* * *
We went to his house. It dawned on me as we fell through the front door and bounced off the foyer wall, all the while kissing like crazy, that I’d never been in here.
‘I’ve never been here,’ I said, but at the same moment I shoved my impatient hand into his jeans. I grabbed a hold of him, an infuriatingly thin layer of cotton between me and his hot skin.
‘I’ll give you a tour later,’ Deke said. He pulled his coat open and sucked my nipples through the thin lace of my bra. ‘You’re shivering.’
‘Warm me up,’ I said.
He peeled the cups down, exposing my spiked nipples, the cool air triggering another violent shudder. ‘Maybe we should put you in a hot shower fir –’
‘No, no. Do it.’ I grabbed his face, kissing him desperately. Every emotion that had coursed through me on that stage was staring me down – waiting for me to act. ‘You warm me up.’
He scooped me up and stood with me partially slung over his shoulder as he headed toward the back of the house. ‘Thank God I have a downstairs bedroom,’ he murmured. ‘I doubt I have the patience to get upstairs.’
I laughed a little but with the air rushing out of me as he took fast impatient steps, it sounded like I’d sprung a leak.
He dropped me on his bed, a big king-sized monstrosity that was done up with a blue plaid coverlet.
‘You dress your bed the way you dress yourself,’ I observed, amused.
He paused and then grinned, tugging the trousers off of me after yanking my feet free of the shoes. ‘Plaid comforts me. Don’t ask me why.’
I wiggled out of my tango pants and he took them from me, turned them over in his big rough hands and then dropped them. Deke dropped to his knees and put his face to that warm needy place between my legs. His face pressed the fence net mesh and he breathed me in so I trembled from the effects of him, not the cold. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of the panty hose and began to push them down.
‘Don’t. Leave them,’ he said and licked a blazing line across my clit through the large diamond-shaped hole at the crotch. Then by way of apology he muttered, ‘I’ll buy you a new pair,’ and yanked the netting so it ripped.
His mouth was on me, warm and seeking, his tongue nudging me to the point of near-orgasm right off the bat. I wanted to tell him to never mind. To not worry about it, but the suction he applied to my clitoris made the words dry up in my throat.
My whole being had simply narrowed down to the feel of his lips, his teeth and his tongue on my pussy. I grasped his comforting plaid coverlet and waited for the orgasm swelling in me to grow to its fullest potential and burst.
‘You were amazing,’ he muttered against my thighs. Tracing my outer lips with his tongue, pushing the tip of it against tender secret places – but deliberately avoiding where I needed him most.
‘Hush,’ I sighed, trying to move my hips so he had to lick my clit.
He dodged me – I groaned and he laughed as his lips played softly up my inner thigh. ‘Hot as hell. And you looked … happy. Like you were having fun.’
His teeth pricked along the arc of my shaven mound, the heat of his mouth covering my sex, but still he didn’t lick.
I arched up under him, grabbed his head, gave him a little push and whispered, ‘Dear God, Deke, stop killing me.’
And he stopped, laughing softly so the vibration of his humour worked through my pelvis, up into my belly. My pleasure draped over me; aided by a wet slippery tongue and small subtle licks followed by hard intense strokes. Finally, he pushed his fingers into me, sucked the hard knot of my clitoris and I came. Small white lights dancing in the darkness behind my eyelids. I said a million things just then and not a single one of them seemed to make any sense. But that was fine.
He was over me, pulling at his buckle, pulling at his zipper. I tried to help and he pushed my hands away, saying, no. No.
And I stopped.
Until he was in me – right through the hole he’d ripped in my panty hose. Right into me in one long easy stroke, my body taking him easily. Welcoming and rippling and milking at him as he thrust. His hands locked over my wrists, pinning them above my head and his lips fluttered over my face – eyebrows, cheekbones, nose – before settling on my lips.
‘So do I have to pledge my undying love now?’ I said it jokingly – but even I heard the fear in the whispered words.
He slowed, face to face with me, studying me. Deke rocked against me gently, but his fingers bit into my wrists inciting a thrill through my centre. I wiggled under him feeling studied and nervous and beyond aroused. My pulse beat wet and steady in my cunt, and just the tiniest amount of friction when he moved was threatening to push me over the edge.
Dark eyes pored over me and he smiled, that smile broke something wounded in me. ‘No. You do not have to pledge your undying love.’
He nibbled the tendon that stood out along my neck and my nipples seized tight, rubbing his warm chest, pushing me another inch closer to release. The first flutter of a spasm worked through my pussy and we both exhaled wistfully.
‘And I don’t have to promise to have a whole gaggle of your children?’ I gasped, my hips thrusting up to get him moving. Little tiny bursts of movement that made me shiver from what we were doing. My body was nearly warmed through now. The shiver had nothing to do with my dance or the chilly wind.
Deke pushed my wrists a bit harder, moved against me a bit faster, whispered in my ear, ‘Not a gaggle. Not a murder. Not a horde. You just have to promise – I hope – that I’m not one of your many distractions.’
I laughed and wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing my pussy flush to him. I wanted him to feel the wet heat of me. The need in me. More than anything, the vulnerability in me. I was terrified and I needed him to know.
I hadn’t ever wanted this, I thought.
Deke moved his hips in just the right way, his cock touching every sensitive place that was needed to trigger the orgasm. And when he triggered it, I fought against his grip involuntarily. ‘And I know you’ve been with them and I don’t care. I know you promised none of us a damn thing and I don’t care. I don’t care about anything that came before this moment in time. Anything that happened before today, when you realised that if something big happens in your life, I’m the person you want there with you. Do you hear me?’ His grip tightened on my wrists and I nodded.
I’d heard every word, even over my soft cries as I came. Long slow spasms wracked me and I moved up under him restlessly and greedily, driving him as deeply as I could so that the pleasure would just go on and on.
I kissed his face, his chin, his neck. Wherever my lips could land, I kissed. ‘I hear you,’ I sighed.
‘And ya know? It’s been fast as fuck. You rolled into town and I felt myself going,’ he said, pulling free of me.
I made a soft noise, a surprised noise, and then another when he flipped me easy-squeezy onto my belly. His hands yanked me up and Deke nudged my knees apart a bit more. His lips dropped soft kisses on my right ass check and when I rippled, laughing because it tickled, he kissed along the small of my back and down to my left ass cheek. I didn’t want him to finish the sentence he’d started. But a different part of me, the small quiet part, wanted him to.
‘I felt myself tumbling and rocketing down, down, down into it,’ he whispered sliding into me with ease. He palmed my bottom and held on as he slammed into me. My forehead brushed the comforter, the smell of him and where he slept filling my head.
‘Down into what? Down into what?’ He’d reduced me to repeating myself. Mumbling and muttering like a mad woman.
Deke reached under me, stroking my clitoris so I sighed. ‘Down into you. Falling. For you.’ He thrust fast and deep and pinched my clit so that a spark of pain fired off in me. My pleasure ratcheted up, my face pressed to his bedding, my ears taking in every pretty word he laid down for me.
‘I fell in love with you. I am in love with you.’ My body went tense and he chuckled, pulling f
ree of me again. He ran the head of his cock back from my slippery hole to the tighter entrance of my ass. I stiffened further and then moaned when he pressed just the tiniest bit.
‘I know you’re afraid and you don’t have to love me, or tell me you love me, or even think the word “love”.’
He pushed again a little harder and the head of his cock breached my ass. I tangled my fingers into soft plaid and pushed back just a bit. So he could feel my willingness. My readiness.
This time he groaned and his fingers gripped me tight.
Fingers pushed into my cunt. I was wet – so terribly wet – and then he pushed them into my ass. And every time he pushed forward I pushed back. We sighed in unison and Deke added another finger – stretching me, readying me, forcing me wider.
‘Do it, do it –’ I moaned and he replaced the fingers with himself. The head forced past the tight ring of my anus and the entire room seemed to inhale deeply and exhale easily. I let the sparkle-sizzle-burst of pain take me down – cool sweat springing up along my lower lip – and then it passed like a choppy wave and I was baring back to take him.
‘Fuck, I’m in,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t think you’d … I wasn’t expecting you to let me –’
‘Hush. Fuck me,’ I said. ‘Come for me, Deke. I can’t tell you I love you yet. But I can tell you that if I knew what love really felt like, I’d imagine it feels like what I experience when you’re around.’
His groan made it sound like he was in pain, but I could tell it was my words. He was as humbled by what I was trying to explain to him as I was by his profession of love.
I impaled myself on him, pushing back to take his cock as deep as I could. Pressing my cheek to the bed, I slid my fingers into my pussy, brushing that fragile wall of flesh that separated his cock from my fingers.
‘You’re killing me, kid,’ he chuckled.
‘Not killing. Joining,’ I sighed.
I let all the fear and worry about his feelings for me – and my feelings for him – slip away for that moment. I found that rhythm between fingers and his thrusts. The heel of my hand bumped my clit relentlessly and when his fingers bit into my flesh and his breath quickened I came.
His name burst past my lips before I could stop it and I shuddered under him, repeating his name over and over until he gave in and came with me. Driving into me, hard enough to scoot me across the bed forcefully.
Then I crashed to my belly, Deke softening, disengaging, gathering me close. ‘You’re still shaking.’
It had nothing to do with the cold outside any more. It had nothing to do with lust or release. It had everything to do with what I was feeling for him. I was starting to realise how big my feelings were. And how fucking scary it all was.
He wrapped me in his arms and then pulled his plaid comforter over us. ‘Shaking,’ he repeated.
‘It’ll pass,’ I said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Two days – that was what I took after our sweet bed sheet confessions. I fled – ran, hightailed it. Whatever you want to call it. I was a pussy, a wimp, a wuss, a baby. Tape any name you like on me, label me if you will. But Deke was no fool. He took one look at me after pushing me into a hot shower and pouring a mug of tea into me and said, ‘You need time.’
And then he took me home.
Something about the gesture broke my heart, something about it mended it.
I did need time and had he not spied that in me, I don’t know if I’d have had the balls to say. But he saw it in me and I locked myself away from the world – the salon was closed the rest of Monday – Tuesday and Wednesday I took off. Calling and asking Donna with as much self-control as I could muster if my job would be safe if I did. She assured me it would be.
And after being alone with myself for a bit, I couldn’t stand myself any longer. I quietly slipped out the back door on Thursday afternoon to go to Donna’s. Somehow detangling dogs seemed a Zen thing to do when you didn’t know what the fuck you were going to do when it came to humans.
‘Well, there she is,’ Donna said softly. She looked on edge, as if any word would shatter me; the way bright sunshine shatters icicles.
‘Good morning.’ I nodded, put my purse under the counter, sat in my chair. I wasn’t sure if she was upset with me. I was too new here to read everyone’s nuances.
‘How are you? Hanging in?’ When she smiled my chest lightened and I took a deep breath.
‘I’m fine. Why?’
Donna shrugged and looked away. There was a fleeting look of worry on her face.
Joy piped in. ‘Because she’s thick as thieves with Deke and when he came to butcher a deer next door to her, she stood at the fence like a persistent crow and pecked and pecked and pecked until he confessed his love for you, and then very grudgingly admitted you needed some time.’
I blinked. ‘Oh.’
Joy went on, sweeping small tufts of dog hair from the edges of the room. ‘And she is hellbent that you two are destined to be together and that nothing that’s happened up until now should matter. That he loves you, and deep down you know you love him …’ Joy faced me, dumping a dustpan of hair into the trash and said, ‘All you need, Farrell, is a freaking glass slipper.’
Which for some reason struck me as so funny that I had to lean against the edge of the counter and laugh. I laughed until my eyes watered, but underneath all the laughter was the internal movie of our last time together running through my head. How Deke had held me. How he’d taken me. How he’d been there for me on every damn level that I needed.
‘I don’t see why this is funny,’ Donna said, her mouth pressed down into a tight disapproving line. ‘The man is hurting. And he is a good man,’ she said.
I nodded, sobering. ‘I know he is. Which is why I needed to clear my head – before I say or do anything at all. So I don’t hurt him,’ I sighed.
That earned me a brightening of her face and a look of relief. ‘Come back here and brush out Clarence.’
I followed her. When we got to the back, Clarence waited, lying lazily on a big purple floor pillow, he raised his shaggy head, studied me and went back to sleep.
‘What is he?’
‘He is a severely matted Bernese Mountain Dog,’ she said.
‘Dear God, are you sure he’s not a horse.’
‘No, he’s a dog.’ She handed me a brush, but then clutched my wrist. For such a tiny thing her grip was fierce. ‘And Deke is just a man. He loves you. Don’t string him along too much. I think even you know –’ Donna cut herself off and shook her head. Warring with herself, I could tell.
Which earned her points.
‘What?’ I prompted. I respected her. She was a mother figure to me and God knew I needed one. Not to tell me what to do, but to tell me how they saw my life from the outside looking in. Sometimes that was priceless information, especially coming from a place of caring.
She eyed me up, staring up at me almost defiantly. ‘I think even you know you love the man.’
I sighed. ‘Donna, I took a small break because I know he is a good man. And I do … care for him. And the last thing I want to do is hurt him so …’
‘Well, stringing him along is hurting him. Even if he says it’s not. Shit, or get off the pot.’
I blinked at her, a nervous bubble of laughter escaping me. I covered my mouth, waiting for it to pass.
‘Tell him how you feel or cut him loose, Farrell,’ she sighed. ‘He’s a sweetie. He’s been trying his whole life to prove himself to himself. He deserves a good woman. And you are one. But stringing him along is killing him. Even if he smiles at me and says he’s fine. I’ve known him since he was a baby.’
She called over Clarence and he rose, looking a bit disgruntled about it. Her fingers combed through his matted fur and I waited. She wasn’t done. ‘Not that it’s any of my business, trust me, I know.’
‘No, no, it’s fine.’ I found a metal fur comb and sat down on a padded chair. ‘Come here, Clarence. Let’s find some Zen.’
Clarence ambled over to me, looking even more disinterested.
‘Cooper needs someone who’s going to whack his ass into gear,’ Donna went on, not looking at me. She sorted through shampoos and conditioners and collars as if she were just chatting about nothing at all. ‘You were a good kick in the ass for him, but it’s not him. Not for you.’
I waited, combing out a particularly nasty knot.
‘And Stephen is a sweetheart but totally in love with that blond boy he drags around with him. His friend. He’s just too scared to admit it because he thinks no one will accept it or him or any of that. And I don’t blame him!’ she declared loudly, slamming a box of puppy pads down hard enough to make me jump. ‘I watched Sid and Max go through this shit, but I like to think that Tower Terrace has come a long way since then. And I want to tell him that those of us who matter will still care about him if he just goes ahead and follows what he thinks will make him happy.’
I nodded. She was fired up and rightfully so. I waited.
‘Just don’t break my Deke’s heart,’ she said. ‘I never had any kids. So I always figured God saw fit to give me the misfits and the stragglers to mother hen. They’re my kids. And you –’ She pointed to me with a set of nail clippers. ‘You’re one now too,’ she said. ‘Whether you like it or not!’ Then she stormed out as if I was going to argue.
‘My problem is missed opportunity and absolute assurance,’ I told Clarence.
‘Do tell.’
Deke. Standing in the doorway, leaning in the doorway is more like it. Leaning there, watching me with a small smile on his face.
‘How much of that did you hear?’ I asked, smiling.
‘None. I walked in the front door and Donna said, “Farrell’s in the back room, go!” and I knew I was in trouble … or you were.’
I laughed. ‘I think it’s me.’
‘So what do you think you’ve missed? Or how will you be sure?’ He stood there, waiting. And without him even telling me, I realised I could be honest.
I sighed.
‘Well …’
Boys Next Door Page 21