AUGUST | NH |

NINE

Niall

I asked her to go to breakfast.

What I got was an entire day with her, hours of us talking and being together, learning everything we could about each other.

Like how Archer likes to annotate her books using certain colors for certain things and how she knows that I like to collect Guinness glasses because they remind me of home.

Most surprising of all of it was how easy it was to take her hand in mine, walk beside the harbor, and just talk about anything and everything.

Archer was intelligent, armed with a sense of humor, and so kind.

God, she was so kind.

Not to mention how fucking beautiful she was.

Especially right now, sitting facing me on my couch with a stack of Uno cards in her hand, focused.

I'll admit when I saw her this morning it felt like she jump started my heart rate. Wearing a pair of cut off shorts that showed off her long legs and an old hockey shirt — which I later learned was her favorite sport.

Her face was bare of makeup and her hair was piled on top of her head, like she didn't care or feel the need to dress up for me and that made me want to wrap my arms around her.

It made me want to call her mine.

Not to mention the way it made me want to touch her, to feel the flames on my skin that only she could ignite.

"Uno!" I call out, laying my second to last card down. "Come on, Peach... You're slacking!"

Watching as her jaw drops, she calls out. "You cheated!!"

"What?! How did I cheat?!" Her eyes narrow over her cards as she focuses on the one left in my hand. "You're just mad you're losing!"

"I am not!" Her laughter is like a drug as I lean forward and tip her over onto her back, knocking all the cards all over the floor. "Niall, the cards!"

"Who cares about the cards?" My lips find hers as she smiles, taking the cards from her hand and throwing them somewhere behind me. "This is way more fun."

"You're just trying to distract me from the fact that you just cheated!" Archer's laugh dies down, her giggle turning into soft gasps as my body looms over hers.

Resting on my elbow, I use my other hand to brush her hair out of her face and cup her jaw. "I didn't cheat, but I'll gladly distract you like this for any reason you want."

Her eyes are soft as I look down at her, memorizing her features. The soft slope of her nose, the dark raspberry shade of her plump lips, the smattering of freckles on the apples of her cheeks.

"Niall?"

My name is a question on her lips, drawing my attention back to her eyes. "Archer."

Her hands slide under the hem of my shirt, the sensation of her fingertips grazing my skin enough to make me shiver from where I lay half on top of her, half on top of my couch.

"Kiss me. Please."

Suppressing the groan that threatens to make its way from the back of my throat, I lean forward to meet her lips. Moving them together before slipping my tongue past her lips in search of her own.

The feeling of Archer's body molded to mine is enough to make me crazy, that I'm sure of. My hand falls from her cheek and slides down her body and mimics her own actions as it slips under the hem of her shirt.