Page 6 of Deacon (The Sovereign Mountain #3)

CHAPTER SIX

DEACON

She’s here. After months of wanting.

I have a deep hunger. Now that she’s here, it aches in my marrow. She’s in my house, flesh and blood, all soft curves, soaked clothes barely clinging to her perfect body.

The light under the bathroom door burns in my vision, leaving light spots behind my eyelids. I take a step back. I’ve already watched her for months.

What does it hurt to watch her a little more?

Silently, I open the closet door and step back into it. There’s a section where the wall isn’t fully finished. I used to keep a dresser in front of it, but a few weeks ago, I moved it with the intent to finish the seam.

Now I’m glad I didn’t, because where the wall and the doorway meet, there’s a sliver of an opening. It looks directly across the bathroom, to the tub at the back left corner. Steam rises from the dark copper basin, surrounding her in a fine mist.

She lifts the hem of her sweater and pulls it over her head with difficulty. It sticks to her skin then peels away.

My groin tightens .

She’s so beautiful. Curvy, her waist dipping in and blossoming out, the fine line of her spine going up to her drenched hair. She looks like one of those women in old paintings, where they’re always naked and languishing on something. Classically beautiful in her softness.

She undoes her skirt and tugs it down along with her tights. That makes her bend, but I don’t see her ass until she kicks them off and stands again.

Goddamn.

It’s better than I imagined, and I spent a lot of time fantasizing about it. My breath catches. She hooks her panties and peels them down, kicking them off her ankle. Then, to my disappointment, she sinks into the tub without turning around.

I tilt my head. That’s alright. I’ll have plenty of time to see the rest of her body later.

My dick is so hard, it hurts. Silently, my hand finds its way to the ridge and palms it.

I can’t do this here, not now.

But God, I want to.

There’s something so sensual about her. Maybe it’s her dark curls, the color of the woods. Or her velvety skin. Or her big pale blue eyes that remind me of ice on the deep river that runs down the mountain.

Or it’s the aura around her that I don’t know how to explain. It’s like she was made for a different world.

I don’t know, but I do know that she was made to be mine.

Moving on the sides of my boots, I leave the closet and go back into the hall. By the time I have my coat and hat back on, my dick has gone down, but my head is still rolling the image of her naked body around, fixating on every tiny detail. The mole by her shoulder blade. The single dimple above her ass.

When the barn is secured against the storm, I go back inside and change in the guestroom. She’s here, so I put a shirt on with my sweatpants before going down to the kitchen.

Downstairs, I take the phone from my office and lay it on the kitchen table. It doesn’t have a tracker in it. That felt invasive, so I just cloned it so I can see her texts if I need. I have an uneasy feeling about her situation, like sooner rather than later, she’s going to need help.

My hands move of their own accord as I make toast and coffee, but my head is in that bathroom with her. My whole attention is concentrated on it.

Over the summer, it occurred to me that this is more than attraction. I have an obsession. It started with soft fern-green. It escalated to watching her daily in the café, to watching her in the church parking lot, and went all the way to seeing her undress through the crack in my closet and giving her a phone so I can keep tabs on her.

I have a problem.

But I don’t have a problem with it.

She clears her throat. I turn. Right away, my dick twitches. She fills out my flannel perfectly. The top button is open, showing her cleavage. The hem comes to the middle of her thighs, leaving those curvy legs bare.

“You hungry?” I manage.

She nods, eyes huge. “I didn’t get dinner.”

“Sit at the table,” I say. “I’ll make something.”

She obeys, but her eyes follow my every move, wary like an animal. I set the coffee and toast down in front of her.

“You like fried eggs?” I ask. “Bacon?”

She nods.

“Not a big talker, huh?”

She shakes her head. I smile, and I think I see a flicker of one in return. I take a cast iron skillet and set it to warm up while I get the eggs and leftover bacon from this morning. Her gaze follows my every move, even when she takes a sip from her mug.

“So, tell me about yourself,” I say.

She clears her throat. “There’s nothing much to say. What do you do?”

“I own the place and I train the horses and sell them. We also do some cattle out here. ”

“I don’t do anything that interesting,” she says thoughtfully. “I work at the café. At night, I go home and do the cooking.”

“You don’t have nothing you like?”

She tilts her head. “I collect moths and butterflies. Some beetles.”

That catches me completely off guard. I stare at her for a minute, the grease in the pan crackling as the bacon reheats.

“Like, you keep them in a bucket or something?” I ask.

She laughs, and my head goes empty. It’s a soft, pretty sound, barely bubbling from her throat. A blush fills out her cold cheeks.

“No, I collect them when they’re dead and keep them preserved,” she says.

“Why?”

I don’t mean it in a bad way, I’ve just never met anybody with a strong interest in bugs and moths.

“Because they’re beautiful,” she says. “And interesting.”

I lean on the counter, crossing my arms. “Huh. How many do you have?”

“Hundreds, near about.”

“That’s a lot of bugs.”

She tilts her head, and her guard goes up again. “You think it’s silly.”

“I think it’s respectable and unusual,” I say. “Not silly.”

She giggles again, and this time, she bites her lower lip for a second. I get a flash of her teeth, and when she lets it go, I see the tip of her tongue. Then it’s gone, and I’m turning around under the guise of cracking eggs, but really, I’ve got a half-boner pushing at the front of my pants.

God, she’s perfect. I think I’ll keep her.

“Do you mean that?” she asks.

I turn back around. She’s watching me intensely.

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

Her eyes drop. “Everybody makes fun of it. Except Bittern.”

There’s a raw note in her voice, a little bit of pain .

“It’s as good as any other interest,” I say, flicking the stove off. I plate the eggs and bacon and set them in front of her. She looks down but doesn’t move. “That alright?”

She nods. “I’ve just never had anybody cook for me.”

I sit down opposite her with my own plate. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

“I live with my stepfather and his two sons,” she says. “None of them cook.”

“So you did it?”

She nods, taking a bite of bacon. “This is good. Thank you.”

We eat in silence for a while. The storm rages against the house, making the windows rattle. Inside, it’s warm and the walls are thick. This is the way I like to live close to the wilderness but not quite in it. Like an animal, deep in a winter cave.

It lets me live free but still keeps the door open for a home.

“So…what do you like to do?” she asks quietly.

I lean back in my chair, wiping my hands on my napkin. “When I’m not training the horses? I run the ranch with Andy, my manager. I do a bit of carpentry, did the interiors of this house. Blacksmithing, barrel racing when the fair comes around.”

She turns her head in a slow circle. “You built this house?”

“I had a friend do the blueprint with me and get the bones up,” I say. “But I put in the walls, flooring, and all the little details.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “The pictures of horses in the hall—are those ones you trained?”

I nod. “All my prizewinners.”

“Do you have a horse?”

Pausing, I notice she’s leaning in, her elbows on the table, interested for the first time. I’ve seen her simulate being animated to customers. I’ve also seen her face fall as soon as they turn away. This expression is different.

Her shell is crumbling. I’m doing something right.

“Yeah, I got a stallion,” I say. “He’s called Bones And All, but he goes by Bones now that he’s just for riding and work.”

“Do you have a dog?” She cocks her head .

“No. I had a cattle dog for a while, but he passed. He was old,” I say. “I like dogs a lot, like to get another one, but I just haven’t found the right fit.”

She’s quiet, mulling this over.

“You like dogs?” I ask.

She nods. “I always wanted one, but Aiden said no pets.”

There’s a trail of sadness through her words. I watch her for a second as she sips her coffee. Her soft, full mouth purses. Then, the tip of her tongue flicks out again. My dick jerks in response.

I’ve jerked off a lot to the scent of her ribbon, but that doesn’t compare to seeing her in person, feeling the heat of her presence or catching the vanilla scent that came off her when I lifted her from my truck.

“You like living with your stepfather and his sons?” I ask.

She shakes her head. Then, her pupils blow, like she made a mistake. “I mean, they’re fine. I like Bittern.”

“Bittern?”

“He’s Aiden’s youngest son,” she says.

“And you like him? Do the others hurt you?” I try to bite back the thinly veiled threat in my tone, but it comes out anyway.

She squirms. “No, not really. Bittern is nice, but he’s quiet from his accident in the mines.”

She hesitates, like she’s expecting me to cut her off. I wait for her to continue.

“Aiden had three sons,” she says. “His oldest, Wayland, died in a work accident. Bittern was with him, but he lived. He’s been off ever since, and he coughs a lot.”

Sadness tinges her voice, and it occurs to me Freya Hatfield has a lot of sadness in her. I wonder if she loves the butterflies and bugs, or if she never had any companionship to replace them. I met people like that in foster care, kids who bonded to animals, even insects, because they were loners in an unstable world.

“What are your favorite things?” I ask. “In the whole world.”

She stares at me like she’s startled. “I like outside,” she whispers. “I like the woods. I like the stars more than anything. I have notebooks where I track them. When I was little, I used to pretend I could live up there, like it was its own universe.”

I listen, entranced. My mind goes up to the attic, where I installed four skylights so I could suspend my submissive beneath them, so I could put her in the stars. The woman I love will fit right into the place I’ve built.

Freya is the perfect fit. She doesn’t know it yet, but she will.

“I dissociated a lot as a kid,” she says. “Things got rough. You know how it is. But I don’t do that as much now.”

“Why?”

She considers it. “Montana is different. This part of it feels so wild. Dark. Some parts of growing up were…hard. But I miss the Appalachian Mountains.”

“You don’t like our mountains?”

“I’ve just never met them.”

That takes me aback. It doesn’t make sense, but somehow, it makes perfect sense. We’re both quiet for a moment. Then, she gets up and starts to pick up the dishes. I rise, towering over her body, and take them from her hands.

“You’re a guest,” I say. “No work. You tired?”

She backs up, edging out of my space. She does that a lot.

“Pretty tired,” she says. “Is that the phone?”

We both look down at the flip phone I laid there earlier. I nod, giving it over. She offers me a nervous smile and disappears into the hall with it. Her voice rises and falls for a minute. Then, she comes back in, a crease between her brows.

“Bittern says his truck got four flat tires while he was at the gas station,” she says. “That’s really strange.”

I keep quiet. It’s not that strange, considering I was the one who took a nail gun and shot the tires out while he was inside paying for gas and a six-pack. My only regret is that it took me longer than I anticipated. I’d planned on picking her up at the drop-off, not the middle of the woods.

“He had to get Ryland to come get him. I told him I was staying with Tracy,” she says .

“He can’t know you’re with the neighbor?” I ask.

She shakes her head hard. “No, Aiden would lose it if he knew I was with…a man.”

She has a reaction to speaking his name. It’s so subtle, I almost miss it. But I lived with Phil and Amie, so I learned to tune in to the little details. I hear the caginess in her tone. The tiny contracting of her pupils. The slight increase in her breathing.

She’s scared, deep down. Anger floods my veins.

“Is Aiden a problem that needs handling?” I blurt out.

She sets the phone down. “Why?”

I shrug. “If Aiden’s a problem for you, I can handle that problem.”

Her tongue darts out, wetting her lips. If I weren’t fired up about Aiden being a potential abuser, I’d have a reaction to that. But inside, I’m angry the way I was when I saw what Amie went through. There’s something about injustice against people who can’t fight that flips my switch, makes me do insane things.

“What are you saying?” she whispers.

I set the mugs in the sink and turn, wiping my hands dry on the towel.

“I mean, if he’s putting his hands on you, I don’t mind putting a fence stake in his head.”

That came out a lot stronger than intended. Her jaw drops.

“What?” she whispers.

I smile. “I’m just joking, sweetheart. But if you got somebody putting their hands on you, I’m happy to do the neighborly thing and have a word with him.”

I half expected her to go pale. Instead, the prettiest blush creeps over her face and slips down to the swell of her cleavage. I’ll bet she blushes like that when she comes, all laid out on her back with her hand between her legs.

I’ve thought about that a lot too—what Freya looks like when she touches herself. It’s a bit of an obsession at this point.

She tucks a curl behind her ear. “I’m kind of tired. Could I go to bed now?”

“Of course,” I say. “You want anything else? Shot of whiskey? ”

She hesitates by the door. “Sure. I’m still a little cold”

I take out a bottle of honey whiskey and pour two shot glasses. She picks it up in her delicate fingers and shoots it, like she does it a lot. She shivers. The glass clinks on the counter.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” she says.

“The storm should be calmed by the end of the day tomorrow,” I say. “I can’t promise it’ll be done by the morning.”

She nods.

“Alright, let’s get you to the guestroom.”