I drew in a sharp breath.
Because in that instant, I knew he was right.
“You’re a vulnerability,” he ground out. “My vulnerability. I have no vulnerabilities. I spent years shavin’ every last one away from me so there was nothin’ left. Now I got one, a big one, and I do not give one fuck as long as she’s in Colorado, sittin’ on her porch, waitin’ for me to get back.”
Oh my God.
“Deacon,” I whispered, but got no further because he kept going.
“But I can’t know she’s doin’ that if she doesn’t,” he leaned into me again, “phone me.”
“What if I need you?” I asked softly, his words making me no longer pissed.
“Then you phone. You hang up. You phone again. You hang up. And you phone again. You keep phonin’, Cassidy, I’ll know I’m not just on your mind, I’m needed. And I’ll phone back. But I’ll do it on my way to you.”
Oh yes.
I was no longer pissed, like at all.
It was then I stood and faced him, saying in a calming voice, “I couldn’t know this, honey.”
“Right. Then I’ll educate you,” he returned, his words still clipped, showing he could definitely get annoyed. “Those five men you had, not one of them was a man like me. A man like me, Cassidy, does not sit on a fuckin’ chair on a fuckin’ porch by a fuckin’ river in the fuckin’ Colorado Mountains and tell a woman he wants to be sittin’ right there beside her when he’s eighty if he does not mean that shit.”
I felt my chin go back into my neck as I held his gaze, doing this to fight back the emotion his words rocketed through me.
Once I succeeded, I suggested, “Maybe we should get a system down.”
The mask slipped but only for his face to darken on the words, “You’re not shot of me?”
“Of course not,” I answered. “I just…you didn’t phone back so I thought you were shot of me.”
“Here,” he growled and I blinked.
“Deacon, I’m not a big fan of—”
“Future,” he cut me off. “Assert your feminism when I’m not three seconds away from fuckin’ you on your porch. I come to you, that’s gonna happen. You come to me, maybe it won’t.”
Maybe?
I didn’t ask that.
I asked, “So if you get your way and I come to you, you can miraculously control your base instincts?”
His reply?
“One.”
My body jerked and my brows shot together as the meaning of that word hit me.
“Are you counting down—?”
“Two.”
I planted my hands on my hips.
“You are!” I cried angrily. “You’re counting—”
“Fuck it,” he muttered, took two long strides, and I was in his arms.