59. Henri
Chapter 59
Henri
Make him stop hiding. I can almost feel him. I’m so sure, my wolf begs, thinking about Deacon.
He drank this morning. And then I saw him pop a pill from a prescription bottle at the courthouse. He’s not sober, and I know we both must be without substances in our system to recognize our mates.
His hand has been warming mine and quelling the raging storm that drives me to want to be connected. But surely, it’s the heat talking. I’m sleep-deprived and homesick. I’ve worked nearly around the clock for the last week. The heat is playing on the fact that I’m touch starved and tired.
While at Ansel’s, I avoided Deacon, focusing on work and making things better with Cade. I had intended to try to talk to Deacon, to get to this comfort level with him, especially with this... disaster. I just never did. The worst and best part of Deacon is, other than last night, he’s completely respected me pushing him away and telling him to keep his distance.
He could have been with us this whole time. My wolf scolds me. It would have been so good with him .
The memory of us on the floor in the living room brings back all the emotions. He’s perfect .
My body flushes again, and it stirs the fire within me. I’ve had a taste of sex with Deacon. That single taste explains the social media page dedicated to people who have hooked up with Deacon, well, and Ezra.
Or at least have claimed to. Some, I’ve been able to verify and others not so much. But my looking was purely business.
The Cousins Grimm’s... proclivities... are well documented. There are some details that, unless you’ve spent time with Deacon, wouldn’t have been detected, mostly because there aren’t that many pictures of him online, and after extensive digging, I know there’s only one where he’s without a shirt.
We could take a bite out of that thigh. My wolf imagines his firm ass that we’ve seen just before he’s shifted.
It’s the heat talking, I remind myself.
There’s no way I would be thinking about biting his thigh otherwise.
Trying to distract myself, I pull out my phone. “Should I try to find accommodations somewhere? I guess, do you need directions? Do we know where we’re going?”
Too many questions at once. Good job, Henri. Let’s just freak out.
Removing his only hand that was on the steering wheel, he increases the danger by pulling his phone from the pocket of his door. He angles it toward me so I can see his maps app is running. “I’ve got the navigation turned on, so she’ll talk to us, but it’s pretty much a straight shot along this highway to South Dakota and then straight on the ninety to home.”
My face heats, and I’m wondering if it’s from embarrassment or another hot flash.
“Why don’t you scout another two hours ahead for food and a hotel. We can start getting you fueled for your heat, and once we get to a hotel, I’ll crash. We can get back on the road around after midnight,” he suggests, and I start making myself busy.
A hundred and twenty emails alone are waiting in my inbox for attention, but I can’t focus. There are also a ton of text messages. And before flipping into the map app, I open those.
Cade:
Use the pack card for anything you need. I mean it, Henri. Next two weeks. Anything you need. It’s literally the least I can do.
I’ve had your assistant take over your calls and emails. Your team and the Corinth Security PR team will be able to handle anything in the aftermath.
I’m not implying there are problems, but if there are any, they’ll be covered, to ease your mind.
Lena:
I know I’m sorry doesn’t help. But I am. I’ve already started conversations with the board.
I feel terrible for not having a contingency for something like this in place.
Dinah:
You’re going to be okay.
I know it’s scary, especially if you haven’t done this in a while. But trust your body and go with it.
Trust Deacon.
Someday, I’ll adjust to my boss’s entire family knowing my life and problems, but that’s some soul-searching for another day .
“Everything okay on that side of the car?” Deacon drums his fingers against the steering wheel.
“Yeah. It’s fine,” I answer.
A low groan comes from him. “Can I be honest with you for a second?”
“Uh. Sure?”
Deacon scrubs his hand down his face. “You’re a really shitty fucking liar. I’ve told you, Henri. I’ve already judged you and decided that I love you. That’s not going to change. So be honest about what’s happening.”
“It’s just that everyone in your life is so loving and supportive. It probably sounds dumb, but I just don’t know how to deal with everyone trying to take care of me. And I like it, but what if they stop? It will hurt too much to start caring about people and accept that they care about me when they quit.” My voice falters when I say those words. “I am sorry.”
“Henri.” Deacon’s voice is soft and sweet. “I can’t think of a single act you could personally commit that they wouldn’t forgive you for.”
“Murder?” I’m quick to offer.
My wolf huffs in disagreement. Deacon would love us more if you did that.
“Oh, Henri. We’ll help you dispose of the body.” Deacon smiles and shakes his head. “But don’t lie to me. Please, don’t lie to me,” he pleads.
“Okay,” I agree. “I’ll try to do better.”
I go back to my emails. I know Cade told me to take the time off, but while I feel fine, I have to do something, and trying to play catch-up on the game of rescheduling Cade’s events is something to focus on that isn’t the elephant in the vehicle. But there’s an unexpected email sitting on top of my inbox .
“Huh.” I open it up, recognizing the email as one Nathan uses for his online gaming stuff.
“Huh, what?” Deacon spares me a sideways glance.
“Oh, it’s not—” Really, Henri? You just promised to try to stop lying to him. I swallow and start again. “Nathan sent me an email with an account he doesn’t ever really use, and I’m just wondering... why? Like he quit messaging me entirely. So, why a complete change of contact now?”
“About that.” Deacon starts to pass a slow-moving minivan on the open road. “We, uh.”
“You what?” I skim his message, cringing.
Deacon draws a deep breath, letting it out with a groan. “When we put you on time-out, the tech guys did something to clone your phone number, and there’s now a set list of contacts who have instant access to you. The contacts we disallowed get filtered out like spam. Well, exactly like a spam filter. Unknown and blocked numbers can get through because of the usage of those for the high-profile people and their offices. We’re working on a system for that, but we were kind of short on time.”
“Deacon,” I growl. “The whole point of not blocking him was so that he wouldn’t try to contact me through di—” I cut myself off, shaking my head. They were doing a nice thing. I needed the mental space to deal with Ansel’s stuff. “Well, one got through.”
“I gathered.” Deacon sighs. “I’m sorry, Hen. I should have told you, but I saw some of the messages. Cade made it a point to tell me how much they upset you, and Finn told me the volume. I just made a judgment call on it. I thought he’d have given up by now.”
“Yeah. No. He didn’t, and now it’s... These messages are... distastefully explicit. It’s like he knew how many pills I had left.” I look at the message. Crude sex acts laid out in bad form. It seems so out of character for him. “How did this get past?”
“Well, it’s not a content block, I didn’t want your privacy invaded.” Deacon maneuvers us back into the right-hand lane.
“Well, maybe we should.” My cheeks heat, and this feels more like embarrassment than a hot flash. “He literally just wrote that he wants to stick his schlong into my lady garden and spray me down with his fire hose of cum.”
“Oh, that’s bad. I’m getting soft just hearing it.” He shudders.
“That implies you’re hard to start with.” The observation comes out of my mouth before I realize what I’m saying.
Deacon doesn’t contradict me.
I look over at him, and he shrugs, changing lanes and passing a semitruck.
“What? Do you want me to deny it?” Deacon merges back into our original lane after the pass. When I don’t answer, he continues. “Henri, there’s going to come a moment very soon when we’re going to be forced to see a truth that we’ve both been avoiding. But beyond that, on a stupid base, biological level, a male wolf in an SUV with a woman they’re attracted to, going into heat... is going to create a physiological response.”
He knows. My wolf wags her tail. He’s right, we’re mates. Let him claim us. He loves us.
“I.”
“You don’t have to say anything, Hen. I know.” Deacon looks ahead at the road. “Let’s stop and stretch, get some snacks. Figure out where to grab a few hours of sleep. Oh, and forward that email to Adam at Corinth. Just put ‘Deacon said What the fuck? Show this to Millie ’ in the body. She’ll get a kick out of that.”
He’s been holding back. I think about the Wisconsin house and how things didn’t progress after that because he was respecting my decision—or what he understood about it. Then, of course, well, Ansel’s wasn’t exactly the time or the place.
He wants me. And he means it.
After our pit stop, Deacon continues driving. But I’m feeling more and more nervous with every passing mile marker. Memories of my first heat, feelings of being trapped, not safe, and alone, encroach on my well-being.
“How did it work being raised by humans?” Deacon asks.
I’m sure my nerves are practically a third occupant in the car, so he’s just trying to distract me.
I shake my head and am forced to draw a deep breath, but it doesn’t help my panting. “Um. I.” Words don’t come easily; focusing past the pain in my abdomen that never stops, only fluctuating in intensity, is getting impossible. “I was a late bloomer. I didn’t shift at all as a child. From what I’ve learned, shifting is a modeled behavior.”
“True.” He squeezes my hand.
“But when we figured it out, I was a teenager. I was so scared. But I didn’t tell anyone. I was afraid they’d tell me I was crazy or lock me away or—” Through the haze of it, the realization of what Deacon’s lived through pulls a thought out of my brain. He’s been called those things.
“Don’t worry about it. Keep talking. I’m not offended.” Deacon encourages me to tell more of my story.
Nathan never cared about that. My wolf is quick to point out the surmounting differences between them.
“But my adoptive parents saw me shift.” I draw in a deep breath through my nose and try to steady my breathing. “And sure there was”—a slow ragged exhale, but when my lungs empty, I’m forced to take a gasping breath—“a small freak out.” I pause and try to bring my breaths under control, but the pain is getting more intense again.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My wolf whines, and it escapes from my mouth.
“But they just wanted me to find people like me.” I try another deep inhale through my nose and a slow exhale through the mouth. “They were so supportive.”
Am I rambling?
I try to wrap up what I’m saying. With a wince, I suck in a sharp breath to push the words out. “I didn’t find anyone right away. I was looking, but I didn’t even know what to look for.” I have to stop talking again when I run out of air.
Why can’t I just breathe?
Need Deacon, my wolf insists.
“Every time I thought I found shifters, it was humans being weird.” I squeeze Deacon’s hand extra hard as another wave crests.
Fuck him. Please let him fuck us, my wolf begs.
“It wasn’t until I went into heat for the first time that I found someone.” I shift in my seat, trying to relieve some of the pressure in my pelvis.
Deacon growls, maybe in anticipation of the worst-case scenarios. It’s sweet how he cares so deeply for me, even with things he couldn’t ever change.
“It wasn’t like that.” I reassure him. “It could have been. When he found me, fuck, it was like this but scarier. He brought the pack Alpha to me. I was safe. He gave me instructions, ways to get through it. Women from the pack brought me food and water. It was hell, but it could have been worse.” The cramp finally subsides, and I yawn, trying to dispel the stress of the pain. “I know I got lucky. That it could have been bad. I appreciate it so much.”
That seems to alleviate his frustration a bit.
“What about you? Do you do this often?” A new discomfort settles in my stomach. The kind that tells me I’m being judgmental, but I can’t help it nor hold it back.
Deacon draws a deep breath. “I used to guard Lena through her heat. We had an incident with a lone wolf. Cade made it a point to be home after that.”
“Okay.” My breaths are ragged. “We’re not going to make it home, are we?”
“I’m going to try. I’ll push the engine as hard as I can, but it’s not my bike. It’ll only drive this fast for so long.” His answer doesn’t settle my worries.
I groan.
Deacon is silent for a few miles before backtracking the conversation. “To answer your question, yes. I’ve serviced someone through heat before.”
“Deacon,” I gasp as a sharp stab cramps my insides. “I fucking hate him for this,” I growl, and another cramp hits. “Fuck!”
“I hate him too.” Deacon’s soft, calming tone soothes me a tiny bit. “But I’m not beneath spending almost a week making you forget his name.” Deacon clenches his teeth, the muscle feathering along his jawline. “But you’re lawful good. And if I bring you to chaotic evil... it’ll ruin you to be with me.”
“I want you too,” I whine.
I’m reluctant to trust this, and maybe he’s right that biology is playing a major part in my desires, but there’s something about how Deacon cares.
“I know, Hen. I know.” He focuses on the road.
My wolf whines louder, and the pain has me rocking in my seat, trying to relieve the growing need.