“By my cousins. Which means I won’t be taking you to Nebraska to meet my family either.”

The waitress dropped off the check.

Deacon stopped and spoke to the owners as he paid.

Another tidbit she learned; he spoke Spanish fluently. Maybe it made her perverted, but she’d love to hear him whispering in Spanish in her ear as he moved inside her.

When Deacon’s eyes met hers, she swore he’d read her mind.

She didn’t find it odd that he didn’t strike up a conversation on the drive back downtown.

At the parking lot where she’d left her vehicle, he helped her out of the passenger side before walking her to the driver’s side of her car. “You still hungry, babe?”

“No. Why?”

“You’ve been eyeing me like a juicy steak all the way back here.”

“I can’t help it that you’re one thick, delicious-looking slab of hot man meat.” When his piercing blue eyes pinned her down, Molly imagined him pressing her against the car, or on the ground, or to the tree behind them—any vertical surface would suffice.

He cupped her face in his hands, then sifted his fingers through her hair. The tenderness in the move surprised her, until his fingers tightened, allowing him to maneuver her head wherever he wanted. “Should I kiss you right here”—he licked the curve of her neck—“where I marked you? Where the touch of my mouth to your skin makes you squirm?”

“Deacon.”

“Put your hands on me,” he ordered hoarsely. “I need proof this is really happening.”

With that admission, she untucked his T-shirt and inched her fingers up his warm skin. The hardness of his body and the way his stomach muscles quivered beneath her stroking fingers spurred her on. Then she formed her hand around his rib cage and shifted her thumb to tease his nipple.

He hissed.

Well, if he liked that, he oughta really like this. Molly slid her right hand down to his groin and cupped him.

Deacon jumped back. “Jesus H. Christ, woman, stop.”

Startled, she looked up. Lord, the man had the sexiest, fiercest expression on his face.

“You are making it hard—shit, I mean difficult—to rein it in.”

“And if I don’t want you to rein it in?”

“This is our first date.”

“So? You think I don’t put out on the first date?” she teased.

He stayed silent a beat too long. Then a smile ghosted around his lips. “Maybe I don’t put out on the first date.”

They stared at each other.

Then Deacon kissed her. “Thanks for giving me another chance. I swear you won’t regret it.”

CHAPTER FIVE

DEACON showed up on Knox’s doorstep an hour before he headed for training. He hadn’t called ahead. It’d give his friend too much time to come up with a hundred ways to say I told you so.

Knox answered the door with baby Nuri propped on his hip. “Deacon? What’s going on?”

“You got a minute”—fuck, it killed him to ask—“to talk?”

“Sure. Come in.”

In the living room, Deacon dropped into the lone chair not littered with baby paraphernalia.

Knox pushed aside a stack of baby clothes on the couch and settled in, bouncing his daughter on his knee.

Deacon knew nothing about babies, but he supposed Nuri was cute. She had a ton of light brown hair and the same topaz-colored eyes as her mother. She had dimples in both her pudgy cheeks, and she stared at him solemnly as she gnawed on a hard plastic ring.

“You give kids dog’s chew toys?” Deacon asked.

“It’s a teething ring, smart-ass. Better she chomps on this than on me.” Knox kissed the top of Nuri’s head. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Nuri kicked her legs and threw up her arms, smacking Knox in the face with her chew toy.

Knox winced. “I didn’t get hit in the face this much at the dojo.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you trained with Maddox.”

“Is that why you’re here? To bitch about training problems?”

Deacon shook his head. “It’s . . . personal.”

“Like a personal problem?”

“Yeah.”

“Like with a woman?”

“Yeah.”

Dickhead that he was, Knox laughed. “This day has been a long time coming. I’m so gonna rub it in that you swore this would never happen to you. Think I’ll need to grab a box of tissues and a pint of ice cream before you start sharing your feelings?”

He could admit he deserved this rash of shit. Still, he flipped Knox off.

Nuri started to fuss. Knox snagged a bottle off the coffee table and popped it in the baby’s mouth, cuddling her close.