Caged

by Lorelei James

  thoughts like that into the background as she lost herself in the heart-pounding, sweat-dripping, body-clenching rush of his sexual magnetism.

  There was something so primitive and male about the way he fucked her. His fascination with how her body moved as his body powered into hers. She’d never felt so . . . taken. She closed her eyes and let his need drive hers.

  Then his mouth was on her throat. Teeth scraping, followed by tiny bites. Soft flicks of his tongue. Heated breath. “Arch into me,” he rasped in her ear. “I want this hot pussy milking me as we both come.”

  Deacon changed the angle of his hips, pressing into the low rise of her mound on every upthrust.

  “Oh. I like that.” She put her heels on the edge of the table and rocked into him. “Harder.”

  A soft snarl burned across her skin as he bottomed out inside her faster and faster.

  Molly didn’t chase her orgasm. She just let the sensations build, one grinding hard thrust at a time until she couldn’t stop herself from sliding side to side and then gasping, “Shallow thrusts. I’m right there.”

  “I fucking love when you tell me what you need.”

  When she started to come, Deacon latched on to her nipple and sucked with the pulsing rhythm of her blood. She felt the orgasm in every muscle and pulse point in her body. All she could do was let the storm crash over her again and again, spinning her around and around until she didn’t know which end was up and the waves of pleasure receded.

  After she’d reached her peak, Deacon didn’t return to the skin-slapping thrusts, but he continued the slow, steady movements. When he buried his face in her neck, his harsh breathing and the stiffening of his body above her were the only indications that he’d found his own release.

  They remained like that, their chests plastered together by sweat, trying to catch their collective breaths. With his hands still squeezing her hips, Deacon planted kisses down her neck, across her collarbones, dragging his mouth down to her left nipple. He teased that hardened tip until she started to squirm beneath him.

  “Deacon.”

  “What?” he said in an annoyed whisper, as if he didn’t want her to interrupt his worship of her breast.

  “You wrecked me.”

  He lifted his head. His lips were full and wet from suckling her. Something dark skittered through his eyes.

  Molly nuzzled his cheek. “In a good way. In the best way ever.”

  Deacon’s hands glided up to cup her face. He smoothed her hair away from her damp forehead. The tenderness in him delighted her, how effortlessly he soul kissed her. Intently, not just intensely.

  He tugged her upright so she could wreathe her arms around his waist.

  After the kiss shifted into soft smooches, he rested his forehead to hers. “You wrecked me too. I didn’t know . . .”

  His body language—the way he clung to her—said everything his mouth didn’t.

  They’d been intimate on a level before they’d had sex. They’d both felt the urgency about taking that next step to become lovers. But being this . . . Neither one of them had been prepared for it.

  She twisted out of his hold and flattened her palms on his forearms, taking in every inch of muscle, every ripple of sinew. “As much as I’d love to continue to worship at the altar of Deacon the sex god, we could both use a break.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Deacon the sex god? Seriously, babe?”

  “Mmm-hmm. New nickname for you. In fact, Deacon ‘Sex God’ McConnell has a much nicer ring than Deacon ‘Con Man’ McConnell, don’t you think?”

  “I think you’re delirious from lack of food.” He kissed her decisively. “Off the table before I’m tempted to eat you for supper.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THEY’D both overslept the next morning, allowing no time for Deacon to fuck Molly in the shower like he’d planned.

  There wasn’t any time to stop at the C-Mart for a quick cup of joe, either. But on the way to the lawyer’s office, Deacon did bring up one thing that’d been weighing on him. “Torch Robbins is your family lawyer?”

  “If by ‘family’ you mean Grams’s and Uncle Bob’s lawyer . . . then yes.”

  He picked up her hand to stop her from fiddling with the crease in her pants. “You’re nervous.”

  “I’ve never been to the reading of a will before.”

  “It’s pretty boring. It’s the shit that happens afterward you oughta be worried about.” He parked in front of the lawyer’s office and faced her. “Babe, I gotta be honest. I’m not sure this guy”—he pointed to the fancy lettering on the glass window—“has your best interests in mind.”

  “I’ve thought about that. But what are my options? I’m leaving tomorrow. Torch Robbins is the only game in town.”

  He curled his hand around her neck and turned her face toward him. “My cousin Tag is a lawyer. Lemme ask him if he’s got colleagues in Omaha or Lincoln. We’ll go from there.”

  Her brown eyes softened. “That’d be a huge relief to me. And make sure your cousin knows I’ll pay him for his time.”

  “No worries. Tag owes me. Just don’t sign anything until I talk to him, okay?”

  “I won’t. You’re too good to be true. You know that, right?”

  “Wrong. I’m a bad bet.” He stroked the edge of her jaw. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “So noted. But I still think you’re sweet. Showing up here, knowing what I need before I do—”

  Deacon brushed his mouth over hers to stop the stream of praise he felt he hadn’t earned. “I’ll wait out here.”

  He called Tag’s home phone and left a message. Pussy move, not calling Tag’s office at JFW or his cell phone, but Deacon wanted legal advice, not family guilt.

  It’d gotten stuffy inside the car, so he’d found a shady spot in front of a barbershop. While he waited, he checked sports scores and mined through MMA sites for news on his phone.

  Less than an hour later, Molly exited the lawyer’s office.

  “How’d it go?”

  Molly shot a look over her shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about it here. I need some damn caffeine.”

  He drove to the C-Mart.

  After she’d taken a few sips from her jumbo cup of coffee, she blurted out, “That was bizarre. Everyone acted so civilized until Torch read the will. Then Jennifer and Brandi started yelling at me and Uncle Bob asked if the will could be contested.”

  “What the fuck happened?”

  “Grams bequeathed some of her belongings to the church. We’re meeting Reverend Somers at the house in an hour—evidently she already had that stuff sorted. Once the place is empty, the house and the land will be put up for sale. The money is to be split equally between Uncle Bob and me. Anything left over in the house will be auctioned off. That’s Brandi and Jennifer’s inheritance.”

  While that seemed fair, since Molly was the sole heir of her grandmother’s other child, Deacon knew her cousins wouldn’t see it that way. “Tag left me a message. He’s tracking down an estate lawyer. He’ll follow up with you soon.”

  “Did he say something else? Because you seem distracted.”

  No surprise she’d picked up on that. “Just wondering how long it’ll take to empty the house. I have to be back in the training room by the day after tomorrow.”

  “Deacon, if you have to go, I’ll understand. Everything you’ve done for me has been above and beyond.”

  “I’m not leaving you to deal with angry family members. Let’s help them get the stuff in the house sorted. But, babe, you’re only doin’ that as a courtesy since they own everything inside now. There shouldn’t be any reason we can’t leave tomorrow morning.”

  “You’re right. I’m just used to doing everything.”

  “Time to let that go.”

  “Time to let a lot of things go,” she said softly.

  He knew how that felt, but as usual, he said nothing.

  • • •

  BY the time they arrived at the ho
use, the locks had been removed. Reverend Somers and two parishioners were carting out boxes of books and craft supplies.

  Neither Molly’s uncle nor her cousins were there yet. He suspected Brandi and Jennifer planned to show up late—after Molly had done most of the work.

  Before they started tearing up the house, Molly gave Deacon a tour. She held it together until they reached the living room.

  As she ran her hand over her grandmother’s worn easy chair, she took a moment to firm her wobbling chin. “Growing up I wasn’t allowed to eat in the front room. Seeing this”—she gestured to the dishes on the plastic-coated TV tray—“makes me sad. I wonder when she broke that rule. After I left for college? Is that when she realized she’d be eating alone regardless if she sat in front of the TV or at the dining room table?”

  Deacon moved in behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

  “This is supposed to be the easy part, right? These . . . things are just things. Sellable and replaceable. I shouldn’t have any attachment to that chair. No matter how many years she sat in it. Because I know she’ll never sit in it again. I don’t need that around as a reminder.”

  He kissed the top of her head, strangely moved by her unsentimental view.

  She disentangled herself. “This stuff won’t sort itself.”

  And there was his shove-the-emotional-stuff-aside Molly. They were strangely alike that way. “What’s the plan?”

  “Personal things in one pile. Auction items in another. Throw away the stuff that doesn’t fit in either category.” Molly faced him. “If you bring in the four big trash cans from out back, I’ll get the garbage bags.”

  “I’m yours to command, babe.” He’d do Molly’s bidding today, because once this task was done, he could get her naked beneath him again and he’d be the one calling the shots.

  As he carried in the garbage cans, he thought about how things had changed between Molly and him. Being lovers was a big part of it, but she’d given herself over to his care in other ways. It’d been a long damn time since he’d felt needed, and it didn’t scare the fuck out of him as much as he’d feared it would.

  In the living room, Molly was hitting her fists into the window frame, which appeared to be painted shut.

  “Trying to break your hand?”

  “Ha. I’m trying to open the windows. It’s so stuffy in here I can’t breathe.” She grunted and banged into the wood even harder.

  “Move.”

  “There’s a trick to this; I just can’t remember what it is.”

  He crowded her, intending to elbow her aside, but she whirled around and slapped her palms on his chest. “Whoa there, big guy. It’s not a big deal if I hurt my hand, but yours are a different story.”

  “Babe. I ain’t gonna hurt myself opening a fucking window.”

  “That’s right. Because your job is to stand there looking all hot, scowly, menacing badass while I do it.”

  “Christ. I remember when we first met you couldn’t even look me in the eye. Now you’re bossing me around and insulting me.”

  “Turns you on, doesn’t it?” she said with a sexy purr before she faced the window again and smacked her palms along the top of the sill.

  Deacon circled her wrists with his fingers, pulling her arms above her head and pressing his groin into her ass. “Know what really turns me on? Imagining how hot it’ll be when I take you like this.”

  She melted against him. “Deacon.”

  “Fuck, woman. What you do to me.” He let his lips follow the curve of her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “And the things I want to do to you.”

  The front door slammed against the wall.

  When Molly jumped back, he moved into her space and pounded his fists into the wood casing until the window opened.

  “Show-off.”

  Jennifer stormed in, dragging a trash can to the dining room table. “For years I’ve been looking forward to throwing away all this crap. Who keeps magazines, knitting patterns and old Christmas cards?”

  “Don’t throw out any pictures, ledgers, or records. Put anything you’re not sure of, like the crocheted afghans, in the kitchen, and we’ll go through it later.”

  Jennifer got right in Molly’s face. “You may own half of this house now, but what’s inside belongs to us. Not you. You’re not in charge. I am. I want this shit done. The auction house will be by later today. Sort the stuff upstairs first.”

  Deacon was disappointed when Molly said, “Aye-aye,” but didn’t salute.

  In Molly’s old room, Deacon noticed the twin bed had been stripped. A cheap pressboard desk and an old metal chair were shoved against the wall. A battered chest of drawers anchored the opposite end of the room. No posters or plaques adorned the walls. “Did your room always look like this?”

  “Jennifer and Brandi wrecked anything nice, so after a while I didn’t bother making it personal.”

  “It sucks that not even this was a private space for you growing up.”

  “Makes me appreciate the freedom to decorate however I want—even with flowers and lace and shit.”

  “Hilarious.”

  She checked the closet and every dresser drawer. “This room is done. Guest bedroom is next.”

  Deacon hauled in the garbage can, but the room was already sparse. A double bed, a dresser, and a bentwood rocker. He leaned against the doorjamb, watching Molly rifle through the contents of the drawers and dump everything into the trash.

  The two plastic tubs she’d designated for keepsakes were both empty.

  “What can I do? I’m just standing around.”

  “Take down the curtains?”

  That killed four minutes.

  “Now what?”

  “A big, strong man like you could probably lift that bed frame with one hand.”

  Deacon did just that.

  Laughing, she yanked out the oval rug beneath the metal feet. “Be still my heart.”

  He snagged her around the waist and pulled her close.

  “What?”

  “Gimme that mouth.” Her lips parted on a soft sigh, which he caught as he kissed her. Normally he wasn’t a kissing guy, but being mouth-to-mouth with her punched all his buttons.

  The stairs creaked and she broke the kiss. “Stop tempting me away from work.”

  He smirked. “Not sorry.”

  “I know. Make yourself useful.” She pointed to the garbage. “Take that out and dump it.”

  Deacon was in the kitchen when he heard the front door open. A male voice called out, “Molly?”

  Fast footsteps sounded above his head. “Omigod, Tim? Is that really you?”

  “In the flesh, baby.”

  Molly let out a happy shriek.

  What the hell? Deacon moved to the open doorway and watched as Molly flew down the steps and launched herself at another man.

  “I can’t believe you’re here!”

  “I came as soon as I heard. Sorry I missed the funeral.” Then he planted his mouth on hers in a really fucking far-from-friendly kiss.

  Then Mr. Soon-to-Be-Bleeding framed Molly’s face in his hands and spoke softly to her.

  Jennifer sidled up next to him. “Why the angry look, Deacon? Surely since you and Molly are involved, you know all about Tim.”

  “Who is he?”