“I’m about to head out, you headed home?” Graham asked Deacon without looking up.
“Deaton, Deaton, Deaton!” Keith screamed as he tore through the living room. “Guess who I am!”
“Hey now.” I gave Keith a curious look and pointed from him to the hall he’d just come running down. “I could’ve sworn I just put you in bed.”
Keith’s shoulders sagged. “But Mommy! Why I hafta sleep when my people are here?”
I bit back the laugh that so desperately wanted to escape, and said, “Nope, sorry. Back in bed plea—” My heart stuttered, and I froze when I heard my phone chime from where I’d left it charging in my room at the same time that Graham put his phone in his pocket. “Uh . . . say good night to Deacon and Graham, and I’ll be in your room in just a minute to tuck you back in,” I finished quickly, then slipped away from the boys to head toward my room in search of my phone.
It was one thing for Graham to say things that linked him to Stranger, it would be another if the message waiting for me was from Stranger after having watched Graham text someone. I could feel it, that end when all of this became real, and I wasn’t ready for it. I wasn’t ready to lose this person who had helped me learn so much in such a short amount of time. I wasn’t ready to lose this person that I had such a strange connection with. And I wasn’t ready to find out that Stranger was Graham LaRue, when I so desperately wanted him to be someone I knew he never would be.
Irrational, betraying heart.
I blew out a relieved breath when it ended up being only a message from Jagger letting me know he was happy for me, and was sorry for having to leave earlier.
Not that I blamed him. Since Jagger and Grey had to delay their trip to Seattle last weekend, they were leaving early the next morning to see friends and catch the last few days of an art show that Jagger had some pieces in.
Truthfully, I was ready for them to finally go to Seattle. I was worried that even with a place separate from them, I would still have to endure Jagger’s endless questions about Deacon, like how I was feeling, and what was I thinking planning something with him in the first place.
In other words, the parental-type talks had been in full force ever since Saturday night, and I needed a break.
I left my phone on the nightstand so it could continue charging, and walked back down the hall toward the living room. My footsteps slowed when I found it empty, but then I heard Deacon and Keith’s voices coming from Keith’s new room at the opposite end of the house.
Graham was already gone.
“What? No way, kid! Batman can’t beat Superman!”
“Yeah huh! ’Cause I’m so supa strong.”
“But Superman’s stronger. Like, ladybugs can’t even touch him, he’s so awesome.”
I peeked into the room in time to see Keith smack his forehead with his open palm. “Ladybugs can’t touch Darf Vaber. How many times I hafta tell you?”
“What if Superman just used his laser eyes to kill all the ladybugs in the world?”
Keith sucked in a huge breath, then faltered. “Whoa.”
Deacon nodded slowly. “Yeah, kid. Whoa.”
I froze against Keith’s doorjamb when both boys looked over at me, and stammered, “Uh, it’s t—you rea—it’s bedtime.”
Keith sighed exaggeratedly, but shuffled over to me for a quick kiss, then to his bed when Deacon said good night.
I swallowed thickly and tried to ignore the way Deacon’s eyes devoured me as he ate up the distance separating us.
Those same eyes held so many unspoken questions when he stepped close to me, but before he could voice any of them, or I could ask him to leave, the doorbell rang.
“Whoa cool! Mommy! Did you hear it?”
“I did,” I said uneasily as I wondered who could be at the door. “Get under the covers, buddy, I’ve gotta go—”
“I’ve got it,” Deacon murmured, cutting me off.
“It’s my house.”
“And it’s for me,” he argued gently, and stretched his hand out behind him to hold me back.
It worked. I was so terrified of what I would feel the second he touched me that I nearly jumped away from his touch.
I still followed a few feet behind him after shutting Keith’s door, and listened intently when he answered my door.
After a minute, he shut the door and sent me a challenging look as he stood there holding a pizza box. “Knew I wasn’t going to make it in time to help, and figured if you let me in at all, you were going to kick me out as fast as you could . . .”
“And you think pizza will stop me from doing that?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
“No, but I’m hoping it’ll help.” I would have expected him to look smug then, but he was just standing there waiting. His expression showed that he was waiting for me to make him leave.
I grabbed the box from him and turned to walk to the kitchen. I didn’t look back at him, but I knew he followed me. “I find it incredibly convenient that you didn’t show up until Jagger was gone tonight, especially considering I didn’t know you were coming at all.”
“Graham asked me to come help, and, like I said earlier, I got caught up at the garage.”
I glanced at him from over my shoulder and forced a smile as I dropped the box on the kitchen island. It felt like a sneer. “Did you?”
“Fuck, Charlie . . .” He grabbed my forearm and turned me around, his shoulders now sagging with the weight of some invisible stress as his large hands moved up to grip mine. “I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
The depth of his apology stunned me, but it didn’t change what I saw. What I’d felt and let myself believe . . . how he’d lied to me and forgotten about me. My head shook, but he continued.
“I fucked up, I know. I have never been more aware of anything in my life than how much I’ve messed up with you. I got stuck at the garage tonight, I swear to God.”
“I’m sure you can understand why I don’t believe you,” I bit out, and hated that my eyes burned with unshed tears.
Deacon Carver hadn’t deserved my tears then, and he most certainly didn’t deserve them now. Not when he could see them, not when he could get a glimpse into how much he’d hurt me.
“Give me a chance to make it up to you.”
“No!” I huffed sadly and shook my head furiously. “You told me exactly what you thought of me. You forced me to stand there so you could apologize and somehow got me to agree to let you make it up to me. And then you made me look like an idiot because I so stupidly let myself believe for one second that you might actually care about someone other than yourself! Because I believed that you would actually show.”
“Charlie, I do, and I meant to,” he ground out. “I nev—”
“No, you don’t get to try to tell me how you intended to be there for me after you finished screwing someone else.”
His large hands tightened around my shoulders, not uncomfortably, but like he was pleading with me through his touch alone.
But I wasn’t finished.
Deacon should know better by now. If I thought about something long enough, if I imagined how a conversation would go in my mind enough times, once I finally started talking about it I wouldn’t stop until I said every last word.
“And now look where we are . . . with you forcing me to stand still so you can apologize and ask me to give you another chance.” I forced a laugh from my chest, but it sounded wet from my tears. “How many times can you make me look like an idiot before it stops being some sick, hilarious joke to you?”
He flinched as though I’d slapped him across the face. “You think I find this funny? You think this is a joke to me?”
“What else could it be?”
My breath came out on a rush when my back suddenly hit a wall. Deacon’s body was flush against mine, pinning me in place, h
is face was a breath from mine.
And, God, I hated him for making me want to beg him to close that distance.
Every rough breath brushed my chest against his.
Every touch incited something inside me I had been so sure I would never feel again.
His hands moved slowly across my shoulders, the tips of his fingers barely grazed against the slope of my throat until his large hands were cradling my neck and his thumbs were brushing along my jaw.
His eyes followed the movements of his hand, as if he was memorizing the path they took, the curve of my neck.
My heart beat wildly in my chest, begging to be freed.
Begging to be seen by this man.
“Tell me, Charlie Girl,” he said roughly as his nose brushed against mine. “This . . . does this feel like a joke? Because the hell you’ve been putting me through for the past two weeks sure as fuck hasn’t felt like one.”
I blinked up into those eyes, those eyes that were once so cold and unforgiving but now held a heat unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
“That I’ve put you through?” I whispered in disbelief.
One of his hands moved up so his thumb could brush across my cheek, but I was so captivated by his stare and the feel of his hands on me and his body pressed against me that I couldn’t find it in me to be embarrassed that he’d wiped a tear away.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he admitted gruffly. “I can’t stop seeing you even when I try to force the thought of you away. I can’t stop wanting you, needing you. All I’ve thought about since Knox’s wedding is feeling you like this again.” His body pressed harder against mine, emphasizing his words. “To go through all of that day in and day out with a girl I know I should never have, with a girl I’ve forced to hate me, has been the purest form of hell.”
His words were ecstasy and agony all at once.
A girl I know I should never have. Deacon’s words swirled around and around in my mind until they were all I knew.
So similar to ones Ben had said so many years ago before he’d destroyed my heart, and yet so different coming from the man holding me.
My heart and my mind and my body were screaming so many different things I couldn’t think straight. I wanted to hate him and kiss him and slap him and beg him to say it all again so I would know I hadn’t imagined it.
My head shook faintly. “You . . . no. The girl. I saw her . . .”
Deacon flinched and his eyes shut. When he looked at me again, he looked like he was in pain. “I said I tried to force away the thought of you.”
“You disgust me,” I breathed.
It was all coming back to me.
Ben telling me he loved me even though he knew he shouldn’t. Taking my virginity and promising me a future with him, then asking Grey to marry him two days later because he was afraid to lose the years he’d had with her. Calling me a mistake because he wasn’t in love with me.
Watching as he pushed the thought of me, of us, away because he was scared.
And now Deacon forgetting about me because he was having sex with some nameless girl—all because he was trying to force the thought of me away.
I didn’t understand what it was about me that made guys want to drown out the thought of me with another woman, but it hurt.
God, it hurt.
“That’s nothing I don’t already know, Charlie Girl.”
My head shook harder. “You’re disgusting. Let me go and get out of my house,” I said through gritted teeth as another tear fell, and then another. No matter how hard I tried to keep them away, I couldn’t stop them.
I hurt.
I wanted to be wanted, wholly and unconditionally. Just once.
“Christ, Charlie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered soothingly, and wiped at my cheeks. “I’m sorry, please stop crying.”
“Leave.” I pressed against his chest, but he didn’t move away. “Let go of me!”
Deacon’s hands immediately left my face and landed on the wall on either side of my head, but his body didn’t leave mine. Instead, he dipped in closer until his lips were at my ear, just like the day before, and said, “I’m an asshole. I’ve lived the last—God, I don’t know how long, just waiting for the next girl, and the next. Names and faces didn’t matter, just as long as they were gone as fast as they got there. You want me to go, then I’m gone. But I know I won’t get this chance again, so just listen.
“I’ve never been haunted by a girl the way you haunt me, Charlie Easton. It wasn’t because I hadn’t had you, or because I knew I shouldn’t. That knowledge and everything I felt scared the shit out of me, and I knew I had to do something to put an end to it. So, yes, I fucked up. I will apologize forever if I have to, but know that I’ve never hated myself, or how I am, more than I did that day. And you? All I saw was you, more than ever.”
One of his hands slowly fell from the wall back to my cheek, and he pulled back to look into my eyes. Indecision, fear, and need swirled in their light depths.
“Hurting you has killed me. Unaware . . . yeah? I get it now. Maybe with everyone else, but I’ve never been more aware of anything or anyone.”
My body sagged against the wall when he pushed away, and after another second, he turned and stepped away.
I needed to let him go.
Step.
A guy like Deacon Carver would only do what Ben had done, and more.
Step.
But my body was screaming in protest the loss of his touch, and I’d only lost it seconds ago.
Step step.
I swallowed past the tightness in my throat and dropped my head to stare unseeing at the floor.
Step.
I pushed down all of my fears—of rejection, of getting my heart broken, of simply speaking my mind on a whim, and said, “This is usually the part of the book where the hero kisses the girl.”
Silence.
“I don’t know how to be that hero, Charlie Girl.”
I slowly lifted my head and found Deacon facing me. Chest moving with each exaggerated breath, hands slightly flexing like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“If you want me to be that guy, I would only hurt you more.” But even as he spoke the words, he took a couple steps back toward me. “I can’t compete with whatever it is you read.”
If only he knew that he wasn’t so different.
I lifted a shoulder. “This is also a house of superheroes.”
Deacon smirked. The slant of his lips challenged and warned and promised.
My stomach warmed at the sight, my body was already buzzing with anticipation.
“Now that I can compete with.”
He ate up the distance in two steps, and pulled me from the wall as his mouth fell onto mine.
One of his hands pressed against the small of my back, molding our bodies closer and closer, the other curled around my neck again. Cradling and guiding, strength and tenderness.
I clung to his shirt as our mouths moved in perfect sync, trying to hold on to this kiss that was everything.
Everything I’d dreamed of.
Everything I’d craved.
Everything I’d never had.
Because Deacon was holding me like he was afraid of letting me go, and I wasn’t trying to hold him closer, afraid he would.
His thumb pushed against my jaw to tilt my head back farther, and his tongue hesitantly brushed against the seam of my lips. Asking. Begging. Creating chaos within my body.
My mouth opened with an inhale, and a soft moan slid up my throat when his tongue met mine in a perfect dance. The push and pull, the desperation and need, all in a space that felt as though time would stand still at any moment.
The kiss slowed, Deacon’s lips moved across my jaw and down my neck until his mouth was at my ear. “If
I don’t stop myself now, I’m taking you to the couch and laying you down, and I know I won’t want to stop then.” His teeth grazed the skin just below my ear when he finished, and a growl rumbled in his chest when a shiver moved down my spine. “Christ, Charlie.”
I continued to stare at his chest as I wondered what would happen now that the kiss was over. My world felt like it was tilted, just waiting to find out which way it was supposed to turn next. That kiss had been more than I ever expected it could be, but this was still Deacon.
He could still leave.
I couldn’t figure out if I needed to guard myself and my emotions, or allow myself to stay in this surreal moment for a little longer.
“What now?” I asked softly.
Deacon pulled away from me, his light brown stare bouncing all over my face and staying on my lips longer and longer each time, as his eyes darkened with heat. Without warning, he pressed a quick, rough kiss to my mouth, then spoke against my lips. “Now . . . I take you on a date to your kitchen table, and hope like hell that you give superheroes third chances.”
Chapter Thirteen
Deacon
June 15, 2016
KNOX AND GRAHAM’S loud voices met me as soon as I set foot inside the house that night, and, for a second, it felt like it always had. Back before Knox had found Harlow again, and married her. Back before I would have done anything to make Charlie Easton mine—back before I wanted to make any girl mine, period. Back before I had to constantly talk myself down from punching one of my best friends.
I curled my arm around Harlow’s neck, and pulled her in so I could kiss the top of her head when I found her walking out of the kitchen. “Hey, Warrior.”
Harlow narrowed her eyes suspiciously when she pulled away, and looked me over quickly. “That was one of the quietest, most unenthusiastic greetings I’ve ever received from you. You okay, Deacon?”
I had no fucking clue.
Yes, yes I was. Because I’d just spent the past few hours with Charlie. Because I’d kissed the hell out of that mouth and held her as close as I could stand before I gave in to a need I knew she wasn’t ready for yet.
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