“I didn’t think you’d want them wrinkled.”
She sits down and turns to face me and squares her shoulders, “In the car earlier, when you asked me to come with you, I remembered all the times my mother brought home a different man. Savannah is young right now, but one day she won’t be, and that will not be her life.”
I simply nod because I feel like she has more to say, and she does.
“In fact, I have never invited a man to any place I’ve lived and never have had one stay over. I already broke that rule.”
“With me.”
She nods and continues. “As she gets older, I will never ask her who she ate lunch with at school; I will ask her what she learned. I want her to know school is for learning and not about a social circle because kids can be cruel, and I never want her to think she has to put up with that, so she can answer the question.”
Again, I simply nod.
“I won’t force her to play sports or an instrument; be in clubs she has no interest in, go to summer camps where she will geteaten alive by bugs, just so I can havemetime.” She looks down, brows knit. “I am very fond of my own company, so I don’t feel like I need to find a man or a group of friends that I have to bend or change so they will like me.”
Worry hits hard, “Did something happen with the girls?”
“They’re wonderful.” She pulls her feet up, sets her chin on her knees, and continues. “I’ve lived in a dozen homes, was in a sorority, and I can read people, especially women. They don’t need or want anything from me; they’re genuine. It’s men, specifically men who show interest in me.”
“Did something happen with Koa?”
“What? No, of course not. You, Deacon. You give me mixed signals. You make me want.” She stops. “Never mind.”
She starts to stand, and I grab her knee to stop her. “I’m not sending mixed signals, Doc. I’m waiting this out.”
“This?” She shakes her head.
“I thought I’d made myself clear, but maybe not, so let me do that now. I want you. I want to kiss you, fuck you, and do all the things we’ve done, over and over and over again. I want to sit in awe of the mother you are, the person you are. I want to stand beside you as you navigate life, or at least follow behind as you figure this all out because you will. I want you to trust me on instinct, because to your soul you know you can.
“I want to go to sleep smelling your shampoo, knowing I washed your hair, and wake up with you wrapped around me. I want to make you breakfast and eat you for lunch when time allows. I want you to pick me up at the employee entrance, not around the corner. I want to spend whatever time you and I have off doing all the shit I didn’t get to do, because I was focused on being the best at a sport, and for you to experience all the things you didn’t get to with Savannah, because you both deserve that. I want to take pictures so you’ll have them forever, and so I can stare at them and remember how happy you were at that verymoment. I want to see not just your eyes light up, but you to smile when you see me, because you can admit you want all that too, and you want it with me. “
“You know these aren’t just words to get into your pretty little panties, and you will, you’ll know I could do all those things for a lifetime with you. I want that as long as you are willing to give it to me, regardless of how my heart would feel ripped to shreds if you decided you no longer did. And what I really want is to be Paul’s age and have you slipping a blue pill in my hand so we can still go at it like you and I both want to right now, even after my hips need to be replaced because I’ve done this for far too long.”
“Shut up.” She moves faster than any man I’ve met on the ice, and her lips crash against mine.
I love when she does this, her tongue fighting mine as her hands grip my biceps as if to check if I’m strong enough to carry the things she doesn’t need me to but deserves to have someone who wants to.Not someone, me.
“Deacon,” she moans my name.
“Yeah, beautiful?” I ask as she pulls me toward her and lies back on the couch.
Her lips slide up the side of my face as she whispers in my ear, “I'm not ready for all of that, not now, and maybe never. It's too much too soon.”
I kiss, slowly down the side of her soft skin, “I can wait you out. I’m not going anywhere.” I slide my hand under her sweatshirt and decide to make an amendment. “I’m only asking one thing.”
She takes my hand and moves it lower to where she wants it. “Me too.”
That almost makes me smile, almost. “No one else makes you come, ever, when I’m doing so.”
“Same,” she whimpers as I cup her center and press my palm firmly against her. “Deacon.”
“Love when you moan my name,” I groan. “More than you want me to admit.”
My finger glides over her heat, a light, barely-there brush over her clit, and her hips buck. She wants my fingers, wants my tongue, wants to be filled, cored out, consumed. I salivate, jaw clenched, trying to hold back, just enough to make her think of all I just said, but the combination of need and mine crush my reserve.
I keep my mouth at her neck, alternately licking and biting in the soft crook where her shoulder meets her throat, while my hand snakes low, palming her through the thin cotton of her sweats. I find the elastic and tug, but she’s already a step ahead—raises her hips, arches her back, and lets me peel them slow, dragging the waistband around her rounded ass, over the curve of her thigh, down to her knees.
She moans. “You’re going to freeze me out.”
