Chapter 30
Deacon
We walked into Cruz’s place after stowing the bikes in the garage. “Hobbled” was maybe a more accurate descriptor—my back was killing me. “I really thought it would come back to me faster.” I sat on the couch and examined the scrape down my arm from my last fall.
“Let me get something to clean that,” Willow said, her face adorably scrunched up. “It looks bad.”
I waved her off and ignored the sharp pain with the movement. “I’m tough. Don’t worry about it.”
I bent to stand, and my lower back protested, but Willow must have seen the wince, as she placed a hand on my chest and gently pushed me back. The move was more commanding than I was used to—and I savored how her hand rested on my chest and the firmness in her voice when she said, “Sit.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted, but I leaned back on the couch as she disappeared into the hall bathroom.
I rubbed the side of my leg where a stick had worked its way under the knee pad.
I glanced at the neon fabric that I’d tossed aside.
I’d been lucky she had those, even though I’d looked like a clumsy tool.
“Didn’t your pride already get in your way once today?” Her voice carried from down the hall, and I heard drawers and cabinets opening and closing.
I scratched Gus behind his ears. He’d trotted over when we entered and now rested his snout on my leg.
“It’s not pride, it’s confidence! I’m a machine, baby.
” Gus looked up at me, his head tilted to the side as if to convey how un-machinelike I looked after a morning spent getting my ass kicked by a ten-speed bike and one 5’2” angry mother who wanted to police my language.
“Maybe not,” I said more quietly, just to the dog.
Cruz had given me that same look, he and his dog like creepy clones of each other, although Cruz had given it to me when I was in the hospital refusing physical therapy.
“Well,” Willow said, walking toward me, the purple fabric of her long-sleeved shirt clinging to her chest as she walked. “You’re a machine I don’t want getting an infection.” She set down the first aid kit next to me, along with a wet cloth.
“I’m a machine with extensive EMT training. I can handle it.”
She thrust an ice pack toward me. “For your shoulder,” she said, motioning to the spot I’d banged into a light pole.
“I feel bad,” she said, dropping to her knees and tugging my leg forward so she could see the scrape along my knee.
“This little adventure was my idea, and you got hurt.” She pulled the wipe from the stack and dabbed at the scrape.
“Are you going to do that tough-guy thing where you grin and bear the injury only to wince at the alcohol on the cut?”
“Depends.” I adjusted my leg so she didn’t have to maneuver as much. “Will that keep you on your knees longer?”
She flashed me a playful smile, and then I yelped at the sudden press of the alcohol wipe on the scrape.
The burning sensation surprised me. Willow pressed a palm over her mouth, but her giggle escaped.
She had such a great laugh, and she shot me another look before refocusing on my scrapes, applying an antibiotic gel and then pressing a Band-Aid over the cut, her delicate fingers sliding along my skin.
“Thank you,” I said, leaning back and pressing the ice pack to my shoulder and ignoring the ache lingering at my lower back.
She looked up at me through her thick lashes, and I flexed my fingers, fighting the urge to stroke the side of her face.
“You’re welcome.” She moved to a minor scrape on my hand that didn’t need attention, but I liked the way her touch felt too much to stop her.
It had nothing to do with her being on her knees and everything to do with the way warmth spread through my limbs from any spot where she touched me.
“I think you were getting it there at the end,” she said, her voice managing to pull me out of my head.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.” If Willow hadn’t been there with me, urging me to take a break, I would have stayed out there all day, no matter how many times I fell or how my back protested.
I’d spent most of my life pushing to go harder, faster.
Even before the PJs, I always knew I could do it, no matter what the goal was.
There were hundreds of times as a kid when my parents probably should have told me to slow down, but they didn’t.
It made me good at my job—I didn’t quit until the mission was complete.
Late at night alone, I thought about whether that was why I ignored the issues with my back for so long, and if it was that inability to stop that ultimately put my team at risk.
Now riding a fucking bike had stopped me.
They’d warned me in physical therapy that some things would have to be relearned, especially related to balance, but I hadn’t expected this kind of a struggle for a physical activity kids could master.
“What’s that face?” Willow had paused her inspection, but her fingers still rested against my hand.
“Just my face.” I smirked. It was the expression most likely to earn me a glare from Emi, but it was easy.
I’d learned it was one of those things that masked any other expression, and I didn’t want to get into what I was really thinking with Willow.
She didn’t need my baggage. “Ignore my broken old ass. You got a new first!”
“I did.” She grinned wider and moved her fingers from my hand before scooting to join me on the couch. She stroked along the cut that ran up my arm. It wasn’t bad, but I relaxed and let her comfort me. “And I kind of like your broken old ass.”
“Feel good?”
She laughed. “I guess.” Willow pulled another wipe from the kit and cleaned around the cut on my forearm.
“When I learned to drive, I finally had freedom to escape my parents and their fighting, but my first stop was Spencer’s place.
” She looked reflective and patted at my skin with the cool wipe again.
“This time, I don’t know where I’m driving.
” She pulled the tube of bacitracin from the box and smeared a bit on the cut. “Well, riding.”
To me, I thought. Ride your bike to me. Steer your whole world toward me.
I didn’t say it, though. That was nuts, both that I’d even think about it and that I felt an ache in my chest when I remembered I didn’t get to want that.
I should have made a joke about her riding me to cut the moment, but I set the ice pack aside and ran a finger along her cheek.
I knew my skin might be cold, but she let me, looking up from where she’d been bent over my arm.
“You get to go wherever you want,” I said, and then looked into her eyes as I stroked her cheek again.
“Anywhere at all.” My thumb slid along the constellation of freckles that ran over the bridge of her nose and cheeks.
Her eyes widened, and she leaned into my touch.
Stop, I told myself. Stop whatever this is. I stroked her skin again, unable to pull my fingers away. “To anything or anyone,” I said. Else. She gets to ride to someone else. That finally nudged me to let my hand fall away.
“It’s scary,” she said, letting her gaze drop from my face after a moment. “To imagine something new.”
“Is it?” I’d never imagined something new.
I’d imagined nothing when I was discharged, a dark expanse in front of me I didn’t like, so I’d imagined being back instead.
Even now, when the fantasy of being with her could almost play like a movie in my head, I couldn’t imagine a nonmilitary version of myself in that reel.
She was nothing like me, though, and she probably had lots of possibilities for her future.
She pressed a Band-Aid onto my skin and walked to the kitchen and threw away the trash from her session of nursing me back to health. Her laugh trailed behind her like a ribbon.
I winced as I adjusted how I sat on the couch. My back felt stiff from my position.
“Advil?” She stood, already on her way to find some before I could wave her off, and I hated the concern on her face.
“I brought you something,” I called after her, unzipping the pocket in my shorts and pulling out the bottle. I was glad for the opportunity to change the subject.
Willow handed me two pills along with a glass of water and accepted the bottle from me. “What’s this?”
She’d already read the label when I answered, and I grinned at her wide-eyed expression. “It’s lube,” I said, swallowing the pills. “Luckily, it didn’t burst open or fall out during one of my many crashes to the ground. That uppity mom would have had lots to say about that.”
Willow pressed the bottle between her hands, as if to hide it from prying eyes. She lowered her voice and sat close to me, which I found hilarious. “Why did you get me lube?” she hissed, voice still low even though we were alone in the house.
I still took advantage and leaned close to her.
A few curls fell across it, and I tucked them slowly behind the shell of her ear.
“Because you can never have too much. No need to risk discomfort,” I said, noticing her shiver as my breath caressed her skin.
“And you have a toy to try out now that you’ve learned to ride.
” I didn’t touch her, but stayed still, my lips close to grazing her ear.
Willow’s swallow was audible, and she turned her head, so our lips were inches apart. “Right here?” She bit the corner of her lower lip, and my cock thickened as she unclasped her hands and looked down at the bottle. “With you?”
“Fuck, Willow,” I said, tucking my fingers along the shell of her ear again. “No. When you’re alone.”
“Oh,” she let out a nervous laugh. “I thought you meant you wanted to watch me.”
“Oh,” I said. “I do.”
“You do?” She spoke low again, and her eyes snapped to me, wide and surprised, but she didn’t pull away. She looked curious. I was going to hell.
I dipped my lips to her ear again, this time letting them graze her lobe before I spoke. “Yes.”
“More dirty talk?” Her eyes sparkled above her pink cheeks. “This is way beyond what I ever did before.”
I let my fingers drop again to the inside of her knee and traced those same circles. “I’d love to watch you spread your thighs.” My circle widened on her knee, grazing her thigh with one finger. “I bet you’d love showing me your pretty pussy.”
She gave a little gasp of surprise when I widened my circle more, sweeping a finger higher on her leg. “Oh my God,” she murmured.
“But not yet.” I lowered my lips and swept them across the skin under her ear. “You use this later alone.”
“Can I tell you about it?” She was breathless, and I considered scrapping this entire plan and pressing my fingers to the apex of her thighs, to feel her heat, but I narrowed my circles back to her knee.
“You’re getting better at dirty talk,” I said in her ear again, but then pulled back. “Very good.” I was rock-hard at the visual I’d created for myself with the sound of her breathless voice. “Yes, you can tell me all about it.”
She took a steadying breath when I pulled away. “It’s not even a re-do. It’s an actual first,” she said, thumbing the bottle.
“I’ll expect a full report,” I said, pushing to my feet, glad my truck was right outside so I didn’t have to walk home at full staff, imagining my friend’s little sister getting herself off.
“You’re leaving already?”
“You have plans,” I said, motioning to her hand.
She blushed, and I could see how turned on she was.
The buds of her nipples poked through her thin shirt.
“Thank you,” she said, holding up the bottle.
“For this and for the support this morning.” She followed me to the door.
“I can’t believe you brought me this,” she said, more to herself than to me.
“It’ll make it better,” I said, reaching for the door and doing nothing to get my dick to calm down. “And you deserve for it to be good,” I said. “You deserve all the good things.”
Willow’s arms wrapped around me from behind, her small hands pressed to my stomach and her full breasts against my back. I dropped my hands over hers. “Thank you,” she said.
Her voice was sexy and soft and hit me like a sack of bricks.
The moment of silence had nothing to do with my hard-on, the ache in my back and arm, or the press of her body to mine.
It had everything to do with the way I longed to turn, take her in my arms, and tell her all the reasons she deserved the best.