Deacon fell into my silence.

I cuddled closer.

His hand eventually left my ass and curled me even closer when he asked quietly, “Those two, three babies?”

My body tensed. “Yeah?”

“This stays good, woman, wanna make ’em with you.”

I closed my eyes tight.

“I know that’s too soon. I also don’t give a fuck,” he continued.

“It is not too soon,” I replied firmly.

There was a moment of silence then, “Fuck, my Cassie.”

This sounded like a groan and I loved that emotion so much I lifted up and looked down at him.

“That’s me,” I stated, still firm, totally unyielding. “Your Cassie. And you’re my Deacon.”

His hand started sliding up my side as his lips ordered, “Quiet.”

I was never quiet.

Or, at least, that occasion came rarely.

“You should know, I’m claiming you.”

“Woman, quiet,” he growled.

“Just saying, you can leave, but I want you back. You can stay as long as you stay and I’ll take you. And I hope you start doing that work to leave that life you’re leading when you’re not with me because I want there to come a time when I can eat my cereal while you open the door.”

His brows shot together. “Eat your cereal while I open the door?”

“When you’re with me in a way you’re not leaving,” I explained.

His brows stopped knitting but his face turned into a scowl. “Fuck, woman, shut up.”

“Too much too soon?” I asked, like it was a dare.

“Fuck no.”

“Okay, then quit your bitching.”

He glowered at me.

Then he grinned.

“Total boss.”

“A girl has to be when her man’s a badass.”

“Like you weren’t one before.”

My eyes slid away. “Whatever.”

“She was one before,” he muttered.

I ignored him.

“Cassie.”

My eyes slid back.

Deacon’s arm left me so he could frame the side of my face. I waited for words but he said nothing. Just looked at me, his eyes moving to my hair, my lips, but they never left me.

Then they came to mine as his thumb swept my cheek and I knew he was done with his moment.

So I asked, “You want that vanilla blowjob now?”

He burst out laughing.

I settled into the sound.

But while he was still doing it, I swept the covers off our bodies.

He quit laughing and groaned when I commenced my vanilla blowjob.

Deacon came in my mouth.

I came around his fingers.

As always, it was glorious.

Chapter Fifteen

I’m Glad

A week later, I walked in the house from the shed, where I’d been laundering sheets, folding them, and putting them in the linen cabinet there (though I’d stopped to deadhead some of the flowers in my pots on the steps of my porch).

I just got the door closed when Bossy trotted out of the downstairs powder room, stopped, looked up at me, and yapped.

“What’s going on, baby?” I asked.

She yapped again.

I didn’t speak Bossy, though I was learning, so I did my best to translate and walked to the door of the powder room, Bossy on my heels.

I stopped in the door and stared at Deacon on his back on the floor, his head and shoulders wedged between the opened doors of the vanity, a wrench in his hand, a brand new, non-rust-stained, scalloped-edged, totally awesome sink where the old one used to be. A new, expensive-looking, beveled-edged mirror had already been switched out with the old, ugly, tawdry, gilt-edged one.

Suffice it to say, although I’d got rid of the ugly wallpaper and painted the room a pretty green, I hadn’t found the money to switch out the sink and mirror.

“What on earth?” I asked the room but it was aimed at Deacon.

What didn’t seem that long ago, I’d been having coffee with Milagros at my kitchen table.

Deacon, who was giving us space doing Deacon things in secret Deacon places (this didn’t happen much; when he was with me, he was with me in all the ways that could entail), walked one foot in the kitchen and stopped.

“Milagros,” he said, dipping his chin to her, and he looked at me. “Later, woman.”

Before I could ask, he was out the door.

Milagros had looked my way and raised her brows.

I’d looked at her and shrugged.

We’d had our gab while we finished our coffee and she went down to finish the cabins. I went down with her and got the sheets. I’d put sheets in earlier so I got caught up in that, as well as organizing the space and making note I needed to corral Deacon and get to a Costco to buy more detergent, fabric softener, and glass cleaner refill.

Now I was back.

And I had a new sink.

And mirror.

Bossy was doing her best to wedge herself in the bottom of the vanity to keep Deacon company as he kept working and didn’t answer my question.

“Deacon,” I called sharply.

“Sink was crap. Got you a new sink.”

“And the mirror?” I pushed.

“Arguably more crap,” he answered.

He was not wrong.

Still.

I drew in a breath and as I did, it hit me.

“So, in order to avoid an argument about who was paying for said sink…and mirror…you just didn’t bring it up at all and went about your merry way.”

“Yup,” he replied nonchalantly.

I clenched my teeth.

I unclenched them to snap, “Deacon—”

“Cassidy, do I use this sink?”

“Not the point,” I hissed.

“Am I gonna be usin’ this sink repeatedly for the foreseeable future?”

He was, damn the man.

“Not the point either.”

It took effort and I watched him make that effort to unwedge his broad shoulders from the vanity, do an ab curl to sitting on his jeans-clad ass on the powder room floor, and train his eyes to me.

Bossy climbed out of the vanity and yapped.

“Give this to me.”

“Dea—”

“Baby, I need it. Give it to me.”

I shut my mouth.

“Your people are comin’ soon. You want to give them a nice place?” he asked.

“Rust stains are hardly the end of the world,” I noted.

“Right. Then you want them to feel good that you’re in a place that’s nice and gettin’ nicer? Not rundown and they leave, worried about when you’ll be able to get around to doin’ good things for you to make yourself a home?”