So I asked, "You want that vanilla blowjob now?"

He burst out laughing.

I settled into the sound.

But while he was still doing it, I swept the covers off our bodies.

He quit laughing and groaned when I commenced my vanilla blowjob.

Deacon came in my mouth.

I came around his fingers.

As always, it was glorious.

Chapter Fifteen.

I'm Glad.

A week later, I walked in the house from the shed, where I'd been laundering sheets, folding them, and putting them in the linen cabinet there (though I'd stopped to deadhead some of the flowers in my pots on the steps of my porch).

I just got the door closed when Bossy trotted out of the downstairs powder room, stopped, looked up at me, and yapped.

"What's going on, baby?" I asked.

She yapped again.

I didn't speak Bossy, though I was learning, so I did my best to translate and walked to the door of the powder room, Bossy on my heels.

I stopped in the door and stared at Deacon on his back on the floor, his head and shoulders wedged between the opened doors of the vanity, a wrench in his hand, a brand new, non-rust-stained, scalloped-edged, totally awesome sink where the old one used to be. A new, expensive-looking, beveled-edged mirror had already been switched out with the old, ugly, tawdry, gilt-edged one.

Suffice it to say, although I'd got rid of the ugly wallpaper and painted the room a pretty green, I hadn't found the money to switch out the sink and mirror.

"What on earth?" I asked the room but it was aimed at Deacon.

What didn't seem that long ago, I'd been having coffee with Milagros at my kitchen table.

Deacon, who was giving us space doing Deacon things in secret Deacon places (this didn't happen much; when he was with me, he was with me in all the ways that could entail), walked one foot in the kitchen and stopped.

"Milagros," he said, dipping his chin to her, and he looked at me. "Later, woman."

Before I could ask, he was out the door.

Milagros had looked my way and raised her brows.

I'd looked at her and shrugged.

We'd had our gab while we finished our coffee and she went down to finish the cabins. I went down with her and got the sheets. I'd put sheets in earlier so I got caught up in that, as well as organizing the space and making note I needed to corral Deacon and get to a Costco to buy more detergent, fabric softener, and glass cleaner refill.

Now I was back.

And I had a new sink.

And mirror.

Bossy was doing her best to wedge herself in the bottom of the vanity to keep Deacon company as he kept working and didn't answer my question.

"Deacon," I called sharply.

"Sink was crap. Got you a new sink."

"And the mirror?" I pushed.

"Arguably more crap," he answered.

He was not wrong.

Still.

I drew in a breath and as I did, it hit me.

"So, in order to avoid an argument about who was paying for said sink...and mirror...you just didn't bring it up at all and went about your merry way."

"Yup," he replied nonchalantly.

I clenched my teeth.

I unclenched them to snap, "Deacon-"

"Cassidy, do I use this sink?"

"Not the point," I hissed.

"Am I gonna be usin' this sink repeatedly for the foreseeable future?"

He was, damn the man.

"Not the point either."

It took effort and I watched him make that effort to unwedge his broad shoulders from the vanity, do an ab curl to sitting on his jeans-clad ass on the powder room floor, and train his eyes to me.

Bossy climbed out of the vanity and yapped.

"Give this to me."

"Dea-"

"Baby, I need it. Give it to me."

I shut my mouth.

"Your people are comin' soon. You want to give them a nice place?" he asked.

"Rust stains are hardly the end of the world," I noted.

"Right. Then you want them to feel good that you're in a place that's nice and gettin' nicer? Not rundown and they leave, worried about when you'll be able to get around to doin' good things for you to make yourself a home?"

I wanted to kick him (though, not really). This was because none of this was the point but he was making it the point in a way that wasn't wrong.

This was also because I'd had the conversation with my father four times when he'd come to visit, offered to switch out that sink, and I'd declined, asserting my independence (as always).

Dad would be ecstatic that old sink was gone.

Mom would be ecstatic that ugly mirror was history.

With no other way to save face, I declared, "You're supremely annoying."

He grinned. "Yep. That's me."

"Should this continue to be as awesome as it is, we trundle toward together and make those babies, if we have daughters I'm starting How to Deal with Badasses when they're five."

His eyes were lit but his expression was full-on tender when he returned, "We have boys, they get How to Deal with Stubborn Bitches Who Argue About Meaningless Shit starting at three."

"Again, Deacon Deacon, women dislike being called bitches," I shot back.

"That'll be part of my lesson to the boys," he volleyed.

I rolled my eyes, unable to carry on just thinking of giving him sons.

Or daughters.

Deacon tired of the conversation and re-wedged himself under the sink.

Bossy looked from Deacon to me and back to Deacon, deciding he was more fun. I knew this when she pushed herself into the vanity, getting in his way, and yapping orders at him.

I left the bathroom.

I mean, what other option was open to me?

Damn the man.

Deep into the night three days later, I woke when Deacon trailed his fingers between my legs.

Coming sleepily cognizant of where I was, how I was, and what was happening, I felt myself get wet and a sharp tingle assaulted me. This was because, before we went to sleep, Deacon left me tied to the bed, on my stomach, arms not out but tied together above my head to the headboard.

My legs were spread eagle. This was so he could sleep beside me and do it tangling his heavy legs with my stationary one.

You would think you couldn't sleep that way, but after the orgasm he'd given me hours ago, I had no problem falling right into dreamland.

"Woke hard," he whispered in my ear.

He meant hard, as in ready.

I licked my lips.

His finger whispered light at my clit and kept doing it.

I pressed my lips together to hold back my whimper.

"Gonna take me, Cassie," he told me.

"Okay."

"Gonna take me hard."

"Okay," I repeated.

"Hear me, you're gonna take me, baby."

I didn't know what he meant.

But I didn't care.

I'd take whatever he gave me and I'd proved that repeatedly, sleeping bound one of the ways I did.

"Whatever you want, honey."

"Yeah," he replied with approval, kissed my neck, my shoulder, then he set about doing whatever he wanted.

This included fingering my clit until I was tense, fighting my ties, whimpering, and lifting my ass to demand more. Then it included him moving over me and fucking my cunt until I moaned desperately into the pillows.

And finally it included him oiling me and himself in preparation before he fucked me up the ass, up on one forearm in the bed, hand in and curled around my breast, thumb rubbing my nipple, body mostly on mine, other hand shoved under me working my clit.

I came hard with him up my ass.

Deacon came hard up my ass.

He'd never taken me there.

I fucking loved it.