Page 56 of Deceive Me
“I can’t!” Deacon shouted. “I can’t, no matter how much I want to—because Mansa wants you, not just her.”
All the anger deflated, leaving her body a hollowed-out balloon with nothing to keep it afloat. No wonder they’d come to find her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it earlier: they needed bait.
She looked at Dain, but whatever he was feeling, she couldn’t tell. “So that’s why you’re here?”
Dain’s sigh sounded like it hurt. “I came because you belong with us. You need to come home, little Otter.”
She barely managed to turn away before a tear escaped. She was scrubbing it into oblivion with her fist when the creak of the door opening registered.
Her boss had said his piece, apparently. As she spun to stare at the closed door, the weight of the silence in the room threatened to choke her.
Deacon advanced, his wide shoulders blocking her view. He didn’t stop until her back was to the row of lockers and all she could see was his angry face and tense body looming over her.
Why the hell did that make her the tiniest bit hot?
“I need you to come back.”
“I’m a liar, remember? You can’t trust me. I might be working for the enemy.”
This time it was Deacon’s turn to sigh. “Okay, explain it to me. Why did you lie, Elliot?”
“I didn’t lie. I omitted things.”
His fists landed on the lockers behind her with a jarring bang. “Don’t play games. This is too important. Now tell me, why did you lie?”
She tried to swallow, but every drop of spit had dried up. Not because of Deacon; his anger she could handle. It wasn’t him she was afraid of.
“Dain gave me the basics, and I get it; your childhood was a nightmare. You were raised to secrecy and raised to believe trust would get you killed. That doesn’t mean I can forgive you for withholding information that would affect my daughter.”
“But you still want me in the same house with her.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
Right. She should be used to being a commodity. Maybe she had gotten soft staying with Dain’s team.
And yet she couldn’t stop herself from rubbing salt into the wound. “And what about us?”
She was staring at Deacon’s broad chest, right in front of her face, but she didn’t need to see his expression to interpret his shrug or the disdain in his voice. “What about us? The sex is good, we’ve had it, and now we’re done.”
She had to laugh. She’d been such a girl, reaching for something she had no business wanting, then hurting when she didn’t get to keep it. Stupid. Fucking stupid.
She looked at the floor, her gaze catching midway down. “Done. Really?”
Without thought her hand came up to cup Deacon’s cock. His erect cock. When her fingers folded around his length, he grunted.
She glanced up from beneath her lashes. “You were saying?”
She had just enough time to watch his brown eyes go black before his mouth slammed onto hers. The back of her head hit the locker behind her, but she didn’t care—all she cared about was the hot, angry taste of him in her mouth, the bruising pressure of his hands as they wrangled hers above her head, the heavy push of his thick thigh as he forced her legs open around it.
“I was saying”—he bit down on her bottom lip, sending a zing of pain through her—“we’re”—another bite, this one to her jaw—“done.” His teeth caught the sensitive join of neck and shoulder and clenched. When Elliot arched into the sting, her hard nipples dragged across his body. Deacon shook his head, worrying her skin like a dog with a bone.
She lifted her chin, giving him access to more. A hard suck on her neck pulled a whine from deep inside her.
The sound sent Deacon into a frenzy—she couldn’t tell if he needed her to hurt more or simply couldn’t take holding back any longer, but either way, the foreplay ended there. No sweet caresses, no whispered endearments. That wasn’t what this moment was about. It was about muttered curses and heavy breathing, the rough jerking of zippers and tearing of material and then finally, finally, the hard entry of his body into hers. Only when he hit the end of her and a cry of pain escaped did Deacon still. Elliot hung there, pinned to the metal lockers by his cock, his hands, the force of his weight against her. She panted through the minute it took for her vagina to soften, for her body to accept its too-full invasion. Tears tracked down her cheeks, but they weren’t from the pain—they were from fear. She could finally admit it: she was afraid. Of revealing herself, of Deacon’s rejection, all of it. She didn’t want to have this taken away from her. She didn’t want to go the rest of her life without knowing Deacon, without knowing love, without knowing what it really meant to be a family. She didn’t want to lose him or Sydney or Dain or anyone else.
She didn’t want to lose this.
“I—” She closed her eyes, needing to keep some small part of herself hidden when her entire body, her very soul was being invaded. “I didn’t tell you because…I…I just can’t. I can’t talk about it. About him. You don’t understand.”
