Chapter 7 #2
I nodded and stayed, watching the game play out. Deacon beat Kira, but not by much. It was pretty neck-and-neck for a while.
I joined in on the next round, and we played until nearly eleven o’clock.
“I’m exhausted,” Kira said after finally beating Deacon and I and doing a small victory dance—which we all agreed she earned. “I’m going to head to bed.” She came over and gave me a hug. “Thanks for a great Christmas, Mom. I can tell you really tried to make it special. You did a great job.”
Well, if that didn’t hit me hard in the feels, I wasn’t sure what would. I hugged her back, my throat tight, and the backs of my eyes burning. “Merry Christmas, sugarplum. I’m glad you had a nice day. I love you.” I kissed her cheek.
“I love you too, Mom.”
“Goodnight, Coach,” she said, offering him a friendly smile and wave. “Thanks for bringing those awesome potatoes.”
“It’s all about the roasted garlic,” he said with a big smile of his own.
We waited until we heard her finish up in the bathroom—I had my own en suite bathroom—and her bedroom door closed.
“Listen,” Deacon started, his eyes turning pleading, “I’m really sorry about the other night in your car.”
I shook my head. “I should be apologizing to you. I … I handled that terribly.” I knew that I didn’t handle it terribly, but somehow it felt like the right thing to say.
It was his turn to shake his head. “No. You’re right. We can’t jeopardize Kira’s future on the team. And some of the parents can be … intense.”
“You’re being kind,” I said with a scoff. “I’ve known them for three weeks and already I can tell the Karens and Chads from the rest.”
He nodded. “Yeah. And the last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you or Kira.”
“I appreciate that.” My gaze shifted awkwardly around the room before I stood up and peeled back the drapes. It was a complete and utter whiteout.
“Yeah, I checked a little while ago,” he said, remorse in his voice. “Plow hasn’t come through, and it’s really piled up.”
“I’ll go get some sheets from the linen closet upstairs,” I replied, closing the drapes and heading to the stairs.
I’d only made it to the bottom of the stairs when I stopped and looked up.
Mistletoe hung from the ceiling. That absolutely was not there earlier today.
And there was only one person in this house who was tall enough to put it there.
The giraffe.
I stomped out to the living room, tossing my hands on my hips and glaring at him as he tidied up the cards and cribbage board. “Is that some kind of a joke?”
Deacon blinked at me in confusion. “Is what?”
“The mistletoe.”
“What mistletoe?” He still pretended he had no idea.
Squinting at him, I shook my head. “Don’t play games, Deacon.
” Then I stomped away, back to the scene of the crime.
He was smart enough to follow me. I pointed to the hanging symbol of love.
“I’m not tall enough to put that there, and neither is Kira, so that leaves one person in this house tall enough to fasten that to the ceiling. ”
He lifted his eyebrows as he studied the plastic fake foliage. “Climb the stairs,” he said, his voice even.
I scoffed.
“Climb the stairs, Greta,” he said, with an edge to his tone now.
Reluctantly, and still very pissed off, I hiked up the stairs the eight steps before he told me to stop.
“Lean forward and see if you can touch the ceiling from there,” he said. “There’s a significant slope to the ceiling.”
Glaring at him, but humoring his experiment just to prove him wrong, I did as he instructed. And, fuck, I could touch the ceiling and the mistletoe. Heat flooded my face.
His brows rose. “I didn’t put it there.”
“Well, neither did I,” I said, climbing down a few steps, but remaining under the decoration. Deacon and I were the same height.
“Kira?” he asked, though we both knew it was a rhetorical question.
“Why?” I shook my head in disbelief.
He shrugged. “Maybe she wants to see her mom happy?”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I whispered. “You have your whole life ahead of you. I’m … I’ve got a kid.”
“A great kid.”
“Who is almost a teenager.”
“So?”
“I don’t think I want anymore kids. I did … once, but raising a teenager and a baby? I don’t think that’s the way my life is meant to go.”
“Who said anything about more kids? About a baby?” His gaze roamed my face. “Greta, we haven’t even kissed yet and you’re already talking about kids.”
“Because I have a kid. Because this is what grownups talk about. You’re going to want kids one day, right? So this would never work … not long-term, anyway. And what would your parents say?”
“Who said I wanted kids?”
“You don’t?”
He shrugged again. “Just because I work with kids and am great with them doesn’t mean I need my own. I’ve never been one of those people who feel like I have to have kids to make an impact. They’re not a make-or-break deal for me. And as for my parents? Who gives a shit?”
“Deacon …”
“You’re coming up with a million excuses, Greta, but what you haven’t said is that you don’t want this. That you’re not attracted to me.”
I nibbled on my lip, studying his chiseled, angular features. “I …”
“I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen. Since the moment you brought Kira to her first swim practice and you had a big coffee stain on your cream-colored sweater.”
My mouth dropped open.
“I thought my infatuation would go away. And I’ve had girlfriends who I tried to put above you, but …
” he shook his head, “no one ever has.” His large Adam’s apple bobbed on a swallow.
“If you don’t feel even remotely the same, then I will back off.
I will respect the boundary you’ve set and treat you like any other parent.
But if there’s even a small part of you that wonders …
that has thought about me as more than that pimply-faced, squeaky-voiced teenager, then … ”
Where was my voice? Why wasn’t I able to say anything?
“I’m in love with you. I want you, and I’m incredibly attracted to you. I’m putting all my cards on the table here.” He glanced up at the mistletoe. “And maybe Kira wouldn’t be as traumatized by the idea as we once thought?”
My gaze followed his to the mistletoe, and I blinked several times, processing his words and trying to make sense of everything he had just said.
Deacon George was quite possibly, the sexiest man alive, and he wanted me. Me.
“Deacon …” Want, hope, and need zealously swirled together inside of me, creating an intoxicating cocktail far more potent than the wine.
He took a step toward me, but he couldn’t come any closer without having to climb the stairs.
Our eyes locked. Heat filled every crevice around my heart, and those turkey-comatose butterflies woke up with a second-wind.
Then his hand came up, and he cupped my jaw, his pinky resting against my neck, against my raging pulse.
“Can’t waste the mistletoe,” he said, keeping his eyes locked on mine as he slowly moved in, pulling me forward just a little.
I moved in too, my eyes fluttering shut just before our lips met.
And holy father, son and spirit, this man could kiss.
The way his tongue so effortlessly slipped inside my mouth, not forcefully, not aggressively, but just …
perfectly. And it didn’t stay there. He’d push it in for a bit, then pull it out and kiss me without tongue, nibble my bottom lip a little, then slide that tongue back in again.
I let him lead it entirely and guide my body to how he needed it, tilting my head a little more and taking possession, taking control.
It’d been ages since I had handed over the reins to someone else—for anything—and I only found myself hesitating for a second. The next thing I knew, I was being swept into his arms and carried upstairs to my bedroom.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he said, lying me down on the bed.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
That pulled a cocky smirk to his mouth. “You can’t tell me you don’t want me?”
I did the double-negative math in my head, and then nodded. “Yeah.”
“Because you do want me?”
I nodded again. “Yeah.”
“I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize Kira’s life on the team. Or your life.”
There was so much to work out, but at the moment, after that kiss, that was for future Greta to figure out. Right now, this Greta wanted him to take off his shirt and kiss me again.
I sat up and reached for the hem of his shirt. “We’ll sort it out later.”
He allowed me to peel off his sweater, and I was unable to control the gasp that came out of my mouth about as well as I was able to control the weather. “That shouldn’t be legal,” I whispered, hesitantly reaching up and trailing my hands over the sculpted ridges of his torso.
“Why do you think I never take my shirt off at practice?”
Snorting, I smiled and shook my head. “Afraid of being hauled away by the Handsome Police?”
“They exist. I’ve done time before.”
I swatted his hard chest and rolled my eyes.
“Your turn,” he said, his voice smooth like honey.
“M-my turn?”
“You’ve seen me without my shirt. Fair is fair.
” His fingers came to the hem of my fuzzy black sweater, and I lifted my arms so he could remove the fabric from my body.
I ran on the treadmill in my garage almost daily, but I wasn’t ripped like Mr. Universe here.
Instinctively, I went to cover my stomach when he tossed the sweater to the floor, but he quickly took my hands, lacing his fingers through mine. “Don’t.”
I swallowed and met his eyes. “I don’t get it,” I whispered.
“Don’t get what?”
“What … what do you see in me?”
Surprise filled his gaze. “I don’t get it,” he finally said, echoing me. My eyes narrowed in confusion as he lowered himself over top of me on the bed, cradling my face in his hands, our gazes locked. “I don’t get what you don’t see in yourself.”
Lust flooded my veins, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to mine, wrapping my legs around his torso and grinding my pelvis into his. Even if that was a line from a movie or something, it was a good line, and I was a hungry minnow with no qualms about biting.
We might only have tonight, but Deacon George wanted me, and it was high time I gave myself a Christmas present.
Santa had been extra stingy with me this year …
or maybe he just delivered me Deacon George rather than anything in my stocking.
I’d be sure to write the fat, bearded man a thank-you letter.
After the orgasms, of course.