Page 58 of Deacon

“Working,” he says.

I look down at his tools. “On what?”

“Stakes. I use them to repair and hold down the fencing,” he says.

“Why tonight?”

He sighs, running a hand over his forehead, but doesn’t answer. Finally, he beckons me and sits down by the table, spreading his knees so I can stand between them. Both hands go around my waist,fingers knitting over my spine. He looks up at me, and I sink into his chest.

I can’t help but trust him. His gaze is a different shade of darkness at night. During the day, it glitters like obsidian. At night, it’s soft like velvet.

He makes me wonder about so many things. How did he end up here? Why build a big house with nobody to live in it? Why does he wake and go out to look up at the sky? Why is he soaked in sweat, pounding iron at three in the morning on a cold night?

I reach up and touch his temple where he has a scribble of faded ink.

“Why aren’t you sleeping, sir?” I whisper.

“Because you’re here,” he says simply. “Don’t want you to go, sweetheart.”

My heart flutters faster. My mouth tastes dry, a bit like fear, but not the kind I’m used to. Not the kind that I feel from my stepfather and brothers, or the men who whistle at me in the street.

The fear Deacon sparks in me is sweet, almost like desire, but dark. If I crushed it between my teeth, it would spill into my veins like a drug, addictive enough to get me high and keep me coming back.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I met you,” he says. “Can’t stop thinking about tasting you.”

I’m breathing hard. I know he feels it. He has me in his arms.

“I don’t know you,” I whisper. “I’m scared to know you.”

His grip tightens. “Why?”

Into my head pours a stream of memories: unsavory ones, holes in drywall, nights spent curled up in a fetal position trying to cry silently. I know men and what they are capable of when angry. I’ve conditioned myself to survive them.

But I don’t know men like Deacon. He’s uncharted territory.

“I don’t know how to explain it,” I gasp out.

“Sweetheart,” he says, voice guttural, “I want everything.”

His words break with desperation. I squirm in his arms, but he wraps one iron forearm around my body and holds me tight. I press against his chest, twisting. He takes my wrists and holds them tightin one fist. My stomach sinks—I don’t even have a fraction of his strength.

Our eyes lock, and the tension is thicker than the heat from the forge.

“Trust me, sweetheart,” he says, voice low and grating like iron on iron.

God, I think I might.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

DEACON

There’s darkness in me, hidden deep down, beneath the humor I use to cope. It grew there a long time ago and never died.

It was the fuel that made me pull that fence stake from my shoulder, walk bleeding out to the house, and sink it into Henderson. Amie’s picture was still on the mantle, blank eyes watching as I killed her son. I never felt shame like that before, never felt it again.

Darkness and shame made me light a match and burn it all.

Tonight, it’s back. Despite how I fought to be a different man for her, it’s part of me. Keeping hold of her, I sink down to my knee. Her eyes are huge, breasts heaving beneath my flannel. I swear, I can smell how wet her cunt is. I bend my head, and she tries to pull back as I push my face into the apex of her thighs and inhale.

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