Bounty (Page 128)

Eventually, the sobs tapered into hitches.

And through it all, Deke kept holding me.

Finally, I quieted.

And Deke kept holding me.

I drew in breath and burrowed backward.

Deke kept holding me.

The dark room was quiet and I blinked slowly, exhausted by my tears, my eyes losing focus on the silver of moonlight on my sheets.

“Better?” Deke whispered.

“Yeah, honey,” I whispered back.

“Been through a lot. You’ve needed to let go for a while. Good you did that, gypsy.”

I drew in a soft breath. It broke twice as it came in.

It flowed out easily.

He didn’t think I was weak.

He didn’t think anything but giving me what I needed.

I bent my head and kissed the apple of his palm.

He followed my movement, keeping close, his face in my hair.

“Sleep, Jussy.”

“Okay, Deke.”

His fingers still at my neck gave me a squeeze but otherwise he didn’t move.

And I lay in bed while the silver of moonlight vanished, giving way to sleep.

But I fell into it knowing one thing.

There was no falling in love with a man like Deke.

If you had him, he had that.

And I had him.

So he had that from me.

* * * * *

When I woke, I felt bright sunlight on my eyelids, so I took it slow in opening them.

After a couple of blinks, I saw sheets and sun and trees.

But all I felt was Deke.

We hadn’t moved in sleep, except his arm was no longer slanted up, fingers curled around my neck. It was resting heavily along my waist.

I attempted a small stretch of my back, not wanting to wake him if he was still asleep.

“You up, gypsy?”

He was not asleep.

And God, I loved his voice in the morning.

Or any time, really.

I turned in the curve of his arm and he straightened his legs for me so I could press in, front to front.

I tipped my head back and looked at his face.

He was awake but the life he’d lived that he normally wore on his face was still smoothed out. There was a tranquility there I wished I could give him so he had that look throughout the day. So he felt that serenity every second he was awake.

An impossibility.

I still wished I had it in me to give him that every breath he would take, even when he was awake.

“You doin’ okay this mornin’, Jussy?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, tangling my legs in his, pushing closer. “Thanks for last night, Deke.”

He dropped his head and I felt him run the tip of his nose along mine, from the bridge between my eyes all the way to the end.

I closed my eyes at the marvel of how this big, rough man could give so much with a simple touch, and when he pulled back, I dipped in and pressed my face into his throat.

“You wanna get up, shower, go someplace and find breakfast?” he asked the top of my head.

He was still being cool with me. Giving me the affection I needed after my emotion last night. Not doing what I suspected he wanted to do on a morning when we had time, no work to get to, nothing.

I drew in breath and slid my hand over his waist, to his back, up his spine as I touched my lips to the base of his throat.

Once I’d done this, I answered, “Later.”

He got me and I knew this when his hand moved too, under my cami and down, so just his fingertips were inside the waistband of my pajama bottoms.

“Watcha want now, baby?” he murmured.

I pressed my breasts to his chest and slid my lips up his throat.

In response, his hand glided fully into my pajama bottoms.

“Anniversary fuck,” he mumbled.

I tipped my head back and caught his eyes. “Sorry?”

“Last night, Jussy,” he started, “we’re a week old.”

He was keeping track.

That was sweet.

But I thought back, my attention turning vague, as I said, “Seems longer.”

I lost the vague when Deke replied, “Figure we can celebrate a lot of different anniversaries. Wyoming. You walkin’ into Bubba’s. Me walkin’ into your house. First night we slept in the same bed.”

I felt my lips curve. “That’s a wide variety of anniversary fucks.”

He rolled into me, his eyes dropping to my mouth, his lips muttering, “Absolutely.”

Feeling his gaze on my mouth, I was done talking.

So I lifted my head and kissed him.

It was a soft, warm morning kiss.

Until Deke slanted his head and it was no longer that but instead a deep, wet, start-of-foreplay kiss.

When he ended it, his mouth went to my neck.

My hands drifted all over.

His hands didn’t drift. They shifted up into my cami, then he arched away from me and my cami was gone.

I decided to let my hands get busy too, so I pushed them into his shorts. His mouth now at my throat, he angled his hips away so I could pull them over his ass and push them down. Deke lifted a knee, catching them with a foot and shoving them all the way off.

His hands then went back, both of them, in my bottoms and this time my panties. They spread to the sides and down, grazing over my hips. He rolled his legs to the side so I could windmill them off and they were gone.

Naked.

One of the top things on my list of how I liked to be with Deke.

He slid his mouth from my throat, down to my chest, between my breasts, to my midriff where he kissed me then lifted up, hovering there.

I looked down at him to see his gaze on me, his hazel eyes firing, the smooth of sleep still there but mingling with the dark of hunger.

A good look on Deke.

Though, for me, every look was good on Deke.

“Be back,” he whispered, and I watched him bend again to me, touching his mouth to my belly before he rolled off me and the bed.