When he reached the bottom step, his gaze moved to the workshop’s side door, and that old familiar pain lanced through his chest.
God, the way he’d felt going to his father that day, the pain that had sliced across his old man’s face when he’d told him what he’d seen. Deacon had thought he was doing the right thing. He’d been angry and hurt, and still in shock, after finding his mother with another man. Jacob West had been heartbroken, humiliated. His own son discovering what he hadn’t seen himself was too much for his pride to recover from.
His parents separated after that, and he and his father had begun to drift apart. Maybe his mother would have left on her own, eventually, maybe she wouldn’t. He’d opened his mouth, and because of that, his dad had lost the woman he loved and his sisters had grown up without their mother. He’d blamed himself. As he’d gotten older, his relationship with his father had only gone from bad to worse.
But when he dropped the bomb that he was going to business school instead of working at the garage and one day taking it over—things had completely fallen apart. They’d never recovered from it. Never made their peace, and now it was too late.
Before he realized what he was doing, he had the keys for Alex’s apartment in his hand. Spare keys for the garage and the cottage were on the key ring as well, and he unlocked the door. The place was pitch-black, but he knew every square foot; it was as familiar to him as the back of his own hand. He went straight to the security system flashing beside the door and disengaged the alarm, then, shutting the door behind him, flicked on the overhead lights.
This place. The smell. The memories. He’d had some of the best times of his life in this workshop. He’d also suffered some of the worst. The fight with his father that he’d been too damn stubborn to forget. He’d held onto every angry word and let it fuel him, push him to succeed, to show his father how wrong he was, that he could make something of himself.
So much wasted time.
Shoving the keys in his pocket, he moved across the concrete floor to the back of the room. There in the far corner, covered in canvas to keep off the dust, was his father’s 1965 Pontiac GTO. Jacob had left it to him in his will, along with this building. He wasn’t stupid enough to miss the significance. It was an apology. His father’s way of saying, “I’m sorry.” He’d left in Deacon’s hands the care and protection of those things most precious to him. His beloved car and, more importantly, the welfare of his daughters and their maddening best friend.
It was too late to say he was sorry, but he’d make sure his sisters—and Alex—were taken care of.
The old bastard always did get the last word.
Gripping the heavy canvas, he dragged it back, revealing the old girl in all her glory. The car was exquisite. Jacob had done it all himself, every inch painstakingly restored. Giving this to Deacon was as good as an I love you, son. I’m proud of you. Two things he’d been desperate to hear for such a long time. They’d let their stupid pride keep them apart, and he was still struggling with the guilt six months later. Which was why the car was still here and not in the parking garage under his apartment.
Running his hand over the sleek cherry-red paint, he smiled as memories flooded him. Him and his sisters, Alex. All the kids piled in the thing, waiting to go for a spin. Jacob telling them to wash their hands. “No food or drink in my baby,” he always barked before they headed out.
The sound of someone coming down the stairs washed away the memory, and he turned in time to see Alex walking through the door.
She smiled when she saw him—it was hesitant, almost shy, and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “I found your note.” She held it up and waved it around.
“So I see. How did you know I was still here?”
“I saw your car out my bedroom window.” She crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
He swallowed past the lump in his throat and fought to hold his ground, not to grab her then and there and show her just how much he’d missed her. “You looked so peaceful. I didn’t have the heart.” She moved out from behind the car that had been concealing the lower half of her body, and he nearly swallowed his tongue. “You, ah…you got the boots then?”
She nodded. “Yup. I woke up to find them on my doorstep the morning after you left. Poor Martin must have gotten up at the crack of dawn to get them to me unnoticed.”
She kept moving toward him. That Guns N’ Roses tank, now that she was standing, was still barely long enough to cover her panties. And those boots, the ones he’d seen her drooling over, the ones he’d wanted to see her in and nothing else, looked amazing, like he knew they would. His cock was hard as iron, straining against the zipper of his trousers. “Do you like them?”
She shook her head. “Nope.” Then a wicked grin tilted up one side of those lush lips. “I love them.”
The woman was capable of running circles around him, fucking owned him and didn’t even realize it. “Stop,” he rasped. “Not another step.” Her brows shot up, but she did what he asked. He spun his finger in a circle, silently asking her to turn around for him, and to his delight she complied without question. “Stunning.”
Her back was to him, but he didn’t miss her soft moan. His little viper was as hot for him as he was for her. Unable to keep his hands off her another minute, he moved up behind her and rested his hands on the gentle flare of her hips. “I’ve been fantasizing about you in those boots ever since you picked them up.”
“You have?”
She sounded breathless, needy, and it cranked up his own need. He was too far gone, had missed her too much to wait. Gripping the hem of her tank, he lifted it over her head and tossed it on the roof of the car. She sucked in a startled breath. “Oh, yes.” He coasted his fingers over bare skin, across her ribs, and up to her firm breasts. A perfect handful. He massaged the soft mounds, pinching her nipples, tugging gently on her sensitive flesh.
“Deke…please,” she whispered.
He kissed the side of her neck and sucked the smooth skin, marking her. “I’m sorry, baby. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you like I promised.” He trailed a hand down over her taut stomach, the muscles quivering under his palm, and dipped his fingers beneath the elastic of her deep blue lace panties, groaning when he felt slick, wet heat. “You need it, don’t you, Alex?”
She shifted her hips, trying to get him to move his fingers. “Yes.”
“You’ve missed my cock, my mouth, the whole time I was gone, haven’t you?” He slid his finger through her folds and up to circle her clit.
Her head dropped back against his chest, and she whimpered. “Yes.”
God, she was amazing, so responsive to his touch, holding back nothing. “Did you touch yourself while I was gone, baby?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
Jesus. He pressed his cock into the soft curve of her ass to relieve the throbbing pressure, and when he spoke again his voice was so deep with raw lust, he barely recognized it. “Did you think of me when you came? When your fingers pushed inside that tight, sweet body, was it my fingers you were imagining?”
“Yes.”
He groaned and pulled his hand free of her underwear so he could spin her around. She made a small sound of protest before he slammed his mouth down on hers, desperate to taste her. He thrust his tongue inside the wet heat of her mouth, and she returned his kiss wildly. She tasted of peppermint and that unique taste that was all Alex, a taste that was branded into his senses, a taste he had never forgotten, not since their first kiss all those years ago.
Gripping her waist, he lifted her off the ground, and she wrapped her legs around his hips instantly. He couldn’t wait to have her and sat her on the hood of the Pontiac. Her hair was wild around her face and shoulders, eyes glazed and heavy with lust as he pushed his fingers down the sides of her underwear. “Lift up.” She leaned back on her hands and lifted her ass so he could slide her panties down her legs, and he flung them on the roof of the car with her tank top.