Chapter Sixteen – Angel
Sometime during the night, I must’ve fallen asleep, because when I came to, the sound of the TV didn’t greet me, which told me it had shut off on its own. Smart TVs creeped me out for that reason specifically. I had that fuzzy blanket I’d brought from my bedroom, and I currently was curled up against the back cushion of the couch. A wall of heat was behind me, securing me in place.
Wait a minute.
What ?
I opened my eyes to see the cushion before me, so close my vision blurred. Behind me, someone else stirred, their body pressed against mine from behind, also underneath my blanket. An arm was curled around my midsection, holding me to them.
I replayed last night. I’d felt terrible, so I came out to watch some TV and be miserable on the couch—it’s what I always did at home. Something about the couch always made me sleepy in a way my bed never could. Deacon had come out to make himself a late-night dinner since he’d skipped Chinese…
It had to be Deacon behind me. But how did we end up like this? We’d been sitting side by side with each other, talking—and I’d come to realize the guy wasn’t half as bad as I’d initially thought—but this… I mean, we were cuddling. Cuddling . That’s what we were doing. Cuddling while sleeping, because apparently he’d stayed out here with me.
My cheeks flushed with heat, and I wondered how I could get out of this particular position without waking him. If he woke up and found us like this, what would he think? Would he assume I wanted to be this close to him? Regardless of what my sister wanted me to do, none of these guys were my type. I would not come out of this with a crush on any of them, let alone three boyfriends.
I could honestly say that I understood Deacon a lot more now than I had before. Why he was so angry, why he didn’t like me or trust me. If I was in his shoes, and someone tried to take my brother’s place in the band that he’d started, I’d be pissed too.
But, again, let me emphasize: Deacon wasn’t my type. I didn’t like guys with long hair. I didn’t like assholes, even if they had a softer side to them. I wasn’t… I definitely wasn’t going to crush on Deacon.
Or that playboy Priest.
Or Bishop, the one who couldn’t remember me.
I tried to move, just a little. A squirm of a movement to test things out, like how strong his grip was on my side, how firm his body was pressed against mine from behind. I could feel his chest rising and falling with even breaths, and that told me he was still asleep, so I might be able to get out of this. If I moved slow, as in as slow as a snail, he might not wake up.
I let out a sluggish breath, steeling my nerve. I clung to the back couch cushion, pulling myself into it to hopefully crawl up and over it—but Deacon chose that exact moment to move. He rolled onto his back, no longer pinning me against the couch, and the arm that had been draped over my side fell away.
Crap. I froze the moment I felt him moving, and I waited a good minute or two before using the extra space to glance over my shoulder at him.
The first hint of daylight steamed through the wall of windows nearby, allowing me to see Deacon’s slumbering face. Now that he was on his back, his right shoulder and right arm—the arm that had been on me—sagged toward the floor, almost falling off the couch.
Hmm. Heaving myself over him might be easier than crawling up the back of the couch.
I held my breath as I rolled over to face him. I moved as slow as I could, one leg first, and I positioned that leg on the other side of his. I had to set my hand on the couch near his head for support as I started to move over top him.
Slow and steady, Mags. Slow and steady and you won’t wake him up. You can tiptoe to your bedroom and pretend this never happened.
Except, when I was directly above him, he woke up.
Deacon’s green eyes opened, and he must’ve reacted on instinct, because the arm that kind of draped off the side of the couch snapped up and curled around my back, like he thought he had to catch me or something.
And then his eyes widened as he realized that, in doing so, he only held me tighter against his chest… and that I was basically laying on top of him.
He yanked his arm off me as his shock morphed into a scowl. “What are you doing?”
“What am I doing? What are you doing?” I threw the question back at him, because that felt like the best thing to do.
“What am I doing?” he repeated the question. “I’m not the one on top of me right now.”
“No, but you were the one pinning me to the couch a minute ago,” I hissed. The look he gave me right now was akin to the expression he usually wore. Maybe last night had been a fluke and nothing more.
Deacon’s scowl intensified. “I wasn’t—I didn’t. You’re the one that invited me to stay.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did,” he shot back, with such vehemence it made me wonder, did I? His green eyes blazed with a mixture of annoyance and fury, but even though he could easily sit up and get me off him, he didn’t move an inch. And neither did I.
I’d never been on top of a guy before. Heck, I’d never been this close to a guy before. My body lay on his chest, our legs intertwined. My head was about six inches from his, and it struck me then that this wasn’t a bad place to be.
It was kind of nice, actually.
As my face flushed due to that thought, I mumbled, “I was trying to get out without waking you up so it wouldn’t get weird.” My white hair fell around my face like a curtain, blocking out the rest of the suite. All I could see was Deacon and the hard look he was giving me.
His scowls were kind of cute, now that I was thinking about it.
All Deacon said to that was, “It got weird.”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other, neither one of us moving an inch. His scowl lessened when his stare dipped lower on my face—I was pretty sure he glanced at my mouth. I bit my lower lip in response, wondering if it would be so bad to kiss him.
I mean, kissing for these guys was probably like a handshake to any normal person, right? A kiss didn’t have to mean anything. So what if I’d daydreamed about my first kiss and wanted it to be with a guy I loved? Life wasn’t a fairytale. Love hardly ever came before a kiss.
Deacon must’ve had the same thought, because he couldn’t take his gaze off my mouth. The arm that had curled around me moments before lifted, and his fingers swept some of my hair behind my ear. His other arm was slow in moving beneath the blanket, curling around my lower back so tightly there’d be no way I could get off him now.
My heartbeat kicked up, my skin getting hot. I swallowed when the hand that had tucked some hair went to the back of my head, like he was going to guide my head down to his.
What was I doing? What was he doing? What were we, collectively, doing together? This was bad. So bad. Cleo would love it, but I’d only regret it. This couldn’t happen.
“What the hell is going on?” Bishop’s voice rang out, jerking both Deacon and me back to reality.
Deacon’s arm fell off my back, and his hand flew off the back of my head like I’d just turned rancid. I crawled off him and hopped up, on my own two feet, but not very steady. I whirled around to find Bishop had woken up and come down the hall. Wearing his usual nighttime clothes, he was disheveled yet still very accusatory.
He did not look happy to have seen us in that position.
Deacon got up, and unfortunately for us both, I still stood way too close to the couch, so when he stood, he ended up standing less than a foot behind me. That probably didn’t make the situation look any better.
Bishop didn’t move, though his hazel stare flicked between Deacon and me. “What were you two doing?” He sounded… well, it kind of sounded like he was jealous, but maybe that part was all in my own head. Maybe a strange part of me wanted him to be jealous, since he didn’t remember our time together as children.
“Nothing.”
I said that the exact same time Deacon huffed, “It wasn’t what it looked like.” If there were two things to say to look guilty, we’d have it covered.
Crossing his arms over his chest, Bishop frowned—and that was the first frown I’d ever seen on his face. It didn’t go well with his boy next door features. Where were those dimples when you needed them?
“Really?” he asked. “Because it definitely looked like something—” Behind him, someone else appeared, though this one was caught in a yawn and still very much shirtless from his slumber, his tattoos on display.
Priest ran a hand through his blond hair, blinking his gray eyes at Bishop, then at me and Deacon. “What’s going on? You guys are being way too loud.” He sounded quite whiny. The man was definitely not a morning person.
I opened my mouth to answer, but Bishop saw fit to speak first, “I just caught Angel on top of Deacon.”
That must’ve been a shock to Priest’s system, because he was wide awake now. “What? You didn’t… they didn’t—” He looked at us. “Did you?” Now he took up the same stance Bishop did: he crossed his arms like he was about to scold us for our inappropriate behavior.
“We didn’t,” I said.
Behind me, Deacon huffed, “Yeah, as if I’d ever want to be with her.” He shook his head and walked around me, shooting both guys a glare before wandering down the hall and locking himself in his bedroom.
My heart stung hearing that, but I didn’t know what I expected. Last night had to have been a fluke.
As if on cue, my eyes landed on our plates on the coffee table, on the Advil bottle he’d given me. I felt better now, but I couldn’t lie. My feelings were a little hurt.
Probably a good thing I didn’t kiss him after all.
Priest and Bishop both were watching me, and I tried my best to shrug off what just happened by saying, “I wasn’t feeling good last night, so I came out here. Deacon stayed with me and we both fell asleep. That’s it.”
Priest smirked as he came over to me. He got a little too close as he circled me. The dude even sniffed me. Then he said, “Yep, still a virgin. Should’ve known our boy Deacon couldn’t handle popping this cherry. I think we all know I’m best-suited for that task—”
“You’re disgusting,” I huffed and whirled around, slapping him right on the star tattoo on his chest. I hate to inform you that his chest was as hard as it looked… and it looked pretty damn hard. Made sense. He worked out a heck of a lot.
All Priest did was continue to smirk, so much so that I wanted nothing more than to wipe that stupid smirk off his attractive face. God, why’d he have to be so nice to look at? And why on God’s green earth did he have to be shirtless?
I stepped away from Priest as I said, “And for your information, I’ve never been kissed, either. As if I’d want to give my first kiss to any of you. Please.” I flicked both Bishop and Priest off as I went to my room, pulling a Deacon.
It was only once I was alone in my room that I realized what I’d let slip. Not only did these guys know I was a virgin, but now they also knew I’d never been kissed before. Never had a boyfriend, never been kissed, never had sex. The trifecta.
Was it too much to hope they’d let it go?