by L Ann
“What’s your point?”
“My point, as you so beautifully put it, is what happens tonight? What happens when you wake up screaming in the dark?” He threw her a tight humourless smile when she flinched. “Yes, I hear you screaming. We all do. Will you sit huddled in your bed alone all night and wait for the dawn? Or will you hop in the car and drive back to the Sanctuary where you know I’ll be?” He patted the space beside him. “I’m saving us both a lot of time and effort. I’m here now, so just get in the fucking bed, Gemma.”
“I’m not sharing my bed with you.”
“Fine.” He flopped onto his back. “You know where your couch is. Switch the light off on your way out.”
“You’re expecting me to sleep on the couch in my own house?” Gemma’s jaw dropped.
“Don’t you get it yet?” Deacon’s voice was a low growl. “It doesn’t matter where you start your fucking night. You’re going to end up wherever I’m sleeping. Just cut out the middle section and come to bed. Who knows? We might even be able to avoid the fucking nightmares.”
“Nightmares?” she repeated in a whisper.
Deacon sighed. “Are you going to try to convince me that the screams I hear are from good dreams?” He paused, then chuckled. “If you’ll admit you’re dreaming about me, it might go some way to convincing me they’re screams of pleasure.”
“Screams of pleasure?” Why was she repeating everything he said?
“I could, you know.” He lifted his head and his eyes took a leisurely path down her body. “Make you scream, I mean.”
And why did that offer send heat flooding through her?
“Ah, no,” she said.
“Your scent disagrees with your words,” he murmured. “Come on, Starshine. Get in bed. It’s been a long week and this is the first time I’ve been able to stretch out on a proper mattress . I’m fucking exhausted.”
“Why did you take your t-shirt off?” She took a step toward the bed. “Are those paw prints?” Her eyes tracked over the tattoos wrapping around his ribs and down his abs.
He flashed her a grin. “Yes, they are. Wolf prints. Would you have preferred me to take my jeans off and leave the shirt on? I thought you wanted to see what tattoos I had under my shirt. But you can check out the ones on my legs if you’d prefer. It’s not too late to rectify that.” He sat up and she froze, mid-step. Deacon caught the look on her face and stilled.
Gemma knew she looked like a deer trapped in the headlights. She forced herself to take another step toward the bed, her heart hammering in her throat.
“What reason have I given you to be afraid of me? You sleep next to me every night.” He watched her, eyes gold and unreadable, as she inched closer.
“You’re not normally awake,” she offered hesitantly.
“Newsflash, Starshine. I’m awake every fucking time you crawl onto that couch with me.” He patted the mattress again. “Come on, I won’t bite. I’m even lying on top of the sheets.” He folded them back. “You can get underneath them. What’s it called? A degree of separation?”
It was quite a novel experience, Deacon decided while he waited for Gemma to make a decision. Having to work at getting a woman into his bed wasn’t something he’d ever had to do. Usually, a flirtatious smile, a whispered promise of a night they’d never forget, and he’d find the nearest surface and rock their world. But, and he wasn’t really sure why he was putting so much effort in since sex definitely wasn’t on the table, he knew that approach wouldn’t work with Gemma – especially after her experience at Damien’s hands. His wolf growled.
Are you making a habit of lying to yourself these days, DJ? Okay, fine! He knew why he was putting so much effort in.
Not that he would say no if she ever decided she wanted his body again, he reflected. The moment they’d met, he had known they would end up in bed together, but that was before Cassie’s accident and the whole fucked up Damien not being dead issue.
She was still staring at him, those blue eyes wide and worried, and he was beginning to feel like she was expecting him to drag her into the bed by her hair and force her to do unspeakable things. He felt his cock twitch at the thought and suppressed a sudden urge to grin.
What would she do if he followed through on that thought? How would she react if he rose from the bed and ravished her right there in the middle of the room? Totally inappropriate, DJ, he thought to himself. But, fuck me, she looked appetising standing there in barely there shorts and pale-coloured vest that left little to the imagination.
He wondered if she knew how much she tempted him, how difficult it was not to go all cave-man on her, felt his dick stir some more and shifted on the bed, trying to ease the pressure. Neanderthal man had it right. Find the nearest cave, grab his woman and show her why he was an Alpha male.
“Okay then,” he said out loud, distracting himself from his thoughts and, more importantly, his erection. “You decide what you’re going to do but switch off the light, anyway.” He rolled away, so his back was facing her and she didn’t spot the hard-on pushing at the denim of his jeans, and closed his eyes.
It took a few minutes, but eventually he heard the light click off. The bed dipped as she climbed onto it. Deacon could almost taste the tension in her scent as she lay stiff and silent behind him. He needed her to relax before his wolf took matters into its own hands … paws. He stifled a snicker.
“Do you think you’ll remember me tomorrow?” he asked softly into the darkness.
“What?”
His lips curled upwards at her confused question. “Tomorrow … do you think you’ll remember who I am?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know. What about a month? Think you’ll still remember me?”
“I don’t see why not.”
“A year, then? That’s a long time. Will you remember me in a year?”
“I don’t think I’ll forget you any time soon, Deacon.”
“Knock knock.”
What?”
“Knock knock,” he repeated.
He heard her sigh. “Who’s there?”
Deacon rolled over to face her. “Fuck me, that hurts, Starshine.”
“What does?”
“You’ve forgotten who I am already.”
He lifted his eyes to meet hers, let himself grin at her confused expression.
Gemma groaned. “That was terrible.”
“What does a Rubix cube and a penis have in common?”
“I’m scared to ask.”
“The more you play with them, the harder they get.”
Gemma rolled her eyes, but he saw her lips move upwards slightly. Taking a chance, he nudged her leg with his knee. “Come on, that was funny.”
“It was awful.”
“Why does Dr. Pepper come in a can?”
“Can you stop?”
“No, answer the question.”
She gave an exasperated huff. “I don’t know, Deacon.”
“Because his wife died.”
Her head turned on the pillow so she could look at him. “You make a lousy comedian.”
“I have more.”
“I thought you said you were exhausted?”
“Why can’t Miss Piggy count to seventy?”
“Deacon …”
“You want to know the answer. I know you do.”
“Even if I didn’t, you’re going to insist on telling me.”
“Every time she gets to sixty-nine, she gets a frog in her throat.”
He saw her shoulders shake as she tried to hide her laughter, and he chuckled softly, feeling the tension in the room ease.
Deacon woke to the scent of vanilla and coconut invading his senses. He lifted a hand to push hair from his face and froze. Unless he’d turned into Rapunzel overnight, he was sure his hair wasn’t long enough to cover his face. Brushing the strands away, he opened his eyes and lifted his head to look down the bed. Gemma was sprawled sideways across the mattress, her head resting in the crook
of his shoulder. It was her hair spilling around his face.
Now he was awake and aware, he could feel the warmth of her skin beneath his palm and he moved his hand cautiously, feeling the indents of her spine beneath his fingertips. Her upper body was draped across his chest, and she seemed to be using him as a body pillow. Somehow, during the night, one of his hands had found its way beneath her top to cradle her against him. He could feel one of her hands resting against the side of his throat and the soft caress of her breath along his jaw. Her other arm was resting along his ribs, with her hand splayed out over his heart.
He turned his head to the left, dislodging the hand curved around his throat. The sheets twisted and wrapped around her hips gave testament to a restless night. She must have tossed and turned for a while before seeking him out. His gaze swept up over her legs to where the curve of her ass peeked out from beneath the shorts she wore. The hand resting against her spine flexed involuntarily.
What had Damien done to her? He needed to know … he didn’t want to know.
Deacon knew his cousin’s preferences, the things he liked to do. Hell, they’d shared countless women between the three of them over the years. Both Shaun and Damien knew his tastes as well as he knew theirs.
But had Damien’s tastes changed? None of the women they shared had been unwilling. They had been happy, even eager, to satisfy all of their needs. Taking a woman against her will had never been something that fuelled any of their desires, but now…?
Deacon knew Damien had crossed that line and, for that alone, he would make his cousin pay.
But what had he done? And where was he now?
Gemma shifted against him, and he bit back a groan when her hand slipped down across his shoulder, and smoothed down over his chest. Her fingernails grazed over his nipple and he swallowed as the sensation shot straight down to his dick.
“Fuck me,” he breathed. He had to get out of the bed before she woke up and spotted the mother of all hard-ons he was sporting. And Christ only knew how she’d react to that.
“Deacon?” Her voice was a low whisper, heavy with sleep.
Fuck.
Too late.
Gemma knew where she was the second she woke up. She could feel the hard heat of Deacon’s shoulder beneath her cheek, his hand on her back, smell the scent that was pure Deacon, and she waited for panic to set in. When it didn’t, she ran her hand over the dips and planes of his chest experimentally, expecting her body to react negatively to his closeness.
He muttered something beneath his breath, too low for her to catch more than the rumble in his chest and the hand resting on her back moved to her hip.
“Deacon?” she murmured his name, and was surprised to hear desire thickening her own voice.
“Fuck.”
The hand on her hip tightened briefly, then dropped away and she immediately missed the warmth.
Gemma turned her face, burying her nose into the curve of his shoulder and breathed in.
“Starshine, you really need to wake up.”
“I am awake,” she whispered, inhaling the wickedly dark scent that always surrounded him. “I want to see if …” She ran her tongue over his warm skin.
His throat moved beneath her lips when he swallowed, but he didn’t push her away. Instead, he angled his head to allow her better access to his neck and she licked and nibbled her way up to his jaw.
“What makes you think twenty-four hours will make a difference?” he asked and Gemma knew he was remembering the last time they’d been close together on a bed.
“I’m not sure it will,” she replied. “But I’ll never know if I don’t test it out, will I?”
“Fair point,” he conceded. His hand returned to her back. “I’ll make you a deal,” he continued. “You can test your limits on me as much as you like but, in return, I want you to tell me something.”
Gemma lifted her head. She knew the answer to the question, even as she uttered it. “What kind of something?”
“Every time you want to run your little experiment,” his lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile, “you have to tell me one thing Damien did.”
“No.”
“Just like that? No consideration? Just a flat-out refusal?”
“I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” His stomach muscles tensed beneath her hands and Gemma found herself tumbled to the mattress. Deacon rose to his feet and looked down at her from beside the bed. “Until you agree to my terms, this …” he ran a hand down his chest. “This is off-limits. You don’t give me what I want, I don’t give you what you want.”
Gemma pushed herself up into a seated position. “I can’t, Deacon. Don’t you understand that? I just … can’t!”
If she talked about what had happened, it would make the memories resurface, make her relive the days of torment and pain. It would drag her down into the fear, into the insanity of what can’t have been real.
“You mean you won’t.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
Deacon picked up his t-shirt from the floor beside the bed and pulled it over his head. “You said you aren’t a victim, Gemma. Your refusal to face what happened is turning you into one.”
The anger in his tone more than his words made her flinch, and she gazed up at him out of wide eyes. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” He shoved one foot, then the other into his boots. “And why don’t I? Because you won’t talk about it.”
“I can’t talk about it!” she yelled, rising up on her knees, fingers bunching into fists. “Don’t you get it? If I talk about it, it makes it real!”
“It’s already fucking real!” Deacon roared back. “It happened, Gemma. The sooner you own that reality, the sooner you can heal.” He crouched, jerked his laces tightly into knots, rose to his feet and stalked to the door.
“Where are you going?”
He paused, fingers on the door handle. “Back to the Sanctuary. I let everyone convince me that you needed me here. They thought I was the one you needed, the one you would talk to. But you clearly don’t want that at all.” He yanked the door open. “You just want to fucking hide and turn into the victim you’re claiming you’re not.”
“Wait!” Gemma scrambled off the bed and ran through the door after him.
Deacon didn’t stop. He strode through the house, down the stairs and toward the front door. Gemma caught his arm as he threw it open.
“Please don’t give up on me.”
Where had that plea come from?
He stopped and turned, the anger leaving his eyes, and his hand covered the fingers gripping his forearm. He gave them a gentle squeeze.
“I haven’t given up on you, Starshine,” he murmured, and pressed a finger beneath her chin to tip her head up to meet his gaze. “You have given up on you.”
She was so fucking frustrating. No matter how much he pushed, she would not give in. What would it take?
Deacon rode back to the Sanctuary on auto-pilot, his mind replaying their argument.
How had they even ended up fighting? She’d had him battling to control the need to pin her beneath him and to hell with the consequences. With her hands on his skin and her lips on his throat, he’d wanted nothing more than to bury himself deep inside her and wipe the memory of every man she’d been with out of her mind. And then he’d opened his stupid mouth. He knew she wasn’t ready to talk, but he just couldn’t help but push.
He’d been so angry at her stubborn refusal to meet his terms that he’d forgotten the reason he followed her into town in the first place. It was only as he pulled up outside the main house that he thought about the fact he’d left her unprotected. His only thought had been to put space between them before his anger and frustration over his inability to help her spilled over, and he scared her more than she was already. He was about to turn around and ride back when Cormac’s voice stopped him.
>
“Where have you been?”
Deacon climbed off his bike and turned to face his brother.
“I went to town.”
“To Gemma?”
“Does it matter?”
“You tell me.”
Deacon glared at his brother. “Why the fuck did you allow her to go back there?” He exploded. He knew he was taking out his own guilt and frustration on his brother, but he didn’t care. “We have no clue where Damien is.”
“You know why.” Cormac didn’t rise to the aggression in Deacon’s tone. “It’s why neither you nor Shaun wanted to take the Alpha position. You aren’t willing to make the decisions necessary for our survival.”
“You’re using her as bait. To draw him out. What if he takes her? He’s masking his scent and his presence. How am I supposed to fucking protect her when she won’t -” He snapped his mouth closed.
“Damien doesn’t want Gemma, he wants Shaun. You know that.”
“And you think he won’t take Gemma? Shaun would offer himself in return for her release, you know that!” Deacon snapped.
“I sent Lucas and Noah to watch over her, before you rushed off yesterday,” Cormac waited for Deacon to reach him, then turned to walk back inside the house.
“Why didn’t you just deny her request to leave? I would have refused to let her go.”
Cormac glanced at his brother, silver eyes thoughtful but made no comment on the possessiveness in Deacon’s voice. “You think that would have worked? You don’t think she’d have snuck away the first chance she got?”
“As Alpha, you could have ensured her compliance.”
“Like you keep telling me, Deacon, she didn’t grow up as part of our pack. Compliance to Alpha dominance is a part of our genetic make-up. For her, and Cassie, it’s not. Unless they shift, forcing my will upon them would be almost as bad as what Damien has already done to her.” His eyes slid toward his brother. “Not to mention what you would do if I dared to force my will on your female.”
“She’s not my female,” Deacon denied.