14. Charlie
Chapter 14
Charlie
Not yet, beautiful .
Deacon’s words swam through my mind for the past hour. I didn’t know how to act throughout dinner and now that we were sitting on his sofa together watching the fire roar in the hearth with a cup of hot chocolate between my hands…well, I still didn’t know how to act.
Did he mean that he fully intended on kissing me eventually? Or was he just trying to ward me off so I wouldn’t bring it up again?
After another ten minutes of reeling through all the possible scenarios of what he meant, I decided to shut that part of myself off. If Deacon didn’t want to kiss me, that was fine.
I was fine.
Everything was fine.
I sighed before taking a sip of my hot cocoa and tried to focus on the sweet warmth as it traveled down my throat.
Casper laid between us, and I was thankful for the barrier so that I wouldn’t make a fool of myself again. Just being close to Deacon was proving to muddy my mind in ways I wasn’t sure I would ever recover from.
But I could handle it. I’d become good at packing things away in a pretty little box so they didn’t bother me anymore. Really, it was something I’d done my entire life without trying. Perspective was everything. You could either be grumpy that it’s pouring down on you or you could dance in the rain. And I loved to dance.
So, I shrugged off the remnants of my sour attitude and gazed into the flickering flames.
After a few minutes, the leather sofa creaked, and I could feel Deacon’s eyes on me. I slid my gaze to him and raised my eyebrows.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” Another compliment that I tossed to the side. If Deacon wanted me, he was going to have to actually show me after all the shenanigans he’d been pulling.
But there was no reason for me to give him the silent treatment. We were stuck here together as wind whistled through the trees outside, bringing even more snow with it.
“I was just thinking about my papa and how much he loved having bonfires.” I rubbed at my scar. The skin around it was getting more irritated by the day, but Deacon didn’t grab my ointment from under the bathroom sink when he brought some of my things over from the tiny cabin.
“Oh yeah?” Deacon’s smile wasn’t as bright as the one from earlier, but he almost seemed more at ease with the gesture. Like something inside of him had cracked open and the barrier to his happiness had crumbled, giving him free reign to enjoy it again.
I decided that I loved every version of his smile right then.
Swallowing, I looked away. I was so far in over my head and the sensation of drowning was taking hold of me and I wasn’t sure if Deacon would be my life raft or the one who pulled me under.
“Every fall he would have a big party at his house to celebrate the new season and after we’d barbeque for most of the day, we’d end it with a giant bonfire in his backyard. People from all over the neighborhood would come by to see it and gather around as the new season crept in.”
A lightness took hold of my chest as I thought back to those times. “After a few glasses of merlot, he’d sneak over to me and pull me in for a side hug. Then he’d point to the fire and ask me if I could see the layers in the flames like he could.
“When I was younger, I thought he was just buzzed and crazy so I would laugh it off like he was just teasing me. But when I grew older, I took a moment to actually look and noticed there are, in fact, layers to the flames. The tip of the flame always burned a vivid yellow that would cascade downward into a sunset orange and even further still into shades of blue until finally ending with the hidden heat of the clear flame.
“I’ll never forget the night I told him when I finally saw them. His face lit up like a shooting star and that was when he told me that people were much like those flames. We had the parts of ourselves that everyone could see. The parts that we chose to show to the outside world. The parts we only showed to those closest to us.” My voice grew distant as I thought back to that pivotal moment in my life when something I’d tossed to the side had become so strikingly clear to me and the dawning realization that it had been in front of me all along. I just chose not to look at it. But when I finally did, it was pure magic.
I was thankful I saw what my papa did before he passed away and that he could share that life lesson with me.
“And what about the last layer of the flame? The clear part?” Deacon asked.
Calm curiosity danced in his eyes when I finally looked at him again. “That’s the hidden part that we don’t even show ourselves.” My lips pulled back in a gentle smile. “But if we’re lucky, someone will be able to uncover it for us.”
Deacon’s face fell and for a moment I could see the devastation he’d witnessed throughout his life written in the shadows that flickered across his face.
“Or at least that’s what my papa said,” I offered, trying to break the tension, but it didn’t work.
Deacon stilled and I swore he saw those very hidden parts of me with those green eyes that I’d thought about more times than I liked to admit to myself since the first time I saw them.
“How do you do it?”
I rubbed at my scar again, suddenly feeling agitated. “Do what?” I asked defensively.
“See life through such rose-colored glasses and not have anything affect you.”
His words felt like a slap in the face and my neck recoiled as I pulled back and gaped at him.
“Not have things affect me? You don’t know anything about me.”
He leaned forward and his eyes narrowed on me. Challenging me. “You’re happy all the time. You make the best of things and don’t bat an eye at trials that come your way. I know men who have fought in wars who, if they went through what you did the day of that fire, wouldn’t be able to even be around an active hearth, let alone tell a nice story about bonfires. So”—his voice was stern as he moved closer to me—“how do you do it?”
“I…” Heat rolled over me in waves at his command and I hated how much I liked it when he told me what to do. When he demanded things from me. He was so bossy and gruff, and I wanted more of it because it pulled at something in me. Some hidden desire that hadn’t shown itself until he came along.
“I live for the people who lost their lives.” The words came out on a hushed breath. “It feels wrong to let the time I was given go to waste when their time was cut short.”
His head cocked to the side. He was studying me like I was some abstract painting that he was trying to find meaning in. Part of me shied away under his scrutiny, but another part—perhaps the louder one—liked that he was observing me. I wanted his eyes on me. I wanted him to see me.
“Does that satisfy you?” I asked and then rubbed at my scar again. The itch was starting to drive me insane.
For a moment I thought he might have been frozen in place, then his gaze flicked down to where my palm rubbed against my ribs.
“It’s bothering you a lot tonight.”
My hand stilled.
“It’s fine.” I tossed my hair over my shoulder and tried to look away but found my eyes settling back on him again.
“It’s the dry air,” he said before rising from the couch and disappearing down the hall.
“Where are you going?” I leaned forward and called after him.
No response.
Casper’s head popped up and he blinked slowly at me. He was probably wondering why I was causing such a fuss and disrupting his beauty sleep.
“Don’t blame me. He’s the one who’s being a total weirdo right now.” Disinterested in my antics, he settled his chin back on the blanket and closed his eyes right as Deacon reappeared with a small container in his hand.
“What’s that?” I pointed at the container.
“Come to the edge of the couch.” He gestured with his hands before kneeling in front of me.
I sat still for a moment contemplating whether or not I wanted to listen to him. He was being so damn bossy and right now, I didn’t want him to get away with it. Mostly because I liked the idea of defying him. Testing his limits to see what he might do. What he might command me to do next.
Calm patience reflected in his gaze as he waited for me to move, and I had a feeling he was used to waiting out others given his military background.
Rolling my eyes and huffing in frustration, I moved to the edge of the couch.
“Lift your sweater,” he ordered, nodding toward me.
“No.”
“Yes,” he growled.
“I can do it myself,” I said sternly, zipping my lips into a tight line.
Something like irritation flashed across his face. “You’ve taken care of me all day. Let me do this for you.” There was an earnestness in his voice that illuminated the connection between us once more. My mind whirled from his back and forth. One minute, he’s rejecting me and the next he wants me to expose the most vulnerable part of myself to him like it’s nothing.
Without another word, I lifted my knit sweater and watched his face turn to stone as he noted the large scar that ran from just below the cup of my bra down the side of my right rib cage. Most of the time, it was hidden from the world—myself included. Now, it was front and center for the man who gave me butterflies and infuriated me all at once.
Deacon’s Adam’s Apple bobbed as he swallowed, still staring at my marred skin. I wondered what he was thinking about. If it brought him back to that moment the way it did for me every time I saw it in the mirror. When the darkness finally took me, and his stunning green eyes were the last thing I thought I would see before my death.
I watched as he shifted in front of me and unscrewed the lid to the glass jar he held. His fingers dipped into the white salve. I held my breath as he smoothed the substance around his fingers.
“So it doesn’t feel cold,” he said, leveling his gaze on me. Even kneeling, he was taller than me sitting on the couch, and I wondered how many other people saw him like this. If he’d knelt in front of any other woman before.
The thought of him being with anyone else sent a jolt of jealousy through me. I shook the unwanted images from my mind.
When his fingers finally slid over my ribs with the balm, I felt a surge of relief. Not just from the itchiness of my dry skin, but from his touch that I’d come to crave. He concentrated intently, his brows furrowing slightly as he ran the salve down the swoop of my side and over the edge of my hip bone.
As my heart raced, I silently hoped he couldn’t tell how affected I was by his touch. I was still trying to figure him out and while I knew I was vulnerable; I didn’t want him to see just how vulnerable I was.
Then, his hand moved upward, and his fingers grazed the edge of my bra. I sucked in a sharp breath as heat pooled in my center and the apex of my thighs began to throb with need. He was close. So, so close.
Those pine green eyes looked at me and I could see the need that reflected back at me as his fingers stilled just below my right breast. He licked his lips and the room around me started to tilt when his palm splayed against my ribs. With the slightest pressure, he dug his fingertips beneath the underwire of my bra.
Breaths heavy, I felt my body give in to the battle that my mind had been trying to win. With my eyes fluttering closed, I leaned my forehead onto his lips.
“You keep dragging me around. Giving me whiplash. One second, you’re rejecting me and the next, you’re looking at me like I’m the most treasured painting in the entire world.” Trying my best to break through the haze of lust, I leaned back and let the absence of his lips on my forehead sober me.
“I want to just let myself be with you, Deacon. But you keep making it so hard to know what you’re thinking.” I covered the hand he had over my skin with my own and continued. “When you touch me,” I whispered. “I don’t ever want it to stop.”
Still as stone, Deacon just watched me as I tilted my face toward his and rubbed the tip of my nose under his chin and along his jawline. “I felt it then too. When I was in your arms the day of the fire and you were carrying me down the hall. I could have died right then and some part of me would have been okay with it because you felt like home. But I also knew that you wouldn’t let my life end there. I knew with my entire soul that you would have done anything to get me out of that building. And you did.”
His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply and clamped his eyes shut, shaking his head. “You can’t say those things to me.”
“Why? Why won’t you just let me in?” My heart ached as I pleaded with him. Taking his head between my hands, he burrowed the side of his face into my grasp.
When he opened his eyes again, my chest was crushed under the weight of the fear that danced in his irises. “Because you are light in its purest form, and I am nothing but the darkness that will drive that light away. And I can’t seem to stop wanting you, no matter how hard I try. I am no good, Charlie and I’ve already ruined a part of you once.” He glanced at my bare skin where the scar was still exposed, his hand still splayed over top of it.
Everything clicked into place. Why he didn’t visit me in the hospital. The slamming of his front door in my face. The hot and cold attention I’d received from him since I arrived.
This beautiful, incredible man who saved my life was broken. So terribly broken and that fragility woke something deep inside of me. A need to protect. To shield him from himself.
“Deacon,” I whispered his name. “This”—Covering his hand with my own again, I pressed his palm further against my scar—“was not your fault.”
A wave of torment shuddered across his face. His voice cracked as he spoke, “I stopped. In the middle of that hallway, Charlie, I stopped running. If I just would have kept going, the ceiling wouldn’t have collapsed on us, and you wouldn’t have?—”
“Shhh,” I pressed my finger to his lips. Looking down at me, he stopped talking, but I could still see the regret of that moment written in the shadows of his face.
I needed it to go away. His pain. His regret. His self-loathing. I needed him to see what I saw in him. So, I pressed my lips to his cheek. Then the other.
When I pulled back, his long black lashes lifted and his chest rose as he inhaled deeply.
“It wasn’t your fault, Deacon.” I shook my head back and forth, then leaned forward again until our foreheads touched. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Our breaths intertwined and with every rise and fall of his chest, mine rose and fell too.
Then, I kissed him.