Knowing we’d finally changed.

Knowing this meant it was over.

The little we had, the minutiae he’d give me, gone.

He was going to take this, give it, not allow either of us to have more, leave, and never come back.

He stayed buried, his face in my neck, his breath coming even, but even if it couldn’t be the most comfortable position in the world for him when we weren’t doing it, he didn’t move.

Maybe he was memorizing too.

And he was glorious. Everything about him. Everything we’d just shared. Everything he made me feel when he told me I was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. When he told me in his own particular way how far I was under his skin. When he kissed me with a ferocity that was dizzying, touched me with desperation, gave me two orgasms on my kitchen table.

Having all that and knowing I couldn’t keep it, I had to end this.

Now.

And I did that by asking softly, my voice just as afraid as I felt, my words dripping with fear and sadness.

“Now have we changed?”

A low sound tore from his throat as he shoved his face deeper into my neck and his hands pushed under me, his arms locking around me.

“Deacon?” I whispered.

“Fuck, you’re killing me,” he murmured into my skin.

That wasn’t the response I wanted to hear.

But it was the one I knew I’d get.

I swallowed.

Deacon pulled his face out of my neck, one arm from around me, and he placed his big hand along the side of my head as he positioned a breath away.

“We’ve changed,” he said gently.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

Deacon pulled out and I moved to roll to my side and get off that table and to my clothes as quickly as I could.

I got the roll to my side in before I let out a quiet cry because I was up in his arms and he was moving out of the kitchen.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked, lifting my head to stare at his shadowed profile.

He said nothing but came into color as he walked through the lit foyer to the stairs.

I said nothing either as he moved us up the stairs.

We entered my room and he took me right to the bed. I was jostled as he held me and threw the covers back. Then I was in bed and the covers were over me but he was leaned into me, a fist in the bed at either side, his face super-close.

“Gonna shut down the house. Be back.”

He was going to shut down the house.

And then be back.

He was going to shut down the house and be back.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want hope to bud, bloom then die an early death, turning to ash.

I didn’t want him to change his mind.

So I said, “Okay.”

I felt his finger whisper along my collarbone before he pushed from the bed.

So he could touch gently.

I was beside myself with glee that I had that knowledge.

Beside myself with glee.

Which meant for the first time since John Priest/Deacon Whoever showed up at my door, I was truly happy.

I knew that was wrong.

But I lay there waiting for him to come back, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop it from feeling right.

Chapter Five

Down to My Bones

Pounding sounded on the door downstairs and I jerked awake, groggily feeling a hard body under me on which I was partially draped, partially falling down its side.

I lifted my cheek from warm skin and twisted my neck, my sleepy eyes finding Priest…no, Deacon’s dark, tousled head resting on my pillows, his slumberous, tawny eyes aimed down to me.

At the sight of him, I forgot everything except all that involved him. What happened the night before (or early that morning). What happened when he came back to my room, took off his clothes, got in bed, gathered me in his arms, and didn’t make love to me again but fell asleep like he’d held me close every night of his life for a decade. And when he fell asleep, he did it deep, like he slept the sleep of a man content he had everything he needed.

Since he did that, and likely crashing after all the drama, not to mention two orgasms, I did it too.

The angry pounding that didn’t quit punctured my thoughts and I blinked.

I focused on Deacon and whispered, “That kid’s parents.”

At my words, instantly he wrapped both arms around me, rolled me to my back, let me go, and rolled the other way, out of bed.

I saw firm, well-rounded, unhindered-to-the-eye male ass and blinked again as a tingle shot between my legs.

Then I saw him bend and snatch up his jeans.

He did this angrily.

Oh man.

I rolled the other way but he was out the door before I made it to the closet.

I tugged on jeans (commando), a thermal henley (also commando, but up top, if that was called commando) and did this hopping, skipping, and in the end dashing out of the room, down the hall and down the stairs.

“You’re lucky we haven’t phoned the police,” I heard an irate man’s voice say and I rushed faster down the last steps to see Deacon, in his thermal from last night, his jeans on, feet bare, barring the door.

He was so big I couldn’t see beyond him but I didn’t need to. I knew who it was.

The threat delivered, Deacon, being Deacon no matter what you called him, unsurprisingly didn’t reply.

“You put your hands on my son!” The man snapped.

I arrived at the scene on this ridiculous accusation and didn’t hesitate to press into Deacon’s side, shoving myself under his arm that had a hand to his hip. I was vaguely surprised when he didn’t try to hold me back. But when I had my position, I straightened and saw the parents, man up front, woman staring angrily at Deacon behind him, both facing off.

“I was there,” I stated as Deacon shifted but only to wrap an arm around my shoulders and press me tight to his side.

I didn’t know what to do with that maneuver except think that it felt lovely. Even me being short(ish) and him being tall, standing with him like that felt amazing, like we fit together perfectly.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t give myself time to enjoy that feeling.

I had to keep speaking.

“He didn’t touch your son.”

The man had moved his angry glare to me. “That’s not what my son says.”

“I would care what your son said if you raised a boy with a smidgeon of decency,” I shot back. “Since you didn’t, I don’t.”

The man reared back but the woman leaned forward. “You dare!” she hissed.

“We interrupted an attempted rape,” I announced.

Both of them reared back at that.

“Yep,” I stated. “They also damaged my property. I’ll be charging your credit card for that. Unfortunately, there is no charge for scaring a couple of teenaged girls half to death and teaching them the hard lesson that there are extreme assholes in the world or I’d charge you for that too, give it to them, and encourage a serious shopping spree.”