Deacon

  “So badasses can compromise.”

  “Jesus, I’m wiped and now I gotta rally in order to spank you,” he told the ceiling.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I replied quickly, though only because I was tired too and I was pretty certain another orgasm might kill me.

  His eyes came to mine. “What’d I say about being a smartass?”

  “It’s a part of me,” I pointed out.

  “It’s a part of you that’s gonna get you a red ass.”

  “Please don’t. I think another orgasm tonight might kill me.”

  I gasped as his hand darted out, curled around the back of my head, and pulled me to within an inch of his face.

  “There it is, Cassidy, you know me,” he said, his voice heavy with meaning.

  “Sorry?”

  “We haven’t played, we haven’t even discussed playing, and you know I do that shit to you, it comes with an orgasm.”

  Again.

  He was right.

  Sheesh.

  “Shut up, let me go, and go to sleep,” I bossed.

  “And I know you because I know you’re bein’ bossy right now not because you’re my Cassie boss, which you are, but because I’m right and you’re not willin’ to concede because you’re fuckin’ stubborn.”

  “I think I prefer silent, speaks with his eyes and actions Deacon.”

  “Kiss him good-bye, baby, and don’t bitch. You opened the floodgates.”

  “Ugh,” I grunted. “Time to build a time machine.”

  “Stop amusing me and settle in, woman. We got gutters to take care of tomorrow.”

  We did.

  Why did that make me happy?

  I didn’t let on.

  I mumbled, “Oh, all right,” shut up, and settled in.

  When I did, Deacon’s arm around me gave me a squeeze and again, he was right. I knew him.

  Because I knew that arm squeeze came along with Deacon smiling.

  That also made me happy.

  I again didn’t let on.

  “Now I’m freaked out about us discussing playing,” I said to the room.

  I heard Deacon’s head move on the pillow and I knew it was him digging it in so he could say to the headboard, “Jesus.”

  “Just saying,” I muttered.

  “You think I’d ever do anything to you that you wouldn’t like?” he asked.

  I was an idiot.

  “No.”

  “You got nothing to worry about.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now go to sleep.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  That got another arm squeeze, this one I read as amused and annoyed.

  It also got another “Jesus.”

  I was right. I heard it in his tone.

  Amused and annoyed.

  I grinned at his chest.

  “’Night, Deacon.”

  His body relaxed. “’Night, Cassie.”

  I snuggled closer.

  Deacon’s arm grew tighter.

  He fell asleep before me.

  I fell asleep thinking that I was going to pitch a fit at the cashier when we went to the grocery store.

  But only to bust his chops.

  Then I was going to let him pay for the groceries.

  That said, no way in hell he was buying the shingles.

  Chapter Eleven

  Better Every Day

  “Woman!”

  This was shouted through the bathroom door by Deacon.

  And I was guessing it was shouted because he was sick of waiting for me to get ready.

  This was something I was putting some effort into after being on a roof most of the day helping Deacon with my gutters. Then I helped him with the cabins’ gutters. All of this before we went back to the house to clean up before going to Milagros and Manuel’s for dinner.

  My efforts were going to freak them out. I didn’t think they’d ever seen me with makeup and now I had a face that wasn’t heavy with it, but I’d given it a light go over with a dewy sheen to my cheeks, accent shadow at my eyes, mascara, and eyeliner. I also had my hair in big curlers that would eventually give it wave and body (or, more wave and body).

  It might also freak Deacon out (though I doubted that, not much freaked him).

  Even so, I was doing it because I felt like doing it but also because this was Deacon and my first date (in a way) and I felt the occasion warranted it.

  What I didn’t admit to myself was that I was doing it because Deacon thought I was beautiful just as me and I was wondering how he’d feel when I put a little oomph behind it.

  “I’ll be ten minutes,” I called back.

  “Jesus,” I heard muttered.

  I grinned at the mirror and dabbed more shiny cream blusher on my cheeks to give me more dew.

  “You need something to do, unpack!” I yelled. “You’re gonna be here awhile, no use living out of a bag on the floor.”

  This was my way of saying his exploded bag on my bedroom floor was not something I cared for. I wasn’t freakishly tidy, but I’d got my foot tangled and tripped over a pair of his jeans when I’d stumbled to the bathroom before dawn and I hadn’t enjoyed it.

  “Unpack?” he yelled back like that idea was foreign to him.

  Then again, it probably was.

  “Yes!” I replied on a shout. “Like, you know, taking your clothes out of your bag, hanging what needs to be hung, shoving in a drawer what needs to be shoved in a drawer, and stuffing into the laundry what’s not clean.”

  “Badasses do not unpack,” he returned.

  I grinned at the mirror again and started to put away my makeup. “Right, then toss your dirty clothes in the laundry and drag your other crap into the closet and leave it on the floor in there!”

  “On a scale of one to ten, how important is this to you?” he asked through the door.

  Another grin and “Eighty-five!”

  I heard his chuckle, liked his chuckle, and lifted my hands to the curlers.

  I took the ten minutes I told Deacon I’d take pulling out the curlers and smoothing some gunk through my hair that was supposed to separate and hold that I was surprised hadn’t congealed in the possibly two years since I’d used it. I did some teasing, some flipping, and then some spraying.

  The results were good so I was grinning again when I spritzed on perfume, looked back to the mirror, and took myself in fully.

  I didn’t go whole hog with the makeup (though I did with the hair). I also didn’t go whole hog with my clothes. But I again made an effort.

  I wasn’t sure Deacon had seen me in anything but tees, shorts, sweaters, and jeans.

  This wasn’t a big departure from that, but now I was wearing a long-sleeved, semi-fancy tee. It was a fantastic olive green that did good things to my eyes. It was blousy up top and had a wide neckline so it dipped off a shoulder, exposing the black lacy bra strap underneath (putting on one of the few good pairs of underwear I had was another effort I’d made; the hint at bra strap an indication of goodness to come later for Deacon). The rest of the shirt fit snug at my breasts, ribs and waist, the hemline low, covering me to mid-hip.

  The shirt was five years old. I’d always loved it but I hadn’t worn it in ages.

  I’d paired this with some nice jeans, far less faded than my others. And when I left the bathroom, I was going to add jewelry.

  I had some heels, none of which had been out of their boxes for so long they might have disintegrated, though I was afraid to check. But so as not to give Milagros and Manuel heart attacks, I was going to wear some flippies. However, the flippies I was going to wear were going to be the ones I sometimes wore into town, these being the ones with the rhinestones on them.

  Satisfied with my efforts, I exited the bathroom and saw Deacon from the side of my eye standing outside the closet. I turned to him and stopped dead.

  This was because he was indeed standing outside the closet.

  But he was doing it with the velvet ropes I’d bough
t in a moment of weakness years ago when I was with Grant. A moment of weakness that was born ages ago, when I was seventeen.

  Certain my brother had stolen one of my favorite CDs, I’d searched his room and found some magazines under my brother’s bed. It was in them that I saw the image. An image that affected me in a way that freaked me out at the time but didn’t let go. An image that stayed with me into being an adult when I could process it and psych myself up to explore it.

  An image that pushed me to buying those ropes off the Internet and approaching Grant with my idea, to disastrous results.

  And they were ropes I saw now I should have thrown away because Deacon had found them where I’d thrown them on the floor in the corner of my walk-in closet and forgotten them. And now he was standing there, holding his hands out in front of him, the ropes draped over them.

  I knew without knowing how that he knew what those ropes were for.

  And now I knew there was a good possibility he was going to think I was a kinky freak.

  His face was impassive. Completely.

  I felt my face flush and my throat close, my gaze locked to his.

  He spoke first and he did it low, his voice giving nothing away, just like his expression.

  “You like to be tied up, Cassidy?”

  Oh God. I was right. He knew what they were for and he thought I was a kinky freak.

  I felt my stomach churn and forced myself to speak but my voice was weak when it came out. “I bought those when I was with Grant.”

  “You bought ’em?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “For him.”

  I swallowed and shook my head.

  The room filled with something I did not get but it scared the crap out of me.

  “For you?” Deacon pressed.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  His tone had a rough edge I couldn’t read when he repeated, “You like to be tied up?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  Instead, I informed him, “It didn’t work.”

  His head tipped slightly to the side but his face still gave nothing away. “It didn’t work.”

  “We only, um…tried them once and Grant didn’t know what he was doing. It hurt. He got freaked then pissed and it was…well, not enjoyable.”

  More bad filled the air when he asked, “It hurt?”

  I nodded.

  “He hurt you,” he stated flatly.

  “He didn’t know what he was doing,” I repeated.

  “How’d he bind you?”

  Oh God. This was a disaster.

  “Do we have to do this?” I asked. “They were only used once. It was just a wild hair I got. I should have thrown them away.”

  “How’d he bind you, Cassidy?”

  I shook my head, guessing as to what was behind his line of questioning. “He’s gone and when we tried it, it didn’t hurt for long. He untied me and we never tried it again. There’s no need to get angry at him. He didn’t mean to hurt me and anyway, we’ve been over for years.”

  Something moved over his features that, again, I could not read.

  “How did he bind you, Cassidy?”

  I gave in.

  “Like I requested,” I said quietly. “Um…on my knees, head down, hands to feet.”

  That was when he gave me something. His jaw got hard.

  “Deacon, it was my idea,” I told him quickly. “It was an adventure. Something I got stuck in my head.” God, could this be more embarrassing? “It wasn’t Grant’s fault he didn’t know how to do it.”

  “You bind to the bed,” he declared and I blinked.

  “Sorry?”

  “You don’t start out complicated,” he explained. “You bind your woman immobile to the bed, see if she can take that, see if she gets off on it, see how much she gets off on it. She comes hard for you, that’s when you explore.”

  Oh my God.

  “Have you—?” I began.

  “Four women, none of them worked, not for me, ’cause I didn’t give a shit about them. But it worked for them.”

  Oh my God.

  I felt my nipples start tingling.

  Deacon kept speaking.

  “You’re ready, you’re used to takin’ it from me vanilla, you trust me, you make the call. I tie you to the bed and hope like fuck you come hard for me.”

  “You like it,” I said softly.

  “Yeah, though never did it with someone who matters so doin’ it with you, wildest dreams.”

  Wildest dreams.

  My clit pulsed.

  “Is this what you meant about playing?” I asked.

  “Part of it.”

  Just part?

  “What’re the other parts?”

  “There are a lot of other parts.”

  Could you have an orgasm standing fully clothed six feet from your man?

  I had a feeling I was about to find out.

  “Give me a for instance,” I demanded.

  “You like ropes, I bind you. Wrists to feet like you want, ass in the air for me to play with, eat you, fuck your cunt, take your hole, all of that and you won’t be able to move.”

  I swallowed and locked my legs so I wouldn’t go down.

  He read my reaction from six feet away. I knew it when he whispered, “You want that.”

  I couldn’t agree verbally but I knew my expression gave it away for me.

  “Ass play?” he pushed.

  I swallowed again.

  Grant and I had tried that too. It also hadn’t worked. Not because I didn’t like it, I did. A lot. But because he got so excited when he took me, he’d come on the second stroke. He’d been humiliated and never tried it again, never even brought it up. Because it mortified him, I didn’t either.

  Deacon stared at me, the mask slipping, his eyes getting hotter, his face darkening, and finally he spoke.

  “Fuck, can you get any better?”

  God, that felt good.

  “I don’t know,” I replied.

  “I do,” he returned. “Face made up, hair like that, a bra I wanna see, every day it gets fuckin’ better.”

  Feelings so beautiful swept through me, I closed my eyes so I could concentrate on their exquisiteness.

  “Here,” Deacon ordered.

  I opened my eyes. “I can’t. I’m still freaked about what playing means at the same time processing how magnificent you are.”

  That was when the mask obliterated and raw suffused his face.

  Not raw badness.

  Raw goodness.

  I gave that to him. Me. All that goodness there for me to read on his face, it was me who gave that to him.

  My heart leaped.

  “Here,” he growled.

  My heart stopped leaping and my lips turned down. “Seriously, you’re gonna have to stop doing that. You want me, I’m right here.”

  I said the words and then Deacon was right there. He’d tossed the ropes to the bed and when he made it to me, his hand clutched in my done up hair, his other arm around me holding me snug to his body, face an inch from mine.

  “Fuckin’ beautiful, but a pain in my goddamned ass,” he muttered.

  “Same here, Supreme Leader of the Badasses.”

  “Case in point.”

  “You’re messing up my hair.”

  “Another case in point.”

  “Are you gonna kiss me or just stand there, messing up my hair and annoying me?”

  He stared into my eyes and changed the subject.

  “One woman on the planet who doesn’t need makeup, she’s you.”

  I shivered with glee at the compliment but still rolled my eyes to the ceiling and told it, “Now he’s messing up my hair and being sweet.”

  “Don’t need it, but you look good in it,” he stated.

  Totally worth the time to get dolled up.

  I looked back at him and bossed, “Stop. I already almost had a spontaneous orgasm and I’m gonna freak Milagros and Manuel out because they’ve never seen me in mak
eup, or with a guy for that matter, except you the other day, of course. Which, in case you missed it, freaked them out. Now I’m getting all warm and squishy. They’re Mexican. They’re Catholic. They don’t cuss and I’ve never seen Milagros show even a hint of cleavage, much less a bra strap. We need to practice decorum.”

  “We can do that in the truck on the way there.”

  “Okay, then you need to get a move on with practicing non-decorum so we can get on our way there.”

  His lips quirked. “Spontaneous orgasm?”

  “Like you don’t know.”

  “Binding you to the bed tonight, woman.”

  I rolled my eyes to the ceiling again even though that caused a full-on tremble. “God, help. He’s not listening to me.”

  “Cassie?”

  I looked again to him. “What?”

  “Best lay, bar none. Funniest bitch, bar none. Finest woman, bar none. And all of that better every day.”

  His words made me drop my head and do a face plant in his shirt because I couldn’t hold it up anymore. I added my weight because I couldn’t stand on my own anymore either.

  Deacon slid his hand down to curl it around the back of my neck.

  “Can’t kiss you with your face in my chest,” he noted.

  “You shouldn’t call women bitches,” I whispered.

  His body shook with his chuckles, shaking me with it.

  It felt beautiful.

  I kept whispering when I remarked, “I’m making you happy.”

  I felt his word stir the top of my hair when he replied, “Yeah.”

  I closed my eyes.

  Now that felt good.

  “We need to get on our way, baby,” he said into my hair. “Give me a kiss.”

  I took in a deep breath before I tipped my head back and rolled up on my toes.

  Then I gave him a kiss. It was wet and sweet and I knew I was going to remember it my whole life.

  When Deacon broke it off, I put in some earrings, clasped on a necklace, slid on a couple of rings, and donned my flip-flops.

  After that, Deacon took my hand and off we went to have dinner with my friends.

  * * * * *

  “Do you play football?”

  “No.”

  “Did you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Not yet. Papá says I can do Junior Football League next year.”