He just knew I was okay, he’d made me come, everything he did did it for me and I didn’t need anything but to feel him connected to me, covering me, warming me, reveling in all he’d just given me.

Eventually, he started to work my neck with his mouth, lazy and tender, at the same time he pulled our hands out of my hair and held them to the bed, his thumb idly stroking the side of my palm in casual affection.

Finally, he nipped my earlobe with his teeth before he asked there, “Ready for some breakfast, gypsy?”

This was Deke giving me unconditional beauty and then Deke and me getting on with our day.

“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled my response.

He lifted his head and grinned down at me.

I lifted my head and touched my mouth to his.

I dropped back and saw his face was as it was when Deke woke from sleep. Smooth. Untroubled. Content.

Happy.

I knew the edges would come back. Life was like that. You couldn’t avoid it. You couldn’t erase history.

But I’d take that. I’d take giving him that for even another minute. I’d do anything to give it to him for as long as I could make it last.

And not just because I knew he’d do the same for me (though I loved knowing that).

Simply because he was Deke.

And he was mine.

Chapter Nineteen

Overalls

Justice

Juggling four boxes of pizza, I opened my front door.

I barely got through before Bubba was there, grabbing all four boxes.

“Thanks, Bub,” I muttered.

“You feedin’ me, least I can do is carry the boxes,” he replied.

I gave him a grin and turned to the hubbub that was eight men working in my house.

I did this shouting, “Soup’s on!”

While I shouted, my eyes caught on Deke, who was in my kitchen. A kitchen that was actually beginning to look like a kitchen. I had an enormous island that nearly spanned the space (no countertop), base cupboards (no countertops) and Deke with another dude was setting in my hutch that would sit opposite where the range and the fridge would be.

Bubba went to the counter-less island.

I went to Deke.

And Deke came to me.

We met halfway.

He stopped in my space and bent his neck to look down at me.

“Again, you do not gotta buy these boys lunch,” he said low.

As the word “again” would attest, he’d said this before. Every day now since the boys had come to work. It was Friday so that “again” consisted of him saying this (now) five times.

“And again, I’m not gonna bring us lunch and not do the same for the guys,” I replied.

“And again,” he stressed, “you don’t gotta buy me lunch.”

“And again,” I stressed as well as drew the word out, “I like buying you lunch. You give me a hutch, I buy you lunch. And so it goes. So seriously. Shut it about lunch.”

His head went back an inch. “Did you just tell me to shut it?”

“About lunch, yes,” I confirmed.

“Justice.”

“Deke.”

We grew silent.

Then his eyes traveled the length of me and he got a look on his face I didn’t get.

It seemed like a sneer at the same time it seemed like he wanted to drag me to my bedroom and have his wicked way with me.

This meant my back went up at the same time I experienced a lovely shiver.

“Something on your mind?” I asked when he said nothing.

He looked to me.

“Hate those overalls,” he stated bluntly.

Well!

“So gonna like strippin’ ’em off you after the boys leave.”

Right, one could say that explained the look.

He leaned in, his eyes again aimed low, and muttered, “Fuck, can see your panties.”

I leaned in and muttered back, “Deke, don’t turn me on when seven men are horking back pizza in my kinda kitchen.”

Deke stayed where he was but his attention came back to my face. “Then don’t wear shit that’s gonna make me fight gettin’ hard when the boys are horking back pizza in your kitchen.”

“And what would you like me to wear?”

“I’d say those overalls because they’re butt-ugly but since that only makes me think of how fast I’m gonna get them off you after the guys leave, that doesn’t work.”

I tipped my head to the side, prompting, “So?”

“So, I got no ideas because pretty much anything you wear makes me think how fast I wanna strip it off you, even if it’s cute.” The look in his eyes changed, I felt that change in my pussy, and he finished, “Especially if it’s cute.”

I got closer to him and hissed my warning, “Deke, this is not helping.”

He grinned at me. “Like how easy it is to get my gypsy hot for me.”

“Put a lid on it, baby, or your comrades in hammers are gonna know how you sound when you come.” I paused before I finished, “Hard. And how you can make me come. Harder.”

“Fuck,” he growled, that look in his eyes intensifying.

It was my turn to grin.

“I’m gonna get pizza before the good shit is gone and before I miss it altogether ’cause I gotta take a cold shower,” he muttered.

My grin got bigger.

Then I remembered my chat with Sunny and Shambles.

“Go eat,” I ordered. “But before you go, think about dinner tomorrow night at Sunny and Shambles’s place. They asked while I was in today and I promised them after my drama was done, we’d get together.”