say to Luna must be of great importance, so I threw my hands up and stomped back into the studio.
I'd barely made it two steps inside when Archer stormed over and grabbed me by the back of my coat.
"Who was on the fucking phone, Madison Kate?" he demanded.
His whole tone made me want to punch him in the face—or maybe in the dick, seeing as he was all but naked. But instead I just tried to twist out of his grip. It wasn't hard, considering he was holding my coat. I just slipped it off and left him holding the garment as I walked away from him.
Take that, prick.
"Madison Kate!" he roared, following me and grabbing my shoulder with a bruising grip. "Don't turn your fucking back on me."
Enraged, I spun around to break his grip on my shoulder and brought my hand up to crack across his face. "Don't fucking manhandle me, Archer," I spat back at him. "You don't fucking own me, so quit treating me like a damn possession."
A cruel, cold smile curled his lips, and I could see the venom rising in his eyes. Well, I was ready for a fight. Bring it on, sunshine.
"Arch," Kody barked, "stop it. Steele is handling Luna, just let it go."
Archer's eyes flickered over to his friend, and I let a smug smirk play out over my face.
"Yeah, Arch," I sneered, "let it go. There's a good dog."
Oops, that might have pushed it a little too far. His lip curled in a snarl, and I took a couple of instinctive steps backward. He advanced on me, though, and soon I found the backs of my knees hitting the edge of the fur-covered chaise lounge.
"Archer!" Kody snapped, but his friend wasn't listening to him. Archer raised his hand, and I flinched, losing my balance and flopping down on the chaise. Something hardened in his gaze as he peered down at me, and a shiver of fear rolled through me at the darkness within him.
"Did you think I was going to hit you back, Princess Danvers?" he asked me in a low, dangerous tone. He sank to his knees in front of the sofa, bringing our faces almost level as he reached out again. This time I didn't flinch, and he barely touched me. Just a soft brush of his fingertips across my cheekbone that made me suck in a gasp like I'd been hit with a jolt of electricity.
I didn't answer his question. He knew full fucking well that's exactly what I’d thought.
Archer leaned closer, his nearly naked, ink-covered body between my spread legs in some kind of cruel mockery of an intimate moment between lovers. His fingers looped gently through my hair and his eyelids drooped, but I held myself rigid and alert. I'd fallen for his shit too many times already.
"Do you want me to tell you a secret, Kate?" he asked me in a husky whisper, his hooded blue eyes holding mine like a bear trap. Fuck. My iron core turned to liquid, and the tension flowed out of my muscles like the tide receding. He was going to hurt me again, I could already see it coming, but he was also pressing my buttons in just the right way so I’d let it happen.
"Yes," I replied, my voice barely more than an exhale. The promise of secrets was becoming an obsession for me, and I was powerless to walk away.
Archer moved again, bringing his lips just an inch from mine, and my whole body responded. The memory of kissing him was still so fresh, no matter how badly I tried to bury it.
"I don't hurt women," he told me in a secretive whisper, his blue eyes flashing with cruelty a second before his fingers twisted in my hair and yanked my head back sharply. A startled gasp escaped my throat at the sting of pain. But against all my better judgement, that gasp turned into a breathy moan when Archer's teeth brushed the flesh of my neck below my ear. "Unless they beg me for it." He finished his "secret" with a bite, hard enough to leave a mark, and it took everything in me not to tear his tiny underpants off.
"I'll never beg you," I replied with weak-level sass as warm arousal flooded through me and made me tremble.
Archer huffed a smug laugh. "Begging isn't reserved for verbal communication, Kate. Your body screams everything you're too stubborn to say out loud."