Caged

  “I used to fluctuate ten pounds in a week. You look amazing at any weight.”

  He scowled.

  Note to self: not so much with the compliments.

  They ate in silence for a while.

  Then she said, “Since Maddox discouraged you from pursuing me before, will you tell him about us being together now?”

  “He already knows.” Deacon scooped rice into his mouth.

  “What do you mean he already knows? Did you text him from the bathroom or something?”

  “No. I talked to him on Sunday.”

  Molly set down her fork. “Before you talked to me?”

  “Yep.”

  “You were so sure that I’d throw myself into your arms and let bygones be bygones that you told your trainer we were—happening?”

  Then it hit her. Isn’t that what you did? Deacon blows in, acting sweet, sexy, and sorry, and immediately you’re on board with starting a relationship with him?

  She needed to get out of here and look for her brain and her backbone. “Excuse me.”

  Before she blinked, Deacon was on her side of the booth, blocking her in. “You don’t get to run off when you’re pissed at me. You’ll stay and fight.”

  “Even if I want to scream in your face?”

  “Even then. So let fly, babe. I promise I can take it.”

  “You are so cocky! Did it ever occur to you that I might’ve accepted your apology, then shut the door in your face so I could move on from whatever fucked-up thing this has been in the past or what it might become?”

  He shook his head.

  She wanted to smack him for his presumption. She wanted to cry because he’d been dead-on in making that assumption about her. Was she that easy to read? Was she that . . . desperate-looking?

  Deacon gripped her jaw, forcing her to look at him.

  “Let go.”

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “I can’t move with the choke hold you’ve got me in.”

  “That’s the point.”

  Her gaze moved all around the table as she avoided his eyes.

  “Molly,” he said sharply. “Am. I. Hurting. You?”

  “No.”

  “Listen to me. Look at me.” He leaned closer. “Even if you would’ve slammed the door in my face tonight, I would’ve come back tomorrow. And every day after that until you let me in. I didn’t give Maddox a date when we’d be together. I just knew I’d do whatever it took to make sure it happened. Whatever. It. Took. Understand?”

  That soothed the sting a bit. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He pressed his lips to hers and dropped his hand. “I’m relentless in getting what I want. And I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long damn time.” His eyes gleamed. “And you’re wrong about something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That men don’t have fantasies about you. You never noticed how hard my dick was in class whenever you reached up to adjust the chains on the heavy bag?”

  “Ah, no.” She paused. “Why?”

  “I imagined chaining your wrists above your head and keeping your back against the heavy bag as a cushion for how hard I wanted to pound into you.”

  Molly clenched her thighs together.

  Deacon placed a soft kiss on the corner of her jaw. “My woman likes dirty talk.”

  “Uh. Yeah.” She traced the thick vein on the inside of his arm. “Thank you. I get the you’re so sweet a lot.”

  “When I look at you, sweet ain’t the first word that comes to mind.”

  “What word comes to mind?” Please don’t say full-figured or curvy—both euphemisms for fat.

  His low-pitched snarl startled her. “Whatever popped into your head just now, get it out. I never wanna see that look on your beautiful face again—understand?”

  Deacon really thought she was beautiful?

  “Did you hear me?”

  She managed a half shrug. “Easier said than done when it’s been ingrained in me for years.”

  “By who?” he demanded.

  “By my cousins. Which means I won’t be taking you to Nebraska to meet my family either.”

  The waitress dropped off the check.

  Deacon stopped and spoke to the owners as he paid.

  Another tidbit she learned; he spoke Spanish fluently. Maybe it made her perverted, but she’d love to hear him whispering in Spanish in her ear as he moved inside her.

  When Deacon’s eyes met hers, she swore he’d read her mind.

  She didn’t find it odd that he didn’t strike up a conversation on the drive back downtown.

  At the parking lot where she’d left her vehicle, he helped her out of the passenger side before walking her to the driver’s side of her car. “You still hungry, babe?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You’ve been eyeing me like a juicy steak all the way back here.”

  “I can’t help it that you’re one thick, delicious-looking slab of hot man meat.” When his piercing blue eyes pinned her down, Molly imagined him pressing her against the car, or on the ground, or to the tree behind them—any vertical surface would suffice.

  He cupped her face in his hands, then sifted his fingers through her hair. The tenderness in the move surprised her, until his fingers tightened, allowing him to maneuver her head wherever he wanted. “Should I kiss you right here”—he licked the curve of her neck—“where I marked you? Where the touch of my mouth to your skin makes you squirm?”

  “Deacon.”

  “Put your hands on me,” he ordered hoarsely. “I need proof this is really happening.”

  With that admission, she untucked his T-shirt and inched her fingers up his warm skin. The hardness of his body and the way his stomach muscles quivered beneath her stroking fingers spurred her on. Then she formed her hand around his rib cage and shifted her thumb to tease his nipple.

  He hissed.

  Well, if he liked that, he oughta really like this. Molly slid her right hand down to his groin and cupped him.

  Deacon jumped back. “Jesus H. Christ, woman, stop.”

  Startled, she looked up. Lord, the man had the sexiest, fiercest expression on his face.

  “You are making it hard—shit, I mean difficult—to rein it in.”

  “And if I don’t want you to rein it in?”

  “This is our first date.”

  “So? You think I don’t put out on the first date?” she teased.

  He stayed silent a beat too long. Then a smile ghosted around his lips. “Maybe I don’t put out on the first date.”

  They stared at each other.

  Then Deacon kissed her. “Thanks for giving me another chance. I swear you won’t regret it.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DEACON showed up on Knox’s doorstep an hour before he headed for training. He hadn’t called ahead. It’d give his friend too much time to come up with a hundred ways to say I told you so.

  Knox answered the door with baby Nuri propped on his hip. “Deacon? What’s going on?”

  “You got a minute”—fuck, it killed him to ask—“to talk?”

  “Sure. Come in.”

  In the living room, Deacon dropped into the lone chair not littered with baby paraphernalia.

  Knox pushed aside a stack of baby clothes on the couch and settled in, bouncing his daughter on his knee.

  Deacon knew nothing about babies, but he supposed Nuri was cute. She had a ton of light brown hair and the same topaz-colored eyes as her mother. She had dimples in both her pudgy cheeks, and she stared at him solemnly as she gnawed on a hard plastic ring.

  “You give kids dog’s chew toys?” Deacon asked.

  “It’s a teething ring, smart-ass. Better she chomps on this than on me.” Knox kissed the top of Nuri’s head. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

  Nuri kicked her legs and threw up her arms, smacking Knox in the face with her chew toy.

  Knox winced. “I didn’t get hit in the face this much at the dojo.”

  “You wo
uldn’t say that if you trained with Maddox.”

  “Is that why you’re here? To bitch about training problems?”

  Deacon shook his head. “It’s . . . personal.”

  “Like a personal problem?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Like with a woman?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dickhead that he was, Knox laughed. “This day has been a long time coming. I’m so gonna rub it in that you swore this would never happen to you. Think I’ll need to grab a box of tissues and a pint of ice cream before you start sharing your feelings?”

  He could admit he deserved this rash of shit. Still, he flipped Knox off.

  Nuri started to fuss. Knox snagged a bottle off the coffee table and popped it in the baby’s mouth, cuddling her close.

  Deacon had seen Knox with his daughter only a handful of times, but the big man had taken to fatherhood like he did everything else—with absolute dedication.

  “What’s going on, and who’s it going on with?”

  “Me’n Molly started seeing each other.”

  “About damn time. When?”

  “Last night.”

  Knox raised both eyebrows. “So you’re having problems . . . less than a day into it?”

  Deacon rested his elbows on his knees and shook his head. Fucking sucked ass to ask this.

  “Yeah. I know, so just spit it out.”

  Christ. When had his internal thoughts started spilling out of his mouth?

  “All kidding aside, Deacon, no judgment, okay?”

  He blew out a breath. “I’ve stuck with one-night stands all my life. Get in, get off, and go home. The expectations are stated up front. I’ve had a repeat hookup twice.”

  Knox whistled.

  “So last night I couldn’t sleep. Kept thinking about how I have no freakin’ clue how this relationship stuff works. We didn’t have sex on the first date. Is there sex on the second date? Are there rules about that kinda shit? And who the fuck gets to make them?”

  When Knox ducked his head, Deacon knew the man was trying not to laugh.

  Then he looked up again. “Honest, D. I don’t know if there are rules. Keep in mind I belonged to a sex club. There’s the same type of expectations as one-nighters. I hadn’t gone out on a real date in a long time before I started messing around with Shiori. And our relationship isn’t definable by normal standards.”

  Deacon’s gaze dropped to the bracelet Knox wore—an ownership tag of sorts. “Has having a baby changed those things between you two?”

  “Some. Nuri’s needs come first for both of us.” He smiled at his daughter. “It’s not a hardship when this little sprout has brought us so much joy. When the bedroom door closes, Shiori is still my Mistress. That part of her will never change—even if we have five more kids—because that’s who she is. That’s who I need her to be for me.”

  Deacon couldn’t wrap his head around that, but Knox and Shiori were sickeningly happy together, and who was he to judge?

  “I don’t suppose you’ve talked to Molly about any of this?” Knox asked.

  “Fuck no. What would I say?”

  “The truth?”

  “She’ll be real understanding when I tell her my last relationship was in high school.”

  Knox’s eyebrows went up again. “That was what? Fifteen years ago?”

  “Roughly.” Right. Like he didn’t know the exact fucking day his only relationship had ended. And that was just another issue with being in a relationship as opposed to one-night stands. He’d have to tell her about his epically fucked-up past.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “No clue.” He hated being in the dark about this romance crap. “So I’ve gotta bring her flowers, give her back rubs, and take her to dinner if I wanna get laid?”

  “Is that all Molly is to you? A hole to shove it in?” Knox asked sharply.

  “No. Not even close.” Deacon slumped back in the chair. “That’s why I have to do this right from the start.”

  Knox lifted his sleeping daughter onto his shoulder and gently patted her back. “I’m not being a smart-ass when I tell you it’s not a bad idea to start this out like you were in high school. When She-Cat and I started seeing each other outside of the dojo, we had an entirely different view of each other. My best advice is to listen to her. Women are sneaky. They’ll leave hints about what they want. They’re rarely direct.”

  Deacon folded his hands on top of his head. “Even Shiori? I thought she told you exactly what she wants you to do.”

  “As far as sex? Yes. She tells me exactly what her sexual needs are, but I’d be a poor sub if I hadn’t learned to anticipate those needs. The woman ain’t complaining about what she gets from me.” He gave Deacon a cocky grin. “It’s when we’re not in the bedroom and are out of those Dominant/submissive roles that she drops hints about stuff instead of telling me directly.”

  “Explain that.”

  “Two months ago, she started talking about how much she missed the onsen in Japan. Then she asked if I’d ever soaked in a hot mineral bath after skiing.” Knox cocked his head. “Decipher that for me.”

  “I wasn’t expecting a pop quiz.” Deacon racked his brain forever—probably fifteen seconds. “That was Shi-Shi’s way of hinting she wanted a hot tub.” As soon as Deacon said that, he knew he’d nailed it.

  “Nice try, grasshopper. But that answer is too obvious.”

  “What? That was the perfect answer.”

  Knox chuckled. “I’ll break it down for you. She asked if I’d been skiing in a place that had hot springs. So I put together that she wanted a weekend away with me in Steamboat Springs.”

  “You figured that out from just those few hints?”

  “Yep. She acted like I was the most intuitive guy in the world for reading her mind.”

  “I am so fucked.”

  “Not if you listen. That’s the whole point. If Molly says something like she gets cold at night and wishes she had a quilt like her grandma made, check the area events for a quilt show, because that’s what she’s hinting at.”

  Deacon stared at Knox like he’d never seen him before.

  “What?”

  “Dude,” he said in awe. “You are like the woman whisperer.”

  “Nice shot, dickhead. Just trying to be helpful.”