All My Broken Dreams (Locksley Hall #1)

Chapter Eighteen

O nce inside and out of her coat, Robbie sank into an armchair and let Deacon tuck a woolen tartan blanket over her. She was shivering. He lit the gas fire and moved to the kitchen to make cocoa.

Robbie watched him as he lifted the tin from the cupboard with strong brown hands. His hair was damp with melting snow. His cheeks were red with cold. But his eyes when they landed on her were bright, clear, and warm brown, stirring a feeling in her.

Tugging at her to want more from him than a place to crash and a cup of cocoa.

“Here, get that in you,” he said, handing her the mug.

She handled it gingerly. “Harry left his mug behind. I gave it to him when he left for Scotland. He didn’t bring it with him to Dugald Croft. I found it sitting on the counter.”

“Is that why you followed me?”

“Partly. I thought you were helping him at first. When I saw the mug, I took it as a message he had left for me. It’s a thing we had as kids, leaving each other clues to follow. I thought he was in danger. He’s not in danger; he’s home. I’m the one who is in the way.”

He sat down on the sofa, cradling the mug of cocoa in his hands.

“You’re not in the way. You’re his family as much as Bannerman or The Black. More so because you’ve known him the longest.”

“What are their real names?” The glance he gave her confirmed what she already knew before she asked. Deacon wasn’t going to give away their secrets. “Never mind. Mrs. Cameron said you’re one of them too so I shouldn’t expect you to be on my side.”

“What?”

“You’re a descendent of a noble family, cheated out of your inheritance by your uncle. It sounds like something out of a Dickens’ novel.”

“She shouldn’t have told you that. It isn’t true for one thing. For another, it’s not her place.”

“She asked me not to repeat it. Don’t get her into trouble with The Black or whoever. She was trying to warn me off confiding in you because you’re not as low-born as I might think. High status, low status–it doesn’t mean anything to me. I just wish you had told me yourself.”

“I might have if I’d had time to get around to it. It isn’t important who my family was; we are not that now.” He swallowed the cocoa and stared into his empty cup. “Do you want me to make up the bed?”

Her lower belly shivered pleasurably. Robbie stared at his hands that were wrapped around the cup. Long fingers, square and strong.

“I’m not sleepy, but it would be nice to lie down.”

They moved through the room, getting the bedding from the drawer, rinsing their mugs in the sink, and brushing their teeth in the 1920s bathroom like two strangers forced to share a sleeping berth on a train.

They didn’t speak to each other, that’s what Robbie found the strangest. She didn’t know what he was thinking. What he wanted–if he wanted anything from her.

It wasn’t until she needed something to wear to bed that she saw Deacon’s desire fully and completely written on his face.

“I have nothing to sleep in,” she said. “Do you have a shirt I can wear? Even a tee-shirt would do.”

He lost color, ducked his head and went to the wardrobe. She watched him paw through the clothes on hangers before pulling a white silk shirt from the closet and holding it up.

“I can’t,” she protested. “This is too nice to sleep in.”

“I’ve never worn it and I never will. You might as well get some use out of it. My father left it to me. He thought he’d be around to see me wear it when I was catechised into Fuil Bratach.”

“You kept it all these years,” she said softly, fingering the silk.

“It’s yours now. I doubt it would fit me anymore.”

Robbie slid the imported silk over her naked body, aroused by the caress against her skin. The silk shirt covered her decently, skimming the tops of her thighs. She took a moment to clean her face and brush her hair before stepping out of the bathroom. The white billowing silk was as fine and translucent as a parachute. It floated and clung to her curves in turn.

She stepped out of the bathroom and Deacon’s eyes fixed on her, hot and hungry.

At first she didn’t know why. Then she realized.

Standing in the bathroom doorway, backlit by the light over the mirror, her nude body was visible through the sheer silk.

Her flesh scalded when she met his eyes. He was older than she was, not by much, but suddenly she felt very inexperienced compared to Deacon and the years he had on her.

Her physical response to him was like a teenager. Every erotic sensation she had read about but never experienced rushed through her, robbing her of breath.

“It looks well on you.”

His voice penetrated her core and her inner thighs quivered.

“Thanks. I hope you don’t regret loaning it to me. You might need it some time in the future.”

“No,” he said shortly. “I’m done with all of that. Which side of the bed do you want?”

He wasn’t undressed, not completely. Deacon was wearing a tee-shirt and a pair of flannel boxers and he filled both garments to a heart-stopping, pussy-throbbing size.

She never thought like that about a guy before. Never. Staring at his dick thickening under the boxers, knowing that she was the cause was erotic. Robbie was completely unprepared to see Deacon Wake like that.

Hard. Huge.

Her lips began to vibrate with either cold or terror, she didn’t know. Her nipples puckered to points under the shirt.

“I’ll take the same side I had last time.”

Deacon nodded and slipped under the duvet on his side. Robbie followed, attempting to crawl under the sheet without pushing up the silk shirt. It couldn’t be done. Her legs and bum were bare.

“Are you comfortable?” he asked.

He was lying on his back with one arm crooked under his head. The other rested against his broad chest.

“I will be,” Robbie replied, trying to sound as casual as he looked.

It was useless. The sexual tension had ratcheted up to belly-tightening levels as soon as she laid down on her back. Robbie tried to pull the shirt down under the sheet without him knowing.

When she asked to spend the night, she naively thought the differences between them would remove the desire for sex from the equation. Deacon Wake would ignore her as guys had done in her presence since puberty. She could covertly lust after him, no harm done.

But thinking that he might lust after her was making her wet.

Restless.

The silk shirt was too sexy to sleep in. His boxers were flannel but he filled them with his jaw-dropping size. Recalling the bulge, Robbie squirmed and rolled to her side to face him.

“I’m not sleepy.”

“I can tell.”

Deacon didn’t seem to share her fever. He lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling.

“Before, you said you couldn’t spend a whole weekend with me because you wanted to kiss me.” Her stomach fluttered. “Do you remember that?”

“Aye.”

“Is that–do you still feel like that?”

“Yes.” His voice was husky.

Robbie tried to remember to breathe. “Would you like to kiss me now?”

“Yes. But I won’t.”

She bit her lip. “Why?”

“I won’t be able to stop at a kiss.”

Her breath stalled. She took a leap. “What if I don’t want you to stop?”

Deacon rolled to his side, tucking his arm under his head, and stared at her.

“Robbie, you don’t even know me.”

“I know you. I know you as well as you know me.”

He reached over the short distance between them and lifted a lock of her hair. Deacon rubbed it between his fingers. “It’s soft. So soft.” He brought it to his nose and smelled it.

She watched him, his hand moving from her hair to her face, stroking the line of her cheek, her jaw, and then down to her neck.

The action was unlike anything she had experienced with any human being before. Deacon wasn’t trying to do something to her–he wasn’t trying to arouse her or become aroused himself.

He was discovering her.

Robbie wasn’t a broken, discarded bit of life with him. She was sleek, beautiful, compelling, desirable.

She rose up on her good arm and he lay back against his pillow. His eyes were fastened on her face, watching, curious.

Robbie shifted nearer, the silk shirt sliding over her skin.

Deacon’s hands clamped around her waist and he drew her on top of him.

Her hair fell in a red gold curtain around his head. He spiked his fingers through it and lifted it off her face.

His eyes held her gaze.

“I want to see you.”

Between her legs, she was wet and throbbing. His cock in the flannel boxers pressed hard against her belly. Her lips parted, dropped open to pant.

Still holding her gaze, Deacon’s hands moved from her waist to her bare bottom, cupped the cheeks and squeezed gently. The sandpaper-like tips of his fingers stroked her skin.

Then his hands roamed further down to the backs of her legs, tracing the thigh muscle. Robbie inched her legs a little further apart. Deacon’s fingers explored between her thighs to the sticky fluid that was dripping from her pussy.

His eyes closed and he exhaled a chest deep moan.

Robbie brought her lips almost to his mouth. Her fingers dandled on either side of his face, pricked by the stubble of beard.

“We’ll do everything but,” he said in a low voice. “Do you understand?”

She nodded. “Everything but.”

Unleashed, Deacon caught her face in his hands and crushed her mouth against his.