Every step away from her felt heavy, wrong on every level, but he knew how hard they’d all been working. West Restoration had begun to make a name for itself, and he would never stand in the way of their success, despite what he’d told Alex.
When he reached the bottom step, his gaze moved to the workshop’s side door, and that old familiar pain lanced through his chest.
God, the way he’d felt going to his father that day, the pain that had sliced across his old man’s face when he’d told him what he’d seen. Deacon had thought he was doing the right thing. He’d been angry and hurt, and still in shock, after finding his mother with another man. Jacob West had been heartbroken, humiliated. His own son discovering what he hadn’t seen himself was too much for his pride to recover from.
His parents separated after that, and he and his father had begun to drift apart. Maybe his mother would have left on her own, eventually, maybe she wouldn’t. He’d opened his mouth, and because of that, his dad had lost the woman he loved and his sisters had grown up without their mother. He’d blamed himself. As he’d gotten older, his relationship with his father had only gone from bad to worse.
But when he dropped the bomb that he was going to business school instead of working at the garage and one day taking it over—things had completely fallen apart. They’d never recovered from it. Never made their peace, and now it was too late.
Before he realized what he was doing, he had the keys for Alex’s apartment in his hand. Spare keys for the garage and the cottage were on the key ring as well, and he unlocked the door. The place was pitch-black, but he knew every square foot; it was as familiar to him as the back of his own hand. He went straight to the security system flashing beside the door and disengaged the alarm, then, shutting the door behind him, flicked on the overhead lights.
This place. The smell. The memories. He’d had some of the best times of his life in this workshop. He’d also suffered some of the worst. The fight with his father that he’d been too damn stubborn to forget. He’d held onto every angry word and let it fuel him, push him to succeed, to show his father how wrong he was, that he could make something of himself.
So much wasted time.
Shoving the keys in his pocket, he moved across the concrete floor to the back of the room. There in the far corner, covered in canvas to keep off the dust, was his father’s 1965 Pontiac GTO. Jacob had left it to him in his will, along with this building. He wasn’t stupid enough to miss the significance. It was an apology. His father’s way of saying, “I’m sorry.” He’d left in Deacon’s hands the care and protection of those things most precious to him. His beloved car and, more importantly, the welfare of his daughters and their maddening best friend.
It was too late to say he was sorry, but he’d make sure his sisters—and Alex—were taken care of.
The old bastard always did get the last word.
Gripping the heavy canvas, he dragged it back, revealing the old girl in all her glory. The car was exquisite. Jacob had done it all himself, every inch painstakingly restored. Giving this to Deacon was as good as an I love you, son. I’m proud of you. Two things he’d been desperate to hear for such a long time. They’d let their stupid pride keep them apart, and he was still struggling with the guilt six months later. Which was why the car was still here and not in the parking garage under his apartment.
Running his hand over the sleek cherry-red paint, he smiled as memories flooded him. Him and his sisters, Alex. All the kids piled in the thing, waiting to go for a spin. Jacob telling them to wash their hands. “No food or drink in my baby,” he always barked before they headed out.
The sound of someone coming down the stairs washed away the memory, and he turned in time to see Alex walking through the door.
She smiled when she saw him—it was hesitant, almost shy, and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “I found your note.” She held it up and waved it around.
“So I see. How did you know I was still here?”
“I saw your car out my bedroom window.” She crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
He swallowed past the lump in his throat and fought to hold his ground, not to grab her then and there and show her just how much he’d missed her. “You looked so peaceful. I didn’t have the heart.” She moved out from behind the car that had been concealing the lower half of her body, and he nearly swallowed his tongue. “You, ah…you got the boots then?”
She nodded. “Yup. I woke up to find them on my doorstep the morning after you left. Poor Martin must have gotten up at the crack of dawn to get them to me unnoticed.”
She kept moving toward him. That Guns N’ Roses tank, now that she was standing, was still barely long enough to cover her panties. And those boots, the ones he’d seen her drooling over, the ones he’d wanted to see her in and nothing else, looked amazing, like he knew they would. His cock was hard as iron, straining against the zipper of his trousers. “Do you like them?”
She shook her head. “Nope.” Then a wicked grin tilted up one side of those lush lips. “I love them.”
The woman was capable of running circles around him, fucking owned him and didn’t even realize it. “Stop,” he rasped. “Not another step.” Her brows shot up, but she did what he asked. He spun his finger in a circle, silently asking her to turn around for him, and to his delight she complied without question. “Stunning.”
Her back was to him, but he didn’t miss her soft moan. His little viper was as hot for him as he was for her. Unable to keep his hands off her another minute, he moved up behind her and rested his hands on the gentle flare of her hips. “I’ve been fantasizing about you in those boots ever since you picked them up.”
“You have?”
She sounded breathless, needy, and it cranked up his own need. He was too far gone, had missed her too much to wait. Gripping the hem of her tank, he lifted it over her head and tossed it on the roof of the car. She sucked in a startled breath. “Oh, yes.” He coasted his fingers over bare skin, across her ribs, and up to her firm breasts. A perfect handful. He massaged the soft mounds, pinching her nipples, tugging gently on her sensitive flesh.
“Deke…please,” she whispered.
He kissed the side of her neck and sucked the smooth skin, marking her. “I’m sorry, baby. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you like I promised.” He trailed a hand down over her taut stomach, the muscles quivering under his palm, and dipped his fingers beneath the elastic of her deep blue lace panties, groaning when he felt slick, wet heat. “You need it, don’t you, Alex?”
She shifted her hips, trying to get him to move his fingers. “Yes.”
“You’ve missed my cock, my mouth, the whole time I was gone, haven’t you?” He slid his finger through her folds and up to circle her clit.
Her head dropped back against his chest, and she whimpered. “Yes.”
God, she was amazing, so responsive to his touch, holding back nothing. “Did you touch yourself while I was gone, baby?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
Jesus. He pressed his cock into the soft curve of her ass to relieve the throbbing pressure, and when he spoke again his voice was so deep with raw lust, he barely recognized it. “Did you think of me when you came? When your fingers pushed inside that tight, sweet body, was it my fingers you were imagining?”
“Yes.”
He groaned and pulled his hand free of her underwear so he could spin her around. She made a small sound of protest before he slammed his mouth down on hers, desperate to taste her. He thrust his tongue inside the wet heat of her mouth, and she returned his kiss wildly. She tasted of peppermint and that unique taste that was all Alex, a taste that was branded into his senses, a taste he had never forgotten, not since their first kiss all those years ago.
Gripping her waist, he lifted her off the ground, and she wrapped her legs around his hips instantly. He couldn’t wait to have her and sat her on the hood of the Pontiac. Her hair was wild around her face and shoulders, eyes glazed
and heavy with lust as he pushed his fingers down the sides of her underwear. “Lift up.” She leaned back on her hands and lifted her ass so he could slide her panties down her legs, and he flung them on the roof of the car with her tank top.
Her breathing had increased, warm puffs bursting past her kiss-swollen lips. “This is what I’ve been fantasizing about.” He reached down and pressed his palm against the aching ridge of his erection. “This is the image that has kept me hard since I saw you looking at these boots.”
She squeezed her thighs together and whimpered.
“Are you aching, Alex?”
“Yes.”
“Show me what you did to yourself while I was away, and I’ll give you a reward.” He was torturing himself, but fuck it. Just knowing that she’d gotten herself off thinking of him was making him crazy. Her eyes flared, and she bit her lip. “Do it. Touch yourself. Show me.”
She kept those amazing eyes on him as she slid a hand down over her belly and between her spread thighs. He swallowed hard as she spread herself with delicate fingers and started slicking her arousal up and back.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed, closer to losing it than he had been in his entire life. “That’s it, sweetheart. Make yourself come. Get yourself off while I watch.”
She made a needy little whimper and pushed a finger inside her tight opening, gasping, undulating her hips. He knew her eyes were locked on him, he could feel it, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from what she was doing between her thighs. Her fingers pumped in and out, rapidly, glistening with her wetness. Then she pulled out, slid them to her clit, and started circling. Her whimpers got louder, more desperate, then she was coming, crying out, body shaking.
“Fucking stunning.” He’d never been closer to disgracing himself in his entire life. She’d collapsed back, breathing heavily. He took her hand lying limp on her thigh and lifted it to his mouth, sucking her fingers clean, and his cock pulsed harder. “You need more?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Do you want me to make it all better?”
“Please. Please make it better.”
She was killing him. Alex never begged for anything, never showed vulnerability—she’d always seen it as a weakness, an opportunity for others to take advantage. But right now she wasn’t holding anything back from him. It was all there in her expressive dark eyes. Things she would never say out loud, things that had his heart pounding in his chest.
“Spread your legs wider, sweetheart. Show me how hot and wet you are.” She let her parted knees fall open, giving him what he asked for. He groaned, so desperate to slam inside her he was fucking shaking. He slid his fingers around her left ankle and hooked the heel of one boot behind the car’s big chrome grill, then the other. “I want to slide my tongue inside that tight little snatch so bad I can barely think straight, but you need my cock, don’t you, baby?”
She made a hot, hungry sound in the back of her throat. “Yes.”
She was completely exposed, open to him, at his mercy. “Do you have any idea how exquisite you look right now?” He ran his hands up her inner thighs, opening her farther. “This is another fantasy of mine, actually. Though this one’s been around a lot longer.” He massaged her inner thighs, not giving her what she wanted, what they both wanted, just yet.
Her breath hitched. “Tell me.”
Jesus. He’d spent more nights than he could remember before and after the first time he’d slept with Alex thinking of this. Nights when he was forced to rub off hard and fast, biting his pillow so no one would hear him groaning out her name.
“I spent a lot of time imagining you just like this, naked, at my mercy.” He moved his hand higher, cupping her. Shit, so hot. And gently massaged her slick flesh. She bucked her hips, gasping. “Fucking you hard on the hood of one of these old cars. But in my fantasy, we’re out in the country. The sun’s beating down, warming all that smooth skin. You’re calling my name, begging me to take you harder, and I do, I take you so hard you scream and come around my cock. Do you want that, Alex? You want me to fuck you hard?”
Chapter Seventeen
Alex was mindless at this point. Nothing but need and desperation.
“You want me to fuck you hard?” Deacon repeated, hand still between her thighs, teasing her, making her quiver and shake. She was sensitive from making herself come and on the verge of coming again just from his gentle touch, the sound of his voice. His rough commands and descriptions of what he wanted to do to her.
“Yes. I want it.” She ignored the begging note to her voice, or how much letting him take control over her in this way turned her on. How much she needed it from him. With Deacon, she could just let go.
He started undoing the buttons on his shirt, and she realized he must have come to her straight from the airport. He’d taken off the jacket but was still wearing trousers instead of jeans. For some reason the thought of him rushing straight to her, coming to her first, made her belly flutter. He balled up his shirt and threw it on the car with her tank top, then dropped his hands to the front of his pants.
Yes, please. Her inner muscles fluttered in anticipation as he undid his belt and shoved down his pants and boxers, freeing that beautiful, long cock. He didn’t take his eyes off her as he moved between her trembling thighs. One of his hands landed on her waist, the other moving up to cup the side of her throat, his fingers lingering over her hammering pulse.
He sucked in an unsteady breath. “You are so beautiful, Alex.” His hand moved down between her breasts, over her belly. “You don’t have any idea, do you?”
His voice was deep, rough, had a note of something she was afraid to believe in, afraid to hope for. Just afraid, full stop. The intensity in his gaze made it hard to hold his stare. What the hell is he doing?
It was too much, not enough. She needed him to stop looking at her like that. She needed to bring this back to the reason she was lying naked on the hood of his father’s Pontiac. Bringing her hands to her breasts, she teased her nipples. “Don’t make me beg for it, Deke. Come on. Give it to me.” The muscles in her thighs shook, her body way past want to flat-out need at this point.
His nostrils flared. “Oh, I’m going to give it to you,” he rasped.
But instead of slamming inside her, taking her hard like he’d promised, he positioned himself and slid deep inside her, nice and slow. When he was fully seated, he leaned over her and kissed her. The kiss was deep, tender, and had the ability to break her into a thousand pieces.
No. No. No. Not this, anything but this. She reached down and gripped his ass, grinding against his hips. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, sucking in deep steadying breaths. Dammit, she wanted him to lose control. To take her like he had in the bar, over her kitchen table. Taking her hands, he gripped them in one of his and lifted them over her head, holding her completely immobile.
He stared down at her. “Not this time, sweetheart. This time we’re going to take it slow.”
She started to shake her head in denial, panic knotting her lower belly, but then he withdrew, and she moaned at the feel of all that hard, hot flesh moving inside her. He was relentless, his big body shaking with the effort, but the stubborn bastard took his time, kissing her in a way that made her heart hurt, made her wish for things that could never be. Didn’t he realize what he was doing to her? What this was doing to her?
“Fuck, I missed this,” he rasped against her lips.
Jesus. She couldn’t take much more.
He grunted, soft and deep, and kept on making the unconscious, unrestrained sound every time he pushed inside her. It was the sexiest thing she’d ever heard; it lifted the hair on the back of her neck, made her toes curl.
“I missed the feel of you, so tight around my cock, the way you grasp me tighter when I pull out like you can’t bear me to leave. You need this as badly as me, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“Yes.” The word came out with her next breath, before she could swallow it down.
His gaze blazed, the muscles under her hands jumping. His thrusts intensified, still at the same slow pace, but deeper, harder. “I love the way your lips part when I push inside, the way your breath hitches,” he rasped.
Oh, God. He was killing her.
He continued to make love to her, never taking his eyes off her, following the cues of her body to take her higher.
She shivered and closed her eyes against all that intensity staring down at her.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Helpless to do anything but obey at this point, she lifted her lids.
“I want you to see what you do to me. How good you make me feel.” He reached down and cupped her ass, tilting her hips up, then thrust back in, grinding against her. She sobbed, so close, so damn close. “Only you make me feel this way, Alex, this hungry, this possessive.” He repeated the slow thrust and grind and the pressure increased. “You make me crazy, sweetheart. Wild. Only you do that to me. No one else.”
His abs tightened as he bent to suck the bar piercing her nipple, drawing it into his mouth, then thrust deep and held her there. One more tug on her nipple, and she shattered, hard. When he lifted up, covering her body, she hung on tight, sinking her teeth into the firm muscle of his shoulder to stop from screaming. He started to move then, no more slow torture; now he pounded into her, arms locked around her, holding her immobile. All she could do was take it, lie there and absorb the full power of his lust. Lost in the sound of his grunts of pleasure, the rough, tender words he rasped against her ear, drawing out her own orgasm, she clung to him in return, never wanting him to let her go.
Then with a shout he came hard inside her, big body tensing and shaking through his release.
Collapsing over her, he pressed her into the now warm, unyielding steel at her back, but she didn’t care. Nothing had ever felt so good, so right. She smoothed her hands over his wide shoulders as he glided in and out of her slow and easy, and she knew there would be no returning from this. She was completely lost to him, always had been. And for the first time in her life, she wanted to take a risk on loving someone, despite the possibility of losing him.
Crashed (Entangled Indulgence) Page 14
