Bounty

by Kristen Ashley

  He set the phone on the built-in nightstand next to his bed.

  Then I watched as he bent deep and after that, all I could do was feel.

  Feel his hand cupping the back of my head. Feel his lips touch my temple. Feel the rumble in his voice as he whispered in my ear.

  “You’re safe here, Jussy. Got me lookin’ after you. Got Twyla outside lookin’ out for both of us. Got your dad watchin’ over you. So stop yammerin’ to keep sleep away. Close your eyes, gypsy, and I swear to God, you’ll be safe in your dreams.”

  God, he could also talk sexy, sweet and protective, like a verbal cuddle.

  God.

  “Okay, Deke,” I whispered back.

  I felt his fingers press into my scalp before I again felt his lips brush my temple.

  “Night, Jussy. Catch you in the morning.”

  Yeah.

  One thing I’d learned that day in a way I knew it was for certain.

  And it was something that would forever feed my poet’s soul having it in the way I did, which I treasured, and in the way I never would, which I longed for.

  That being knowing without a doubt that no matter what…

  Deke would catch me.

  * * * * *

  I heard glass shattering and woke with a start.

  Panic assailed me, freezing every inch of my body in sheer terror.

  A beat of silence slid by, two and then it hit me that I didn’t know where the fuck I was.

  Deke’s trailer.

  Deke.

  Without thought, I threw back the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

  I ran down the short hall, but even with that little distance, when I hit Deke, he was already standing from the couch.

  “Jussy,” he murmured.

  “Glass,” I whispered after I ran right into him, feeling his arms close around me, pressing into him, my hands flat against warm skin over the muscled flesh of his chest that I was too much in a state to appreciate. “Shattering glass.”

  Deke said nothing. He just shuffled us to the side until he hit a window and I bent with him as he glanced out.

  He shuffled us again and took us to the door. Opening it slightly with me out of the way and only his shoulder wedged in, I looked up at him to see his eyes aimed over his shoulder.

  There was clearly silent communication between him and Twyla because he nodded and flicked out a hand.

  He shuffled me out of the door, closed it, locked it and did all this saying, “It’s all good, Jussy.”

  Before I could speak, Deke lifted me in his arms and he had to walk sideways to get the both of us back to his bed.

  My voice was trembling when I started, “Deke—”

  “Shush,” he hushed me.

  I shushed but only because he put a knee to his bed and he didn’t put me in it.

  He put both of us in it.

  Thank you, God, for more bounty.

  He flicked the covers over us and gathered me close.

  This was when I realized I was shaking violently.

  Suddenly, I was embarrassed.

  “I’m a wuss,” I muttered.

  “Shut it,” he muttered back, his arms tightening around me at the same time his big body shifted into me, tucking me slightly under him.

  Yep.

  I’d been right way back when.

  Deke could be a teddy bear when he cuddled, making me feel small and safe and warm and protected just by wrapping his arms around me.

  And I knew by the way he’d bellowed my name at the police station, the hold he’d held on his rage that was at the same time strong, because he’d succeeded in holding it, and fragile, because it seemed like he was going to fail at any second and it would burst forth, that he could also be a lion, annihilating anything that might threaten to harm me.

  “I’ll just…get a lock on it and then—” I began.

  “Close your eyes. Relax. I’m here, Jussy. Not goin’ anywhere. I got you.”

  Yes, he did.

  I closed my eyes and pressed my face into his chest. I felt the tickle of hair there and was glad for it. Deke having hair on his chest was the only way I could imagine it. And it was also the way I liked it.

  “I need to know your favorite hooch,” I told his chest.

  “You’ll know you shut up, relax, and get some sleep. You do that, I’ll tell you in the morning.”

  “Just an FYI, I’m buying you a case of it.”

  “You say that like a threat.”

  “You’re not good at receiving gratitude.”

  “I will be, that gratitude comes in the form of a case of my favorite hooch.”

  I smiled against his skin.

  His hand slid up my spine and started stroking the back of my neck under my hair.

  “There’s my Jussy,” he whispered.

  He felt the smile.

  His Jussy.

  I relaxed in his arms.

  “That’s it, gypsy,” he encouraged, his body settling more weight and warmth on me, and I felt the tremors start to subside.

  Moments slid by. Then more moments.

  Until, trembling long gone, sleepily, I mumbled, “It’ll get better.”

  “Yeah it will, baby,” he murmured. “We’ll get you there.”

  “Thanks, Deke.”

  “Sleep, Jussy.”

  I drew in a breath and halfway through the exhale, held in Deke’s arms in Deke’s bed, feeling small and safe and warm in my teddy bear’s arms, protected by my own personal lion, I was out.

  Chapter Eleven

  I’m Justice’s

  Justice

  The next morning, I sat next to Deke in Deke’s behemoth of a truck, my hands wrapped around a travel mug of coffee that I made in my coffeemaker that the girls had brought to Deke’s trailer.

  We were on Ponderosa Road, closing in on my house.

  And my mind was not overwhelmed with thoughts of returning to the scene of the crime, that crime being perpetrated against me.

  My mind was consumed with thoughts of seeing Deke in a pair of loose-fitting, light gray, drawstring, fleece shorts, the jagged hems having been cut off just above his knees, the rest of him bare.

  There was a lot of him, this I knew.

  What I didn’t know was that it would all be so…incredibly…Deke.

  I knew that made no sense.

  It was still true.

  He had broad shoulders, bulging biceps, fantastic forearms, all this more of what I knew.

  He also had something else I’d discovered in the dead of night.

  A hairy chest.

  I just didn’t know how fabulous that was until the sense of sight was engaged.

  It wasn’t like he had an overabundance of hair that grew over his shoulders and down his back.

  There still was a lot of it. All of it covering exceptional pecs and the most amazing stomach I’d ever seen.

  Not abs.

  A manly stomach.

  I had to admit, I was over the cut leanness that was all the rage. In the beginning, it was hot. But now it seemed daunting, men being so developed they didn’t have an inch of extra flesh on them, not like they were human beings but like they were diagrams of a body’s muscularity.

  Not Deke.

  Sure, with his line of work, it probably was impossible that he not have a powerful physique (which he did) including a defined ridge outlining the outer abdominals. He also had faint contours marking the two upper boxes.

  The rest was a fur-covered stomach that didn’t protrude like a beer belly but instead declared him a man who lived his life, ate what he wanted¸ drank what he wanted, and if that gave him a hint of a gut, he didn’t give a fuck.

  So Deke.

  His knees down to his feet weren’t bad either.

  But I loved his chest, his stomach. Just a glance at it made me want to straddle his narrow hips while I rode his cock, my nails dragging over the hair on that stomach, my thumbs rubbing hard against his delectable, quarter-sized ni
pples.

  And if that wasn’t enough to turn my mind from the intimidating aspect of confronting my house, my bedroom, a place where I’d been certain I was going to be strangled to death (and all of that was more than enough), the way Deke was in the morning added to that significantly.

  Needless to say, broken sleep (though the end of it was really good, tucked close to Deke), we got up early and early sucked, even if I woke up in that early tucked close to Deke.

  It sucked worse with my body again aching, my wrist twinging with every movement, my face throbbing and my throat still feeling abused.

  When Deke woke us (apparently having an internal alarm clock), I knew I was on the verge of being out-and-out grouchy (okay, not so verge, I was there) so I set about making that go away the only way I knew how.

  Shambling around silently, trying not to get caught staring at Deke’s chest, stomach, arms, legs and his ass that was far more distinct (and delicious) in his fleece shorts, I prioritized getting my hands on the only tool I knew that worked against my grouchy.

  Coffee.

  Deke, on the other hand, threw teddy bear into overdrive. If he was anywhere near me, he was touching me or straight up turning me into one (or two, if he had them both handy) of his arms. He slid my hair out of my face. He curled a hand around my neck and stroked my jaw with his thumb. And when he handed me my cup of coffee, once I took it, he bent and touched his lips to my temple.

  In other words, he treated me not like I was an unexpected guest in his small space but like a fragile and precious object that needed to be cosseted and cuddled at every opportunity so she didn’t come flying apart.

  None of this, incidentally, said friend.

  None of it even said woman he’d banged who he liked well enough to look after when life threw her a nasty curveball (though I was obviously not a woman he’d banged).

  No.

  It all said a whole lot more.

  That was one place that morning where I absolutely didn’t go in my mind.

  I just let it happen because I needed to be that fragile, precious object he kept from flying apart so I wouldn’t focus on the fact that I’d nearly been strangled to death, one of my best friends was clearly in some seriously deep shit, and therefore I actually might come flying apart.

  If someone didn’t hold me together, that was.

  And Deke was doing a bang-up job of holding me together.

  So I held on to that.

  He suggested I take a bath at my place to help with the aches but I insisted I take a shower at his. I didn’t want to be naked and vulnerable at my place and not able to dash to Deke the instant something freaked me in the likely event that something might freak me.

  He didn’t push it. In fact, his voice barely rose above a gentle, rumbling murmur not only then but all morning.

  Though he did insist I go first.

  While he showered (and I struggled with obsessing over the rest of what his body might look like, especially in a shower), I made us more coffee and also made us oatmeal, enjoying the novelty of having a kitchen (such as it was). Mr. T was going to bring La-La Land treats but I needed something to take my mind off Deke in the shower and what I used to do that was oatmeal.

  He came out in a towel, something that didn’t help matters, and closed the door to his bed area to get dressed (I’d dressed in his bathroom).

  That day he wore a white T-shirt as if he knew the familiarity of that was a balm to my cluttered mind.

  He couldn’t know that, of course.

  It still was a balm and I appreciated it.

  We left the trailer and I saw Twyla was gone. This Deke told me she did after Deke went out and spoke with her while I was in the shower.

  I made a mental note: another case of hooch for Twyla hanging out in her pickup all night.

  Now we were headed to my house. I had my second big cup of coffee in my hands, my belly full of oatmeal, the ibuprofen and aspirin that Deke gave me working their way through my system, dulling the aches along with the pains, and I was getting out of the grouchy.

  Unfortunately I was doing it in a way that could make me even grouchier, after that morning, now only just relatively certain I could do this friend thing with Deke.

  No girl without a man could have a friend with Deke’s chest (and stomach…and ass, it should be added).

  I mean, really.

  It was torture.

  We growled along in his behemoth, these thoughts in mind, me deciding that, once all was clear with Bianca’s lunatic, I was going to hang with Lacey during her tour.

  I was also going to get laid.

  This thought made saliva fill my mouth like I was about to get sick, thinking of having any man, taking any man inside me who was not Deke.

  So with this reaction, I decided not to focus on whatever the future needed to be.

  Instead, I was going to focus on the next minute, the next after that, and just deal.

  Deke turned into my lane with a murmured, “Good, baby?”

  “Good, Deke,” I whispered.

  He reached out a hand and squeezed my thigh before he turned it, palm up.

  I didn’t know what that meant but instinctively I took one hand from my mug and placed it in his.

  That was what it meant. His fingers curled warm around mine and he pulled both to his thigh and rested them against the hard muscle there while he drove us up my lane.

  I closed my eyes.

  God.

  He was just so fucking Deke.

  “Callahan,” he said.

  I opened my eyes.

  And there he was, Joe Callahan, standing at the side of a black SUV, shoulders rested against it, wearing jeans, a black tee and motorcycle boots.

  I had not been in his presence often, a few times, but every time I was, I’d noted this was Cal’s uniform.

  I’d also noted he was smokin’ hot in the sense that he could totally move to these mountains and fit right in.

  Deke stopped and let me go to put the truck in park and cut the ignition.

  For some reason, I waited until he’d done this, watching his profile rather than opening my door.

  He felt my gaze, looked at me, his face softened and he gave me one nod before he unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to his door.

  I unbuckled too and turned to mine.

  Once I got out and shut it, I looked to Cal to see he’d pushed away from the SUV and was heading our way.

  But he got a look at me not through the windshield and his tall body came to an abrupt stop.

  Then his handsome face got scary.

  I just barely made it to the hood of Deke’s truck when Deke was at my side, and before I knew it, he had a hand curled around my neck. His wrist was at the back, his fingers around the side pulling me close to him so I had no choice but to move toward Cal with my side brushing Deke’s and do it lifting a hand and hooking my thumb in his back belt loop.

  It was a strange hold that communicated protection and, oddly (though I might be reading it wrong, that wrong being hopefully) possession.

  Cal took us in as we made our way to him and Deke stopped us a few feet away.

  “You’re Callahan,” Deke stated and Cal tore his angry gaze from my throat and gave it to Deke.

  “You’re Hightower,” he returned.

  “Yup.”

  Cal looked him up and down, clearly after having seen my face, he hadn’t taken in the fullness of all that was Deke (just to say, I didn’t look much at myself when I was in Deke’s bathroom—I saw it was not pretty in such a way that I wasn’t quite ready to go there just yet with any type of close inspection).

  He did take Deke in right then and I knew his eyesight wasn’t failing when I saw the pissed-off tense line of his body relax a smidge.

  Cal turned his attention to me. “You doin’ okay, Jus?”

  “Got a lot of good folks looking after me, Cal,” I replied.

  He nodded, glancing at Deke before looking at me.

  H
e then looked back to Deke. “You wanna let her go, man, so I can give her a hug?”

  This was Cal’s wife’s doing. I knew this because he put in Dad’s security in Dad and Dana’s house prior to finding that wife and back then, although not rude or an asshole, he was about as huggable as Charles Manson.

  When he did Lacey’s house in the Hollywood hills, well after he’d settled into life with his new wife, he was an entirely different man. Still slightly taciturn, the rest was a shock. He was far more mellow and he liberally demonstrated he had a wicked sense of humor. He talked on the phone frequently with his woman and the family he collected when he got her (she was a widowed mom) and the one the two of them were making (something they enjoyed doing because as far as I knew, they had five kids, two hers before Cal, five hers and Cal’s with Cal’s seed making three of those).

  It was a beautiful thing to see, how the love of an unmistakably good woman (though I’d never met her, still, the miracle she wrought was proof of that in my eyes) could change a man. Make him so visibly happy, even folks who barely knew him saw the blessings he’d received because he wore them almost like badges of honor.

  Another of life’s bounties, seeing that for Cal.

  As I thought all this, I realized that the answer to Cal’s question was a negative because Deke didn’t let me go.

  It was then I noticed Cal make a slight movement, shifting his left hand, but doing it so the wide gold band on it was easy to see.

  Only then did Deke let me go.

  Uh…

  Okay.

  Now what was that?

  I had no intention to ask or any chance.

  Cal came forward and pulled me in his arms, giving me a careful hug.

  He also didn’t let me go immediately.

  He kept me close as he said, “Gonna get you safe, Justice. No way this shit’s gonna happen again. Yeah?”

  I gave his trim waist a hug. “Yeah, Cal. Thanks.”

  He finally removed his arms, I dropped mine, but he didn’t remove himself until after he wrapped one hand around my right biceps and gave me a reassuring squeeze.

  Then he looked to Deke. “Let’s get to work.”