Agreements With Mr Rich Boy | ✓

40 | Confessions

The light buzzing of sounds and a light creeping onto my face woken me at some ungodly hour the next morning. I turned over, desperate to chase the sleep I'd just been pulled out of but it was pointless.

Archer was sat propped up in bed, telly going and running his hands over his face.

"What are you doing up?" I asked him, making him jump a little before he recovered himself quickly.

"Sorry I didn't mean to wake you," he said, reaching for the controller and turning it down further.

I suppressed a yawn. "Don't worry about it," I said, but my eyes almost bulged out of my sockets when I saw the clock on the bedside table. "But seriously, what are you doing up at three in the morning?"

He shrugged. "Couldn't sleep I guess."

"You worried about something or..?"

He looked me over, then. Like so many times before, his eyes searched my own as if trying to figure me out, trying to go into the depths of my brain. A flash of something covered his face. It was only for a split second but it was definitely there... regret, maybe? It was gone before I could properly pinpoint it.

"It's nothing really."

I nodded, not wanting to prod.

After a pause, in which we both drew our eyes back to the black and white film flickering across the screen, I asked what had been playing on my mind for the longest time.

"Archer?" He 'mhm'ed in response. "Do you know anyone called Jack Greening?"

He dragged his eyes away from the tv. "No, should I?"

I gnawed on my lip. Should I tell him? "It's just... god it's going to sound so crazy." He continued to watch me, blue eyes steady and silent, an indication for me to go on. "When my ex boyfriend found out about us in the papers, he said some things."

"What sort of 'things'?"

I gulped. "This and that, you know."

"Jolie," his voice was stern and unwavering.

"He threatened you."

"He threatened me." It wasn't really a question but I nodded anyway, feeling a flurry of emotions flow all through me. That is, until the unexpected happened: he laughed. As in full blown, eye watering laughter.

"Archer, I'm serious," I said, hitting the defined panes of his chest that I hadn't realised were on show. Now that I did, I couldn't drag my eyes away. Most of his abdomen was covered by the duvet, but the parts that were not were... godly, to say the least. Smooth and hard and everything else so unforgivably tantalising. All I wanted was to put my hands on him, travel further down and dow— what the fuck, Jolie?

He gripped my hand, making me realise I'd left it a moment or two too long on his skin. He held it there with his hand over mine, gentle and oddly tender. I didn't know whether to hyperventilate at the fact that we were holding hands or that I was, in fact, touching his chest, feeling his heart beneath my fingertips.

It was strangely intimate. I knew I needed to pull away, try and recover the invisible boundary we'd both just trampled over.