All My Broken Dreams (Locksley Hall #1)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

R obbie curled up on his sofa under a blanket while Deacon lit the fire and set the kettle on to boil. There was a Christmas wreath on his door when they came in and she noticed he had a tree set up in the corner on a table. It was lit with tiny multi-colored lights.

“You like Christmas,” she said.

“My mother enjoyed the season. She’d decorate the whole house. I guess the tradition stuck with me. I do what I can.” He handed her a cup of tea. “Here. Get that down you. It’ll help.”

“Milky tea with sugar isn’t going to make those students forget what happened just now. They have it on film.”

“Alastair will take care of that. You won’t be embarrassed. What happened to trigger it? You were doing so well.”

She gave a hollow laugh. “I thought I was cured, that’s how well I was doing. It was the kittens,” she said, and then her voice broke. “I am so sorry about the kittens.”

Deacon’s jaw twitched. “I wasn’t going to tell you. How did you find out?”

Silent tears began to stream down her cheeks with no effort on her part. “I overheard a couple of guys talking about it. It was terrible–but it was more than that–more than losing the mother and her little family–it felt like I’d lost you too.”

Without a word, Deacon took the cup out of her hand and placed it on the table. He sat down beside her and held out his arms. Robbie flung herself at him with a broken cry, wracked with a grief that threatened to pull her apart.

“Losing me?” he murmured consolingly. “How is that ever going to happen?”

“It was all my fault, Deacon. I told Casey about the kittens and he must’ve told his father. Alastair, the shithead Black did this to them or he ordered someone to do it. You told me they had to be kept a secret and I didn’t listen. It was after Harry’s funeral and I … I am so sorry.”

Deacon held her, squeezing her against his chest. “It wasn’t Alastair, but I have a good idea who it was. I’ll make them pay when the time comes.” He hesitated. “You’ll never lose me, Robbie. I just can’t follow you where you are going.”

“Please don’t say that. Please don’t let me get too far ahead of you because I have no idea where I am going.”

“I can’t promise as much as I want to. It’ll be your decision when the time comes. My guess is it’ll become too hard to keep me in your life especially now that you’ve moved into Dugald Croft.”

She clung to him until the misery began to leave her body. Her chest loosened, her eyes were raw and her nose ran, but the worst of it was over.

“You could move in too. Why not? You have as much right to live there as I do.”

“It’s you they want. I’d only be in the way. My uncle sees in you a future that was lost to him. Like I said, I’d get in the way of that. What happened at the pub when I lost my temper with Casey–that can’t happen again. And it will if you and I get any closer.”

“What future are you talking about? No one has discussed future plans with me. Alastair can scheme all he likes, I have my own ideas, Deacon.”

“What if your ideas and his are the same? You’re already part way there, Robbie. When I saw you at the pub, surrounded by students, enjoying a pint with Casey, you looked like a girl in her element. You looked like one of them. You belong at Locksley Hall. You belong with them.”

“I think you’re insane and don’t know what you’re saying.” Robbie lifted her hand to caress his face, to draw him down for a kiss. “If I belong anywhere, it’s here with you. I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t realize how much.”

“Don’t.”

It wasn’t his tone so much as the look in his eye. She dropped her hand. “Sorry. I forgot how different things are between us now.”

“If you’re feeling better, I’ll take you back to Dugald Croft.”

“No, not yet.” She shifted her weight to the other side of the sofa so she could look at him without touching him. “You came to the lecture hall. How did you know where to find me?”

His eyes flicked to the left. “Alastair sent me. He asked me to bring you home. He said you were unwell.”

“But why you? Why didn’t he send Casey? He was in class, wasn’t he? That would have made more sense than sending the janitor, since it’s not your job and everyone around here makes such a big deal about not mixing with the hired help.”

“Casey hasn’t been in class since our fight at the pub. He’s frequently under the weather; no one knows what’s wrong with him. The doctors say it’s nerves. He’s missed several classes and Alastair is losing patience. It’s my fault for hurting him. He can’t take pain the way I can.”

Deacon’s expression was unreadable. He was wearing an off-white woolen sweater and his long legs were encased in jeans that were damp from their snowy flight across campus.

Robbie closed her eyes, longing for something that only he could give, but having no idea what that was. This morning, she thought she had everything she ever dreamed of having.

“We are never going to be together like this again,” she said quietly. “You know that’s true. Don’t tell me it’s up to me. If it is up to me, then I want to see you. I want to be with you like we are now.”

Deacon’s whole body seemed to change. Suddenly charged with tension, electric energy flowing from a fresh untapped source, he gripped her shoulders and flipped her under him, pressing her down against the sofa cushions.

“Stop talking to me like I’m one of them. Like I have a choice in the matter. I don’t and I never will. Get it through your thick skull that we will never be together and stop plaguing me about it! It is heartless. I know my place–you showed me my place. I’m not ashamed of it and I won’t stand by to be insulted by the likes of you and Casey Manderville. I know who I am. Do you, Robbie? Do you know who I am?”

Her eyes stretched wide, staring into his brown orbs that raged with fire and lust. Her mouth fell open. Her breath quickened. Aroused by his hands on her, his body holding her down, and the stiff cock she felt pressing against her stomach.

Deacon Wake was turned on whether he wanted to be or not.

“Yes, I know who you are. Now, get off me.”

He locked eyes with her for an instant.

Then he smashed his lips against her mouth, his tongue diving between her teeth, pushing, exploring, kissing her senseless. Her body ignited with electric sensations.

His hand slid under her skirt and he wrenched at the elastic on her tights to pull them down. She slapped his hand away. He pushed her back.

“No, Robbie. This is who I am.”

Her thighs were confined by the tights, her skirt and his weight; she was trapped and wriggling when his fingers parted the folds of her soft flesh and he began to pet her slit, stroking her to erotic madness.

Being confined, unable to get free of his fingering, intensified the power of her climax. She came against the palm of his hand, arching her back and crying out against his mouth that was still pinned against hers.

It all happened so rapidly, Robbie didn’t have time to think. Deacon wrenched off her tights, pushed her legs apart and his hot stare grazed over her wet, pulsating pussy.

Through the tight jeans, his cock made the jeans even tighter. His erection was outlined like a truncheon under the material.

Robbie laid back against the cushions, panting, her eyes begging him to release his cock and fuck her sore.

Instead, he knelt between her legs and flicked his tongue over the hard slick nub. Her thighs flinched. Her lower belly exploded with butterflies. Robbie gripped the arm of the sofa.

“You want me to make the decision for both of us,” he growled. “Fine. Here is my decision. I’m going to suck you dry. I’m going to take everything you have so you never think of me again.” He raked his tongue over her ultra sensitive clitoris.

Robbie bucked and bellowed with a hoarse cry of pain and pleasure.

His lips fastened to her sex and he suckled her. Her legs split wider and her hips lifted. She bit down on her fist to keep from screaming. The nub was still recovering from his fingering; this second assault was bending her brain, spiraling her into unconsciousness.

Her eyes rolled back in her head. Deacon was relentless, gripping her ass, and eating her out like a wild dog.

She came hard, loud and out of control. Shaking, half-conscious, helpless and weak. He left a void inside her that whimpered for his cock. Ached for completion.

“I’ll tell you what I want.” Her voice was thick and rasping, unrecognizable to her own ears. “I want you inside me. I want to feel you inside me. I want you to fuck me, Deacon,” she pleaded.

“You want me to stick my neck out.”

“If it’s your job you’re worried about, I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“They’ll know. They’ll see it on us whenever we’re together. He sent me to get you when you were in trouble. He won’t trust me with you the next time if he knows I’m fucking you.”

“Why?” she cried. “What business is it of his who I sleep with? I’m a consenting adult.”

Deacon pushed away from her with a bellow. “Because he wants you for Casey!”