Page 12 of Grave Sins (Graveyard of Hearts Collection #2)

Maisy

I feel a warm hand on my face, and I groan as I force my eyes open. I expect it to be Archer, but I scream and launch myself at him when I see my brother. “Odie!” I choke out.

“Hey, sweet girl,” Odie says as he hugs me. I start crying, and he stands up to sit with me in his lap. “I’m so sorry, Maisy. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” I sniff and sit up.

“It’s not, May. He sold you,” Odie says.

“Archer and Andre told me what’s going on,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It was more about humiliating me,” I say.

“Yeah. The video was sent to Dad,” Odie says.

“Fuck,” I sigh.

“Yeah. Andre has already gotten in contact with Harrison. He will be back in a few days and wants everyone from both sides to have a reception, or whatever.”

“Sounds like a trap,” I admit.

“It does, but we will take it one step at a time. If he doesn’t know someone, they aren’t going. We need people holding back in case shit goes south.”

“I’m scared,” I admit.

Odie hugs me again and kisses the top of my head.

“That man over there—Archer—he loves you, and he doesn’t know it yet.

I have never seen someone so enamored by another person before, and I truly believe the two of you were meant to find each other…

I promise, we will go to our graves before we ever let them hurt you again. “

“Don’t get yourself killed for me, Odie,” I say with a frown.

“That’s what big brothers do, May. We fight the battles that you can’t, and even some that you can. We protect you and love you unconditionally,” Odie says. “I love you, Maisy. I will always choose you.”

“I don’t know what to do from here,” I admit.

“Well… You get to know your husband, and trust us to keep you safe,” Odie says. “I am going to stay here with Alan, Kendra, Marcus, Bellamy, and the twins.”

“Jesse and Julie are staying here also,” Kendra says.

“So you and Archer will go home. Andre, Chrissy, and Decan will do whatever running you need to do, but you will stay on his property unless you absolutely have to leave,” Odie says to me.

“How is abandoning us going to help?” I ask.

“We aren’t abandoning either of you, but it would be out of the ordinary for people to be surrounding him. Life has to appear normal,” Odie says.

“Normal would mean leaving the property,” Archer says.

“I go to the gym every night at the same time. I have for a year. If I am supposed to live life normally and Maisy just slips into that normalcy, then she needs to go through my normal routine. The office, the gym, the library, and therapy. Everything.”

“You like to read?” I ask Archer.

“I do,” he says with a smile.

“Porn,” Julie says. “He reads porn.”

“It’s not porn,” Archer laughs.

“Don’t you give him book recommendations?” Kendra asks Julie.

“Yeah. That’s how I know it’s porn,” she laughs. “Some people watch it. Some people read it.”

“Well, I think that’s awesome,” I say, moving to sit with Archer. He pulls me into his lap and kisses me, making my brother smile.

“Do you read?” Archer asks me.

“Yeah. Mostly horror and crime fiction,” I say.

“Well, kids,” Alan says. “I love you all so much, and I am glad you are all here… but I am too old to be up this late.”

“You go to sleep, Dad,” Kendra says, hugging him.

“I love you, sweetheart,” Dad says softly.

“I love you, too!”

Alan comes over to us, and I start to move, but he shakes his head and sits beside us. “Maisy, I want to thank you,” Alan says.

“For what?” I ask.

“For making my boy happy,” he says, tearing up a bit. “I have very few memories of him smiling, and being around you tonight is the happiest I have ever seen him… Thank you.”

“Give me some time. I’ll piss him off somehow,” I say, and Alan smiles.

“He makes me happy, too. You raised a good man, Alan. I don’t know if anyone has told you this before, but his struggles are not a product of your parenting.

He is the man he is today because of you, so thank you.

He saved me from myself that night because I don’t think I could have survived my spiral alone. ”

Alan breaks and grabs me into a hug as he cries.

Archer chuckles and wraps his arms around both of us.

When we pull back, I smile at him. “I haven’t known either of you for long, but I can tell he is just like you,” I say.

“You are both unreasonably hard on yourselves. You’ll take on the weight of the world, even if it crushes you…

You two have so many people around you now that no one should have to carry that weight alone. ”

“You’re a smart girl, Maisy,” Alan says, patting my leg.

“Yeah, well, I know shitty parents, and you aren’t one of them,” I say. “Shitty parents hurt their children. They neglect them. Starve them. Isolate them. You? You lit up like a ray of sunshine when you saw your kids. You did your best, but sometimes the demons still find their way in.”

“I will know tomorrow when the meeting with Harrison will take place,” Andre says to Archer. “He could move it up, or he could put it out. If he shows up or if you get approached out in public… Absolutely do not fight him. Okay?”

“I won’t let him hurt Maisy,” Archer growls. “Like fuck if I am going to just stand there while someone hurts my wife.” My cheeks flush, and I look up to see that Archer's family is smiling.

“Archer, I know this sounds bizarre, but he won’t touch her because she is married,” Andre says. “He holds marriage on a weirdly high standard.”

“Then why would he marry her just to sell her off?”

“He never would have married her,” Alan says. “Harrison likely did that so Maisy would be more cooperative than if she knew she was getting sold off.”

“So as long as he sees it as a real marriage, she is safe?” Archer asks.

“Yes,” Andre says. “You two getting married keeps her safe. So, just be a couple. Do couple things.”

“Read one of his books together,” Julie says.

“Yep. You could load up a book on his Kindle, sit in his lap, and read together,” Jesse says.

“That’s mean,” Kendra laughs.

“We are going to head home tonight,” Archer says. “Dad, when can I see you again?”

“Once he accepts that you two are married, I think he and I will need to have a meeting. Come to some kind of agreement,” Alan says. “So once you have your meeting, I’ll come see you.”

“Why are you driving back tonight?” Kendra asks.

“I just don’t do well with sleeping in unfamiliar places,” Archer says. “I don’t want to wake everyone, which will inevitably happen.”

“Don’t worry about waking anyone. Do you want to stay?” Kendra asks.

“I do, but it’s…”

“Then you are staying,” she says with finality. “Maisy?”

“We are staying,” I say with a smile.

“You gonna do me like that?” Archer asks, tickling my sides. I laugh and wiggle in his lap until he stops and wraps his arms around my waist. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” she says, waving him off. “We are going to get the pack and play set up so the twins can get out of these seats.”

“Where can we sleep?” I ask.

“There is a room at the end of the hall that has a full bathroom attached,” Alan says. “You two take that one and relax.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Night, everyone,” Archer says before taking us down the hallway.

When we get to the room, Archer immediately turns and grabs my face to kiss me hard.

When he pulls back, he has the biggest smile on his face.

“This is the best day ever. I got to marry the most amazing woman, and I got my dad back. For once, I think everything is going to be okay.”

Archer strips down to his boxers, and I take everything off before I’m about to put his shirt on. Archer stops me and lifts my arm. “Did those fuckers kick you?” he asks. I look at my side, and I have a huge black and blue bruise on my side.

“Yeah. It doesn’t hurt,” I say. “That wasn’t there before.”

“Just took time to darken,” he says with a sigh. He pulls me to the bed, and I giggle.

“I have no clothes on, sir,” I say.

“They get in the way,” he says, lying down to drag me down with him.

“But you aren’t naked!” I laugh. “That’s not fair.”

“Okay,” he says, lifting his hips to take off his boxers. He tosses them off the bed and pulls me to my side so he can wrap his arms around me. I bury my face in his chest and drape my leg over his hip to move in as close as possible to him.

“Fuuuck, this is nice,” I groan, my voice muffled. He laughs and kisses my head before resting his cheek on me. I listen to the beating of his heart and match my breathing to his.

All the good and all the bad in the world—none of it matters. Everything disappears when I am in his arms. Nothing can hurt us when we are this close—this connected. Not even our grave sins.

I gasp and sit straight up in bed when Archer whimpers.

I turn and switch on the lamp sitting on the bedside table.

When I look back at Archer, he is lying flat on his back, and he is sweating.

He is drenched, so I pull the covers off him and stand up to pull the cord for the ceiling fan.

I sit cross-legged beside him, watching his face twist and curl up.

He looks angry. His fists are tightened, and his body is tense.

It’s a confusing mixture with him also being fully hard.

I have an idea… Maybe it’s a bad idea… You should never wake someone having a nightmare, but… What if, when he wakes up angry, he can feel safe enough to fuck me into oblivion? Worst case, he rejects me.

I move up to my knees and pause for a moment before swinging my leg over him.

The moment my knee lands on the other side of him, I grab his cock to line him up and sink on him, and his eyes instantly snap open.

I unintentionally yelp when he grabs me by the throat and pulls me down to his face.

He is dazed, and it’s taking him a second to separate me from the nightmare.