20. Reva #3
His silence answers before he does.
“Yes,” he says finally. “Sometimes.”
The honesty irritates me more than a lie would have.
Homer squirms, so I lower him carefully to the path. He crouches, belly low, then takes two dramatic steps as if exploring a hostile planet. The leash goes taut. Deacon watches him with more seriousness than the situation deserves.
I look at him instead.
“What are your feelings for me, Deacon?”
His attention comes back fast.
I didn’t plan to ask that. It just…popped out. The question is out now, sitting between us like a lit match.
For once, he doesn’t answer immediately.
“It would be easier if I could name them cleanly,” he says.
“Try.”
His gaze stays on mine. “Obsession is part of it.”
My stomach dips.
“Guilt,” he says. “Need. Possessiveness, though I know you hate the word. Anger, sometimes. At you. At myself. At the fact that you walked into my city with revenge in your mouth and made every choice I made for fifteen years feel both justified and unforgivable.”
I cannot breathe right.
Homer attacks a leaf with ferocious incompetence beside my shoe. Deacon takes one more step toward me.
“And then there is the part I cannot explain.”
“That’s convenient.”
“No. It’s inconvenient beyond measure.” His voice is quieter now.
“I know what protection feels like. Duty. Debt. I know what it is to keep someone alive because the alternative is unacceptable.” His eyes move over my face. “This is not that.”
My pulse beats too hard.
“What is it?”
“If I knew, I would use the right word.”
I hate the ache that opens in my chest.
“Maybe you should figure it out before you go around telling me I’m yours.”
“Maybe you should accept that I can be certain before I am articulate.”
“That is the most asinine thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“It is also true.”
Homer pounces on the leash and falls over.
I should pick him up. I should go inside. I should remember that Deacon Cross is made of secrets, blood, and bad decisions.
Instead, I stand there while he reaches for me.
His hand comes to the side of my face, slowly enough that I can refuse it, and slides into the fall of hair near my ear.
His thumb brushes along my jaw. “My feelings for Delia are protective. My feelings for you are complicated enough to make a smarter man leave the country.”
“You’re not smart?”
“Well, I stayed.”
That’s almost funny. I look at his mouth.
His eyes darken.
“Reva.”
“What?”
“If you keep looking at me like that, I am going to kiss you.”
I lift my chin. “Sounds like you’ve already decided.”
“No. You decide.”
My heart does something stupid.
I hate that he gives me the choice when so many other things have been taken. I hate that he knows exactly why it matters.
I step closer. That’s all the answer he needs.
Deacon kisses me like restraint is a language he speaks fluently and resents using. His mouth is firm, controlled for about two seconds, then my hand catches the front of his shirt, and whatever discipline he brought into the garden starts to crack.
The kiss deepens. Not soft. Not safe.
His hand slides into my hair, and he angles my head the way he wants it. I let him because I want it too, because my body keeps recognizing things my mind has not approved, because kissing Deacon feels like touching a live wire and finding out it knows my name.
Homer meows indignantly from somewhere near our feet.
I break the kiss first, breathing hard.
“That was irresponsible.”
“Yes.”
“You are a problem.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t just kiss me into accepting things.”
His thumb drags over my lower lip. “I can try.”
I glare at him. He looks amused again. I want to shove him into the fountain. I want him to kiss me again.
Both urges feel equally valid.
“Your feelings are confusing,” I say.
“Believe me, they are confusing for me too.”
“That does not make this better.”
“No.”
He leans in and catches my lower lip between his teeth. The bite is sharp enough to make me gasp.
Just hard enough to remind me he is not Ever. Not Shiloh. Not Nash. Deacon does not soothe first. He marks the place where the truth is going to enter and waits for me to stop flinching.
He lets go slowly.
“I’ll give you time,” he says.
My breath is still uneven. “How generous.”
“A little time.”
I blink.
His mouth curves. “Not a lot.”
Then he steps back, picks up Homer’s leash, and places it in my hand.
The kitten is now on his side, kicking the harness strap with both back feet.
Deacon looks down at him. “He may need practice.”
“So do you.”
His eyes lift to mine. The heat in them makes my face warm all over again.
“I know exactly what I’m doing, Reva.”
He turns and walks back toward the house, leaving me in the garden with swollen lips, stolen breath, and a kitten attempting to murder his own accessories.
When the French doors close behind him, I’m still standing there.
Bemused. Annoyed. Holding a leash attached to the least dignified creature alive. Homer twists in the harness, bites the strap, and growls at his own foot.
I look down at him.
“Don’t judge me,” I say.
He sneezes.
That’s fair.