Page 54 of Deacon

My stomach swoops and my pussy tightens, like it remembers him and wants more.

He tilts his head and his mouth finds mine, as hungry as the first time. He tastes like apples and Deacon—familiar, sweet, with an edge of something masculine. There’s desperation on his tongue as it swipes against mine.

He pulls back and pushes his head against my neck insistently. His short beard is rough on my skin. His mouth burns, hot as a fireplace in winter. A tingle shoots down as my body remembers how it felt between my legs.

My thighs clench. His gaze drops.

God, I want him again.

“Can’t get you out of my head,” he says, voice hoarse. “Spread your legs for me.”

His eyes lock on mine. They’re a bed of coals, simmering beneath darkness. My nerves tingle. With trepidation, I lift my hand and touch the bare skin above his collar.

He tenses, like he feels it all through his big body, but he keeps still. I trace down until my finger hits cloth, and then I undo his top button. He’s warm. I felt his body in the dark before. I crave the feeling again.

I didn’t want to fall for one of these rough Montana men with their hard hands, their windswept faces, and their cold eyes that feel like November. I never wanted a hellraiser, a heartbreaker, like Deacon Ryder.

But he’s different, at least I want to believe he can be.

Holding my breath, I run my finger from the hair on his chest up his tattooed neck to his chin and lower lip. He looks at me like he can’t tear his eyes away, and that makes me uneasy. If he decides he wants more than pleasure, I think he’ll be hard to get rid of.

But right now, with the cold creeping in from outside, I can’t refuse. He’s everything I swore I wouldn’t fall for—from the soles of his boots to the tip of his head, from his lifted truck to the ink up to his jawline to the way he walks like he’s got somewhere to be and damn anybody who gets in his way.

The problem is, I never realized how intoxicating that getup could be on the right man. Mouth dry, I start unfastening his shirt.

One button at a time, until it falls open.

I study his chest. The ink on his skin covers everything, dark blue and black. Scars disrupt it and tug the lines here and there. I pick out a few things I recognize—a bird, leaves, chains, mountains, bones. They’re all jumbled up, like he didn’t have a rhyme or reason in selecting them.

I graze my fingertips over them. He keeps still, like he’s worried I’ll shy away. Maybe that’s a quality he learned from training his horses. He clears his throat. I glance down. There’s a rise beneath his zipper—he likes me touching him.

“Where did you get these?” I whisper.

“Around,” he says. “Most I got when I was underage. I’m lucky I’m not dead from infection.”

“Do you like them?”

His jaw works. “I don’t know if liking them factors into it. It’s a long story, sweetheart.”

“Well, I got all night,” I say.

He cocks his head, the corner of his mouth turning up. “No, you got all night for other things. We can talk later.”

There’s a distant buzz in the back of my head. and I know the moonshine is hitting. I’ve got a good resistance to it at this point, with my stepbrothers making it in the tobacco shed all the time. I’ve been skimming it since I was a kid. It takes a lot of moonshine to make me dead drunk, but buzzed is a different story.

I need the liquid courage right now. Maybe that intimidates me more than I realized.

My fingers move down, undoing the final buttons of his shirt. A tremor shivers down his stomach as I touch the trail of hair leading to the belt. He’s watching me, lips parted, eyelids so heavy, I can’t read his expression.

He wants me, but tonight, I need something different than what we did. If I’m going to sleep with this man again, I want to see every detail this time. My fingers ache to run over him and explore his hard, inked-up muscle. I’m so curious about his body.

My fingers stop on the buckle of his belt. I glance up, the question in my eyes, and he nods once. His throat bobs.

Carefully, I pull the leftover end of his belt free and press it back until the tine slips from the hole. I tug the opposite side of his belt free, feeling like I’m unwrapping a present. There’s an intimidating button underneath. I pause, my fingers hovering.

“Go on, sweetheart,” he says, voice hoarse, like he might die if I don’t.

Against my plain cotton panties, my pussy gives a deep pulse. There’s an itch in me, and I know he knows how to take care of it. I tense my inner muscles, achingly empty.

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