues resolved. Now fuck off."
A smile curled his lips, and he shook his head. "Not even close. Why don't you come over here, and we can finish our conversation?" He patted the vacant space of bed beside him like he wasn't inviting me to lie with a viper.
It was on the tip of my tongue to refuse and tell him where to shove his conversation. But his pale eyes glittered with cunning.
"Unless you're so scared of your own body betraying you that you can't handle being so close. Understandable, I guess. You do have a history of throwing yourself at me." His smile was taunting me, and I rose to the bait. Dammit.
Seething with anger and indignation, I walked around to the other side of my bed and perched on the very edge of the mattress, facing him with a sour look. "Happy?"
Archer snorted a laugh. "Ecstatic."
I released a slow breath, mentally counting to five. If I wanted more answers, I needed to keep my cool and ignore the tattooed Adonis making himself at home between my sheets. Easy right? Yeah, and Mount Everest was just a hill.
"So, what other pearls of wisdom do you plan on dropping in your attempts to reconcile our differences, Sunshine?" I asked in a dry tone when he made no signs of speaking first. For some, probably alcohol-impacted reason, he seemed perfectly comfortable just staring at me like a creeper.
He gave another heavy yawn, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "I hardly ever drink this much, you know? Can't even remember the last time I was drunk enough to make the whole room spin."
I rolled my eyes. "If you vomit in my bed, I'll leave you to drown in it."
He just laughed. It was jarring to hear from him, like he'd been body-snatched by a jovial and friendly alien who just wanted to hang out and chat all night.
"Okay, how about this one," he drawled, tucking his forearms behind his head. "I think I know who is trying to kill you. Why, at least."
My brows shot up. "Excuse me?"
He rolled onto his side, grinning drunkenly. "You can tell Zane to stop sniffing around; he won't unravel the paper trail. I cleaned it up myself to stop anyone from tracking you down before Riot Night even happened."
I was speechless. Utterly speechless. Here I was with Zane and Demi both trying to uncover why my mother's family seemed to have been erased from documentation, and the culprit had been under my nose the whole time.
"Except," Archer continued, oblivious to or uncaring of my state of shock, "obviously, they'd already found you and placed the hit on the dark web. So all that work was fucking pointless."
Closing my eyes for a second, I tried to scrape together coherent thoughts. "Okay, start again. You know who