Sex On The Seats (Love After Midnight Book 4) by Elise Faber (most inspirational books .txt) 📗

down, blazing hazel eyes locking with mine. “You don’t see yourself.”

That hadn’t been what I expected him to say, not with the fury in his expression. I’d braced for a lash of words, waiting for them to permeate my skin, to activate that spike inside me, to have it fly forward and eviscerate me.

Instead, he just stayed in place, still as that statement washed over me.

And it did.

A warm shower after being trapped in the freezing rain, soaking into my hair, trailing down my nape, my arms, my back, warming me, pushing the chill away.

“I see,” he said at the same time that heat had reached my fingertips, “a woman who’s smart and a hard worker. Who’s talented and strong and sexy as hell. Who knows what she wants but doesn’t see the magic inside.”

If he’d led with the magic inside, I probably would have burst out laughing, would have been able to discount the rest of it easily.

But he’d begun with the other stuff.

The ones that were more difficult to disregard.

I was smart. I did work hard. I was strong. Though, talented was borderline—I’d just developed the skills I’d needed for this career, so I supposed in some way, that was true. As for sexy . . . well, I didn’t shy away from sex in normal times. I’d never felt insecure about my body. And while it wasn’t like I was out parading through Bone Town every night, I didn’t exactly shy away from getting orgasms when the opportunity presented itself.

Case in point, Archer.

But . . . I didn’t feel like I had magic inside.

I was just . . . me, a woman who was better alone because no matter how hard I tried, there would always be a tipping point in every relationship.

And it would tip away from me, dropping me down into a pit of emptiness.

Which, look, I got sounded very dramatic. But it was true. I’d tried. Oh, how I’d tried. First with my parents. Then with any boy I could get to date me, who expressed interest in me. I’d spent loads of time changing myself, trying to fit into different molds. For years, I’d done that. Right up until . . .

“I left my fiancé at the altar.”

He blinked, probably rightly wondering how in the fuck-all he’d gone from telling me I had magic to me describing the time I played runaway bride.

“That was the last straw for my parents,” I said. “They were furious that they’d paid for a wedding to a man, who was ‘perfect in every way,’ only to have me literally running out of the church minutes before the ceremony went down.”

Archer didn’t move, his chest just calmly rising and falling against mine. “What made you run?”

Funny.

No one had ever asked me that question. Not really. I’d gotten, “How could you do that to Derek?” and, “How dare you leave?” and my personal, painful favorite accompanied by my mom’s furious, whip-sharp tone, “Why would you do that? Why would you do that to me?”

Derek’s questions, rightly, had been along the vein of, “Why did you leave me?” and, “God, why then?”

But no one had ever cared enough to truly understand what had propelled me to run down the street in my wedding dress, heart pounding, palms sweaty, hating that I was hurting people but knowing that I couldn’t, couldn’t stay.

And by the time I’d understood enough to explain why I hadn’t been able to stay, it had been too late.

Derek had gotten married. To a bride who’d stayed.

He’d cut off all contact with me. My parents and friends had done the same. I was the pariah who made things complicated in our social circle.

Which had been fine.

I’d hated the person I’d let those societal pressures become. Outside of it, I’d allowed myself to grow, become different. Find this job, start my business, disappoint several other good men along the way.

“I ran because I couldn’t find myself anymore.”

His brows drew together, and I expected him to frown, to pull back, for that explanation to make no sense.

Instead, he said, “I know just what you mean.”

And that unhitched me, freed my lungs, unclenched my hands.

Making me . . . think that maybe . . . maybe I wouldn’t actually fuck this up.

Maybe with Archer, everything could be different. That perhaps I could be me, just me, and that wouldn’t be a disappointment.

He laced our fingers together, picked up the bag of food from the table, and led me back down the hall, peeking through openings until he’d found the kitchen. A nudge to get me in a chair, more peeking to find plates and utensils, and then he’d scooped up something that wasn’t homemade Bolognese, but some sort of creamy chicken and rice combo, onto two plates.

One of which he placed in front of me.

The other next to me, where he took a seat.

“How?” I asked, even though it wasn’t really any of my business, especially since I wasn’t exactly an open book. “How do you know what I mean?”

His eyes drifted to mine, a thread of gentleness that probably should have pissed me off, that definitely should have made me push him away. And in the past, it would have. But today, with him, with this buoyant feeling in my chest, I did neither.

Instead, that gentle tone had me melting slowly from top to bottom or maybe bottom to top, or maybe both—an ice cube on the sidewalk, the heat of the concrete defrosting me at an equal pace to that of the sun. The tender was the sun. The lack of artifice in his response was the sidewalk. The way he set down his fork and reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear was . . . I don’t know. The microwave or a magnifying glass or a . . .

Something hot that melted me from the inside out.

Go me.

So words weren’t exactly my strong suit. But I was trying here. I wasn’t running screaming,