I started trembling.

Both of us naked, Deke hooked me at the waist, yanking me up so I slammed into his body and he was kissing me before he bent us over the bed, climbing in, taking me with him.

I went down and Deke came down on top of me.

I thought it’d go fast, be frenzied, rough, hard, deep, intense, amazing.

It was frenzied. Rough. Hard. Deep. Intense. Amazing.

But it was that as we took our time.

I got to drag my tongue tight against both his nipples (and more). I got his cock in my mouth. I tasted his neck. The skin around his navel. Grazed the insides of his elbows with my teeth. Touched my tongue to the lobes of his ears. Pulled each of his balls deep into my mouth.

Deke took in just as much as me.

We didn’t give and take. We gave while taking. We took while giving.

And we were so into it…

No it wasn’t that.

There couldn’t be anything between us when Deke finally slid inside me, his cock unsheathed.

I held him close, I held him with everything I had, including holding his eyes as he moved over me, moved inside me, became a part of me.

The orgasm wasn’t hard and soul-shattering, tearing through me.

It came slow, it lasted long, and through it, clutching him tight to me, it knitted Deke into every fiber of me.

Deke ended his with his neck bent, his temple pressed to the side of my head, his labored breaths sounding sweet against my ear.

“Wish like fuck, Jussy, I didn’t stand you up.”

I closed my eyes and kept him held tight.

He wanted that time back.

God.

God.

He wanted to know years ago I was a bear in the morning.

I’d wanted that too.

But now…

Now I was just fucking happy that there was a now.

“I wish like fuck, Deke, that I could erase the life that covered you and your mom with shit and you two had more than your fair share of happy, us visiting her at her cottage on a lake,” I whispered back.

I opened my eyes when he lifted his head and looked down at me.

But I wasn’t done.

“Though, that said, I’d do it so you’d still end up a travelin’ man, because what can I say?” I gave him a slight shrug and a big smile. “I’m a gypsy.”

I felt the beauty of his sharp bark of laughter all through me right before he took my mouth in a rough, hard, deep, intense, amazing kiss.

He ended it and kissed the mark that was still on my shoulder, except fading, and I wished he’d bite me again, had even thought about getting a tattoo of his teeth marks so I could have that memory of our first time, that mark that was Deke’s with me always.

He slid out, rolled off and rolled me into him.

I rested my cheek on his chest, drawing mindless patterns through the hair there, staring at a wall filled with Deke’s history.

“I wanna be a part of your trailer,” I blurted.

“Say again?”

I lifted up, resting my forearm on his chest and looking in his eyes.

“The wallpaper history of Deke Hightower on the walls. I want to be a part of it.”

His face got soft and his hand did what it did a lot. It trailed up my spine, and along its path, he tangled it in my hair.

This time he used that hair to pull my face closer to his.

“So I take it that’s official you wanna see about lookin’ into a future with me.”

“Yep,” I replied immediately.

“Fuck,” he whispered, his gaze falling to my mouth. “No bullshit. Out there. Open. My Jussy.” He looked again into my eyes. “Made for me.”

I felt more tears sting my nose and combatted them by slapping his chest so hard, the sound cracked across the room and the surprise of it made him grunt and his body jerk.

I ignored that and ordered, “You have to stop saying shit like that because every time you do it makes me want to cry and now I’m thirty-four, I am worldly, worldly-wise and a little world-weary and as such, I’m not a crier. Except,” I hastened to add, “when the man I like…a lot,” I stressed, “tells me he and his mom were homeless. Then I’m allowed to cry.”

He wrapped his other arm around me and hauled me up his chest so we were face to face.

He was grinning when he stated, “Can’t stop sayin’ it, gypsy. Honest truth. You seem made for me.”

“You’ve said it. Sentiment communicated. It undoes me. Kindly stop because I can’t handle it.”

“Most women would like hearing shit like that.”

“I think, me being the only one allowed to use your key and bring over a Crock-Pot, we’ve also established I’m not most women to you.”

“This would be true,” he muttered, his eyes again at my mouth, his mouth being where his hand at my hair was guiding me.

I pushed back. “Deke.”

He stopped guiding my head and his eyes came to mine.

“Yeah, baby?”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

“If you don’t stop being gushy, I’m going to have to write another song about you.”

His eyes flared and he pulled my face closer in a way I couldn’t resist.

“Baby, you think that’s a deterrent, you are seriously fuckin’ wrong.”

I loved that he liked “Chain Link.”

Loved.

Loved.

Loved that.

But it was time for more serious, that being him understanding what he just got himself into.