That was not gentle, but firm and unyielding.
In other words, he didn’t intend to give me anything.
“That’s the part that makes the least sense,” I returned, still talking quietly.
“That’s the part where you have to take a leap of faith with this, believe in what you felt when you made your choice yesterday, that bein’ believin’ in me.”
“I barely know you,” I pointed out.
“You barely knew me and you brought me pie,” he returned.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Again with the pie.
Man, seriously. It sucked that he knew the significance of that pie.
“You barely knew me and you got naked on that table for me,” he kept going.
I looked back through the windshield, and before taking another sip, muttered, “You’ve made your point, Deacon.”
“Not sure I have.”
Now he was talking quietly, his tone so changed, my gaze went back to him.
He must have felt my eyes because he kept going.
“All of this is your choice.”
“I know it is,” I replied.
“Any time, you can go back on that choice.”
I sucked my lips between my teeth, not liking that idea and finding that I kind of wanted Deacon to go back to nonverbal communication.
Or silence.
“You change your mind,” he carried on, “I won’t like it, but I’ll submit to it.”
“That feels sweet at the same time not so much,” I admitted.
“Yeah,” he muttered to the windshield, again speaking like he was talking to himself. “Your world, a man gets hold of you, he’s a fool, he lets go.”
His words made me pull in a soft breath.
He looked to me and finished, “I don’t live in your world.” Then his eyes went back to the road.
I knew this but having it confirmed, waking up tucked to his back, being in his Suburban, it hit me with a clarity it never had before because I’d accepted him in my life. A man who existed most of his time in a world I’d never share, and I had a feeling I wouldn’t want to, but even if I did, he wouldn’t let me (which made me know I was right about that feeling).
And that clarity was what that would mean to me, not just right then, but if it happened that he became a bigger part of my life, my world, like he’d mentioned frequently.
If he became my man.
If, when he was with me, he was at my side.
If he met my friends. My family.
If the time came where life needed to be lived.
Commitment.
Babies.
This made me ask, “Forever and ever?”
“No, baby,” he said instantly, his hand moving to curl around my thigh, a gesture of affection and connection that he was spare in giving when we were not in bed, making each one he gave more meaningful. But at that moment I was glad he gave it because it was what I really needed. “You do not live in that world forever. You find your way in it while that way is healthy and then you get the fuck out.”
That made me feel better.
“So, when—?”
“I don’t know,” he cut me off to answer my unasked question. “I just know for the first time in ten years, I got an incentive to find the door outta that world and use it.”
There was a lot there even when there weren’t that many words.
Most of it was good, that part being it was clear I was his incentive.
The ten years, though, that was intriguing.
“Bein’ in that world, Cassie,” he went on, “you gotta know, even when I find that door, in some ways, it’ll always be with me.”
“It’s with you now,” I noted. “And I’m with you now knowing it. So why would I care if it stays with you?”
His fingers squeezed hard at my thigh but he didn’t say anything.
Back to nonverbal communication.
I drew in a breath and released it.
Then I asked, “Ten years?”
His hand left my thigh and went to his coffee. He took a sip, put it back in the holder, and put his hand back to the wheel.
Okay, that one he wasn’t going to answer.
I looked to the road and took my own sip of coffee.
No music, no words, we sat there in silence. I didn’t know what he was thinking. I was wondering if I was crazy at the same time knowing I totally was and not caring even a little bit.
This, of course, making me crazier.
“Magnificent.”
Deacon said this on a mutter, breaking the silence.
I looked at him again. “Sorry?”
“The way you laid it out for that punk-ass bitch before you stomped outta that cabin. Fuck, so goddamned magnificent, if I wasn’t fightin’ the urge to rip five teenage fuckwads’ throats out, I would have clapped. “
I grinned at him, feeling the heaviness in the air dissipate and going with that flow.
“That was good, wasn’t it?”
“Nope,” he disagreed. “It was magnificent.”
I kept grinning but did it at the windshield. “I find it amusing that you call them punk-ass bitches. Not to mention apropos.”
“Apropos?”
“Fitting,” I explained.
“Know what it means, woman, just don’t know a single person who would use it.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
There was a slender thread of humor in his voice when he muttered, “Look forward to that.”
I liked that thread of humor. Even slender, I didn’t care. It was there. And I gave it to him.
“That’s why,” he stated confusingly and I looked to him again.
“What?”
“That and your eyes.”
I didn’t say anything, just watched him drive.
He said something. “And your Christmas kiss.”
Oh my God.
My Christmas kiss. He remembered my Christmas kiss.
“Deacon,” I whispered.
“And a hundred other things,” he stated.
I went silent again.
He kept talking.
“That’s why I’m bein’ a dick. Why I didn’t leave you on that table and walk out, like I should. Why I kept comin’ back when I knew I shouldn’t, every time courtin’ my control slippin’ so I’d be in the place where things got outta hand and I got your back on that table. Why cabin eleven was home to me for a few days every year, the only home I had, ’cause you were there.”
“You’re gonna make me cry,” I warned on a whisper, my voice already clogged with tears, feeling that emotion at the same time being annoyed that he was again doing way better at making me more and more happy.
He didn’t look at me.
He said to the road, “You gotta know.” He reached to his cup, took a sip, and finished on a murmur, “Now you know.”
“Now I know,” I replied, still whispering.
He finally fell silent.
I put my coffee in my cup holder, undid my seatbelt, and leaned across the cab where I kissed the hinge of his jaw then said in his ear, “Thank you for telling me.”
“Gotta know something else, Cassie,” he told the road.
I dropped my forehead to his shoulder. “What?”
“Anything. You want it, I got it in me to give it to you, you got anything from me.”
My hand darted to his thigh and curled tight as tears pricked my eyes.
“Now, baby, sit back and belt up, yeah?” he ordered gently.
“Yeah,” I said to his shoulder, shifted to touch my mouth to his neck, then I sat back and belted up.
I looked to the road.
Deacon drove.
Silently.
* * * * *
“So badasses play footsie,” I noted, my ass on the pad in my sanded and repainted Adirondack chair, my stocking feet up on the railing, tangled with Deacon’s.
“Yup,” Deacon replied nonchalantly and I looked his way to see his gaze
to the trees, his hand wrapped around a glass of my good Kentucky bourbon, his profile soft and at peace.
I liked that look so I kept teasing.
“And they melt when confronted with a pregnant German Shepherd.”
He’d done just that. Badass one-name Deacon melted right before my eyes. I watched and did it almost having an orgasm, at the same time wondering if you could fall in love in an instant.
He took a sip of his bourbon before he replied, “Man’s no man at all, he doesn’t like dogs.”
I started giggling.
He looked to me. “Disagree?”
I stopped giggling and replied, “I think people can like what they wanna like. Though, I don’t really understand not being a dog person. Or a cat person. Actually, an animal person.”
Deacon looked back at the trees, asking, “So why am I buyin’ you a dog six years down the road?”
He’d done that too. Bought the dog for me.
Pure breed dogs were not inexpensive. Pure breed dogs with an incentive to jump the list and get first pick cost fifteen one-hundred-dollar bills.
Fifteen.
When I saw the cash, I’d wrapped a hand around Deacon’s forearm and opened my mouth to protest. But the second I touched him, he tipped his chin down at me and gave me a look that needed no words whatsoever. So I didn’t say anything.
At the time.
I brought it up in the Suburban.
His response was, “Done, woman. No use talkin’ about it.”
This was true.
And false.
I went with the false bit, continued my protest, and got a different response.
“Right. What I meant by no use talkin’ about it is we’re not talkin’ about it.”
And then he didn’t talk about it.
At all.
Even though I did.
Which meant I had no choice but to quit.
He wanted to buy me a dog, I’d let him do it, partly because it was sweet, but mostly because I had no choice.
“I didn’t have the time for a dog,” I told him.
“Cabins take a lotta upkeep?”
“Not really. I have them the way I want them. It’s mostly puttering around, making the space nice, welcoming. A place people drive up to that makes them think immediately they made the right choice. And Milagros helps a lot. It’s just that, once I got the cabins the way I wanted them, I started working on the house.”
“House looks sweet, Cassie,” he said softly.
I was glad he felt that way. Actually, I was glad he noticed at all.
“Thanks, honey,” I replied softly. Then I sighed and said, “I guess what I’m saying is, I didn’t think I had the time. But now that I have pick of the litter, the time is right.”
He didn’t reply. He just took another sip of bourbon.
I did too.
We lapsed into silence.
I broke it.
“Since I was thirteen, this was all I wanted.”
I felt his eyes on me but I kept mine on the trees and continued speaking.
“My own business in Colorado. My parents brought us here when I was thirteen and because I begged, they kept bringing us. I fell in love and knew this was where I’d live my life, doing something I enjoyed doing, close to the slopes so I could snowboard. But mostly this, the day being done, taking a load off, surrounded by beauty.”
“Thirteen?” he asked and I looked to him.
“Thirteen.”
“Not the usual little girl dream,” he noted.
“I wasn’t the usual little girl,” I shared.
He looked back to the trees, murmuring, “You’re not a usual woman.”
I turned my attention to the trees, murmuring back, “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Meant as one.”
I grinned into my glass and took a sip.
Then I kept talking.
“A lot of people would think I’m crazy, but this is all I want. I want to be sitting right here when I’m eighty, listening to the river, gazing at the trees.”
“Nothin’ crazy about that.”
Oh man.
I liked that he thought that.
I took in a deep breath and let it out, asking, “Where do you wanna be when you’re eighty?”
“Don’t fuck up and blow my shot, sittin’ on my ass on a chair that I’m glad now has a pad, next to a decent woman with beautiful eyes, lips made to be kissed, and phenomenal hair, listenin’ to a river and starin’ at some trees.”
Yes.
I was crazy.
Absolutely.
Because I was filled with glee that he wanted that.
Not to mention the sweet things he said to me.
“Though,” he continued, “only if she doesn’t turn out to be a crazy bitch who loses her mind if I don’t put my towel on the rail the exact way she wants it to be.”
I looked to him, grinning.
“Towel placement is super-important, Deacon.”
He said nothing but in the dim light coming from my lit kitchen, I saw his eyes crinkle.
“Coaster usage is too,” I went on.
The eye crinkles stayed where they were even as he took a sip of bourbon.
“Not to mention, appropriate care and cleaning of your vehicle.”
He had something to say to that.
“A truck that’s not dirty is not a truck. It’s a pussy wagon.”
I burst out laughing.
“I’m not joking,” he said through my laughter, which made me laugh harder.
It also made me get up, put my glass on the railing, and move to him.
I saw his head tipped back, watching me, but he didn’t move an inch as I maneuvered over him, tucking a knee into the seat at his hip and swinging a leg wide to straddle him.
When I settled my ass to his thighs, I put both hands to his chest and leaned in. He put his hand without the glass to my ass, rested his head back on the seat, and let me.
“I decorated eleven for you,” I whispered after I got into position.
His hand clenched my ass and the eye crinkles vanished.
“I wanted you to have a place that you were comfortable being,” I told him.
“Cement countertops were a good touch, baby,” he told me.
It was so cool he noticed the countertops so I got closer and smiled.
His hand slid up my spine.
I held his eyes and felt my smile leave when I told him, “You hurt my feelings when you paid for Christmas.”
“Needed to give that message, Cassie.”
“I know, but it still hurt.”
His hand rounded my shoulder and cupped the side of my neck when he whispered, “Sorry, baby.”
“Make it up to me. Let me pay you back for the dog.”
He slid his hand into my hair and pulled me closer to his face.
“Future reference, this game you’re playin’ to get your way, it’s gonna work a lot of the time. When it’s about me givin’ you somethin’ that’s doin’ somethin’ for me, like givin’ me peace of mind I did what I could to keep you safe when I’m not here, it’s a game you’re gonna lose.”
There it was. More happy. And he even managed it while denying me something I wanted.
I totally had to step up my game.
“No fair,” I said quietly. “You can’t give me a reason that makes me feel all warm and squishy when you’re not giving me my way.”
I heard that thread of humor in his voice and it wasn’t near as slender when he asked, “Warm and squishy?”
I dipped closer, sliding my lips along his cheek to his ear as I rolled my hips in his lap, and whispered, “Squishy.”
His head moved and I turned mine in time to see him belting back his bourbon.
A beat later, the glass landed on the arm of his chair with a thud, and a beat after that, we were out of that chair, one of his arms under my ass holding me wrapped around him, the other one at the back of my neck, holding me tight to
him.
“I take it it’s time for bed,” I noted as he walked us to the door to the kitchen.
“Yup.”
I dipped in again and said against his neck, “Yippee.”
His arms gave me a squeeze as he walked us into my house.
Then he carried me to bed.
* * * * *
I slid Deacon’s cock out of my mouth, licked the tip, and called, “Deacon?”
I didn’t have to call him. I was curled between his legs, his knees cocked, shoulders to the headboard, and he was watching me.
“What?” he growled, the sound coming from deep, like it was torn from him.
I licked the tip again and said, “I don’t know why.”
“What?” he repeated.
I licked him from base to tip, my eyes glued to his, then I swirled the head with my tongue, watching his face get darker and darker, his jaw harder and harder, his legs more tense as he watched me. I did all this fighting the urge to squirm or climb on and ride him until I gave it to him. And me.
I wrapped my fist around him, pulling his cock away from where it was lying on his stomach, and said, “I don’t know why it’s you.”
“Jesus, woman, you wanna share this with me now?”
I stroked him with my hand and whispered, “I just know it’s you.”
His face got darker and I knew it wasn’t just because of what I was doing with my hand.
I kept whispering when I shared, “Because you make me happy.”
I lost purchase on his shaft when he did an ab curl and grasped me under my arms. With a yank, I was up and moving swiftly, landing on my belly on the bed. I felt Deacon’s knees pushing my legs apart as he positioned, his hands on my hips hauling me up.
He barely got my knees under me before he thrust in, yanking my hips back, drilling me.
And I was even more happy.
“Baby,” I whimpered.
Then, no other way to put it, even though he’d already pretty much mounted me, he finished that by curving his body over mine, putting a forearm into the bed beside me, thus mounting me.
He pulled my hair away from my face and put his lips close to my ear.
“Future,” he grunted, still driving deep. “That game you just played, you play it again, you’re gonna win, but I’m gonna choose how you get the prize.”
“Okay,” I breathed, deciding to play that game a lot as in, a lot.
And again I was up because he wrapped both arms around me and hauled me up so I was back to his front, impaled on his cock.
Deacon (Unfinished Heroes #4) Page 12