Page 72 of For the Plot

I school my features into something resembling seriousness, then finally say, “I don’t doubt that.”

She looks up, blinking.

“I told you,” I murmur, dragging my thumb slowly over her bottom lip. “I’d ruin you for any other man.”

She exhales on a laugh. “You’re so cocky.”

“Am I?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Did he make you come?” I ask, tilting her chin up with that same thumb. The bratty look on her face vanishes when she sees the look in my eyes.

“Oh m?—”

“Did he?” I interrupt her, my tone clear. “Make you come?” I repeat the words slowly.

“No.”

“Have any of the boys you’ve been with been able to make you come?”

“No.”

“Now. Do I have a right to be cocky, Skye?”

She nods. I slip the tip of my tongue into her mouth and she sucks on it softly, like she knows exactly what it does to me. I pull back slightly, thumb trailing across her lower lip again, then bring it to my own mouth and suck on it like I’m tasting her all over again.

Her eyes darken.

“I thought so,” I say, my voice low and certain. Then I pull her closer to me, settling her body against mine so we can look at one another.

“Ask me what you’ve been dying to ask,” I whisper. “I can see it in your eyes.”

She stays quiet for a moment, her fingers idly tracing shapes across my chest. I rest one hand on her stomach, my thumb brushing soft circles against her skin, letting her have the silence until I feel her inhale like she’s gearing up to speak.

“You can ask me anything.”

Her head turns toward mine. Her expression is softer now, but her eyes are clear. Searching.

“Why didn’t you ever date again? After Lauren?”

I exhale slowly. I’ve told her pieces of the past, but not all of it. Not like this. “I went on a few dates,” I say, voicelow. “Dinner. Drinks. Polite conversation. Nothing that meant anything. Nothing that stuck.”

“Why not?”

I tilt my head back against the pillow, staring at the ceiling for a moment before I speak. “Because I was still too in it. Grief. Guilt. And trying to raise a kid who needed more from me than I knew how to give.”

Skye doesn’t interrupt. She just listens.

“I told myself I couldn’t afford to get distracted,” I go on. “I had a business to build, a son to show up for, a reputation to protect. And part of me… part of me thought I didn’t deserve to move on.”

She shifts closer. “Why?”

“Because Lauren was good. Kind. And she loved me.” I pause. “And because I was gone too often. Absent even when I was in the room. And when she died, I had to face the fact that I wasn’t the man I’d promised her I’d be.”

Her fingers thread gently through mine.

“I failed her,” I whisper. “And I failed Archer.”