Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (22 page)

He lifted his head, kept some of his weight
braced into a forearm in the bed while he framed one side of my
face with his big hand. I knew with one look in his eyes he wasn’t
in a teasing or bantering mood.

“Six years, laid in this bed, you up at the
house, wantin’ this.” I pressed my lips together and stared in his
eyes. “Dream come true.”

“Okay,” I forced out, the word sounding
choked because it was. “Now I’m crying.”

And I was. I felt the tear slide out the side
of my eye just as I felt Deacon catch it with the pad of his index
finger.

“Don’t give a fuck if it’s three weeks or
thirteen,” he declared. “You don’t hear from me, do not ever doubt
where I want to be.”

God, I hoped it was never thirteen weeks.

I didn’t share that.

I said, “Same goes for you.”

He stared at me, right in the eyes, something
working in his that was part what he was giving me, part something
I didn’t understand.

I waited.

He shared no further. Just bent to touch his
mouth to mine, pulled out, rolled off, moving me with him so I
ended up on top.

“You wanna clean up?” he asked when he got us
in our new position, both his hands now at my head, fingers moving
against my temples to dry the moisture there.

“Yeah,” I said and it was croaky so I took a
shuddering breath to get it together. “But I don’t provide towels,
only sheets. So I’m gonna have to go to the house to get a
washcloth. And I also don’t offer toilet paper, so I’ll get some of
that too.”

His arms curved around me and tightened.
“I’ll go to the house.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll grab
some munchies and my phone charger, seeing as the resident badass
has decreed we’re spending the night in cabin eleven and my battery
is low.”

The grooves around his mouth deepened but his
arms didn’t loosen.

“I’ll get food and your charger too.”

“It’s okay, Deacon.”

“Did I say you’re naked in this bed for the
rest of the day?”

I suppressed a smile and replied, “Yes.”

“So who’s goin’ to the house?”

The smile broke through. “You.”

He gave me another squeeze on his, “Yeah.
Me.”

I bent my head to kiss him lightly then
lifted it, muttering inanely, “Rethinking my decision to provide
towels.”

“Don’t. Unnecessary hassle for you.”

That quick, firm advice got him a grin.

That grin faded when I informed him, “Just so
you know, gotta keep my phone close, honey, just in case one of my
customers needs me.”

He tilted his head slightly on the pillow and
asked, “That happen a lot?”

I shrugged, lifting a hand so I could stroke
his jaw with my thumb, mostly because I couldn’t stop myself from
touching him, and gleefully because I didn’t have to try.
“Currently, don’t have any demanding renters. But it’s not
unusual.”

“And those demands are?” he prompted when I
gave no detail.

I settled more fully on him and shared,
“Well, usually it’s when they don’t read the terms and conditions
and think there are towels, toilet paper, daily maid service,
laundry onsite, crap like that. And that only happens when they
first get here and find out that stuff isn’t provided.” My eyes
wandered to the pillow and I went on, “Though, next up for Glacier
Lily, gonna build an outbuilding and have a coin-op washer and
dryer so I don’t have to deal with that part. When that’s done,
I’ll build my gazebo.”

“Gazebo?’ he asked and I looked back at
him.

“Last big dream for Glacier Lily. A big
gazebo by the river with chairs in it for folks to sit, relax,
drink in the view.”

“Can you afford that?”

“I’m gonna refinance the property,” I
answered. “Roll the second mortgage in with money to pay back my
dad and—”

I said no more because I found myself
suddenly and surprisingly on my back with Deacon looming over
me.

“You haven’t paid back your dad?”

I felt my brows drawing together, remembering
I’d told him about that but confused as to why he had a dark look
on his face all of a sudden. “No. He won’t accept installments
and—”

“And you got a loan from the bank?”

“Well, yeah, Deacon,” I replied. “All the
work I did on the cabins cost some cake.”

“And you got a loan from the bank to pay for
it.”

I stared at him and repeated slowly,
“Well…yeah.”

“Woman, don’t do that again.”

This was quick and firm too, it was also
surprising.

“Why?”

“Banks suck.”

“Perhaps,” I allowed. “But they’re a
necessary evil. And anyway, I didn’t promise them my firstborn
child,” I pointed out.

Again, Deacon wasn’t in the mood for teasing
or banter.

“Cassidy, listen to me, the economy was in
the toilet for years. So bad, every time I came here, did it
uneasy, hopin’ you were still in business, ridin’ a wave the rest
of the country was not and keepin’ your head above water.”

God.

Deacon.

I wondered if it would ever stop coming to
me, his moments of sweet and how deep they ran.

I wondered, but hoped it didn’t.

“Straight up miracle you did,” he kept at me.
“You didn’t, you get in too deep with the bank and your shit gets
messy, they can take it all and you walk away with nothing.”

“That won’t happen.”

“You don’t think it will until it does,” he
stated and his words made me still underneath him. “You worked too
fuckin’ hard on this place not to enjoy the goodness you created.
Do not put that in jeopardy.”

“Did that happen to you?” I asked
cautiously.

“What?” he asked back.

“Did you lose something to the bank?”

His head cocked to the side. “Fuck no. Never
owned property in my life and definitely never had a loan.”

That was intriguing, but I didn’t have time
to get into it, he wasn’t done talking.

“I just know that shit goes down and it
sucks. But if that shit happened to you with what I’ve watched you
put into this place the last six years, it would do more than
suck.”

He was not wrong.

He was also still not done.

“You refinance only if you’re gettin’ a
better rate, you roll that second mortgage into it but you don’t
borrow more to build the laundry or a gazebo. You don’t do those at
all until you got the cash to pay for it or I got a good amount of
time at Glacier Lily to put them up for you.”

Again, there was a lot there, all of it we
had to go over, and I decided to start with the part that
interested me most.

“You’ll put them up for me?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, how are you gonna do that, Deacon? We’re
not talking cleaning gutters here.”

I saw a veil slide over his features. He
didn’t shut down, but he still shut me out.

He did this further by answering simply, “Got
the skills.”

I took a moment to decide whether to push
that or not.

In that moment I saw his expression remain
veiled and we’d just shared something beautiful. I didn’t want to
do anything to mar that, like push it when he wasn’t ready. So I
let that go.

“The laundry would be a very nice added
service,” I told him. “That’s probably the biggest request I get.
There’s a Laundromat in town but people don’t like to schlep their
stuff to town. And those coin-op machines cost a whack to use. It
would pay for itself.”

“It could also start payin’ for itself when
you can pocket that shit, not you earnin’ back what you put into
it, givin’ it away, takin’ more time to do that since you’re payin’
interest on what you borrowed.”

He was again not wrong and this was sounding
familiar.

“My dad would say that,” I told him.

“See your dad isn’t the scarecrow either,” he
replied and I grinned.

“No, he isn’t.”

“No increase on your loan, Cassidy,” he
ordered.

“You’re being bossy again, Deacon,” I
returned, my grin dying, my decision not to mar this beautiful
moment in cabin eleven suddenly forgotten. “Even if you do me the
huge favor of building it for me, I have to pay you something and
buy materials.”

“Pay me?” he asked, his tone weirdly
incredulous.

“Yes,” I answered, my tone understandably
determined.

“Pay me,” he repeated, but it wasn’t a
question this time. It was an opportunity for me to take back what
I said.

“Yes, Deacon. You wouldn’t be cleaning out
gutters; you’d be building a
building
.”

At that, he looked to the pillow and told it,
“She’s naked in my bed in eleven, my cum leakin’ outta her,” his
eyes came back to mine, “so this conversation ends here.”

“We should get this straight,” I pointed out,
because we should. Relationships crashed and burned after arguments
about money and I didn’t want that for ours.

“We can do that when you’re not naked with my
cum leakin’ out of you in my bed in cabin eleven,” he returned.

I sighed because he was right.

Deacon decided it was time to move on.

“What food you want me to bring?”

“The Red Hot Blues and the hummus,” I
answered immediately and his lips started curving up. “And a bottle
of red wine. And glasses. And whatever you want to drink, though
you’re welcome to wine. And the rest of the pie. We’ll use the
forks and plates in the kitchen.”

“See I’m gonna be makin’ more than one trip,”
he muttered.

“I
could
help you,” I noted.

He pressed deeper into me. “You could. You
aren’t. You’re gonna be lazy because, woman, trust me, you’re gonna
need your energy.”

I squirmed under him at that promise and
instantly acquiesced, “I’ll stay here.”

His lips curved up again and he replied,
“Good call.”

“Though, I’m kinda hungry and I’m also
leaking.”

“Right,” he murmured, taking my hint. He bent
in, touched his mouth to mine, then said, “I’ll go.”

Then he went, sliding off me and rolling off
the bed.

I switched positions to get under the
covers.

When I had the covers up over my breasts and
Deacon was pulling on his clothes, I called, “Honey?”

He kept his side to me, his hands doing up
the buttons of his jeans, but he slid his eyes my way. “Yeah?”

“Hurry.”

At my word, his face darkened and he turned
to me, bending deep. Putting a fist on the bed and one hand to my
cheek, he bent deeper and took my mouth in a long, hot, wet kiss.
When he released my mouth, he touched his lips to my forehead in a
short, sweet kiss.

Then he straightened away, pulled on his tee,
sat on the side of the bed to yank on his boots, and took off.

And with the amount of time it took him to
get back, I knew he didn’t waste any.

* * * * *

Deacon

Hours later, in the quiet dark, Deacon lay in
the bed he’d lain in many times before, this time doing it feeling
Cassie’s soft body tucked to his side, her arm draped over his
stomach, her cheek pressed to his chest, listening to her
breathing.

All those times before, and more when he was
on the road and away from Glacier Lily, he’d dreamed of this
too.

I hope you know what you’re doing,
asshole,
he thought.

But he knew he had no clue.

He just knew he couldn’t stop doing it.

On that thought, he pulled her closer and
closed his eyes.

Badasses Can Compromise

“They’re my gutters, Deacon.”

“You paid for the ladder, Cassidy.”

“So, it’s my ladder too. Or are you gonna
take it with you on your next job?”

It was the next morning, after sex in cabin
eleven, a shower in cabin eleven (something else that made Deacon
and my dreams come true in spectacular ways, though, these didn’t
end in tears, only moans—me, and groans—Deacon) and coming back to
the house to have breakfast (eggs and bacon for Deacon, made by me,
but I had oatmeal).

We were dressed and almost out the door when
Deacon checked his wallet then said he needed to go upstairs to get
some money.

I told him he didn’t.

He told me he did.

More words were said.

This brought us to now.

“We’re havin’ words, woman, don’t make yours
sarcastic,” Deacon returned, his voice getting growly and not in
the good way.

But he was right. There was no need for that,
ever.

“You’re right,” I conceded. “But the point is
still valid.”

“I’m eatin’ your food, sleepin’ under your
roof, and buyin’ your gutters,” he declared.

I got his point.

I just didn’t agree with it.

“You’re also putting them up.”

“Yep. I’m doin’ that too,” he confirmed.

“Deacon—”

He cut me off to ask, “Fuck, can you argue
about anything?”

The answer to that question was yes.

I didn’t give him that answer.

I asked, “Can’t you see where I’m coming
from?”

He stated the obvious. “No.”

I moved closer to him, taking away a foot of
the four that separated us in my foyer.

“I’m uncomfortable with allowing you to pay
for something that expensive.”

“They’re not expensive,” he returned. “And
I’m uncomfortable with a woman keeping me.”

I leaned back in surprise.

“I do my bit,” Deacon finished.

“Your bit is putting them up.”

“How about I decide what my bit is, not my
woman deciding for me.”

It occurred to me right then that we’d hit
the Badass Zone, a zone that was not simply the un-capitalized
badass zone I was normally in with Deacon. A zone that needed
capitalization. A zone I’d never been in. A zone I realized
belatedly was a zone where I should tread cautiously.

So I did that.

“On a scale of one to ten, how important is
this?” I queried.

“Me doin’ my bit so I don’t feel like you’re
keepin’ me?” he asked.