My eyes dropped to his throat as I muttered, “Actually, you kind of were the one doing the spreading.”
“You didn’t fight me.”
I looked back at him and agreed softly, “No.”
“So, down to your bones, Cassidy, which way do you want that change to be?”
I backtracked necessarily. “What do you mean by a man like you?”
“You know precisely what I mean.”
Okay, I had to admit, he was right. I knew exactly what that meant.
Well, not exactly exactly but I got the gist.
I clamped my mouth shut again.
He stared down at me, expressionless, distant, and not just the three feet that separated us physically.
That didn’t mean I didn’t feel his intensity.
I so totally did.
My insides squeezed when his voice came at me again, not businesslike, not casual, not commanding, but quiet and full of meaning.
“You want me to leave, I’m gone.”
He didn’t mean gone.
He meant gone.
So that was when I blurted, “Don’t. Please.”
And that was when I really felt his intensity, the force of it bearing down on me, making it hard to breathe.
And his voice was still quiet and full of meaning when he asked, “We puttin’ a deposit down on a dog tomorrow?”
“Yes,” I stated immediately, crazily, and down to my bones I knew foolishly, hopefully, and last…inevitably.
Because I knew down to my bones that the feeling I’d been damming all morning would eventually break free and eviscerate me. Just as I knew down to my bones I couldn’t bear a life of longing for him, wondering how it could have been if he gave me what he was offering right at that moment.
The chance to get in.
These thoughts were fleeting and that was good because I only had time for fleeting thoughts.
I barely finished my “yes” before his hands were at my jaw like they were earlier that morning, tipping my head back. But the change was that his mouth slammed down on mine.
I parted my lips and his tongue slid inside.
That was when a moan drifted up my throat and into his mouth as I lifted my hands and curled them into his shirt at the sides of his waist, holding on as he kissed me with a ferocity that made me dizzy.
I tried to kiss him back the same way but I wasn’t sure I succeeded before he tore his mouth from mine but didn’t let go. He didn’t step back. He didn’t retreat.
He stayed right there, my eyes opening to see his burning into me, and he kept hold of my gaze as he rested his forehead against mine.
That was sweet. Unbelievably sweet. Unbearably sweet from John Priest/Deacon Whoever, and being me, I processed it at once. I allowed myself to feel the fullness of that sweetness, that affection, that beauty he was giving to me because I knew down to my bones he didn’t give it elsewhere. I knew down to my bones he didn’t have it in him to give it unless it meant something. And I knew down to my bones that nothing meant anything to John Priest/Deacon Whoever.
Except me.