Bounty

by Kristen Ashley

  I didn’t get over there.

  I turned my gaze out the windows and saw through the dark that the flurries were falling thicker.

  I saw it but I thought about Chace having Faye. Deacon having whoever he had at home.

  And me.

  I’d drifted here, anchorless without my father.

  And I’d found Deke.

  Hell, I’d nearly been strangled to death on my own bed.

  But somehow, that dramatic, life-altering event barely touched me.

  Because I’d found Deke.

  And now I was standing in my newly-finished house with a man who lived in a trailer. But he was a man who knew what this house meant to me and thought enough about me to plan ahead, have a friend bring glasses, buy a bottle of champagne and toast the beginning of a new chapter of my life, our lives, doing that for me.

  I had not found my oasis. I had not found a home.

  I’d stumbled into Heaven on earth where miracles could happen.

  I knew this because I’d sensed this in Chace. In Deacon.

  But I felt it in me.

  “Justice,” Deke rumbled.

  I started, shifting my eyes to him.

  Then, slowly, I walked to him.

  When I got close, Deke, so damned Deke, curved an arm around my waist and pulled me tight, my front to his side, his bearded chin buried in his neck to hold my eyes.

  His held concern.

  “You okay, baby?” he whispered gently.

  “I bought champagne glasses,” I whispered back.

  Deke said nothing.

  “And red wineglasses,” I carried on. “White wineglasses. Martini glasses. Bourbon glasses—”

  Deke cut me off. “I’m catching your drift.”

  I nodded.

  “Talk to me,” he ordered.

  I did not talk to him.

  Oh no.

  A moment like that was not for words.

  It was for song.

  So I didn’t talk to him.

  I sang to him.

  “Wither to dust, crumble like rust, only by your side.”

  His arm got tighter and I felt it before I heard the noise that reverberated from his gut, through his chest and out between his lips.

  But I kept singing.

  “Fresh air, cold beer. Root myself in you.”

  “Stop it, gypsy,” he growled.

  I didn’t stop.

  Couldn’t.

  He knew the words were for him.

  But I’d never given them to him, straight from me.

  “Consider my life, you’re all that’s right, breathless to bring on the night.”

  Deke shuffled us around the corner of the island, clear of the glasses and bottle of champagne.

  And I kept singing.

  “Wither to dust, baby, crumble like rust, only at your side. Just what I need when I have everything.”

  I stopped to gasp as his big hands spanned my hips and I was up, ass to the counter, Deke pushing his hips between my knees, those knees spreading so he was pressed to the heart of me.

  Then I was staring at nothing but hazel when his mouth came to mine.

  “Chain links, worn jeans,” I crooned there. “I could search ‘til I’m done, ‘til moon becomes sun.”

  His hand slid up in my hair, bunching it at the back of my skull, his other arm banding across my back, the pads of his fingers digging into the sides of my ribs.

  “Chain links, white tee. Wither to dust, crumble like rust, all I need is to be at your side.”

  I stopped singing.

  “You done?” he asked, his voice thick, his hold on me fierce, his eyes burning.

  “Thank you for my house, honey.”

  “You’re done,” he muttered.

  I was done.

  But we were not since he kissed me.

  While he did, he pushed me so my back was to the counter, his tongue in my mouth a sensual assault, an intimate branding, more potent than his mark, the one he often found times to renew on my shoulder.

  Through it, he yanked at my belt, jerked down my zipper, pulled at my jeans. As I felt wet flood between my legs, I also felt cold marble hit my ass. But even cold, it heated me as Deke angled away. He lifted one of my feet, yanking off my boot, my sock. To the other, they were gone. With a vicious sweep that pulled my ass to the edge of the counter, forcing a gust of electrified breath from my lips, my jeans were torn away.

  I watched Deke straighten, his hands to his own jeans. He pulled them down over his hips, his hard cock springing free.

  Then he surprised me.

  He didn’t bend over me, take my mouth when he took my cunt.

  He reached to me, wrapping his hand around my throat. Collaring me with his touch, scalding me with the look in his eyes, he caught the back of one of my knees in his hand, yanked up as his hips pressed in.

  They rolled and his cock head slithered, fixed on its target, and then he drove in.

  Taking him, feeling the exquisiteness of Deke filling me, my neck arched back, the weight and warmth of his large hand spanning my throat splitting my avid attention from that to the force of his thrusts pounding into me.

  “Eyes on me, Justice,” he ground out.

  I righted my head, looked into his eyes, watched the ferocity of feeling etch in his face.

  That ferocity for me.

  All for me.

  I trembled on marble.

  “Root myself in you,” he grunted, doing just that and grinding.

  Oh God.

  God.

  I lifted the leg he didn’t have hold of and pressed the inside of my thigh to his side, everything quivering, legs, belly, lips, fingers, pussy.

  “Deke.”

  He pulled back, but not out, and again started thrusting.

  His fingers tightened on my neck even as his thumb slid up, wedging against the hinge of my jaw. Trembling more violently, I felt the pad of it pressing there, searing, certain after we were through I’d look in the mirror and see the burn of his print there, scorched into me.

  “Anyone but me ever gonna get in this cunt?” he asked.

  I tensed around his driving cock.

  Yes.

  I was right.

  He was searing himself into me. His. For his use. For him. No other.

  I was Deke’s.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Ever?” he clipped.

  “Not ever, baby,” I promised breathlessly.

  He pounded into me, my body wrenching with each thrust, held steady only by his hand at my throat, his other one gripping hard at my knee.

  Suddenly he jerked up that knee, slamming my pussy into his driving cock, each lunge colliding with my clit, pulsing through me. I lifted one hand to wrap my fingers around his wrist at my neck, holding him there, keeping him there, submitting to all he was doing, communicating I was his to claim. The other hand I slid between my legs, fingers separating, feeling in another way the beauty of Deke claiming me, marking me as his inside, all his, a place no one else would ever be.

  It started sweltering over me. I lifted my head, pressing into his collar at my throat, looking under my lashes right into his eyes, moaning raggedly, “Baby, fuck me. Keep fucking me, Deke. Don’t stop. Never stop.”

  He’d been taking me roughly, but at my words, his growl drove up my cunt as it rolled out his mouth and he bent slightly into me, his eyes locked to mine, and the silken violence of his fucking turned to velvet savagery.

  “Yes, baby,” I panted. Pulling my fingers from between my legs, I lifted that hand and caught it hard around the back of his neck. “That’s yours. Make it yours, all yours, Deke.”

  “Come, Jussy,” he grunted.

  I didn’t want to come. I wanted my grip on him, his grip on me, his eyes like that, his face like that, his cock marking me deep, and I wanted it for eternity.

  “Goddamn it, come, Jussy,” he snarled.

  I was panting, soft moans escaping each time he plunged deep, filling me, c
onnecting with me, knitting himself stronger in everything that was me, my eyes pinned to his.

  It was time.

  “Love you,” I whispered.

  “Love you too, gypsy, now fuckin’ come,” he growled back.

  I came. My spine arching off the marble, my leg winding around the small of his back, my fingers curling, my nails sinking into flesh, I cried out, first his name then soft noises escaping me as I felt my pussy undulate around his still thrusting cock, my clit contracting, throbbing, my breath finally suspending.

  “Fuck.”

  That came from Deke and it was a muted roar as he continued to pound into me, the feral sound of his release scraping into my skin, driving up my cunt, prolonging my orgasm as I felt him shoot hot and wet and deep into me.

  When he collapsed on me, forehead to my temple, forcing my head to the side to cushion him, he didn’t let go of my throat or my knee.

  I struggled to modulate my breathing and felt it against my ear, my cheek, as Deke did the same, his cock planted deep, rooted in me.

  Rooted in me.

  Love you too, gypsy…

  Love you too, gypsy…

  Love…

  You…

  Too.

  I felt the tears gather in my eyes and I was too spent, physically and emotionally, to fight them back.

  With Deke sense, he knew they were there the instant the first one slid over the bridge of my nose.

  I knew this when he lifted his head and noted, “Baby, for a woman who says she doesn’t cry, you’re a serious fuckin’ crier.”

  I righted my head and looked up at him.

  “You just told me you loved me,” I pointed out in a reverent whisper.

  Deke wasn’t in the mood for reverence.

  “Yeah, and you just told me you loved me. But after the best fuckin’ orgasm I’ve ever had in my goddamned life, this besting the one you gave me last night, which, babe, was off the charts…remind me to tie you face down again and soon…you don’t see me cryin’.”

  I watched his eyes turn glazed as my pussy shivered around his cock at the reminder of last night.

  But my lips still hissed, “You’re a mountain man, Deke. It’s a guess, but a good one, that mountain men rarely cry. Even after avowals of love.”

  He again focused on me. “You’re now a mountain woman, Jussy, a world-weary, worldly-wise, rock gypsy one, and, drop of a hat, you’re blubbering like a baby.”

  Was he giving me shit about crying after he just told me he loved me?

  “And I’ll repeat, this is because you just told me you loved me,” I declared. I lifted a hand, finger out, indicating my face. “And just to note, you giving me shit at this juncture, I’m no longer crying,” I pointed out, then complained, “You’ve totally ruined the moment.”

  A playful light hit his eyes which caused another pussy shiver that in turn caused his lips to curl up.

  “Totally?” he teased.

  “Totally,” I snapped, though it was a little breathy.

  Suddenly, his face was closer and his thumb was sweeping my jaw, my chin, and up, catching on my lower lip.

  “Totally?” he whispered.

  Okay.

  Not totally. Nothing could ruin this moment.

  Not a thing.

  Being Deke thus being awesome, he didn’t push it, make me admit it out loud.

  He just asked, “You love me, Jussy?”

  Now I could say it. I could say it not in the middle of fantastic sex through which Deke was claiming my pussy, my body, me.

  I could just say it, right out, all for him.

  For Deke.

  “Yeah, baby, I love you.”

  I watched that settle in his face, and doing it, I watched the miracle of this place that gave things like Deke to me and things like me to Deke at work.

  This latest miracle being watching the edges life had cut into his face smooth out, not from sleep, not from sex.

  All from me.

  Shit.

  I was going to start crying again.

  To control that, I pulled in a ragged breath while Deke ran his thumb from my lip, over my chin, down my throat. “Thinkin’ a’ buyin’ you champagne every night.”

  “I like champagne, honey, but you really wanna get in there, you get me bourbon.”

  He pressed his hips into mine, my lips parted at the sweet feeling, and he asked, “Can I get in deeper?”

  I was utterly serious when I looked right into his eyes and answered, “No.”

  He read my serious.

  Totally.

  “Rooted in you,” he stated, his eyes gleaming, predatory, possessive, making the point he’d made with his cock, his hand around my throat, everything he’d just done to me.

  The point he’d made our first time, sinking his teeth into my skin.

  I’d been his then.

  We were just making it official.

  “Rooted in me,” I breathed.

  He wrapped the leg he had hold of around his back and used his now free hand to slide up my neck, his fingers going into my hair, his other hand leaving my throat to follow suit on the opposite side.

  “Only roots I want, me in you, you in me,” he said quietly.

  Fuck.

  He was going to make me cry again and I wasn’t going to be able to control it.

  He watched my face.

  Then he said, “Shit, you’re gonna start up again.”

  “Am not,” I snapped, though the words were shaky.

  He grinned at me teasingly, but that was a front, giving me what I needed to pull myself together. I knew this because I also felt both his thumbs stroke behind my ears soothingly.

  “I need champagne,” I declared.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Do you drink champagne?” I asked.

  “Tonight I do,” he answered.

  Tonight he did.

  Tonight, a night for a lot of celebrating, for me, Deke drank champagne.

  I lifted up and touched my mouth to his before falling back into his hands in my hair. “Then pour, honey. I’ll get cleaned up. We’ll toast my pad being done then pulled pork.”

  “You got it,” he murmured. “I’ll grab the pumpkins then hit the champagne.”

  He slowly slid out and then pulled me up so I was sitting on the counter.

  He kept us there, me in his arms, my head tipped back, his chin dipped down.

  He studied my face, liked what he saw, showed me that with his expression, and then he kissed me, long and sweet.

  When he was done, he helped me off the counter, yanked up his jeans, tucking his cock inside, but helped me grab my jeans and panties before he did his up.

  “Be back,” I told him.

  “Gotcha,” he replied.

  “Always, Deke.”

  It came out as a blurt, and his gaze, having roamed to the bottle of champagne, came to mine.

  “Yeah, baby,” he whispered, his mouth soft, his look warm.

  I gave him that back.

  Then I dashed to the bathroom to clean up. Having had my period in the interim (so no baby after the time Deke did me ungloved), I was now on the Pill.

  No more condoms.

  Just Deke and me.

  That was good since we’d run out.

  This thought gave me a grin.

  Thoughts of the last twenty minutes made that grin turn into a big, fat smile.

  Thoughts of pulled pork made my stomach start grumbling.

  So I cleaned up, pulled on my clothes, grabbed a new pair of warm socks and tugged them on.

  I took only a second to look out the windows to the flurries that had become full-blown snow falling down, thick and heavy, on my patch of mountain.

  “I’m happy, Daddy,” I whispered.

  The snow kept falling quietly, beautifully, peacefully.

  I took that as Dad’s answer that he was glad.

  Then I did what I said I would do.

  What I would always do.

&n
bsp; I went right back to my man.

  * * * * *

  Deke

  Later that night, Deke felt Jussy relax in his arms and heard her breaths even out in sleep.

  Lying there, holding his gypsy close in her big, expensive bed in her big, expensive house in the mountains after what they’d shared on her island, he felt a stillness his entire life he only felt while doing one thing.

  Being on the road.

  It did not tweak him.

  It made complete sense.

  Deke was in love with her.

  So it was no surprise she brought him this peace.

  Deke did not look out the window.

  Instead, he buried his face in Jussy’s hair.

  And he did not speak out loud.

  He thought the words inside his head.

  I’m good, Ma.

  Then, falling deeper into that place, holding Jussy to him in that big, expensive bed in that big, expensive house in the mountains, Deke closed his eyes and found sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Not Ever Again

  Deke

  Deke felt Jussy plant her hands in his gut, her hair sweeping across his chest as she arched back, the nectar of her flooding his mouth as she came on his face.

  He took it in, kept her there as long as he could before he had to give himself what he needed.

  Gripping her hips, he hauled her down his chest, slid her off him and rolled into her as he pulled her to her side, her back to his front. He grasped his dick, shifting down. Guiding his cock, he drove inside, and as he took her, he felt the hot, sleek of her clutch him while she kept coming.

  He dug one arm under her and angled it up, spanning her throat, pushing it back as he bent his neck so her head glided up his cheek, her hair tangling in his beard. He buried his face in her neck and his other hand between her legs, pushing in, finding her clit with his finger, rolling hard.

  “Get there again, gypsy,” he growled, thrusting into her tight pussy, feeling his own orgasm gather in his balls, his cock.

  She panted softly, moving her hips to rock into his thrusts at the same time grind into his fingers.

  “God,” she whispered.

  “Get there,” he ordered.

  “God,” she blew out.

  “Baby…” he slid his hand up her throat to wrap it under her jaw, “get there,” he grunted.

  Her head pressed back into his shoulder as she stopped panting and started mewing. He felt the rush of the wet of her second orgasm coat his cock and he couldn’t hold back.