68. Deacon
Chapter 68
Deacon
She’s a goddess lying on the bed with pillows surrounding her. The waves of her golden hair pick up rays of sunshine in the late afternoon sun. I haven’t been watching her long while I drink my fifth—sixth?—cup of coffee in the last twenty-four hours, but I’m dreading her temperature returning to normal.
Inside this house, with Henri, it’s been a solace for my soul.
“Oh, she’s a looker.” A voice comes from behind me.
My hackles rise, and I turn to look. The joy of the Black Hills, I’m certain the man before me is an apparition. The man wearing a hat, high-waisted denim jeans, boots, and suspenders over a button-down shirt would have made too much noise coming in the door.
I ignore him, going back to looking at Henri.
His hand passes through my shoulder, causing me to shiver as he walks into the bedroom. He stands and looks at Henri, and I let out a low growl when he bends over the bed to watch her.
“I get it. I get it. You don’t want no one lookin’ at your girl.” He moves on his way out of the house through the wall.
He’s the first one I’ve seen since I’ve been sober.
Because you let me handle it, my wolf notes like I’m the one being ridiculous.
It should be a relief to hear that he’s making a difference, that somehow, he’s figuring out and working the gift.
But I don’t feel control over it.
Another second passes, and another ancestor is in the house. My frustration grows seeing an older woman looking around in the kitchen.
I thought you were handling this.
My wolf is too focused on Henri to even notice or care. The woman looks around the kitchen, and I focus on her, pretending I’ve got a clue how to make this work. Just go away.
Like a mirage dissipating, she fizzles, and then she’s gone.
Would you look at that? He can learn. My wolf gets snarky with me, but I’m too impressed with myself to care that he’s got an attitude today.
That didn’t feel like a fluke, and his confirmation of it lends to reassurance that not all is lost for this world.
I turn back to watching Henri, who is fast asleep, completely unaware of me and the ancestors watching. She’s absolutely perfect.
Claim our mate, my wolf urges me. He’s forward, pushing me toward her.
I set my empty coffee cup down before I oblige him, at least in part, by moving closer to her. The bed dips with my weight, and she stirs, her eyes opening and blinking against the low light.
“Mmmm. Good morning.” Her voice is husky and thick with sleep, and I’m smiling.
I can feel how it pulls at my lips and pushes up my cheeks so genuinely.
“Good evening.” I greet her.
Lowering myself down to the bed a little bit, I kiss the inside of her calf. Her flesh is still hot under my touch. It’s been four days, and her heat isn’t showing signs of letting up.
Henri pushes her legs apart, welcoming me with a gasp.
I kiss and lick up her leg, and when I get to her apex, Henri hooks her finger under my chin and indicates her need. Never one to deny her, I kiss the rest of my way up her flushed pink skin. Painstakingly, I avoid her breasts to kiss her sternum, collarbone, and neck before planting a kiss straight on her lips.
My little minx raises her hips and hooks her legs around behind me, pulling me down to her on the bed. She fists my hair and pulls me closer, deepening the kiss, and I lick her lips, opening her mouth.
She runs her nails down my back and hitches her fingers into my sleep pants. Fumbling with them, she tries to slide them down my hips and growls when she struggles.
“Tell me what you want, Hen,” I murmur against her lips.
“Fuck me,” she demands.
I kiss her nose and back away from her, climbing off the bed. “Come with me.”
She snarls, “No.”
Hand extended to her, I encourage, “Come on. I’ll make it worth it.”
Henri groans, “Fine.”
In only my T-shirt, she lets me lead her out onto the deck and then up the stairs to the upper deck. Aside from the pillows and blankets she was sleeping with, I dragged every single one up here.
This cycle that’s become our life together feels like it needs to come to this, and I’m nervous about whether she’ll like it.
Up on the rooftop deck, there’s an amazing view of the sun sinking down toward the skyline. I moved the little café table and chairs out of the way to make the blanket nest .
“Awww.” Henri looks at it and scurries toward the pillow pile before looking back to me.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I left the knife downstairs.” I laugh, thinking about the first time I made her a blanket nest on the ground. How was that almost a month ago?
Henri looks out at the quiet neighborhood, our single neighbor whose house is empty, and the little wilderness area around us.
She bites her lip, looking back at me. “We can fuck up here?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t see why not.”
Lazily I step toward her, and when I’m within arm’s reach, Henri grabs the hem of my shirt and tugs on it until I’m as close to her as possible. She reaches up and kisses me. The way she claims my mouth only makes me push back harder against her. I entwine my fingers into her hair and pull gently, getting one of those sexy moans from her.
We break the kiss, and I follow Henri down to the mess of pillows on the deck, lying beside her. Henri adjusts next to me until we’re kissing again, hands exploring the flesh we’ve already come to know.
“Too many clothes,” she pants against my lips.
I remove my hand from where I was stroking along her hip to the cord holding up my sweatpants.
Without her on top of me, it’s easier to slide them down, my cock springing free. Henri immediately wraps her hand around it.
“Henri,” I gasp before chastising her. “Let me get my pants off first.”
She snarls at me.
Does she see how much more wolf she already is? Though, maybe it’s just the heat talking.
With a low growl, I press myself up and plant a kiss on her lips. “I’ve let you lead, but don’t think I’m afraid to get a little bit more hands on in all this.”
“Mmmm.” Henri contemplates but doesn’t argue any further with me.
I kick the sweatpants off and pull her on top of me, pressing my fingers into her hips. I counter her statement from earlier. “Too many clothes.”
Seductively, Henri teases me, raising the hem, slowly trailing it up toward her tits, exposing her perfect pink skin along the way. When she frees herself of the T-shirt, I get a full look at her in the early evening sun, the red and golden light casting her in a glow. It’s a near-religious experience seeing her like this, a goddess among mortals.
Gold wolf eyes flicker in the light. And I let mine forward to meet with hers.
If she claims us, we claim her, he demands of me like I would even think of not.
But he knows I won’t tie her to me first.
More practiced, Henri shuffles down my torso to tease my cock with her warmth. My head slides between her folds and presses at her clit until she shifts her hips back so it’s at her entrance.
I groan, my eyes falling closed. “Henri.”
“Yes, Deacon?” She taunts, keeping that slow, steady rocking movement.
“You’re tormenting me.” I shake my head, opening my eyes again.
The view isn’t any less beautiful.
Henri smirks and leans forward, bracing her hands against my pecs, and then she rolls her hips back, impaling herself on me.
My groan echoes in the world around us, and tension flees my body. Henri presses herself off my chest and begins to ride unassisted, playing with her breasts with one hand.
I test my luck and slide my hand down from her hip to work her clit with my thumb. She gasps and grinds down to increase the contact. Rising and falling on my cock and grinding her clit against my thumb, Henri pants as an orgasm rocks through her. She holds back her beautiful screams, but her sexy moans fill the silence and the space surrounding us.
Restraining myself is nearly impossible. Her pussy flutters around my cock, squeezing me and daring me to erupt. I force myself to stay down, my shoulders pressed against the decking, and I’m rigid beneath her.
Henri collapses down on top of me in one swift waterfall of movement. She has me pinned down, and I can tell she’s not done. I can feel the tension in her body and how this new angle is going to change the stimulation she so desperately needs to come again.
Henri’s eyes blaze the yellow gold I love when the animal inside her chooses to come forward. Her fangs elongate, and I tilt my head to the side, exposing my neck, shoulder, and chest as an offering for her to put a fresh mating mark on me.
From the corner of my eye, I watch her, all the while submitting to her.
My eyes fall closed, and I dig my fingers into her hips. My body arches. I’m about to come, but I won’t rush her. I won’t force her to do more or go faster. Henri grinds her clit against the base of my cock, and she screams out.
But it’s muted by her mouth filled with my flesh as she bites into the base of my neck with all the force the tightening orgasm has built in her body.
The pressure is intense and chilling.
Her orgasm spurs me to the edge .
Claim. Her, my wolf reminds me.
So, I do, raising myself gently, not wanting to disrupt her as she uses me for her pleasure. No, if anything, Henri just fucks me harder.
I’m over the edge, lost to my release. It’s not a lucid thought as my teeth sink squarely into her shoulder. My fangs cut through the muscle and nip at her clavicle.
She yelps in pain, but it gives way to a moan as I come hard, screaming into her shoulder. Bucking up to meet her thrusts, I drag another orgasm from her.
It’s in that moment that I can feel fate breathing into me. And finally, it takes a full breath.
I never thought I would feel this. I imagined I would take my dying breath before I would ever have a chance to feel something like this, something so good, happen. And yet, this feels like a stuttered breath, a gasp you take while drowning, delaying the inevitable.
Death and rebirth.
This is the burning breath of life.
With my cock deep inside her, it’s damn near euphoria.
Henri continues working her body over mine. She rides my cock like I’m going to disappear, and she only has a few seconds of bliss left.
“Fuck,” she whispers. “Fuck. Deacon.” She pants a few heaving breaths and then softly calls my name again. “Deacon.”
I slide my hands from her thighs up to her hips. The world is new with whatever magic the mating bond brings. None of the euphoric highs I’ve tried have ever hit like this.
“You’re feeling this?” she mutters. “It’s like—”
Henri struggles to draw a breath, and when she finally does, the air seeps into her; it expands her chest, and her tits bounce .
“Yeah, Hen, I feel it. All of it.” I’ve felt this pull with her for a year, only for it now to be tenfold.
Minutes, hours, maybe days for all I know, pass as we come down from this natural high. All I know is that by the time we move from our spot on the pillows, the sun is close to the horizon. The illustrious glow of the atmosphere’s orange-red light can’t compare to the bright light of the mating bond inside my brain.
She leans against me, forehead to forehead, and whispers, “It’s so much better than I thought it would be.”
“I don’t understand how Lena and Finn could have let this fade away.” I wiggle my nose against hers. “One thing’s for sure. This is a high I’m never going to let go.”
“You fucking better not.” She gives me a fake little growl.
Henri’s arms wobble with the exhaustion that follows sex. Rather than let her fall, I roll us to our sides, staying inside her the best I can, knowing it’ll only be a moment or two before I’m not hard enough to.
I think she might be asleep, but Henri’s voice, hoarse post the screaming we did together, permeates the silence. “Deacon?”
“Yeah, Hen?” I ask, rolling back and separating us in favor of seeing her face.
Henri’s silence worries me, but there’s no anxiety in our growing mating bond, only a peaceful calm. “I don’t think I’m afraid of you.”
“You’re not supposed to be afraid of me, Henri.” I drag her chin up to meet my gaze. “You deserve to be loved and coveted. I didn’t think I knew how to give you those feelings, and I’m still not sure now, but I can tell you that you’re never to be afraid of me. You have me wrapped so tightly around your finger that a twitch in the wrong direction could end me. Your disapproval would draw my last breath. ”
“You’re not allowed to leave me,” Henri says softly, her wolf rising to the surface, calmly presenting before me.
Ours. My wolf rises to meet hers.
“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.” I kiss her again softly and whisper against her lips, “I’ve just found you. I’ll never let you go.”