Page 25 of Deceive Me
She flipped him a bird as she opened the front door. His faint chuckle followed her until she closed it behind her.
Little? She’d show Saint Dickhead little the next time they were on the mat.
Her irritation fueled a quick startup as she headed down the long drive. Deacon’s home lay on the outskirts of the city metropolis, well off any main thoroughfare, surrounded by twenty-five acres of hills and woods that probably still cost a small fortune despite being a long way from Atlanta proper. The man liked his privacy—if the location didn’t prove that, the security fence enclosing the property did. Elliot took the gently winding lane toward the large wrought-iron gate, warming up in the winter cold, then turned to follow the fence around.
Cross-country in the dark gave her enough of a challenge that her mind finally settled into the thudding rhythm of her feet and heartbeat as she circled the perimeter, eyes and ears open for the faintest hint of a threat. Her first circuit passed quietly, no lights or movement that she could detect aside from the occasional flushed bird. As she topped the back hill a second time and broke out of the woods, a dark shape loomed up in front of her. Inside the fence. A split-second assessment assured her the figure wasn’t a threat, at least not in the way she’d hoped. Her heart did skip a beat, though—because it was Deacon.
Fuck Fionn anyway.
A silent growl rumbled behind her breastbone, accompanying the crunch of lightly frosted grass and fallen leaves as she approached the one man she definitely didn’t want to see at five thirty in the morning. “You’re up early,” she tossed out, running by.
Deacon matched her pace with ease, the bastard. “So are you.”
How could his mere presence make her warmer? It was like having a heater running next to her, which made no sense because he wasn’t touching her. Apparently he didn’t need to.
He was more dangerous than she’d thought. Either that or she was losing her mind.
“Trouble sleeping?” he asked.
With your room right next to mine? “No.”
Liar.
“Hmm.”
What did that mean?
Their footsteps punctuated a few long minutes. Elliot couldn’t help but notice that, despite his heavy muscles, Deacon wasn’t breathing any harder than she was. She resisted the urge to speed up, to push him. The faint glow on the horizon wasn’t enough to light their way, and she wouldn’t risk either one of them getting a careless injury—despite her perverse need to provoke him. Despite how the silence stretched her nerves to the breaking point.
She didn’t have nerves, not like this.
Deacon’s voice broke through the thoughts chasing their tails in her head. “Tell me about yourself.”
Elliot stumbled—imperceptibly to some, but she knew Deacon would notice. He seemed to notice everything where she was concerned. Why did that make her gut tighten?
“You’ve read my file.”
Deacon’s sigh, like she was a particularly contrary child, rubbed her the wrong way. “Reading a file isn’t the same as getting to know you, Elliot. And just so there’s no doubt, I do intend to know you. As well as possible.”
That jerked her to a stop.
“Why?”
The first hints of sunrise cast a faint shadow between his brows as they drew into a V. “Why do I want to know you?”
“Yeah.”
Deacon moved ahead, walking this time instead of running. Dread dug in phantom claws—walking meant more time to talk, and she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to get to know him. She didn’t want anything with him but a professional relationship.
Liar.
Damn conscience. Shut the hell up!
Deacon came to a stop, his hand on her arm forcing her to join him, and she knew with that single touch, his strong, rough fingers sliding along her skin to wrap completely around the smaller expanse of her wrist, that she wasn’t going to be able to ignore this. Deacon wouldn’t let her, and neither would her body. It came alive whenever he was near; there was no other way to describe it.
And now that she’d admitted it, her heart thumped harder for a whole different reason.
“Here’s the deal, Elliot.” When she refused to look at him, staring instead at his broad, muscular chest—so yeah, not a bad view—Deacon tipped her chin up until his equally sexy face filled her vision. “We got off on the wrong foot; I know it and you know it. I don’t think it would’ve gone quite that sideways were it not for this…attraction between us. And I don’t know about you, but resisting this feels pretty futile to me.”
