29. Char
CHAR
In the middle of the darkness behind my eyelids, it felt like I was being watched. Heat caressed my face and trickled down my neck, so I did my best to keep my breathing steady. Maybe if I faked being asleep, they’d go away.
“I know you’re awake, little one,” Deac said.
My heart leapt into my throat. I didn’t like the sound of his voice. It sounded menacing. Like he was here to torture me some more. Would it be sweet, delectable torture, though?
My yearning for him was enough to turn over and open my eyes.
“Deacon?” I asked groggily.
The bed at my feet bowed. I picked my head up and found him sitting there, his feet planted into the floor.
His hands laced together between his knees.
Nighttime still blanketed the world outside, and with the blueish hue streaming in from the bedroom window, Deacon almost looked angelic.
Like a fallen angel, sent to protect this place.
But, when I heard a sound that I couldn’t place, I craned my neck just enough to see that his fingers weren’t actually laced together.
I thought they had been, given they were just dangling there between his knees.
However, I saw his wrists flexing. I saw the muscles of his forearms twitching.
And when I heard that sound again, I saw the glint of a knife blade pop up just beyond his knee.
Oh God, he was sharpening a knife.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Not if you tell me the truth.”
SHHHHHHINK!
My mouth felt like cotton when I replied. “The truth about what?”
SHHHHHINK!
“About you.”
SHHHHHINK!
My breathing grew ragged as I licked my lips. But, it was no use. “I’ve been telling you the truth all along, and you don’t want to hear it.”
SHHHHHINK!
“Then, let’s try one more time,” he said as he held up the knife to inspect it in the moonlight.
I was done with his games. “I have nothing else to say. So, if you’re gonna kill me, then kill me.”
Ladies, never challenge a man who likes a good one, because the instant those words fell from my lips, he moved so quickly that it stunned me.
My eyes widened as my back fell to the bed.
Something cold and hard pressed against my throat as Deacon’s face infiltrated my personal space.
His blade caressed my pulse point. His eyes grew wild as he studied my face.
And as he hovered over me, planting his knee in between my comforter-laden legs, he licked his lips.
“Who are you working for?” he asked.
I blinked. “Uh, you guys at the bar?”
He pressed the blade harder against my neck. “Let’s try that again. Who are you working for?”
“You guys at the bar. You are my new bosses,” I said quickly.
He clicked his tongue. “Tsk tsk, little one. And here I thought you had learned your lesson earlier.”
I tried backing away from him, but it was no use. However I tried to move, he countered. Wherever I went, he followed. My body ached, and my ass screamed out for attention, and it still hurt to swallow from Dallas’s?—.
“Who are you working for?” Deacon growled. “Who was that recording for?”
“What—what recording? Deacon, you’re not making any sense.”
“Don’t lie to me!” he roared as spittle dropped onto my face. “Don’t you dare lie to me!”
My lower lip quivered. “I swear, Deacon, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I will slit your throat where you lay and leave you gurgling in your own filth if you don’t answer me.”
I swallowed hard. “Then, why does it feel like you’re going to kill me anyway?”
His head tilted. “Try me.”
He wanted the truth, so I gave him the truth. No matter how much it hurt to say.
“It was for me,” I said breathlessly.
His eyes danced between mine. “Clarify.”
I closed mine and accepted my fate. “After what happened with my father, I promised that I’d always protect those around me. Always. You know, like I couldn’t protect her.”
I felt his knife waver, but it didn’t release my neck as its hostage.
“Miss Lilly took me in when I had nowhere else to go. When I was nothing but a woman living in her car, bebopping from town to town doing whatever it took to find some gas and hotel money. She gave me a job, and a place to live. Regular meals, and a place at a table to eat. Her? DeShawn? M.J.? They’re the only friends I’ve ever had in my entire life, and when you guys swept in and forced Miss Lilly out?
I told myself that I’d get to the bottom of why. ”
Finally, his knife backed off a bit. “Continue.”
I sniffled. “I told myself that I’d figure out what the hell was so fucking important that you had to ruin my life again in order to get it. That’s why I took the recording, Deacon. You took my home from me, again. My life from me, again. And all I want is for you to give it back.”
His body heat moved away from me as I released the ragged breath I had been holding in.
“What were you going to do with the recording?” he asked.
I sniffled again as I opened my eyes, allowing more pathetic tears to leak down my face. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet, Deac. Jesus. I’m just a stupid girl trying t?—”
“Don’t stop.”
I snickered, but I did as he asked. “I hadn’t gotten that far yet. It’s not like I could take it to the police or anything. I’m sure you guys have friends there or whatever, considering your… arrangement with them.”
“You mean, offering our services to them.”
“Yep.”
I was shocked to hear him sigh. “That’s a deal my father brokered when he was still President of our crew.”
I felt the bed dip back down at my feet, but he didn’t respond.
I knew my curiosity would kill me one of these days, but the knife was no longer at my throat and that gave me the confidence I needed to take a peek.
I watched Deacon tuck that knife back into his pocket.
I watched him put the grind stone in the coat pocket of his leather jacket.
He sat there, with those legs of his spread for the masses, and I’d never seen a strong man like him so distraught.
And of course, my gaze fell right into his lap before he started chuckling.
“Like what you see?”
My face burned red as I quickly laid back down. “So, there you have it. The truth. Happy?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
“I don’t like your truth, but I can respect it.”
I cleared my throat as I stared up at the ceiling. “So, you guys are part of a crew?”
“A motorcycle crew, yes.”
I knew there was a good chance he’d go back on his word and kill me for asking, but what the hell did I have to lose? The bar was gone. Miss Lilly hadn’t been seen since she took her money and ran. Everything was gone.
Again.
At that point, it didn’t matter if I lived or died.
The loneliness and darkness would still be the same either way.
“Why did you guys really purchase the bar, Deac?” I asked softly.
He groaned in frustration. “Can’t tell you that, Char.”
I nodded slowly before I turned over onto my side, facing my back to Deacon. “I’d like to be alone now.”
That’s when Deacon chuckled again. “You don’t want a reward for being a good little girl?”
I closed my eyes as I clamped my thighs together. “No.”
In an instant, I was pinned on my stomach.
His hand, wrapped tightly into the tendrils of my hair as the cold metal blade of his knife pressed back up to my pulse point.
His knee shoved its way in between my legs.
I scooted my hips up, trying to get away from him.
But, all it did was stick my welted ass in the air for his viewing pleasure.
“You look so good with my marks,” he hummed.
I whimpered softly. “Deac.”
“Don’t start lying to me now, little one,” he said as he traced my neck with the blunt end of his knife. “Now, don’t you want a reward for being a good little one for me?”
I knew that if I’d cave, I’d never stop caving. I knew that if I had him again, I’d let him take me. Over and over. Until he had no more use for me. He was powerful, and brutal, and so oddly gentle when the time called for it.
He was mesmerizing to me.
“No,” I whispered.
“Suit yourself,” he murmured.
Before he cocked his hand back and cracked it against my sore ass.
“Deac! Ah!”
“Tell me the truth,” he growled.
I shook my head. “I can’t. I just—I just can’t.”
THWACK!
“Deacon!”
“Tell. The truth,” he glowered.
SMACK!
My legs quaked beneath his assault. “If I say yes, I’ll never stop.”
He paused. “What?”
I relaxed into the pillow he had my cheek pressed into. “If I say yes, I’ll never stop saying yes. And I just?—”
He leaned toward the shell of my ear. “You just what?”
Oh, what was the use, anyway? “And I just can’t handle bringing more people in my life to lose.”
His lips dropped to my shoulder, and I hissed as he kissed me. Soft, impeccable kisses that left a warm trail of wanton lust wherever he placed them.
“Good girl,” he purred as his hand dipped down between my legs. “We’ll get you better at telling the truth the first time around.”
“W-w-w—we?” I asked.
His fingers found my clit. “Yes. We.”
“Oh, fuck,” I moaned into the pillow.
I didn’t care what I sounded like. I didn’t care what I looked like. All I cared about were his soft ministrations as his lips traveled down my spine. He kissed every divot. He licked every crevice of my curves. His fingers danced languidly, teasing me until my juices dripped against his palm.
“So wet for me,” he said before he placed a kiss against my burning ass cheek.
“Sssss,” I hissed.
“God,” he growled, “you smell incredible.”
He moved his fingers away and I heard him licking.
Sucking. He kissed my welts, sending undulating waves of relaxation throughout my body.
I rocked back against him. I felt his thumb teasing my swollen entrance before he sank his digit in.
He grabbed my hair, hoisting my face up so that he could hear my sounds.
And as I cried out his name, he stuffed another finger into my hungry hole.
“Deeeeac!”
“Yes,” he growled.
“Deacon. Deacon. Deacon,” I grunted as I bucked back against his hand.
“You’re my little cumslut, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes,” I chanted.
His fingers moved quicker. “You want to mark me, don’t you?”
“Oh, God,” I groaned.
“You want me to fill you up, don’t you? Watch the cum drip out from your tight little hole as you spread yourself for me.”
I’d never felt so alive. “Yes. All of it. More. Please, Deac. Please.”
He bent down and kissed my aching ass again. “Then, cum for me, you little whore. Show me how good of a girl you can be, and maybe one of these days I’ll reward you by fucking you in front of the whole crew.”
“Oh, fuck.”
He nipped at my welts. “I’ll fuck you so deep that no man will ever be able to touch you that way ever again.”
My toes curled. “So close. So close. So close.”
“And when you least expect it,” he growled as my back arched, “you’ll promise me the world in exchange for your soul.”
My orgasm crashed over me. “Deacoooooon!”
“There’s a good little slut,” he growled.
Never had I experienced anything like that before.
His words stoked a fire in my gut, turning me into a wanton puddle of fuckable nonsense.
I relished the way his fingers spread me.
I drooled against the pillow as fireworks burst behind my eyes.
I allowed my body to float into the heavens until my stomach crashed back down to the mattress.
I felt a blanket flutter over my naked back before his gravelly voice sounded in my ear.
“Get some sleep, little one. You’re going to need your strength.”
And as he exited my room, I wondered what ever happened to him.
I wondered what had happened to Deac that forced him to bury the kind man I knew, deep down, was still inside of him.