“Because she’s gorgeous—”
“Nothing.” His eyes narrowed. “She’s nothing compared to you.”
I dropped my gaze, feeling so stupid with my red cheeks and puffy eyes.
“I don’t see her that way. Yes, she’s attractive, but I don’t think about fucking her in the ass like I do with you.”
“It’s not that she’s pretty—”
“Then what, Cleo?” he asked. “What?”
“It’s because she can talk to you in a way I can’t.”
Now, he looked confused.
“It’s because she’s a physician, a researcher, she’s brilliant… She’s like you. I’m just an assistant.”
He stared at me, his eyes widening with surprise.
“She can talk to you about stuff I can’t even begin to comprehend. She’s passionate about what you’re passionate about. I guess I just felt…really insecure. And to top it off, she’s got insane tits and an ass—”
“Cleo.” He kept his voice even, steadying me with his calmness.
I stopped talking.
“I’m in my thirties. I’ve been married. And you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Why is that?”
All I could do was breathe.
“It’s not because of what you do. It’s because of who you are.” He moved his hand to my chest, placing it over my heart as he looked me in the eye. “And I really believe there’s no one else on this planet I ever could have loved. You’re it, Cleo. Just you.” He lowered his hand. “Why would I want someone just like me? I want someone who makes me better—someone who makes me a better person, a better father, a better friend. I want someone who makes me think about work less, who shows me how to live life to the fullest…and be happy.”
It was such a beautiful thing to say.
“I don’t throw that word around lightly. The only other person I love is my son, and that is the most powerful emotion I’ve ever felt in my life. I love you…as I love him. So, I never want you to ever doubt me again. I never want you to question my integrity, my fidelity, my loyalty…because nothing could ever break it. And don’t expect me to dismiss Kathleen, because I’m not going to terminate her position given that her only crime is her attractiveness. That’s an insult to her brilliance and her contribution to the world and our research, and it’s also completely sexist.”
“I would never—”
“Even if she did make a pass at me, that’s not a fireable offense. So, you either trust me or you don’t. That simple.”
“Of course, I trust you.” I wiped away my tears, looking him in the eye even though I was still an emotional mess. “I just…I guess I was just intimidated by her.”
“You have no reason to be.”
“But when she thought I was your assistant, she—”
“That’s your fault. Not hers. You could have told people we were together, but you chose not to. You know I’ve never wanted that. Frankly, I’m fucking tired of pretending to be something I’m not. I’ve stayed patient because I know how important your job is to you, but honestly, I fucking hate it. It’s the first time in my life that I’m in love with a woman…and it has to be some dirty secret.”
“It’s not forever—”
“I understand, Cleo. But don’t get mad at her for going after a man she wants—if you won’t tell her that I’m yours.”
Deacon was still in a bad mood.
His energy was palpable in the car, contaminating the air around us, recycling through the AC system. He wasn’t furious like he had been before, but he wasn’t happy either.
I waited for him to tell the driver to take me home.
But he didn’t.
Thankfully.
We pulled up to the building then stepped into the elevator.
Normally, I would have refused, afraid of being spotted going to his residence just before midnight. But Deacon was annoyed with me, and I thought it would be unwise to bring it up right now.
We walked down the hallway, and he got the door open.
Once we were alone together, I relaxed. No one was coming and going this late, or at least a resident hadn’t been in the elevator when we stepped inside. I knew every single client by name and face, so they’d recognize me instantly.
Deacon tossed his keys and wallet onto the table and headed down the hallway, letting his jacket slide off his arms as he moved.
I followed him, unsure what to do. He wouldn’t want me to go home alone at this hour, so he must want me to spend the night. My heels tapped against the hardwood floor quietly as I made my way into his bedroom.
The components of his suit had already been tossed into the dry-cleaning receptacle. His dress shoes were off, placed on the shelf in his closet. Now, he was in just his boxers, ripped and strong, his skin a deeper shade after our weekend at the beach.
Silently, he went into his bathroom and got ready for bed.
I set my clutch on my nightstand then slipped off my heels. Instead of putting them away neatly like he did, I kicked them aside. The zipper on my dress was to the side, so I got it loose and let the red dress slide off to the floor.
It reminded me of the spot where the woman had left her red panties.
I left my panties on because I didn’t want to get my expectations up. After I got into bed, I closed my eyes.
Deacon came out a moment later and flicked off the lights so the bedroom would be dark. He got under the sheets on his side and lay there, on his back, his eyes open and looking at the ceiling.
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to make this better.
He turned on his side and looked at me.
I whispered into the darkness. “I’m sorry…”
He watched me, his brown eyes impenetrable.
My hand slid across no-man’s-land and touched his forearm, my fingers lightly stroking him.
“Maybe the past made me insecure…for a moment. My husband left me for a better woman. I was afraid you would do the same.”
His gaze was still solid like concrete. “I made the same mistake with you. I assumed you would be like Valerie, and that was wrong. So now, we’re even. Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Okay.”
“Because I would never lie to you, cheat on you, leave you for another woman.”
“Never is a strong word, Deacon.”
“And I can say it. Because I love you. Really love you.”
I loved him hearing him say that. It made me feel invincible, like nothing could ever hurt me again. My fingers wrapped around his wrist, wanting to hold him, even if it was just a piece of him. He made my life complete, made me feel like I could escape into the sunset and never look back. I felt like I’d won the biggest lottery in history—and I never had to worry about a thing again. “I love you too, Deacon…so much.” I’d loved him long before he loved me, loved him so selflessly, I didn’t think I was capable of such patience. But I’d waited for him…because I knew he was the one.
When he heard me say that, his eyes softened slightly, like he could hear the depth of my sincerity as it came from my soul. “We’re supposed to have make-up sex now, right?”
I smiled at his naïveté. “Yeah.”
“Because I’d rather just make love to you.”
I slid closer to him on the bed and wrapped my arm around his neck, my palm flattening against the back of his head. My fingers curled around his neck, and I moved to his mouth, kissing him, making love to his mouth with mine.
It was a different kiss than it used to be. Now that everything was out in the open, it was more vulnerable, raw. I paused to breathe into his mouth, needing a moment to absorb the heat, the gravity of his emotions.
One of his hands gripped the back of my thong and pulled it down before his other hand slid into my hair, gathering the curls in his fingertips, fisting them like he wanted to keep me in place forever.
I got his boxers over his hips and ass before I pushed them down with my foot.
When our
bottoms were free, he moved over me, his thighs anxiously separating mine, his weight making the mattress shift as he positioned himself on top of me. After a tilt of his hips, his head found my entrance, and he sank quickly, as the wetness between my legs erased all the friction between our bodies. I had been emotional and dry, but when he told me he loved me, that was the instant my body changed. I wanted to take him as soon as I could, feel him inside me, show him that I felt the same way—a million times over.
He moaned as he looked me in the eye, his entire length buried inside me. He definitely noticed how unusually wet I was, considering there had been almost no foreplay. My body was wet because of the love in my heart.
He rocked into me slowly, his hand still fisted in my hair, looking down at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered at that moment. He hadn’t noticed Dr. Hawthorne’s incredible body because he was too absorbed in mine. All other women were just random faces and bodies, but mine stood out from the haze.
He breathed deeply against my mouth, his lungs needing more air the longer he moved, the more he worked his body to thrust completely inside me and pull out again. When he’d made love to me the first time, he didn’t even ask if I was on birth control. He completely trusted me, assumed I would have told him otherwise. He’d realized his mistake in rejecting me and fixed it, becoming a new man like he’d promised. Even when I told him I wanted to have his kids, he didn’t run off like others would.
Now, I knew why.
My arms circled his shoulders, and I rocked my hips with him, my ankles crossed at his lower back, my nipples dragging against his chest as he moved. I didn’t even care about reaching the finish line. I just wanted to be with him, to see him look at me like that, to know that every woman who wanted him couldn’t have him…because he was mine. “I love you.” I’d just said it minutes ago, but I didn’t care. I could finally release the words sitting in my heart, say anything I wanted without fear or shame. It was the opposite of dirty talk, but it turned me on more than any dirty thing I could say. I was so deeply in love with this man, and whispering into the darkness, saying it while looking him in the eye, was the biggest turn-on for me.
As was hearing him say it back. “I love you, baby.” He kissed me, his thrusts deep and slow, his cock slightly harder as he said it back, like it turned him on too.
“I want to be your wife…the mother of your kids…I want to grow old with you.” I could picture us together by the lake, our kids gone from the nest, out on their own, and then we just had each other and the quiet sound of the water. His dark hair would start to gray, the wrinkles would form in the corners of his eyes, but he would still be the most handsome man in the world to me. We would still make love, our moans mixing with the sounds of the crickets. And then we would die, our handsome sons and beautiful daughters carrying our legacy. “You’re the man I’m supposed to be with…” My first marriage was just a big fucking mistake. I’d thought he loved me, but real love didn’t die so easily the way his did. Deacon was deeper, didn’t say things unless he meant them, thought about every little thing to determine if it was true. He was the man I should have kept waiting for, the man who would stand by my side no matter what.
He paused as he looked into my eyes, his length buried inside me. “You’re the only woman I’ll ever love.”
Nine
Deacon
When I woke up the next morning, it was nine.
I hadn’t slept in that late since…I couldn’t remember when.
Cleo was on me, her head lying on my shoulder, her body resting in the crook of my arm. She’d never washed off her makeup, so her eyeliner and mascara were all over the sheets and pillows.
She was beautiful anyway.
I kissed her on the forehead before I slipped out of bed, putting on my sweatpants before walking to the other side of the condo. I made coffee in the kitchen and sat down at the dining table. My phone had a lot of text messages from people who had attended the charity dinner last night, saying they had a great time. I had emails too, so I sat at the dining table with my laptop and responded to everything. Social interactions were my weakness, but it wasn’t so bad when I knew almost everyone there. The people I worked with and my sponsors already knew exactly how I was.
It almost an hour later before Cleo came down the hallway, dressed in one of my t-shirts that she’d pulled out of my drawer. It reached her knees, was baggy around her torso, but her long and toned legs made up for the oversize fit.
She’d washed off her makeup and put it on fresh, even though she didn’t usually apply her makeup first thing in the morning. Her hands moved to my shoulders, and she stood behind me, her hands massaging the muscle. “Morning.”
I leaned my head back so I could look up at her. “Morning, baby.”
She leaned down and gave me a kiss on the lips before she walked into the kitchen.
My eyes watched her walk away, loving the sight of her in my condo in the morning. The natural light came through the windows and illuminated her beautiful skin like she was a goddamn angel.
“I’m going to make breakfast. Is that okay?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m gonna make waffles and tots.”
That was our new tradition on the weekends—to eat like shit. I didn’t even usually eat breakfast, but I’d started to bend the rules the more often she stayed. I didn’t think it would hurt to break my diet two times out of the week. “Alright.”
“With a bunch of syrup…”
“Put mine on the side.”
I heard her start to move the pans around as she worked.
I turned back to my laptop.
She came out minutes later, putting the plate in front of me before setting down her mug. Then she retrieved her own plates, one of which was overflowing with syrup, so she had to put her tots on a separate plate. Unapologetic, she ate her breakfast, shoving big bites in her mouth.
I smiled slightly before I kept working.
She drank her coffee afterward, taking audible bites of the crunchy tater tots. “It was nice to see you socialize with people and actually enjoy it. I’ve never seen you do that before.”
“Well, I see those people all the time, and they are like me.”
“Yeah. It’s great. I like seeing you relaxed like that.”
Just not with Kathleen.
“And you raised a lot of money.”
“I didn’t really do anything. The company did.”
“Which you own and operate…”
“But the vendors offered the prizes for free, and other people paid for them.”
“Why is it so hard for you to take praise?” she asked with a quiet chuckle.
I shrugged. “I just don’t feel like I’m the only one who deserves it.”
She smiled then looked into her coffee. “I like that about you. You aren’t self-absorbed…like most people.”
“I thought you liked other things about me?” I teased. “Like my cock…if I remember correctly.”
Her cheeks filled with color. “No, I love that about you. That’s different.”
I chuckled then turned back to my laptop. Our relationship felt back to normal after our emotional blowout the night before. When I told Kathleen I loved Cleo, I hadn’t really thought about it before I did it. I wanted Cleo to know how I felt about her since it wasn’t obvious enough…apparently. I bought a beach house so we could have a hideaway together. I was relocating so she could keep her job. I was making every sacrifice possible so we could be together.
But she’d already done so much for me that my sacrifices were nothing compared to hers.
“You know what would be nice?”
I turned back to her.
“When we’re old and tired of working, we could retire at the cabin.” She stared at her coffee for a while before she lifted her chin and met my look.
If her fantasy included us being married for decades, I wasn’t sure why she would be working at all. She would never have t
o serve anyone else ever again. “You’d like that?”
“I think so.”
“We could go anywhere. We could have a villa in Tuscany if we wanted.”
“And I’m sure we’ll travel there someday. But that cabin is nice.”
It was the place where we fell in love. “We’ve got a lot of time to decide.”
“We do.”
I thought it was a bit ridiculous that we talked about the future when no one even knew we were together. We were already in love, but most people had no idea that this level of commitment existed between us. “But I’ll always be working. That’ll never change.”
“I don’t know. As you get older, you might slow down.”
“My brain will never slow down.”
She shrugged. “You take weekends off now. You spend the entire weekend with me while barely looking at your phone. You skip the office to take Derek to his parent-teacher meeting without thinking twice about it. You’re not the same workaholic you used to be, and I think that’s a good thing.”
She was right…and I was a lot happier because of it.
She continued to drink her coffee while she looked out the window.
I stared at her for a while, watching the natural light hit her face, highlight her beautiful complexion, those stunning blue eyes. “Baby?”
She turned back to me.
“I need you to find me that condo.”
Her happy mood slowly drifted away at my request, her eyes a little less bright.
I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t have these beautiful mornings that were short-lived. I couldn’t go to another dinner and introduce her as someone insignificant. I was tired of seeing my ex-wife and lying to her face about Cleo. “My patience has expired.”
“I know.”
“Then you should get to work on that. I want to move out within the next two weeks.”
She nodded. “Alright.”
“And the place doesn’t have to be perfect. It just can’t be here.”
I only wore a suit because I was headed to work directly afterward. I went to Valerie’s residence and knocked.
The Man Who Has No Love (Soulless Book 3) Page 11