Page 26 of Deacon

I look down. My fern-green sweater is suctioned onto my body, showing my curves and the clear outline of my bra underneath. My skirt clings to my tights, which now have a run down the right leg.

“I don’t have any other clothes,” I whisper.

“You can wear one of my flannels,” he says. “But you need to get warm first. You want a bath?”

Just talking about wet clothes and baths has a raw heartbeat thumping between my legs.

What’s wrong with me?

He’s the opposite of who I want. I know better than to look twice, but here I am, staring up at him without a thought in my head. I know just by looking at him that he’s a scarred-up, knuckles-in-the-drywall son of a gun. I should walk away right now.

The problem is…he’s got such pretty dark eyes.

And he’s talking to me real slow and deep, calling me sweetheart. It’s like warm water trickling through my veins, all the way to my guarded heart.

“Head down the hall,” he says, not waiting for an answer. “You’re clearly shocked, so you’re going to listen to me until you feel better.”

He puts a hand on my lower back, ushering me down the hall. From the back of the couch, he takes a blanket and wraps it around my shoulders. Then, he helps me sit on one of the couches and heads up a flight of stairs that winds over the back wall of the living room.

I hear his boots upstairs. The room is dimly lit, but I can see the walls are all painted deep navy blue. There’s a broad beam running down the ceiling. It leads all the way to a gas fireplace that’s easily as tall as me. The stone is shiny white, and the orange flame reflects off it in a dizzying pattern.

He lives in the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen. Everything feels purposeful, like he knows how to take care of it. It’s confusing, because he looks like the men I know who do nothing but destroy. I’ve never met a man who cared about his home.

His boots sound on the stairs, and he comes into view.

“Come here,” he says.

There’s no room in his voice to refuse. I set the blanket down and head to the stairs, pausing at the bottom.

“Should I take my boots off?” I whisper.

He nods. “You can.”

I slip them off and pad up to him in my wet socks. He goes on ahead, leading the way through a hallway painted like the downstairs. There’s a nightlight glimmering at the far end, but otherwise, the hall is dark. It’s not ominous, but it’s not comfortable either.

He pushes open the door, second to the last. Inside, I can see a large room with wall-to-wall windows on the far end. My jaw drops, and I forget about him for a second. My feet carry me through the doorway. I barely hear him shut it behind us.

The lamp is on and the fireplace crackles, shedding enough light for me to see. The floor is dark wood, the walls deep blue. The hearth is black stone, and there’s a set of panels on the wall above it. Below that are two mirrors on hinges. They’re turned away from the bed, but if it moved, they’d reflect it back.

I turn my head, creeping closer.

The panels are four rectangular paintings that make up a scene. It’s of some kind of beast, hunting, and there’s a woman fleeing from it. She’s running, but up ahead is a lake.

She has nowhere to go.

Cold trickles through my body. I turn slowly to find him standing in the bathroom doorway. Warm light spills out around him.

“You need to call somebody, sweetheart?”

Everything floods back. “Yeah, but my phone is dead. I think it got wet.”

“I got a spare flip phone you can have if you want to switch the card,” he says.

I hate accepting charity, but I’ve been forced into it for years. I’m in no position to pretend I can do without his help tonight. So, I just nod, offering a weak smile.

“I got a bath running for you. There’s a flannel shirt on the chair,” he says. “You can lock the door. I’ll go do the barn chores and get the guestroom ready. Okay?”

He’s looking at me in that way, eyes fixed on me like there’s nothing else in the room—all that heavy attention focused right on me.

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