He moved a hand up my back before it left me so he could sift his fingers into one side of my hair, and he used it to pull me closer.

“I’ve looked in a mirror, Cassie. Know I’m not ugly. But you could be in magazines.”

“Deacon,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say because what he said was so sweet, there was no way to return that sweetness.

Just feel it.

“No shit,” he stated.

“I’m too short to be a model,” I remarked for no reason but to say something.

“Then they’re dumb fucks and I’m a lucky one seein’ as that means you’re sittin’ on my cock, your tits pressed to my chest, your beauty in my face, and you’re not all that with some movie star.”

I pressed closer even as I demanded, “Stop being sweet.”

His hand in my hair gave my scalp a squeeze as his eyes lit and he muttered, “I’ll try.”

“You’re so lying,” I accused.

That was when I got the grin, a grin that told me he was so lying.

I hid my happy smile by dropping my head and kissing the base of his throat.

When I did, he kept my face there by sliding his hand to the back of my head and pressing in.

“You wanna clean you up or you want me to do it?” he asked gently.

“Me,” I answered softly.

“Go and come back to me.”

Come back to me.

That I could do.

I lifted up again, touched my mouth to his, and then went and came back to him, but I snatched the tee from the floor that he’d changed into after showering when we were done with the gutters. I tugged it on before I slid into bed at his side.

Deacon immediately curled an arm around me and positioned me where he always positioned me when we were settling in to go to sleep, tucked to his side. This was how we started the night. We could wake up in any position, him curled into my back, me curled into his, him pressed to my side, arm resting on my belly, breaths stirring the hair at my temple.

It was something I was discovering made me look forward to mornings, waking up and seeing how we gravitated to each other unconsciously, always close, tucked together.

I wondered what tomorrow would bring as Deacon got me where he wanted me, reached, and turned out the light.

Apparently, it was time to go to sleep.

After three magnificent orgasms, I was okay with that.

But as I lay beside Deacon, listening to his breathing and knowing from growing experience that he’d quickly fall into sleep, suddenly, I got tense.

And just as suddenly, I blurted, “I’m worried about dinner with Milagros and Manuel.”

I felt his arm tighten around my back and he did this so he could shift me more on his body and pull me up so we were face to face in the dark.

“Talk to me,” he urged.

I settled in to him, his words settling something in me because I was finding that response was pure Deacon.

“You have to lie to them. So do I,” I shared.

“Why?” he asked and my head jerked. “Haven’t lied to them yet, don’t need to do it tomorrow.”

This surprised me.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“But you told them you’re John Priest.”

“You wanna look at it a certain way, I am.”

I was again confused. “What way is that?”

“He’s made up but he’s still me.”

I thought I got it.

Still.

“That’s pushing it, Deacon,” I said quietly.

“It isn’t, seein’ as, if this works out, there’ll come a time when he’s gonna be me.”

That hadn’t occurred to me.

“Really?”

“Yeah, Cassie. I leave that life behind, I leave Deacon behind.”

“So should I just call you Priest?”

“Absolutely not.”

His tone was so severe I felt my body get stiff in response to it.

Deacon felt it too, rolled into me, and took me to my back with him partly on me.

“I need to give Deacon to you,” he said, his voice gentling.

“Okay,” I said back, again not getting it.

“You’re bein’ sweet, you’re bein’ ornery, you’re ridin’ my dick, you’re doin’ all that with Deacon.”

“Could you explain that further?” I requested.

“No, ’cause I don’t get it either.”

Foiled.

Time for a new tack.

“Are you in acquisitions?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, now are you going to explain that to me?”

“Baby,” he said softly, dipping his face closer so I could see him in the moonlight, his hand coming up to rest against the side of my head. “Like I said, that world I live in doesn’t touch you. That includes you knowin’ fuck all about that world.”

“But I wanna know you.”

“You know me,” he declared.

I shook my head. “I don’t and won’t if you don’t give more to me.”

“Those tears leak out of your eyes in my bed in cabin eleven for a man you don’t know?”

God. He was annoying.

Because he was again right.

I decided not to answer.

He knew my answer anyway and went on, “You know me, Cassie. You believe in me. You wouldn’t be right here wearin’ my tee if you didn’t.”

Again he was right.

Again I said nothing.

Deacon kept speaking.

“I told you I believe in what I do. That’s part of you believin’ in me, believin’ that I’m doin’ what I need to do. But, baby,” he got even closer, his voice dipping lower, “I don’t want you knowin’ what goes down in that world. I want you livin’ in the splendor of Glacier Lily, worrying about gutters and gazebos, and not tainted with that shit.”

This did not sound good at all.

Still, it was part of him and I wanted him.

All of him.

So I informed him, “I can hack it.”

“You can’t,” he informed me.

“I can,” I reiterated.

All of a sudden, his mood turned heavy and his voice got hard. “You can’t, Cassidy.”

That didn’t sound good, either.

Not at all.

And I was sensing it was time again to tread cautiously.