Chapter and Verse

by Jo Willow

  “Last night was a prime example. I went with Hamm because I had to. You retaliated by bringing the one woman you knew would piss me off.”

  He sighed and turned his grey eyes on high beam.

  “I’ll tell you like I told her. I tried other women but they were all busy. Miranda was my last choice.”

  “Deacon, knowing how I felt about her, she should not have been an option.”

  “Hindsight is twenty-twenty. And anyway, what was I supposed to do, go alone?”

  “Why did you have to go at all? Why didn’t you send Anton? Or Pierce? Why didn’t you text or call and ask me to come by after the party? There were so many other ways to handle it Deke, and you picked the one that would hurt me the most. Do you see how this is true?”

  He thought about it a minute and I saw his shoulders sag.

  “Subconsciously maybe, but I’d never intentionally hurt you Dor’.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “What? How can you say that?”

  “You didn’t have to put your arm around her. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have fawned over Hamm like I did. Plus, you misled her, causing her to jump you in the car.”

  “Oh, so this is all my fault?”

  “Yes. It is. You knew on Monday that I’d been set up to go with Hamm. After last weekend, you also knew that I had no feelings for him. You knew how I felt about you. You knew Deacon, so don’t play dumb. Everything you did afterwards is on you. Not me. I showed up and the night went to hell.”

  He stood and began to pace the room.

  “Hearing that you’re going with him and seeing you actually with him, are two different things. It made me nuts Dorothy. He was flirting and acting like there was something between you.”

  He held up his hand when I started to speak.

  “No, let me finish. I know in my heart that you’re into me. Okay? I know that. But my mind goes all kinds of crazy when I see you looking like you did last night in another man’s arms. It didn’t have to be Hamm, it could have been anyone. You were supposed to be in MY arms. Mine. No one else’s.”

  I felt for him. He was obviously in anguish. If he’d spent the night spinning Miranda around the dance floor, I might’ve gone off the deep end as well. The thing was, it was bound to happen again sometime. We were both in social circles that demanded our presence and participation. I’d be expected to dance with other men and he’d dance with other women. Then I thought about something else.

  “Deacon, what’s going to happen the next time I take on another book about a man? Possibly an actor or a musician? What if he’s drop dead gorgeous and I have to travel to interview him? Then what?”

  He stopped pacing and turned his face to me. His posture was stiff and his fists were clenched. His eyes grew darker and I felt the change come over him. I’d presented him with a probability he hadn’t considered.

  “What if the next P.A. I hire is a beautiful woman and WE have to travel on business together, Dorothy? Then what?”

  He was presenting a similar situation, but somehow it felt and sounded like a threat. He was reverting to type, exactly as he had last night. He was doing it without even realizing it. This would be a major stumbling block if we couldn’t get past it. This could be what broke us.

  I was angry and I’d had just enough to drink, that if I spoke, it might be something I couldn’t take back. I needed to think about this.

  I stood and started for the door, my feet felt like lead weights. His voice stopped me before I walked out into the hall.

  “Where are you going? We’re in the middle of something here.”

  “No we’re not. We were in the middle of something until you threatened me.”

  “Threatened you? I never threatened you.”

  “No? Think about this then. I brought up a scenario. A very real scenario. I’m a biographer Deacon, I write about people. Fifty percent of those people are probably going to be men. I can tell you right now, that I have never slept with anyone I’ve written about. Not even you. I interview them and follow them around for a bit to get a feel for their life. Then I thank them, come home, and write a book. I asked you if that would be a problem. I assumed that being a businessman, you might understand the concept of conducting business. You turned it into a personal threat, by talking about going away with a nonexistent P.A.”

  He had the same look on his face that he had when he turned against me at his parent’s house after our first kiss. He was closed off and that was it. He would no longer hear anything I had to say, but that didn’t stop him from speaking. He’d had just enough to drink that maybe he should’ve kept his mouth closed.

  “You’re delusional Dorothy. Miranda and I used to travel together all the time. I always take my P.A. with me when I travel on business. She takes care of the details so that I can focus on what I’m doing. It’s how I operate.”

  “We all know how you operate Deacon. Just ask Miranda.”

  And on that cheap shot, I left him in his own company. Probably not the classiest move I’d ever made, and maybe it wasn’t the wisest. But I got my point across. Did I feel any better? No I didn’t. If anything, I think I felt worse. I reverted to type myself, and used his past and what he’d told me about their time together against him. In my eyes, that made me just as bad as him. Once again, we both lost.

  I scrubbed my face in our bathroom and took my hair down from it’s ponytail. I brushed it out and applied a layer of moisturizer to my face before I brushed my teeth.

  I decided to sleep in a long sleep shirt. The bed would be warm with him in it, and I didn’t see the sense in sleeping uncomfortably. I turned off the lights and crawled into my side of the bed. I curled into a ball and closed my eyes, willing the last two hours away on a moonbeam. Love or no love, if we couldn’t even get through the first day, then we were fooling ourselves if we thought that this relationship could last.

  After what seemed like forever but was probably more like twenty minutes, I started to drift into that elusive thing called sleep.

  Deacon continued to pace, scanning the room for something he could throw. They’d done it again! How did they manage to keep taking opportunities and turning them into monumental clusterfucks? The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. The thing was, in every single case, it came down to insecurity.

  Either he was insecure regarding his feelings about her (like his reaction to their first kiss), or he was insecure with his position in her life (the jealousy that had made him lash out earlier). He knew less than nothing when it came to relationships and what it would take to make one last. He could talk to Anton about it, but Anton knew even less than he did. If Deacon had spent his life avoiding commitment, Anton had spent his flat out running from it. Pierce had been, and still was, too shy to even approach one. What a bunch of losers. No, this he would have to wade through on his own, and hope that she had the patience to put up with him.

  He turned off the lights and made sure the elevator was locked off. Once his home was secured for the night, he started down the hall. He assumed she was asleep in the guest room. She’d seemed angry enough and he wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. Still, their one night together had hit him possibly harder than it had hit her and he wanted her next to him. He’d spent his entire life sleeping alone and now he’d lost the taste for it.

  He walked directly into his bathroom and closed the door. He undressed and took care of business before turning off the light and heading for bed. He crawled in and felt the warmth. She was there. In his bed. Scratch that. In THEIR bed. He wondered for a flash second if she’d even considered sleeping in the guestroom, or if she now considered this their bed as well. He supposed it didn’t matter, the end result was the same anyway. He still hoped though because his supply of hope had been dwindling in the last couple of hours.

  He cuddled up behind her, pulling her close and curling around her body. There. That was how it was supposed to be. Sighing in contentment, he started to settle down f
or sleep when he felt her wiggle against him. He started to smile when something hit him. She had nothing on underneath the shirt she wore. Then another thought snaked it’s way through his woman-deprived brain. He was naked too.

  Deacon was not nearly drunk enough to believe he could pull this off. If he ran through every possible outcome he could imagine, very few came up smelling like roses. He wondered if he started something, could he stop if she pushed him away? Probably. He’d never take advantage of her, he simply wasn’t that kind of guy. No meant no, and there were some lines he’d never cross. Ever. No matter how badly he wanted her.

  Shit. Thinking about wanting her woke up little Deke. Now he had a dilemma on his hands. At least he thought he did until about two minutes ago. That’s when she wiggled again, only this time, she wiggled herself right into an interesting position. Her lady parts were backing little Deke into a corner and he was ready to fight his way out.

  There a few different ways he could handle this. He could roll away slowly and give her some space, perhaps even handle little Deke himself (although that idea held very little appeal). He could pull a sneak attack and just make his move right here exactly like they were, claiming that she started it (because THAT always worked...yeah. Right). Or he could do what he really wanted to do. No tricks, no excuses, no running away. He wanted to make love to his woman. Once he admitted it, his course was set. He was done waiting and he wanted to take their relationship into something more. Something deeper. Sure he’d slept with other women, but none like this one. No one had ever meant more to him than this one.

  He began kissing her neck and nuzzling behind her ear. She liked that and rolled toward him in response. Even in her sleep, she sought him out. He moved as she did, until she was flat on her back. Then he leaned over her and kissed her softly.

  When he felt her stirring into some form of wakefulness, he deepened the kiss until she put her fingers in his hair and pulled him closer.

  He felt her smile against his lips and he smiled in return. Damn he loved this woman. Her soft sleepy voice made him twitch and move in closer.

  “You came to bed.”

  He slowly moved and settled in between her legs, resting against her without giving her all of his weight. She moved her hands to his waist and he rested his forearms on each side of her shoulders.

  “I did come to bed Dor’, and guess what I found?”

  She smiled through sleepy eyes and played along.

  “No telling Goldilocks. What did you find sleeping in YOUR bed?”

  “A hot naked chick. Pretty lucky on my part, wouldn’t you say?”

  “That all depends. Is hot naked chick warm for your form?”

  “I’m pretty sure, but let me check to be certain.”

  He moved his hips against hers, rubbing against her in all the right ways. He felt her push up against him and her grip on him tightened.

  “Yep. She seems interested alright. I’m thinking I should seal our deal.”

  Seal our deal. I knew what he was talking about. Even though I may have looked sleepy, my body was revved up and ready to mambo. It had taken me a moment to catch up, but I was there now and like always, I was overthinking it. What if we didn’t work out? The devil on one shoulder was smacking the shit out of the angel holding me back. “Big deal” he was saying, “She’s slept with other assholes that didn’t work out”. Gee. Thanks. Deacon was no asshole and I think that’s what decided it. If you’re gonna go, go large, I say.

  I slid my hands up his mighty fine physique until I got to his shoulder blades. I grasped him there and pulled him down to me. Whereas he’d been kissing me sweetly and softly, I hit him with one filled with fire and need. Being the bright boy that he was, he caught on quick.

  His kisses grew harder and more passionate. Now we were getting somewhere. I felt him holding back and I felt how the restraint was taking it’s toll. He was starting to shake a little. It was subtle, but it was there. His body was rubbing against mine in an attempt to relieve pressure without actually pushing me into something I wasn’t ready for. Admirable, but unnecessary. Time to take him to school in the ways of me. Granted I was rusty, but this was not my first jog around the block folks. My running shoes were laced up and I was ready to go.

  I pushed my pelvis up against him and his eyes flew open. He pulled his lips away from mine and his eyes were hooded and dark.

  “Dor’?”

  “Now Deacon. I want you. Right. Now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Would you like me to draw you a diagram and present a powerpoint show first?”

  He raised up slightly and murmured, “Insolent wench”. Then he pushed in.

  Although I was ready, I wasn’t ready. Not for the intensity of the feeling or the earth shattering emotions I felt. I felt full in so many ways and I knew he felt it or something close to it, as well.

  He didn’t move, he stared down into my eyes until we were focused on nothing but each other. We exchanged years of frustration, regret, and finally understanding, in one long look. Neither one of us had ever experienced anything like it before. This was it. The “It” that you read about in books and believed was a fallacy. A figment of a writer’s imagination. People didn’t really have connections like that just because they were... connected. It was a nice thought, but it couldn’t be real. I can tell you from personal experience now, it’s real. It happens. It was happening to me.

  It felt like we were of one mind. All the fighting and jealous rages. All the lists and hard limits and aggravating scenarios. They all flew out the window in the face of this deep and love affirming connection. This is what we should have done immediately after he’d decided that he’d take the chance with me. Anton was full of shit and I’d tell him so the next time I saw him. Don’t sleep with Deacon my ass. The chase was over folks. I’d be sleeping with him for the foreseeable future if I had anything to say about it.

  All of this was rushing through my mind when he started to move. Once that happened, I couldn’t think about anything but the sensation. He must’ve felt that way too, because he kept dipping his lips to mine and whispering against my lips.

  “I love you Dor’.”

  “I love you too Deacon.”

  “I’ve wanted you so much for so long...”

  “Me too.”

  “Why did we wait so long sweetheart?...”

  “Anton.”

  “Anton?!...”

  “Later Deacon. Move faster.”

  “I want it to last baby...”

  “Why? We’re never doing this again?”

  He growled at me then and kicked it into overdrive. I felt it build. The feeling I hadn’t felt in years. It was different this time though. It overtook me like something huge bearing down on me, waiting to consume me. Then it did.

  I know I shrieked his name and probably a few other flattering things, because I was all about flattering him right then. I was the happiest, most content woman alive at that moment. That’s how he snuck it in on me.

  “Dorothy, I can’t live without you. I can’t. Especially not now.”

  “Baby I agree.”

  He was still moving, building toward his own release. He spoke in between kisses and I was still doing that basking thing that you do when you’ve gotten your cake and you’re eating it too.

  “You believe in us now, don’t you baby.”

  “Oh god Deacon. Of course I do.”

  “I’m yours and you're mine. You feel it, right?’

  “Absolutely. I don’t wanna be anywhere or with anyone else but you Deacon.”

  I don’t know how he did it. Not only was he a major contender in the boardroom and a wizard in the bedroom, the guy could multi-task like nobody’s business. If I hadn’t been there to witness it, I swear to you, I would not have believed it.

  In mid thrust, he reached his arm out and opened the nightstand drawer. He snaked his hand barely inside and pulled something out. Then while he continued making me crazy with hi
s body (I still wasn’t sure how he was holding out so long), he put both of his hands above my head and fiddled with whatever he’d taken from the nightstand.

  While all of this was going on, I was building toward my encore. I started moving faster and harder against him. I figured he was there, I was there, and he appeared to have the staying power of that battery powered rabbit.

  He caught on to what I was doing (my bright and handsome man) and picked up the pace while he took my hands from his back and raised them over my head. I felt something small in his hand, but I was too busy thinking about everything else that was going on.

  I was closing in on completion and this time, Deke was close behind me. He felt my body tighten around him, coiling into a spring that was ready to release, when he leaned down and kissed me before whispering, “Baby, marry me.”

  Just then I let go screaming, “Yes Deacon, Yes!”

  He slipped the ring on my finger and groaned against my lips, finding his release right along with me.

  It was at least ten minutes before I knew what hit me. It was at least twenty before the rest of it came to light.

  Men are sneaky. I have a theory about that. They know that we think things through as a matter of routine. Some women are impulsive, but I don’t think that the majority of us are. We have too much to lose. Men have more choices than women. As a rule, they have more opportunities. If they sleep around, they’re experienced. If we sleep around, we’re sluts. If a man decides to stay single, he’s a “confirmed bachelor”. If a woman does it, she’s a “Spinster” or a “Crazy Cat Lady”. See where I’m going with this? My theory is, in actuality, men are the weaker sex. That’s why they have to be sneaky. We have to give them breaks in the form of opportunities and higher wages, because they’re disadvantaged by their lack of courage and intellect. We have to stroke their egos because their psyche is fragile. We have to forgive them because they’re dumber than hay rakes and keep making the same damned mistakes over and over again. But let’s get back to the sneaky part and how it applies to my current situation.