Page 119 of Deacon

He shakes his head. “Not until tomorrow morning.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“I checked the weather.”

For some reason, I thought he was going to say he’d lived in Montana all his life and knew it like the back of his hand. I’ve been so cut off with nothing but my flip phone and no access to a computer, I forgot the internet exists.

“Oh, that makes sense,” I say.

His plate is clean before I’m five bites in. He sits back, wiping his hands on his napkin. “I’ve never had food as good as what you cook, sweetheart. Worth kidnapping you for.”

I gasp. He gives me that lopsided smile as he gets up.

“I’m gonna work you over and work you out tonight,” he says. “So you rest up today while I batten down the hatches for the storm tomorrow.”

He doesn’t give me time to reply. He just kisses the top of my head. His touch burns for a half second. A hand on my shoulder, his mouth on my hair. Then, he’s gone, striding down the hall is his big, steel-toe boots that don’t scare me anymore.

I stare at the wall for a long time. I’m not shaken up by what he’s promised to do to me tonight. No, I’m shaken up because nobody has ever kissed me like that.

A brush of his lips as he passes by.

Casual…like maybe he loves me.

CHAPTER THIRTY

DEACON

After chores are done and the ranch is locked down for the night, I take her upstairs to the bedroom. She gets a cup of tea because I want her to think clearly. I have a splash of whiskey in the bottom of a glass.

I flick on the fire. “There are some clothes in our dresser.”

Her eyes flick up, like she wants to call me out for sayingourdresser instead of my dresser. But she sorts through the bottom drawer until she finds a slip and disappears into the bathroom to get undressed for bed. I strip and pull on my sweats and sink down into the chair before the fire.

The door opens. I glance up.

Goddamn.

Her dark hair flows down her back, the black silk slip dripping off her body. I hold out my hand, and she comes. Something shifted in the attic, as I hoped it would. There’s an openness to her that wasn’t there before.

I’m prying her walls apart.

Reeling her out of the world in her head.

Maybe I can give her a reality worth living in.

I set my drink aside and pull her between my knees. I run my palm up to the lace hem, brushing it just high enough to see the chastity belt glittering beneath.

I’m hard, but I can wait.

I run my palms down and up again. Her thighs curve so beautifully, tapering up above her waist. The rise and fall of her body beneath my hands makes my brain buzz.

She feels like something I’m too rough to own but too far gone to give up.

I’ve always lived in the real world. The violence, the pain. She feels like a breath of new air, like I caught a rare, beautiful bird in my trap, and I’m so in love, I can’t give it up.

I am in love.

For a long time, I felt obsession and hunger. I think under it, there was always love. It’s the only thing that explains what I feel. It burns like fire, like torture. It hurts too much to be just lust.

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