Page 19 of Heart of Dixie
The feel of his mouth on my skin had goosebumps erupting, and my knees going weak. He was right. That felt too good to ignore, and a break was a bad . . .No!No more goosebumps; no more weak knees. I lifted my hands to his chest—to that wall of muscle that made my fingers want to dig in and cling, damn him—and gave him enough of a shove that I could step around him.The heavy, achy spot between my thighs that hadn’t seen much action until Deke entered the picture began swearing at me in several different languages.
I turned toward the selection of books, ran a fingertip across a row of spines in the D-G section. “I’m not a tease, I swear.” I kept my voice low as my head swiveled to meet his curious gaze. I allowed my hand to land on his upper arm and trace the tribal pattern circling his bicep. Interesting. And damn sexy. “But like you said, it’s only three days. I’m here to take care of Cooter and then I’m gone, Deke. I shouldn’t start anything with you while I’m here.”
What was I saying? Deke was totally cut, totally hot, and I was turning him down. But I had to. As much as a couple of days rolling around in the sheets with him might be fun, there was a true and overpowering reason for holding back.
I took another step away, then laid my hand on his chest when he took a step forward and followed me. “It will hurt too much when I leave.”
His eyes went wide even as he sucked in a deep breath. He turned away from me and my hand drifted to my side.
If only Colleen weren’t mere feet away, but it seemed we were having it out here so I kept my voice lowered. “What, you think you were the only one who got hurt when I left?”
“I may have been the one who left—and don’t get me wrong, I still believe it was the right decision for both of us.” His head lifted. His narrowed eyes pinned me, but I held my ground. “But I gave up a lot when I left, Deke. I gave up my life here—a life I loved, even if Cooter did all he could to make it miserable.”
A bell echoed; I glanced to the front of the store but the door remained closed. Then again, the sound had felt more like a warning bell in my head than any chime. I turned my steady gaze back to Deke. How did I make him understand how mislead and lonely I was when I first arrived in Chicago?
11
Dixie
“Iwent straight to live with my mother from here, but she was a stranger. The more I got to know her the more I realized she was no longer a person I liked.” Deke raised a brow.
“She changed?”
I scoffed. “You could say that. All she cared about was appearances. Making certain we were perfect for social engagements and her husband’s political associates.”
I moved further into the stacks, gaining distance from the desk where Colleen could be heard intermittently clacking away at the computer keyboard. I stopped and turned and—damn it—found myself wrapped in Deke’s solid arms. The sturdiness and warmth of them should have felt overpowering and clingy, but instead they were comforting, reassuring. For once my body behaved, and even when he dropped his lips to mine for a quick kiss I didn’t wrap myself around him like a vine.
I gazed up into the golden liquid eyes that had always seen into my soul, before even I knew what was there. “You were the greatest tragedy, Deke. My greatest regret was leaving you.”
Silence stretched with my heart pounding in my chest and our eyes locked together. He loosened his arms and took a step back. “Yet you did. We spent hours—months—making plans for the future and you knew you were leaving.”
A lock of hair fell over my eye when I shook my head; I reached up to pull it back. “No, I didn’t know I was leaving until that last night. The night Coot was so ugly to you.” My heart hammered in impatience.Can we touch him now?I gave in and wrapped my arms around Deke’s waist, sank into his chest when his palms rubbed circles on my lower back. “But after that night I knew two things.”
Deke’s hands stilled and he tilted back, lifting my chin with a finger so I would meet his eyes. “Two things?”
I gave him a puny smile. “That there was no way Cooter would ever change. There was no way he would ever treat you like the kind, warm,brilliantperson you were.” Like the person Iloved.
“Brilliant, huh?” Deke’s grin made mine grow, but the knowledge of what came next had it shifting into a frown. I lowered my head and nodded against his chest. He resumed the rubbing on my back and lowered his cheek to rest atop my head. “What was the second thing?”
The backs of my eyes burned at the hum of his murmured words. I blinked fast, then widened them to keep the tears at bay. I pulled my head back and met his eyes, which instantly went soft. “That I couldn’t live that way any longer.”
The caramel in his eyes darkened and his grin faded away. “Aw, princess.” His strong hands slipped down and tightened against my hips to draw me closer. The beating in my heart spedto a gallop when my hand flattened against his chest and met the thudding echoes within.
He lowered his head to press his forehead against mine; our breaths mingled as they stuttered through parted lips. It would be so easy to lean in, to lift my chin. To let him know I wanted his lips on mine again, not with the threat of Tuesday looming before us, but with the treasured memory of Deke and Dixie surrounding us. Life had been both simple and complicated back then, when we were idyllic teenagers who believed that love could be enough to overcome . . . everything.
“I’m going to kiss you, Dixie.”
See how smart he is? The man is not only gorgeous but he reads minds, too.My inner slut whimpered in gratitude.
“Yes, please.” I lifted my face to him and welcomed the barely there brush of his firm lips against the corner of my mouth. I shifted closer even though I had nothing to blame my actions on today. I couldn’t attribute lifting my arms around his neck to pull him closer to anything more than the teasing nibbles that wreaked havoc on my good intentions.
“I want you to kiss me, Deke.” More than anything, my heart cried out for the feel of his mouth on mine. I parted my lips and captured the sound of his low growl. Neither of us had been drinking today, yet my knees went wobbly. I leaned against the sturdy wooden shelving and found myself held there by the width of Deke’s hard muscled chest.
We’d managed to work our way to nearly the far end of the row of books; shelves of romance novels concealed us. We were sheltered in privacy and my heart let out a deep sigh. My fingertips trailed down his chest, mapping firm ridges through the thin cotton of his T-shirt. His thighs crowded into mine, held our bodies flush against each other. The hard outline of him behind his zipper pressed firmly into my belly and teased me with his heat.
My fingers continued their downward journey. They stopped to tug the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans and slipped inside, against those acres of warm, smooth skin. Flattening my wandering hand over the width of his abdomen, I came to the trail of coarse hairs and paused. My fingertips trickled through it, followed it until they were buried under the denim waistband. A ragged moan crawled up my throat. Deke caught it and matched it with one of his own.
“Ahem!Would you two mind getting a room!”
