Bounty(101)

This included sleeping with her every night. No couch for Deke unless I was in it with him, cuddled up and watching TV.

Nope.

No friend did all that.

Deke Hightower liked me.

He so totally liked me.

But I got why he didn’t go there with me. It wasn’t the time. All that had happened, my worry about Bianca, Mr. T in town, Cal around doing his thing, the threat of the bad guy’s return, I didn’t need more on my mind.

But still.

Deke definitely liked me and even if he hadn’t said it straight out, unless I was letting hope cloud my judgment in reading the signs (and that was a possibility, though with the abundance of signs, it was unlikely) he still communicated it to me.

This would have made me smile if I wasn’t so upset he was so edgy he couldn’t sleep.

I should have known when he took a big gun out of the small bag where he’d packed his stuff to spend the night and set it on the nightstand before we settled into sleep (or me to sleep, Deke to not sleep).

But now after four times where he was so restless he had to get up and do a walkthrough of the house, I knew.

Deke was unsettled and he wasn’t going to get himself settled.

I needed to settle him.

What he’d said that afternoon in his truck was true. I hadn’t thought of it logically but the guy who did what he did to me had no intention of killing me. If he did, he would have done it.

It was a message. He didn’t order me not to contact the police. He’d ordered me to tell Bianca he’d be back. Even if I wasn’t Justice Lonesome, once reported, the cops would be all over protecting a citizen who’d had the same threat delivered like it was and he wouldn’t get the opportunity to come back.

And it was clear that guy knew Bianca well enough to know that threat would work.

No one knew if he’d gotten paid.

But I knew that Bianca would never hear that message and not do what she could to get me out of the line of fire.

I knew it.

I just didn’t let that penetrate until Deke had laid it out for me.

So the guy wasn’t going to show. I felt that in my gut.

But even if he did, I had cops, Deke and Deke’s gun.

So it was all good.

Deke, however, was not feeling this same peace.

I had to get him there.

I heard him come back and I stayed quiet and still until he was in bed and had the covers back over him.

Then I shifted into him, pressing close and drifting a hand up his chest to his neck where I wrapped my fingers around the side.

“You need to relax, honey,” I whispered.

“I’m good,” he totally lied. “Go back to sleep.”

I pushed closer and tensed my fingers into the tight muscle of his neck.

“You’re not good. You’re on edge. You’ve been up four times, did four checks, came back four times because it was all fine because it’s all fine. So you need to relax.”

“I’m relaxed, Jussy. Now you relax and get back to sleep.”

I dug the pads of my fingers deeper into the taut muscle of his neck, following it down to where it met his shoulder.

“You’re wound tight, Deke. I can feel it. That is not relaxed.”

“Right. Then I’ll relax when this night is over,” he finally admitted.

God, he freaking liked me.

I did let that give me a small smile, pushing closer, tipping my head back and gliding my hand back up his neck, sifting my fingers into his hair.

He had it tied up, like he always did. I’d never seen it down. Not in sleep, after sleep, even after a shower it was wet, twisted up and tied.

I wanted to see it down.

I put pressure on his head and tipped mine back. I knew unless he allowed it I couldn’t force his down.

But he allowed it.

Because he was Deke. He’d give me anything.

So.

Totally.

Liked me.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I whispered. “You know that. You were the one who laid that out.”

“I do know it. And in the morning when I’m proved right, I’ll be good.”

I stared at his shadowed face, something that was relatively easy to do in the moonlight filtering through the trees outside and my wall of windows.

I should just close my eyes and go to sleep. If he was on edge, nothing I could do would probably change that.

Except maybe one thing.

Taking his mind off it.

Something I was going to attempt to do in my bed with his big body, now in faded dark-blue fleece cut-off shorts and nothing else, pressed close to mine, (I couldn’t know for sure about that “nothing else” but there was no indication, and I’d looked, that he also had on underwear).

I should wait, at least until tomorrow, when we were past this part of my situation and it was definitely time to talk about what had changed between us.

Smelling him, feeling his heat, knowing he was uneasy because of me, I didn’t want to wait.