Page 57 of Deacon

He has this look about him when he’s caught up in lust. It’s a hungry stare, with heavy lids, a little red at the corners of his eyes. A vein pulses in his neck. Sweat glitters in the hair down his stomach.

A shudder runs along my spine.

I could fall hard for this man.

“Start riding, sweetheart,” he orders.

He puts his hands on my thighs and rocks them. I lay my palms on his warm chest and slowly undulate my hips. A shock of pleasurehits me as his cock moves deep in my lower belly. Experimentally, I flex my pussy, and he groans, eyelids flickering.

“Fuck, you’ve got a tight little cunt,” he breathes.

There’s something about seeing such a big man on his back, breathing hard because of something I’m doing, that drives me wild. I brace my knees and let him move me, rolling my hips as he does.

This is why all men ever talk about is getting laid. It really can be that good.

I’m jerked from my thoughts by a sharp slap on my upper thigh. It stings, but in the most delicious way as he grips me, squeezes, and slaps again. I ride faster, nails digging into his chest.

“That’s my girl,” he drawls.

He fucks and talks so dirty. All my defenses are down. The ceiling spins overhead as I let my head fall back, still riding him hard. It’s not lost on me that, tonight, I’m not ashamed. Of anything. What we do is as instinctual and shameless as eating or sleeping.

Our bodies know only carnal satisfaction. Our minds, we can figure those out tomorrow.

Our hearts…those might take longer than a day to learn.

We fuck until there’s nothing left. This time, he pulls out and comes on my stomach. We’re both too tired to clean up. Instead, we fall asleep, wound up in each other.

CHAPTER TWELVE

FREYA

It’s barely an hour later when I jerk upright with a start. My body aches, but it’s so sweet. Rolling to my back, I push myself up in bed. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s gone. The place where he slept is cool.

There’s a neatly folded flannel shirt by the bed. I pull it on and pad across the floor to the window. Down below, I see the barn, the driveway, the gates in the distance. To my left, I see a rectangular shed that’s halfway built into the side of the hill. The door is open and light spills out. Smoke rises from the chimney.

My toes curl, cold on the floor. I should go back to bed and leave him to his own devices, but part of me wants to see who he is when he’s alone. I press my hand to the window glass, checking the temperature. It’s cool but not cold.

Downstairs, the puppy sleeps by the glimmering fireplace. I push my boots on and step onto the porch. The wind is cool and it smells like autumn. My stomach flips as I hurry past the shadows creeping beneath the pale half-moon. The grass is drenched in dew. I leave wet boot prints up the path to the shed.

Silently, I slip into the doorway and pause.

My stomach swoops. It’s a blacksmith shop, bigger on the inside because it’s built into the hill. The ground is made of huge, square stone blocks. The walls are red brick. At the back is a forge, burning bright. On the other end, to the left of the forge, is a long table with an assortment of iron tools. At the center of the room is an anvil. Working at the anvil, soaked in sweat, forehead creased in concentration, is Deacon Ryder.

The firelight glints. It cuts a dark shadow down one side of his body. There’s a pile of what look like large nails, almost like a smooth tipped railroad spike, on the floor below the anvil. I recognize them—they’re stakes used for fence repair.

The thick walls of the shop buffer the sound from outside, but once I’m in the doorway, I hear it: the heavy crackle of the fire, the clang of his hammer, the heavy scrape as he draws a thick, iron rod from the furnace.

Sparks shower in the dark. He’s lost in what his hands are doing, like a meditative practice.

I wonder why he’s here, why he isn’t asleep.

He freezes, and the hammer goes still. He lifts his head and his black eyes fix on me, so intense, I feel myself shrink back. There’s a short silence. He sets the hammer and iron down on the table and holds out his palm.

“Come here,” he says.

My heart picks up. Feeling like a field mouse approaching a cat, I duck into the shop and go to him. He slides his hand around my waist. It covers almost the entire right side below my ribs.

“What are you doing?” I ask, voice husky.

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