“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.