Deacon(25)

“Like I’d ever come back to this place,” the man returned snidely.

“Good you feel that way,” Deacon muttered before he shifted us back and slammed the door in the man’s face.

I looked up at him to tell him how awesome that was, how awesome he was, and try my luck with jumping his bones in my foyer.

I didn’t get even a word out because I saw the look on Deacon’s face and the words died in my throat.

That look being blank. Void. Emotionless.

We’d just had a scene with two parents. He’d spent the night with me tucked to his side in my bed. We’d had sex on my kitchen table. He’d told me how he felt about me (kind of).

And we were back to this.

Then he lifted both his hands, sliding his fingers along my jaw and cupping them in his palms, his hands so big, fingers so long, his fingertips glided into my hair, and he pressed them into my scalp.

I held my breath as I looked up into his eyes.

Eyes that were traveling over my features, still void, still emotionless, but taking me in.

I didn’t move, didn’t speak. I felt he was taking that time, making a decision, and I wanted him to come to the right one.

I thought he did when he murmured, “Most beautiful woman I’ve ever f*ckin’ seen.”

I loved that. Flipping loved it.

But even as that feeling soared through me, I would find I was wrong.

I knew it when he let me go.

I pivoted woodenly to watch him saunter to my stairs and up them.

I stayed there, eyes glued to the stairs, unmoving so I was in the exact same place when he came back, this time wearing his boots.

That was when I knew I was right to panic last night.

I’d lost him.

He’d given me something. Something precious. Making me not feel like a stupid slut who’d let a stranger f*ck her on the kitchen table then took off after getting off and he did this by spending the night with me, holding me in his arms.

But that was as much as he had to give.

Honestly?

I was surprised he had that in him.

I was grateful all the same.

That said, it didn’t make me feel the slightest bit better.

He came to me and did the same thing he did earlier, except just one hand was cupped to my jaw, fingertips pressed into my scalp.

I took his touch, wanting more, much, much more, and I stared up at him knowing I’d already got more than Deacon was able to give. I did it also knowing no way he’d let me be greedy.

It was my turn to let my eyes travel over his features. Take in his male beauty. Memorize it. Do it knowing that as crazy as it sounded, I’d never forget him. For reasons I didn’t know and would never have the opportunity to understand, there would always be a part of me that would long for him. There would always be thoughts in the back of my mind plaguing me, haunting me, making me wonder, if he let me in, even just a little, how it could have been.

I stopped thinking these thoughts when the pad of his thumb whispered across my lips.

That was when the tears pricked my eyes.

Because I knew that was when he was going to let me go.

For always.

No check ins. No Suburban at cabin eleven.

No John Priest.

No man called Deacon.

I was right this time.

Without a word, his hand dropped from me, he turned, and walked right out the door.

* * * * *

Late that morning, after I’d made the rounds with the renters who were still in their cabins to apologize for the noise that night, Milagros and I stood in cabin six with the windows and doors open.

We surveyed the space.

“I’ll take the throw blanket with the sheets to clean,” I muttered.

“I’ll need to shampoo the sofa as well as the rugs to get out that smell,” she muttered back.

She would. The stench was lingering. We could air that cabin out for a year and it’d still smell like puke, pot, smokes, and beer.

“I’ll look on Craig’s List but maybe this weekend you might wanna go with me to that antique place in Chantelle to look for a new coffee table?” I asked and looked to her at my side.

She was an inch shorter than me. She had seven years on me. And it was arguable (me arguing that she did, her arguing that she didn’t) that she had better hair than me.

She looked to me. “Manuel can sand that down and refinish it.”

I moved my gaze to the coffee table. I liked that coffee table. In fact, I’d found it at the antique place in Chantelle and thanked my lucky stars, it was so cool, in such good nick, and so cheap.

Not to mention, Manuel wouldn’t charge me a thousand dollars to refinish it so I could pocket the rest and that wouldn’t suck.

I looked back to Milagros. “That’d be awesome.”

She grinned and replied, “I’ll ask him to come after work and get it tonight. But it might take him past the weekend to get it back to you.”

That worked for me and I told her so. “That’s okay. This cabin is booked next week but if he’s not finished with it, I’ll bring down my coffee table from the house to act as a stand in.”

She nodded and grinned at me.

I gave her a mini-grin (which was all I had in me after the events of last night and this morning) and moved to the pile of sheets on the couch that we’d pulled off the beds. The comforters and shams were in another pile. I’d come back later to get them in order to launder them with a shed load of fabric softener in hopes of obliterating the smoke smell.