Page 21

WINTER

Darkness hovers above us, the only light coming from Deacon’s room being that of the moonlight streaming through his windows.

My legs feel like jello, any attempt of trying to stand will inadvertently lead me to the floor. Not that I plan on ever leaving this bed given the many hours we’ve rolled in Deacon’s sheets.

“I’m tired. So tired but I don’t feel like I ever want to stop, Deacon,” my voice comes out hoarse and raspy from screaming Deacon’s name all night. “The mark makes you crave me, and as much as I want to go at it again, baby. I know you’ve reached your limit. Sore?” Deacon asks, his voice low and rich, I can’t help it when a shiver runs down my spine.

The world slows around us, the intensity of the moment we had a few hours ago echoing in my body as I lie in his arms. I can feel his mark on my skin—his claim, his power—still burning lightly beneath his touch.

The bite on my neck throbs faintly, a constant reminder of the primal bond Deacon has just sealed between us.

I breathe in deeply, the air in Deacon’s room thick with our combined scent. His sharp, intoxicating musk melds together with mine in a way I didn’t expect and a way I’d never thought possible. It’s like combining two jagged pieces of a Jigsaw puzzle and watching them fit. Me and Deacon fit together.

Even as his hand gently brushes through my hair, fingers stroking the curve of my jaw, I can’t help but lean into the touch, savoring the softness of said hand against my skin.

The sense of us being finally complete charges over me with a certain buzz of happiness and euphoria. Deacon’s touch is tender like I’m something precious he fought for and won.

His hand feels soft with an undercurrent of something stronger, something fiercer, something possessive, something that relates to me owning him and him owning me.

I wait for the guilt after letting Deacon mark me, for the self-loathing and the unease to come, but they never do. The minute I let this man devour me in his kitchen, I knew I didn’t loathe him.

I knew I wanted him the way he wanted me.

The bitterness I held for him for so many years has evaporated, and instead, I…I don’t hate him. I don’t think I ever hated Deacon Cross.

He said he loved me back in the kitchen, and while I couldn’t tell him yet, I gave him my heart, body, and soul.

I let him mark me.

I let him bound me to him, knowing the repercussions.

To answer Deacon’s question, my finger draws a map across his chest, and I love the feel of his muscles underneath the tip of my fingers.

“So sore. You said the round we had two hours ago was the last round.”

We’ve gone at it almost seven times. And those seven times are the ones I could count when he wasn’t going too fast and rough. We might have done more.

“You couldn’t stop begging me to fuck you, Winter,” Deacon chuckles.

“That’s the mark’s fault. You said it yourself.”

I can't even begin to distinguish if it was the mark that wanted him to make love to me that many times or myself. The bottom line is I don’t regret any of it, and if I’m being honest, I would let him mark me all over again if I was given the chance.

My mate marked me, and the pain was minimal compared to the pleasure brought about by feeling every single one of his rough thrusts in my womb.

The feel of his fangs on my neck, on the other hand, was shocking and so…so much, but combining that with the pleasure from his kisses, his hands on my breasts squeezing them, was something unworldly—something too powerful. The thought of it makes desire leak out of me like a broken faucet.

Deacon’s fingers trace my mark, and I wince a little.

It’s still throbbing enough to feel a little pain and pleasure intertwined.

“Pain level? On a scale of one to ten?”

“A two?”

His fingers are replaced with his tongue, and Goddess, I can feel the pool of tension between my thighs as if I haven’t been fucked enough tonight, or is it today? I can’t tell if it’s already past midnight yet.

“And now, baby?”

The feel of his tongue on my mark, so intimate, so warm, and the gruff sound of his voice, so sexy, so damning, it undoes me.

“Z-zero. It’s a zero. No pain… at all.”

Sucking my mark again, his hand cupping my neck, he whispers against the shell of my ear, “The mark will sting a bit but once it heals, you’ll barely see it because this little neck will have a beautiful flower-like tattoo right here.”

That much I know.

My mother’s mark had presented itself as a rose with thorns tattooed on her neck. Dad always said it was because she was feisty and pretty as hell, a deadly combination.

“What do you think the tattoo will be?”

I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like.

Deacon grips my chin and adds another small kiss on my lips before saying, “A tiger lily. Stubborn and resilient as you are.”

I’m not stubborn. But resilient? That, I am.

I want to ask so many questions. Will I still be his assistant?

What about us? He marked me, so there's no going back. I’m his now. No man can have me.

But I don’t ask those questions.

“Deacon?”

“Yes, baby?”

I’m slightly starting to love when he calls me that.

My stomach somersaults when his eyes drag over my face like I’m precious and I deserve his attention.

The woman in me that has not been loved for so long comes out, and she’s needier and sluttier than ever.

“One more round?” I ask and it comes out as a plea.

Deacon smiles, hugging me closer, “As much as my cock loves feeling your cunt clenching around him, baby, you need rest. Lots of it.”

I remember getting angry at him and pushing him away.

I also remember Deacon hugging me from the back, calling me baby and all the nice things I want to hear.

I remember his tongue licking my mark like it was the most intriguing ever.

Then, I remember sleep taking me with its angry clutches.

XXX

Opening my eyes to Deacon's arm around my waist and his lips on my neck, draws a smile out of me.

If this is the new norm, I might get used to it. I might give my sons the most precious gift they could ask for, and that’s knowing their dad is not dead but here with us.

I trace my hand along the veins on Deacon’s arms. Goddess, he’s a hot specimen. My hot specimen.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Deacon says behind me. I lean into his chest more, my eyes on the glass floor-to-ceiling windows that have light curtains fluttering with the morning winds.

“I like getting woken up by you,” I whisper.

Deacon’s hold on me tightens.

“Say that again.”

“I like getting woken up by you. I like waking up next to you too, Deacon,” I repeat.

“Me too, baby. You know how hard it was trying not to wake you up yesterday and feel your touch? I was dying for a kiss, too, Winter. But I had to distract the boys so they wouldn't worry about you.”

The mention of the boys and yesterday have me confused.

I turn around to face Deacon, and he looks so handsome, my words die in my throat.

Does he always look this good in the morning? Because I'm pretty sure I look like a gutter rat.

“What do you mean, distract the boys so they wouldn't worry about me? Deacon, what day…is it?”

“You slept through yesterday, Winter. Side effects of the mark is fatigue, and you needed rest.”

What the…?

“What? Ash and Addie, they must have been worried sick.”

Deacon offers me a sheepish smile.

“I handled them. They understood Mommy needed rest from taking care of them all the time.”

The thought of Deacon calming Ash and Addie down so they wouldn’t worry about me makes my heart skip.

Today is the day I tell him the truth.

There’s no need to keep this away from him any longer. I’ll tell him together with the boys at the same time so that my boys understand that their father never knew about them.

“Thank you. For taking care of them.”

Something akin to pain reads in Deacon’s eyes but either I’m imagining it or I’m still too sleepy to differentiate between pain and him accepting my gratitude.

“Anytime. Are you hungry? I can whip up something really quick for you.”

I cup his jaw, my eyes zeroing in on his lips, “How about I cook you guys breakfast?”

“Winter, you are still recovering from the mark. Moving around is the last thing you should be doing.”

“You don’t think I can top your secret ingredient pancake recipe, do you?” I joke.

Deacon doesn’t find humor in the joke.

“I’m not joking, Winter. You need more rest.”

I slept for an entire day, Goddess’ sake! I’m well rested by now.

“And I said I’m fine. Let me take care of you guys this time, too.”

Just to make him budge, I breach the gap between us and drop a small kiss on his lips.

“Please?”

“I’m gonna need more than a kiss to let you downstairs, baby.”

“Okay. What, uh, what do you want?”

“To clean off my cum between your thighs in the shower.”

Do his crude words surprise me? Yes, they do.

Do I say yes to a shower with my boss? I do. The cherry on top is I do it unashamedly.

XXX

“And Mommy, Uncle Deacon asked if you were okay standing on your own?”

I almost roll my eyes at Ash’s question.

Deacon has been playing with my babies in the living room while I cook breakfast for them in the form of pancakes and fruits, and every once in a while, he either sends Adrian or Ash to ask me if I’m doing fine or if I’m too tired.

I’m not going to lie and say my heart doesn’t beat faster from that mere action alone.

“I’m fine, baby. See? Mommy is standing on her own.”

I finish peeling the fruits and sorting them on the bowl before I pile the pancakes on the tray.

“Mommy?”

“Yes, Ash?”

Fidgeting, looking at me nervously, and staring at the floor, my baby fails to speak to me, and I leave everything, turning my undivided attention on him.

“What is it, Ash?”

“I think…I think Uncle Deacon likes you, Mommy.”

Leave it to Ash to see things as they are.

“Yeah? Why do you say that?”

“He kept saying that you would be alright yesterday, but Addie and I knew you were already alright, just tired. He let you sleep in his bed, and when he wasn’t playing with us, he came to see you, Mommy. Many, many times!”

Yeah, I can imagine Deacon worried about causing me harm with his mark.

“And how do you and Addie feel about Uncle Deacon? Do you like him?”

Ash thinks about it for a second, and then his eyes light up, “Mumm, he’s cool and big, like a superhero, and he likes playing ball with us! We like Uncle Deacon, Mommy. Addie says he should be our new daddy.”

Which is code for, they both think Deacon should be their father and how pleased they will be when I tell them that Deacon is their real father.

I’m about to tell Ash that I like Deacon too when the loud buzzing of the doorbell greets me all the way in the kitchen.

I give Ash the bowl of fruit before taking the tray of pancakes and following him to the living room.

“I’ll get the door,” Deacon smiles at me, giving me a small wink.

The only visitors we’ve had have been Luka and Julie, and from the last conversation we had, they wanted to stay in Deacon’s house forever because it was the first time they were stepping into an Alpha’s mansion. I’d not be surprised to see them standing by the other side of the door.

Standing in the middle of the living room with a tray of pancakes in hand, my babies stay by both sides of my legs as we all watch Deacon open the door for our visitors.

My smile turns lopsided when I realize it’s not Luka and Julie.

Instead, a woman with blonde hair I would recognize from a mile away, wearing a satin maroon dress that reaches her mid-thighs, brought all together by six-inch Louboutin heels on her feet; enters Deacon’s mansion.

That Deja vu feeling of getting betrayed sounds bitter in my mouth, but I push away the feeling.

Deacon marked us, I tell myself.

Deacon has changed. I lie to myself.

Deacon didn’t mean to reject us. He said it himself.

Everything all goes down to shit as the woman opens her mouth to speak.

“Babe!” She squeals, and then, like I'm stuck in a bad romance movie, she smashes her lips with Deacon’s.

Deacon takes almost two minutes to pry his lips from my former best friend, Crystal Sanders.

But in those two minutes, the reality of what I’ve done hits me like a cold bucket of ice to the face. I succumbed to Deacon Cross’ charm, and I got burnt again. Only this time, I’m the fool.

“Do you know how much I missed my Alpha? You have no clue how much I missed you, Deacon!” Crystal quips excitedly.

I don’t even think it can get much worse than this.

“Who are you?” Adrian asks, and I almost forget that my boys are seeing this, too.

They are getting broken by this all because I couldn’t take us home and have a mind strong enough to resist Deacon Cross.

Crystal finally looks at us, and there’s no hiding the bile she has in her eyes for us.

My former best friend looks at me like I’m dirt underneath her expensive heels.

Then she answers my son’s question, making sure she aims for my jugular.

“I’m Alpha Deacon’s Luna, of course!”