7
Deacon
The memories came back to him in pieces, and every one of them felt like temptation.
First came the road, narrow and dark as it curved through trees pressing close on either side while the bike devoured the distance.
Then summer filled his lungs, thick and green, the last heat of the day trapped in the dirt beneath them.
Lila’s body rested warm against his back, her hands small but certain around his waist. They tightened whenever he took a turn too fast and loosened only after the bike straightened, leaving him aware of every place she touched him until his whole body felt stripped down to one exposed nerve.
He didn’t remember deciding to bring her here. Maybe that was the trouble. Some part of him had known all along where the night was headed and had finally grown tired of lying about it.
The lake was where he went when the noise in his head became too loud, when home felt like a trap and Wicker Falls held too many eyes. It was the closest thing he had to peace. Bringing Lila into it should have felt like a mistake.
Instead, it felt like the truth.
The trees opened without warning, and the world widened into moonlight and dark water.
Jackson slowed when gravel replaced pavement beneath the tires, the familiar crunch cutting through the quiet.
By the time he killed the engine, the night had settled around them.
The music and laughter from the Morgan yard were gone, leaving crickets in the weeds and the lake washing steadily against the shore.
Neither of them moved at first. Then Lila loosened her arms and climbed off behind him, taking her warmth with her so suddenly that he felt the loss.
Jackson swung off more slowly and turned to find her standing beside the bike, her hair tangled from the ride and moonlight silvering the loose strands around her face.
She looked different out here. Less like Matty’s little sister dressed for a family party and more like the woman he had spent too long refusing to see clearly. Something dangerous lived inside her quietness, something he should have run from years ago if he had ever truly intended to escape her.
Lila glanced toward the water before lifting one brow at him. “So this is the part where I’m supposed to ask if you always kidnap girls and bring them to remote locations?”
A smile tugged at his mouth. “Only the mouthy ones.”
“I knew it.”
“You got on the bike.”
She stepped closer, bringing the soft scent of her perfume beneath the damp earth and lake water. “You told me to.”
“That usually work on you?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
Jackson huffed a laugh and turned toward the lake because looking at her too long felt dangerous.
The water stretched black beneath the moon, its surface broken by faint ripples.
He had stood here during storms and hot afternoons, alone or with Matty, carrying a beer or a split lip and more anger than he knew where to put.
He had never stood here with Lila.
Her presence changed the place. Maybe it changed him.
She wandered toward the shoreline, her sandals whispering through the grass. “It’s pretty.”
Jackson watched her tip her face toward the water, moonlight tracing the pale line of her throat while the breeze brushed her dress against her legs.
He remembered those same legs scraped raw when she was eight, furious because older boys had shoved her while Matty was home sick.
He remembered wrapping her bleeding palm in a piece of his shirt and marching her home, already tied to her in ways he had been too young to understand.
The feeling had changed as she grew. Protectiveness had become something deeper once she was old enough for him to acknowledge it, and every year after that made keeping his distance require more effort.
Now she stood before him at eighteen, all quiet nerve and green eyes that saw far more than anyone gave her credit for.
He should have answered her. He should have teased her and broken the tension before it sharpened.
Instead, he watched her with the hunger of a man staring at the last thing he intended to deny himself.
“Jackson?”
Her voice pulled him back. He blinked hard. “Yeah?”
She had turned halfway toward him, her arms folded loosely against the breeze. “You’re staring.”
His blood kicked once, hard. “You noticed.”
Color warmed her cheeks, but she held his gaze. “You weren’t exactly subtle.”
“Didn’t know I was tryin’ to be.”
The words came out rough, heavy with everything he had swallowed for too long. He saw the moment she heard the truth beneath them. Her fingers tightened against her arms, and her expression softened in a way that should have made him retreat.
It pulled him closer instead.
Jackson crossed the space between them slowly enough to give her every chance to step away.
She held her ground, breathing faster as she lifted her face to his.
Nothing coy lived in the way Lila looked at him.
She never smiled because she thought she should or flirted for the pleasure of being watched.
Whatever she gave him came from somewhere honest.
He stopped close enough to see the pulse moving at the base of her throat. The lake stirred behind her while a breeze lifted the loose hair at her temples and carried one strand across her cheek. He wanted to tuck it back and learn whether her skin felt as warm as it looked.
His hands remained at his sides.
Barely.
“You always bring girls here?” she asked, the teasing in her voice thinning into something quieter.
“No.”
Her eyes searched his. “No?”
“No girls.”
The answer remained between them. Lila lowered her arms, the movement bringing her half a step closer. “So just me.”
His pulse settled into a heavy rhythm. “Just you.”
For one impossible stretch of time, the world narrowed to dark water and moonlight touching her skin. She had come because he asked, but she remained because she chose to.
He had carried her inside him for years, though the shape of it changed as she did.
He had cared about the stubborn little girl who followed him and Matty everywhere, then fought the wanting that arrived once she grew into herself.
It followed him through football seasons and evenings at the Morgan table, through every laugh she gave him and every silence that fell when he walked another girl toward his bike.
He had built walls around it until the walls became another way of holding her close.
Now Lila stood before him at the lake, looking at him as though she could already see them falling.
“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like you already know I’m in trouble.”
One corner of her mouth lifted. “Are you?”
He released a breath that carried the rough edge of a laugh. “You got no idea.”
“Then tell me.”
The quiet invitation undid him. Lila wasn’t pushing. She never pressed where someone was bruised. She simply stayed close and patient until silence became useless.
“Lila.” Her name left him on a strained breath as his hands slid along her arms. His fingers tightened enough to draw a soft gasp, but instead of pulling away, she rose into him.
That was all it took.
He kissed her hard, restraint breaking beneath the first taste of her.
Birthday-cake sweetness lingered beneath her lip gloss, and her hands explored the ridges of his stomach with hesitant curiosity that grew bolder when he pulled her closer.
Heat tore through him. He backed her toward a softer patch of grass near the shore, following carefully when her knees touched the ground so she never carried his full weight.
“I’ve waited so long for you,” he said against her mouth, the confession roughened by everything he had denied.
Her fingers found the hem of her sundress.
She pulled it over her head, leaving simple white panties and bare skin washed silver beneath the moon.
Jackson went still. Her breasts rose with each quick breath, her nipples tightening in the cooler air, and for several seconds he could do nothing but look.
Then he kicked off his boots, opened his belt, and shoved his jeans down his hips. His cock sprang free, hard and aching, but the wonder and nervousness crossing her face stopped him before he reached for her again.
“Jackson…” She swallowed, her eyes moving back to his. “I’ve never…”
Everything inside him quieted. He lowered himself beside her and cupped her cheek. “Never what, Princess?”
“Any of it.”
The admission struck deeper than lust. He searched her face, giving her the chance to take the night back. “You sure you want this with me?”
She nodded, then caught his wrist and held his palm against her cheek. “I want this. I want you.”
Jackson kissed her again, slower now, before trailing his mouth along her throat and down the center of her body. He eased her panties over her hips, and Lila lifted enough to help him slide them down her legs. She trembled beneath his hands, warm and already wet when he settled between her thighs.
“You’re perfect,” he murmured.
His mouth brushed her inner thigh, his beard rasping softly across skin that jumped beneath the touch.
Her legs opened wider when he kissed higher, and the first sweep of his tongue drew a broken sound from her throat.
He took his time, learning what made her hips lift and what left her clutching at the grass.
Each soft cry drove heat tighter through him, but he held himself back until her thighs trembled around his shoulders and his name spilled from her in breathless fragments.
Only then did he rise over her.
The head of his cock pressed against her, and Jackson held himself there, every muscle tight with the effort to remain still. “Tell me if it hurts.”
Lila nodded, but he waited until her eyes met his. “I want you,” she said again, steadier this time.
He entered her slowly. Her body resisted at first, tight and hot around him, and pain crossed her face when he pushed deeper. Jackson stopped at once. Her nails pressed into his shoulders while he bent to kiss her, his hand slipping between them to stroke her clit in slow circles.
“Breathe, baby.”
Her breath shuddered against his mouth. Gradually, the tension eased from her body, her muscles fluttering around him as pleasure began to overtake the sting. She shifted beneath him, asking without words, and he moved only when she lifted her hips to meet him.
For a while, there was nothing but Lila.
The grass dragged softly beneath them while warm night air moved across his back.
The lake washed against the shore, low and steady, and her hands traveled over him with a mixture of wonder and need that unraveled him a little more with every touch.
Crushed grass and lake water mingled with the scent of her skin.
Whenever she whispered his name, wanting her stopped feeling like hunger and became the only truth his body recognized.
He kissed her until the edges of the night softened, until her fingers tightened around him and her breathing broke apart. Her body arched beneath his, drawing him deeper, and Jackson held her through every trembling wave.
Then the night went wrong.
The water lost its rhythm. Warm earth turned cold beneath his palms, and Lila stilled under him. When he lifted his head, her face refused to settle.
The eighteen-year-old girl beneath him blurred into an older woman, then shifted back again.
“Jackson.”
Her voice trembled through the darkness.
“Come back to me.”
Those words didn’t belong to the girl in the grass.
The stars vanished, and the lake went with them. Something warm closed around his hand in the dark, pulling him toward her voice while the memory shattered around him.
No.
The refusal tore through him. This night belonged to them. It was the last night he had held her, the final piece of her he possessed before everything slipped through his fingers and hardened into years he could never reclaim.
He didn’t want whatever waited beyond the darkness. He wanted the lake and the grass beneath them. He wanted her breath against his ear and the soft wonder in her voice when she said his name, offering him something he had no right to ask for and had taken anyway.
Jackson reached for the memory, furious now, trying to hold it together through force alone. It tore loose faster beneath his grip, as though something beyond the darkness dragged him away piece by piece.
Lila’s soft cries flickered and vanished. Moonlight fractured while her face blurred again, slipping from the girl in his arms into someone older and farther away.
Frustration burned through his chest. He would remain inside this night if it was all he had left of her. He would live within it and replay every touch until the rest of the world decayed beyond its edges.
But her voice kept finding him through the dark.
Beneath the anger and panic, a terrible truth began pressing closer. Something was calling him out of the memory.
Something was taking her away again.