“I don’t care,” she whispered back, and lifted her bottom to fully join them together.
It was all a blur. The hurried, desperate thrusts, the feel of her fingernails digging into his back, Lana’s soft voice urging him over that precipice and finally, white-hot pleasure seizing every inch of his body. He groaned into her neck, latching his mouth onto her warm flesh as release pulsed through him. He’d never felt this way with any other woman. It wasn’t just the force of the climax, but something more. A tight vise around his heart that he didn’t quite know how to interpret.
Kissing the side of his jaw, Lana rolled over and rested her head against his damp chest, one dainty arm slung over his abs, one leg hooked over his thighs.
Deacon stroked her blond hair and stared up at the ceiling, riddled with pain and confusion. Lana’s silky tresses slid through his fingers, her breath warmed his chest. He was amazed by how small and fragile she felt in his arms, by the complete trust she offered as she nestled close to him and drifted off to sleep.
That strange and painful vise returned, squeezing tighter this time. Why did this keep happening each time he let himself get close to Lana? What was this?
You love her.
Deacon almost scrambled off the bed in alarm. Love? No. That was utterly illogical. He couldn’t love Lana. She turned him on, sure, and she definitely inspired a powerful protective streak inside him. But love?
Lana made a contented little sound in her sleep and he instinctively tightened his hold on her.
I love her.
He tested the words in his mind, letting them sit, settle, develop some sort of meaning. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Loving Lana. Protecting her, raising their kid, sharing his life with—
Out of nowhere, a grisly image slammed its way into his brain. The pool of blood surrounding his mother’s long black hair. The gun dangling limply from his father’s cold fingers.
Deacon sucked in a burst of oxygen, his mind reeling. Christ, who was he kidding? Of course it would be bad, loving Lana. She was the kindest person he’d ever met. Not to mention the most optimistic, smartest, prettiest… She had it all, which made his feelings for her all the more dangerous.
If he let himself love her, the darkness inside him, the darkness he’d inherited from his father, would eventually eclipse the light Lana seemed to radiate. What if he destroyed her one day, the way his mother had been destroyed?
He could never take that chance. He’d rather die first.
“Why are you so tense?”
Her concerned voice broke through the silence. She touched his chest, which was tightly constricted thanks to the breath he’d been holding.
“It’s nothing,” he said in a strained voice. “Go to sleep.”
Her blond head lifted. Propping herself up on her elbow, she studied him with weary blue eyes, the expression revealing she knew exactly what he’d been thinking just now.
“You’re not going to stick around when we get to Montana, are you, Deacon?”
He finally let out that breath. “I’ve been telling you that from the start.”
“I know. I just hoped…”
The disappointment he heard in her soft voice almost made him backpedal. He couldn’t bear hurting her, not after everything she’d been through. But he couldn’t lead her on, either. She deserved much better than that.
“You hoped we could pretend I never had a hand in your kidnapping, that we’d get married and raise this kid together and live happily ever after?” He injected a note of sarcasm into the fairy tale, trying not to wince when he saw the hurt flood her face.
“Is that so far-fetched?” she whispered in the darkness.
“Yes.” Slowly, he lifted her arm from his chest and tucked it against her side, then slid off the bed in search of some clothes. “It’s a damned fantasy, Lana. People like you and me, we don’t get together. We don’t live happily ever after. You do, but not me.”
His hands were oddly shaky as he picked up his boxers and yanked them up his thighs. Lana didn’t say anything as he dressed, just lay there on her side, her blue eyes glimmering with unhappiness and some more of that disappointment.
“I still think you’re wrong,” she said, but this time, the conviction in her voice wavered. “You’re a good man, Deacon. We can still make this work, if not for us, then at least for this baby—”
“I don’t want a damned baby!” he cut in. “And I don’t want to be married to a spoiled young heiress who lives in a damn dream world.”
She flinched as if he’d struck her.
In that moment, he felt everything she did. The hot agony stabbing into his insides, the sorrow weighing on his chest.
He hated hurting her. He loathed it.