Dancing With the Devil (23 page)

“Rhea, you’re his sister. He loves you.”

“I love him, too,” she argued. “But I don’t go around treating him like a child, do I?”

Deacon looked like he was going to say something,
then changed his mind. She huffed out a breath and frowned at him.

“And that whole business with you carrying me over here from the jail…I could have walked just fine.”

Again, he looked like he was holding back what ever it was he wanted to say. She reached for his hand and pressed a kiss against the palm.

“But thank you for not taking me back to the store.”

He nodded quietly, and after a moment of silence, Rhea let his hand fall. She rolled onto her back and lay staring up at the ceiling.

Torn between what was bouncing around in her head and the exhaustion that begged to be sated, Rhea finally gave in to both sides.

“Would you mind…what I mean is…”

He was reaching for her before she stumbled over her last word. Lying on his back, he pulled her right up beside him and wrapped his arm around her. She rested her cheek on his silk-covered chest and her hand against his stomach.

He flinched slightly, but when she made to move, he covered her hand with his own and squeezed.

“Doesn’t it hurt? You might be more comfortable if you were on your side.”

“I’m fine,” he said quietly.

“No, you’re not, you big liar.”

His only response was a small grin and a kiss to her forehead. She snuggled deeper into his embrace and closed her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome.” He kissed the top of her head and sighed into her hair. “Now go to sleep.”

Sleep. Yes. That was what she’d do. She’d go to sleep and when she woke up, this would all have been
a bad dream—a bad dream that felt far too real for her liking.

She shifted her body so her entire length pressed against Deacon, right down to their feet. Bad dream or not, she wouldn’t have been anywhere else in the world at that moment.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

D
eacon didn’t sleep. Kit was down on the street, staring up at their window. He’d seen her when he brought the tray in, but if he’d told Rhea about it, she never would have fallen asleep.

So he lay on the bed with Rhea curled up against him, as each laceration burned lines of fire across his skin. He welcomed the pain; it kept him focused and helped him remember to block everything Kit represented. A challenge at the best of times—now it was going to be a full-on battle.

He understood it now; he understood why Lucille had fought so hard to keep her human safe. And he understood why the consequences didn’t matter.

All that mattered was Rhea. Deacon ground his teeth together and forced his mind to focus. If his father knew for even a second that Deacon felt this deeply for Rhea, there’d be no telling what would happen. It was one thing for his father to drag him back to Hell, but Deacon wasn’t about to let anything happen to Rhea.

Although…Deacon grinned. If anyone could give his father what-for, it would be Rhea.

Maybe she was just what Hell needed.

Rhea murmured in her sleep and pressed her arm
tighter around his middle. He sucked in a breath, but didn’t move for fear of waking her.

The air shifted, Rhea whimpered softly and before Deacon could catch his breath, Kit appeared at the foot of the bed.

“What are you doing?” he whispered through gritted teeth.

“Don’t fret,” she said airily, waving his question away. “She won’t wake up until I’m gone.”

He twisted his neck until he could see Rhea’s face. Sure enough, Kit had frozen her while she slept.

“You need to stop this nonsense.” She leaned against the rail of the footboard and waved her hand between him and Rhea. “Come home, Deacon. Come back to where you belong.”

Deacon eased away from Rhea and climbed out of bed. “I’m not ready.”

“This isn’t about you anymore.” She stepped away from the footboard and pointed at his stomach. “If you’re not careful, he’s liable to turn his anger on her, instead.”

“He can’t do that.”

“Oh, for…” She threw her hands up in the air and laughed out a choking snort. “Of course he can! There are no rules for something like this. He’ll do what ever he wants, and there’s nothing you can do to stop him.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stood taller, doing his best to intimidate her with his size if nothing else.

Typical Kit, she was completely unimpressed. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll start using the powers he’s given back,” she said with a decisive nod.

“No.”

Her mouth opened, then slammed shut as her green eyes blazed fire. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

“No, I won’t use any of his powers.” He laughed, though neither thought it was funny. “Just because he gave them back doesn’t mean I have to use them.”

And Deacon wouldn’t, not unless he absolutely had to. For a moment, he thought Kit was going to topple sideways.

She fisted her hands in her hair and scrunched it until her knuckles turned completely white. “He’s going to come after you, Deacon, and he won’t show mercy, no matter how much you beg for it.”

“I’ve never begged.”

“Not yet.” The air shifted again and she was gone.

A second later, Rhea blinked her eyes open and sat up.

“Deacon?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’m here.”

She turned toward his voice, her face illuminated by the veiled moonlight coming in through the slits in the curtain.

“What happened?” she asked.

He took a tentative step toward her. “What d’you mean?”

“Just now,” she said over a deep frown.

“You were sleeping.”

“But it was like I wasn’t really here. You were over there, talking to someone—Kit, I think. But I felt like I was…” She shook her head.

“Like what?” One more step took him to the side of the bed.

“It sounds crazy,” she said, “but it was almost like I was a ghost, hovering in the air, and you couldn’t see me. I’ve never had a dream like that before.”

“Doesn’t sound crazy at all.” Before climbing back into bed, he unfastened his trousers and threw them on top of his jacket.

Even in the dark of the room, he could see the color flood her cheeks.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “D’you want me to put them back on?”

“No,” she answered rather hastily. “That’s how you’ve slept all week.”

There was something else she was itching to say, but didn’t. Her eyes darted from him to his trousers and back again.

“Feel free to do the same.” He grinned. “It c an’t be comfortable trying to sleep in that getup.”

She laughed softly, but made no effort to remove her dress.

“I promise not to look.”

“Haven’t we been down this road before?” she asked.

“Not quite.” He stepped over to the far corner of the room and kept his forehead pressed against the wall. “If you’ll recall, I made no promises last time.”

From the amount of scurrying going on behind him, she must have been frantically undoing buttons and shuffling blankets. A minute later, the commotion stopped.

“I’m ready.”

He waited another few seconds before turning around. Had it really only been this morning when he’d watched her stretch that stocking up her leg? Felt like an eternity had passed since then, even though the image of her standing there, with her leg bent at the knee, her body bowed over it…

There was nothing his father could do to him that was worse torture than reliving that memory over and over.

“Right, then.” He climbed in beside her and held out his arm, waiting for her to resume the position she’d been in before Kit showed up.

“You don’t have to, you know.”

Deacon let his arm fall to the bed and looked up at her, sitting there in her white cotton chemise, her hair spilling over her shoulders and her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

“I’m not doing it because you want me to,” he said. “And I’m not doing it because I think you need to be taken care of.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“It’s probably not wise to admit,” he said, waggling his brow and lifting his arm again to wave her over. “But I’m doing it for me, so get over here and make yourself comfortable.”

“You’re such a liar.” She laughed softly, but scooted over and snuggled against his side as she’d done before.

Once again, he was telling her the truth and she was refusing to believe it. Maybe a tiny part of him wanted to comfort her, but mostly he just wanted to touch her, and more than that, he wanted to have her touch him.

But now that she was pressing the entire length of her body against him, he wasn’t sure he could stand torture this sweet.

He ground his teeth together and managed not to groan too loud when her hand slid between the buttons on his shirt and settled against his chest, but when her fingers curled and uncurled, scraping her nails against his skin, he almost exploded. Her hair smelled faintly of roses, and her lips, so soft, tickled his neck with every breath she took.

Didn’t she realize who he was? Temptation wasn’t something he’d ever been good at avoiding, and she was more temptation than he’d ever faced.

He lay perfectly still, gritting his teeth and wishing she would go to sleep—soon.

“Deacon?” Her lips fluttered against his neck.

“Mm-hmm.” It was hard to talk with his jaw clenched
so tight, and when she wiggled against him like that, it only made him clench it tighter.

“You smell good.” If she hadn’t whispered the words so close to his ear, he probably wouldn’t have heard her.

Couldn’t she just go back to sleep? As difficult as it might be, he was fairly certain he could manage to hold her all night, so long as she was asleep.

But knowing she was awake, murmuring against his neck and moving against him that way…

A growl began to build, starting from the soles of his feet, and crescendoing until it threatened to burst from his throat. There was nothing he wanted more than to let it go, to press Rhea into that mattress and do whatever it took to pull a desperate growl from her throat, too.

But he couldn’t. Not until she asked him to.

“Deacon?” Like everything else about her, Rhea’s voice was as soft as down.

And dammit, he was rock hard lying there beside her. He didn’t dare open his mouth to answer her, but instead turned his head just enough to press his lips against the top of her head.

Big mistake.

She tipped her face up to look at him, and even in the darkness, Deacon could see her every emotion, her every desire, staring back at him.

The growl ripped from his throat as he rolled over and pinned her beneath him, fisting his hands in the pillow on either side of her head.

She slipped her hand up under his shirt and raked her fingers along his belly, just under the bandage. Her other hand snaked out and grabbed the opening at the top of his shirt. With one quick yank, his face was but a breath away from hers. She watched his mouth for a long moment, smiled when he licked his lips and then pulled him in for a heart-stuttering kiss.

Her lips were velvet beneath his, her hands fire against his skin. If he ever considered what Heaven might be like, this would be it. He nudged her legs apart and knelt between them, never once breaking their kiss.

Inch by inch, he kissed his way down her neck, beneath each ear and over the spot that pulsed as hard as he did. Her breathing turned to gasps as he inched lower, nudging her chemise out of the way so he could taste the top of each breast. Her hands were in his hair, holding him close, all the while purring low in her throat.

It was a sound unlike any other; soft, feminine and full of raw desire.

She opened to him and arched upward as he pressed against her, gently at first, until she moved, rubbing herself against his hard length.

He didn’t know who moaned that time, and he didn’t care. All he knew was that he was going to explode any minute, and when he did, he didn’t want to have their drawers between them.

He eased away, sliding his fingers beneath the bottom edge of her chemise and across her belly.

“Oh,” she breathed. “I…oh.”

Lower, lower, until he felt the band of her drawers. Pinching it between his fingers, he began to tug them down, slowly, slowly, without sending either one of them off the edge. She lifted off the bed and shoved them down herself, scrambling to keep him close at the same time.

Without that barrier, Deacon took a second to enjoy her bare skin. He kissed one knee, then the other, dancing his fingers across her thighs.

She whimpered, moving into his touch, but he just smiled and kissed her again, below her navel, then above it.

“Patience, sweetheart.”

Even as he said it, he walked his fingers across her thigh, then higher. She gasped and squeezed her legs together for a second, but when he slid his tongue over the fabric covering her breast, she spread wider, not only welcoming his touch, but seeking it.

He inched upward again, marveling at her quick response to his touch. She was ready,
more than ready
, and so was he. He slipped his finger barely inside, then out again. Rhea’s mouth opened, her tongue pressed between her teeth as he did it again, then again.

She wriggled beneath his hand, cried out and pressed her own hand on top, pushing his finger deeper, then deeper still. He kissed her hard and deep, his tongue mimicking his finger as she held him there, crying out with release.

He needed the rest of her clothes off, and he needed it soon. As they fumbled with each other’s strings and buttons, he couldn’t help wondering at this woman. After everything she’d been through today—

Deacon froze.

After everything she’d been through, all he cared about was getting inside her drawers. Hell, he
was
inside her drawers.

What kind of a fool was he?

Dammit.

Double dammit
.

“Deacon?” His name shook off her lips, her hands scrambling to reach for him again.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”