“Harder, Deacon.”

His lips came to mine. “You got it, Cassie.”

Then he kissed me and gave it to me harder, faster, slamming into me until I cried my orgasm against his tongue. He released my mouth and let me ride it as he rode me, face now pressed in my neck until his head snapped back, his cock ground in, and he grunted his release as I watched with hazy, satisfied fascination as it moved over his beautiful, hard, striking features.

I lost that beauty when he dropped his head to press his forehead to my neck but I held him close as we both settled, taking our time, staying connected, as we let it drift away.

I knew when it left Deacon, because when it did, he gave me more.

“Dream come true, seated deep inside you in this bed.”

I closed my eyes tight and ordered, “Stop it. I have floral splendor and clean but decrepit gutters and I just had a fantastic orgasm. I’m not in the mood to cry.”

He lifted his head, kept some of his weight braced into a forearm in the bed while he framed one side of my face with his big hand. I knew with one look in his eyes he wasn’t in a teasing or bantering mood.

“Six years, laid in this bed, you up at the house, wantin’ this.” I pressed my lips together and stared in his eyes. “Dream come true.”

“Okay,” I forced out, the word sounding choked because it was. “Now I’m crying.”

And I was. I felt the tear slide out the side of my eye just as I felt Deacon catch it with the pad of his index finger.

“Don’t give a fuck if it’s three weeks or thirteen,” he declared. “You don’t hear from me, do not ever doubt where I want to be.”

God, I hoped it was never thirteen weeks.

I didn’t share that.

I said, “Same goes for you.”

He stared at me, right in the eyes, something working in his that was part what he was giving me, part something I didn’t understand.

I waited.

He shared no further. Just bent to touch his mouth to mine, pulled out, rolled off, moving me with him so I ended up on top.

“You wanna clean up?” he asked when he got us in our new position, both his hands now at my head, fingers moving against my temples to dry the moisture there.

“Yeah,” I said and it was croaky so I took a shuddering breath to get it together. “But I don’t provide towels, only sheets. So I’m gonna have to go to the house to get a washcloth. And I also don’t offer toilet paper, so I’ll get some of that too.”

His arms curved around me and tightened. “I’ll go to the house.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I’ll grab some munchies and my phone charger, seeing as the resident badass has decreed we’re spending the night in cabin eleven and my battery is low.”

The grooves around his mouth deepened but his arms didn’t loosen.

“I’ll get food and your charger too.”

“It’s okay, Deacon.”

“Did I say you’re naked in this bed for the rest of the day?”

I suppressed a smile and replied, “Yes.”

“So who’s goin’ to the house?”

The smile broke through. “You.”

He gave me another squeeze on his, “Yeah. Me.”

I bent my head to kiss him lightly then lifted it, muttering inanely, “Rethinking my decision to provide towels.”

“Don’t. Unnecessary hassle for you.”

That quick, firm advice got him a grin.

That grin faded when I informed him, “Just so you know, gotta keep my phone close, honey, just in case one of my customers needs me.”

He tilted his head slightly on the pillow and asked, “That happen a lot?”

I shrugged, lifting a hand so I could stroke his jaw with my thumb, mostly because I couldn’t stop myself from touching him, and gleefully because I didn’t have to try. “Currently, don’t have any demanding renters. But it’s not unusual.”

“And those demands are?” he prompted when I gave no detail.

I settled more fully on him and shared, “Well, usually it’s when they don’t read the terms and conditions and think there are towels, toilet paper, daily maid service, laundry onsite, crap like that. And that only happens when they first get here and find out that stuff isn’t provided.” My eyes wandered to the pillow and I went on, “Though, next up for Glacier Lily, gonna build an outbuilding and have a coin-op washer and dryer so I don’t have to deal with that part. When that’s done, I’ll build my gazebo.”

“Gazebo?’ he asked and I looked back at him.

“Last big dream for Glacier Lily. A big gazebo by the river with chairs in it for folks to sit, relax, drink in the view.”

“Can you afford that?”

“I’m gonna refinance the property,” I answered. “Roll the second mortgage in with money to pay back my dad and—”

I said no more because I found myself suddenly and surprisingly on my back with Deacon looming over me.

“You haven’t paid back your dad?”

I felt my brows drawing together, remembering I’d told him about that but confused as to why he had a dark look on his face all of a sudden. “No. He won’t accept installments and—”

“And you got a loan from the bank?”

“Well, yeah, Deacon,” I replied. “All the work I did on the cabins cost some cake.”

“And you got a loan from the bank to pay for it.”

I stared at him and repeated slowly, “Well…yeah.”

“Woman, don’t do that again.”

This was quick and firm too, it was also surprising.

“Why?”

“Banks suck.”

“Perhaps,” I allowed. “But they’re a necessary evil. And anyway, I didn’t promise them my firstborn child,” I pointed out.

Again, Deacon wasn’t in the mood for teasing or banter.

“Cassidy, listen to me, the economy was in the toilet for years. So bad, every time I came here, did it uneasy, hopin’ you were still in business, ridin’ a wave the rest of the country was not and keepin’ your head above water.”

God.

Deacon.

I wondered if it would ever stop coming to me, his moments of sweet and how deep they ran.

I wondered, but hoped it didn’t.

“Straight up miracle you did,” he kept at me. “You didn’t, you get in too deep with the bank and your shit gets messy, they can take it all and you walk away with nothing.”