Page 115 of The Next Lie

Deacon steps closer, then stops beside the fountain, leaving a careful amount of space between us. “Not the way you’re thinking.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

“I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

His mouth curves faintly. It is not a smile. It is worse because it suggests amusement without giving me enough to attack.

“You’re very smug for a man who should be nervous around me.”

“Who says I’m not nervous around you? I’m so nervous.”

I snort. His gaze drops to my mouth and lingers long enough to ruin the joke.

“Nerves don’t always look like fear,” he says.

Heat moves under my skin.

I shift Homer higher against my chest. “You and Delia seem close.”

“We are close.”

The answer is too clean. Too easy.

My chest tightens. “Great.”

His brow lifts. “See, there it is.”

“What?”

“Jealousy.”

I laugh because the alternative is admitting he struck bone. “Do not flatter yourself.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You absolutely were.”

“I said you were jealous. I didn’t say of what.”

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

Deacon steps around the fountain, slow enough that I have plenty of time to leave. I don’t leave, which will be something to yell at myself about later.

“I protect Delia,” he says. “That is the relationship.”

“Strictly protective.”

“Yes.”

“Like the same protective relationship you had with me?”

The jab lands.

I see it in the minute tightening near his eyes, the way his hand stills at his side.

Good.

I wanted it to.