His mouth never left mine. His hands gripped my body so tightly it was as if he wanted to memorize the feel of me beneath his hands, as if he wanted to make sure I was there.
The air in my lungs rushed out when my back hit the bed and Deacon’s body settled on top of mine. And just as he had been doing before, I dug my fingers into his back and shoulders. I felt like I had to hold on to something real; like I had to feel his body to know I wasn’t imagining this.
His mouth left a trail of hot kisses down my throat as he slowly lifted my shirt up my stomach, but both his touch and his mouth stopped when the bottom of the material teased my nipples.
“Remember what I said the other night.” His deep voice rumbled against my skin. It was more of a request than a question. “Say wait at the last second, and I’ll wait. Charlie Girl,” he demanded after a short pause.
“I know,” I said quickly, then sucked in a sharp gasp when his head suddenly dipped and he pulled one of my exposed breasts into his mouth.
His tongue rolled around my nipple and his teeth grazed the sensitive skin there, sending little shock waves straight to my core. Over and over again until I was gripping his hair and whimpering his name and moving restlessly beneath him, needing more.
I lifted my hips from the bed when he pulled at my shorts, and exhaled shakily when he moved in a line down my stomach and spread my thighs.
“Deacon.” I swallowed thickly, and tried to ignore the way my heart was racing and chest was heaving with each ragged breath.
Because I wanted this. My body was screaming for me to let him to continue. But this . . .
I didn’t know how to let him do this.
Brown eyes met mine, his face just above my hips. “Say the word.” But even though his tone held so much promise, as he spoke he pushed my legs until my knees were bent and feet were planted on the bed. “Say the word, and I’ll hold you for the rest of the night.”
My head shook quickly as I fought with what I wanted and what I was too ashamed to allow to happen. “No, that’s not—I can’t—I don’t—I’ve never,” I said quickly, stumbling over the words. “He never . . .” I trailed off when Deacon’s brows arched up, and then a determined and possessive look slowly covered that handsome, handsome face.
A wicked grin tugged at his mouth as he pushed himself farther back, and then lowered himself until I could feel his breath against me when he said, “Wrong word.”
My back arched away from the bed and my hands fisted in the comforter when his tongue moved from my entrance to my clit. My skin covered with goose bumps as his tongue continued to torture me in a way I’d never imagined possible, and the warmth in my belly suddenly felt white-hot.
One of my hands shot to his head, my fingers wove into his hair and gripped when he pressed two fingers inside me. “Oh God!” I said breathlessly. “Deacon!”
I felt him smile against me before he resumed the sweet suffering.
It was too much. The soft and the hard and the feel of his smiles and silent laughters when I would gasp out a plea or curse from it all.
Something low in my stomach tightened, and that warmth burned hotter and hotter until that too felt like it was too much. My breathing hitched and my toes curled, trying to find some purchase in the comforter. My chest moved raggedly with my uneven breaths until it halted as my breathing stopped altogether . . .
And then came out with a rush when Deacon’s mouth and hand disappeared.
I felt his loss on more than a physical level. It felt like my body was screaming at him to come back and continue, when I couldn’t speak at all.
I threw one of my hands over my face when his wicked grin came into view as he moved over me. I needed to block that heated stare from seeing exactly how much I’d enjoyed that, when I was still completely mortified by it and embarrassed by the way my body craved more. I didn’t want to know that my inexperience was amusing to him when I knew all too well about his experience.
The sound of clothes being removed and hitting the floor was the only thing that joined my uneven breathing for a while before I felt his hands gently moving my shirt that he’d left rolled up on my chest earlier.
“Beautiful. You’re so damn beautiful, Charlie.” Deacon sounded like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. My name left his lips like a prayer.
None of the teasing I’d expected. No condescending tone.
None of the old Deacon I kept worrying would show up again.
Relief flooded me at his words, and my lips twitched into a smile. I kept my eyes shut when he slid the shirt over my arms and head, and let it fall to the floor as well.
He settled himself between my legs, a soft whimper moved up my throat when he pressed his length against me. “You walking?” he murmured as his mouth brushed across mine in the softest, sweetest kiss.
I curled my hands around his face when he rested his forehead on mine, and shook my head. “No.”
No, I was seeing everything Deacon couldn’t admit because he didn’t know how. I was enjoying living in this moment and being loved by a man like Deacon Carver while loving him the best way I knew how . . . with my eyes shut.
A low growl built in his chest when I curled my legs around his waist and lifted my hips so the tip of him slid against my entrance. “Christ, Charlie.”
He pushed in the slightest bit, and reached between our bodies to brush his fingers against where I was aching and craving him, but stopped when I attempted to bite back a moan.
“Tell me if you’re not ready,” he pled gently. “Tell me, or I’m making you mine, and you’re done walking away from me.”
“Are you waiting for me to change my mind or trying to give me time to remember my promise to myself?” I whispered, and slowly opened my eyes and found his directly above me. I continued to cradle his face for a brief moment, then let my hands slide to his neck and across his shoulders. “If you have no intention of giving me your heart, then don’t do this to mine. But my heart was yours even when you weren’t ready for it, so take it or let me—”
Deacon’s mouth crashed down onto mine, swallowing my shocked cry when he forced his thick length inside me.
Like no time had passed at all, that tight feeling in my stomach was back, and the heat felt like it might consume me as my body adjusted to his.
But, oh God, when he moved . . .
I never knew it could be like that. I never knew it could feel like it was not enough and too much, and like he was holding back—leaving me seconds from begging for more—while high-pitched moans kept escaping me from the intensity of it all, all at once.
Sex with Ben had been fast and to the point, and I’d thought at the time that it had been everything I could ever want. But he had never touched me. He’d never left my body feeling like it might burst if he didn’t continue touching me, and like it might fall apart if he didn’t stop.
This was perfection.
Deacon’s movements slowed, the unhurried roll of his hips brought him deeper and deeper inside.
That heat swirled and built until my body felt like it was strung so tightly I was sure I was going to shatter.
My breathing grew ragged and uneven, and one by one I pressed my fingers firmly against his shoulders and back, somehow knowing that I was going to need to hold on.
A short, broken huff was forced from my chest when he pushed in harder, and my grip tightened, eyes fluttered shut, and head fell back onto the bed. “Deacon,” I breathed, my voice barely making a sound. “Deac—” My arms and legs locked up and my fingers dug into his skin just as my body began vibrating.
“That’s it,” he breathed against my neck, and slid himself into me again and again. “That’s it, Charlie, let go.”
Before I could grasp his demand, he pulled all the way out then slammed back into me, and my body felt like it went up in flames.
A warm shiver shot down my spine and that white-hot heat shot through my veins. The vibrating turned into trembling and then shaking as warm shivers continued to torment my body.
Deacon hissed and bit down on my collarbone to muffle his sudden curse. His body felt rigid against mine for only a moment before his hips moved harder and faster than before, then harder still.
Each movement from him prolonged what was happening inside me, and I both loved and hated it. I never wanted it to end, but I felt out of control and terrified by that.
A shudder rolled through Deacon’s back, and he groaned against my neck as his hips jerked against mine when he found his release inside me. His back shook from his exaggerated breaths, the muscles there rippled beneath the tips of my fingers as we both tried to find our way back to ourselves.
He lifted his head, and his eyes met and searched mine as he slowly rolled onto his side, taking me with him. “You okay?”
Exhausted, wanted him again, and never felt more alive, but “okay” would do. I nodded once, but wasn’t able to voice the response he needed. The way Deacon was looking at me was all I could focus on. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
It was as though he was worried and proud, felt possessive and protective.
Deacon brushed away a chunk of hair that had fallen out of my bun, and cupped my cheek in his palm. “Never going to want to give this up, Charlie Girl. He was insane to.”
I smiled weakly as my chest warmed at his words. “I gave you my heart, you don’t have to.”
But I knew what I would have to give up in order to keep this.
Stranger.
For the first time in too long, I was acutely aware that the man holding me close to his body with his lips pressed firmly to mine was not the same man I texted every night.
It had been too easy to visualize Stranger as Deacon while talking to him. To swoon over his words and fall for him even though I knew I couldn’t. Even though I knew that it would be entirely stupid to allow myself to. Then again, I hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter when Stranger had so clearly known the way to my heart without even trying.
Some odd mixture of guilt and denial and fear filled me as I acknowledged the extent of my conversations with Stranger. How they’d made me feel, and how I’d come to crave them even as I’d told myself that they were innocent. Even as I’d told myself that he was a fictional character in one of my books.
Because somewhere out there, he was real. Because no matter what I told myself, the conversations weren’t innocent if the thought of Deacon ever seeing them had ice sliding through my veins. Because even though I’d envisioned them to be the same person, I had to accept that Deacon and Stranger were two separate men, now that I was about to lose one of them.
I looked up into light brown eyes when Deacon pulled back, and made up my mind. The song was finished; it had been for a few days. I would send it to Stranger, and then I would tell him good-bye.
Why did the thought of never speaking to him again hurt so much, when I was staring at what I wanted?
Chapter Eighteen
Deacon
July 4, 2016
NEVER GOING TO want to give this up.
I didn’t know where the words had come from when they had slid off my tongue before, but the thought continued to float through my mind again and again as I lay there with my arms tightly wrapped around Charlie’s body, and my head resting on her stomach.
Charlie’s fingers gently moved up and down my back, trailing over the raised lines from her nails, and every now and then one of her fingers would pass over where she’d broken the skin just as she’d fallen apart beneath me.
Her hesitations and reactions tonight hadn’t been something I’d expected. Considering her past with Ben, I’d never thought Charlie would be as innocent as she was. But, Christ, it had made my blood pound knowing no one had touched her that way. Knowing I was the first to take care of her the way she should be. Knowing no one else had made her feel the way she had tonight.
Ben was a damn idiot for not treating her like she was everything, but I wouldn’t complain, because I knew I would remember the way Charlie had responded to my touch, and the look on her face, for the rest of my life.
I’d remember everything about tonight for the rest of my life.
I blew out a slow, steadying breath against her stomach, then kissed the skin there as I thought about my wallet and what I had left in there. What I hadn’t even considered grabbing because I’d wanted Charlie, had wanted to feel her come undone while I was buried deep inside her, so damn bad.
Then again, I had a feeling just the fact that it was Charlie would have had me forgetting everything else but her, because she was the only one who could.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she traced over her mark on me. “I didn’t mean to.”
My mouth curved into a smile, and I lifted my head to look at her. “Don’t,” I said simply. If she only knew how fucking hot it had been. “Besides,” I said in a low tone as I pushed myself higher up on her body. “I’ll return the favor.” It was a promise emphasized when I dipped my head to bite the underside of her breast.
Charlie let out a soft gasp, and her fingers tightened on my back. She cradled my body between her thighs, and curled one of her legs slowly around one of my own—and already, that foil packet in my wallet was forgotten.
Never before, but Charlie Girl wasn’t like any of the others.
I rolled my hips against hers, and covered her mouth with my own, swallowing the next quick gasp that left her at the contact.
“Wait,” she said halfheartedly, but pulled me closer to her warmth. She shuddered when I rocked against her again, and bit down on her bottom lip as her head dropped back when I did it again. “Oh God,” she whispered.
“You gonna walk now?” I asked, my tone teasing, and kissed her soundly.
Her head shook faintly. “No. No, wait,” she said more firmly. “Wait, just let me—before I get too consumed in you, let me go check on Keith.”
“Shit,” I hissed, and pushed away from her. “I forgot. I’m sorry, I forgot.”
Her face, that just seconds before had shown her need and her pleasure, was now full of amusement as she watched me hurry around her room gathering clothes. “Forgot what, exactly?”
I paused once I had my boxer briefs on, and hesitated for only a second before deciding to tell her the truth. “Forgot he was here, forgot he was sick. Forgot everything . . .”
Red stained her cheeks as she shrugged into her shirt, but she remained silent as she climbed off the bed and pulled on the shorts I had tossed at her. She walked slowly up to me to kiss my bare chest, her blue eyes flashed up to mine for a brief second when she said, “Glad I wasn’t the only one. Give me just a minute, I’ll be back.”
I watched her walk out of the room, then turned to grab my jeans. After I finished buttoning them up, I bent to pick up my shirt, but froze when something on her nightstand next to a small stack of books caught my eye.
No.
I stayed there, hunched over and staring at the offending object for what felt like years as I tried to make myself see something else. Something other than the brown, slightly worn, soft leather journal that had entered my life and changed everything just over a month ago.
After long moments, I finally forced myself to straighten, and walked over to the nightstand. I picked up the pen that sat on top, and ran my hand over the journal.
Not her. Not her, not her, not her. Not this. It can’t be the same.
My Charlie reads books, she doesn’t write songs.
Words, to me, had been an escape from the Deacon everyone knew. She’d been a way for me to be myself when no one else had allowed me to be, and then I hadn’t been able to leave her.
I opened the cover, and my eyes shut when I saw the writing
. “Fuck.”
I flipped faster through the book until I got to the pages where we’d written back and forth to each other, then slammed the journal shut and backed away from the nightstand.
“This isn’t happening. This isn’t fucking happening,” I hissed.
It didn’t matter that I’d visualized Charlie as Words, she couldn’t be her.
Because before I had been terrified about what Charlie would say if she’d ever found out about Words, but now I didn’t know what to do about the fact that while I’d been trying to win Charlie over during the day, she’d spent her nights freely talking to a stranger in a way I always had to beg her to talk to me.
I snatched my shirt off the floor and shrugged into it and my shoes as I hurried out of Charlie’s room and down the hall. I entered the living room just as she did from the other side of the house, and her eyebrows pulled together when she saw me completely dressed.
Fear and hurt flashed through her eyes before she could try to hide it, but her shoulders still sagged as she studied me. When she spoke, her voice shook. “You’re leaving.”
It wasn’t a question, and it sounded as if she’d expected this all along.
I wanted to fall to my knees in front of her and wrap my arms around her. I wanted to tell her that not everyone would do what Ben had done to her; that despite my past, the guy she had given her heart to was the real Deacon. The Deacon that wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night, and every other night, in the same bed as her.
But all I could think about were my countless conversations with Words—things Charlie had thought she was saying to another man—and my need to prove that this wasn’t real somehow. That maybe she’d just found the journal because she worked at Mama’s.
It took me a second to realize I was nodding before I could shake my head. “No. Not like that,” I said quickly.
Her face was now guarded as her head slowly bowed, her stance rigid as she curled her arm around her waist.
No. No, don’t hide from me, Charlie Girl, I thought as my stomach churned and chest ached.
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