Page 24 of Deacon

“Didn’t know I was tryin’ to be.”

The words came out rough, heavy with everything he had swallowed for too long. He saw the moment she heard the truth beneath them. Her fingers tightened against her arms, and her expression softened in a way that should have made him retreat.

It pulled him closer instead.

Jackson crossed the space between them slowly enough to give her every chance to step away. She held her ground, breathing faster as she lifted her face to his. Nothing coy lived in the way Lila looked at him. She never smiled because she thought she should or flirted for the pleasure of being watched. Whatever she gave him came from somewhere honest.

He stopped close enough to see the pulse moving at the base of her throat. The lake stirred behind her while a breeze lifted the loose hair at her temples and carried one strand across her cheek. He wanted to tuck it back and learn whether her skin felt as warm as it looked.

His hands remained at his sides.

Barely.

“You always bring girls here?” she asked, the teasing in her voice thinning into something quieter.

“No.”

Her eyes searched his. “No?”

“No girls.”

The answer remained between them. Lila lowered her arms, the movement bringing her half a step closer. “So just me.”

His pulse settled into a heavy rhythm. “Just you.”

For one impossible stretch of time, the world narrowed to dark water and moonlight touching her skin. She had come because he asked, but she remained because she chose to.

He had carried her inside him for years, though the shape of it changed as she did. He had cared about the stubborn little girl who followed him and Matty everywhere, then fought the wanting that arrived once she grew into herself. It followed him through football seasons and evenings at the Morgan table, through every laugh she gave him and every silence that fell when he walked another girl toward his bike.

He had built walls around it until the walls became another way of holding her close.

Now Lila stood before him at the lake, looking at him as though she could already see them falling.

“You shouldn’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like you already know I’m in trouble.”

One corner of her mouth lifted. “Are you?”

He released a breath that carried the rough edge of a laugh. “You got no idea.”

“Then tell me.”

The quiet invitation undid him. Lila wasn’t pushing. She never pressed where someone was bruised. She simply stayed close and patient until silence became useless.

“Lila.” Her name left him on a strained breath as his hands slid along her arms. His fingers tightened enough to draw a soft gasp, but instead of pulling away, she rose into him.

That was all it took.

He kissed her hard, restraint breaking beneath the first taste of her. Birthday-cake sweetness lingered beneath her lip gloss, and her hands explored the ridges of his stomach with hesitant curiosity that grew bolder when he pulled her closer. Heat tore through him. He backed her toward a softer patch of grass near the shore, following carefully when her knees touched the ground so she never carried his full weight.

“I’ve waited so long for you,” he said against her mouth, the confession roughened by everything he had denied.

Her fingers found the hem of her sundress. She pulled it over her head, leaving simple white panties and bare skin washed silver beneath the moon. Jackson went still. Her breasts rose with each quick breath, her nipples tightening in the cooler air, and for several seconds he could do nothing but look.

Then he kicked off his boots, opened his belt, and shoved his jeans down his hips. His cock sprang free, hard and aching, but the wonder and nervousness crossing her face stopped him before he reached for her again.