Deke said nothing. He just shuffled us to the side until he hit a window and I bent with him as he glanced out.
He shuffled us again and took us to the door. Opening it slightly with me out of the way and only his shoulder wedged in, I looked up at him to see his eyes aimed over his shoulder.
There was clearly silent communication between him and Twyla because he nodded and flicked out a hand.
He shuffled me out of the door, closed it, locked it and did all this saying, “It’s all good, Jussy.”
Before I could speak, Deke lifted me in his arms and he had to walk sideways to get the both of us back to his bed.
My voice was trembling when I started, “Deke—”
“Shush,” he hushed me.
I shushed but only because he put a knee to his bed and he didn’t put me in it.
He put both of us in it.
Thank you, God, for more bounty.
He flicked the covers over us and gathered me close.
This was when I realized I was shaking violently.
Suddenly, I was embarrassed.
“I’m a wuss,” I muttered.
“Shut it,” he muttered back, his arms tightening around me at the same time his big body shifted into me, tucking me slightly under him.
Yep.
I’d been right way back when.
Deke could be a teddy bear when he cuddled, making me feel small and safe and warm and protected just by wrapping his arms around me.
And I knew by the way he’d bellowed my name at the police station, the hold he’d held on his rage that was at the same time strong, because he’d succeeded in holding it, and fragile, because it seemed like he was going to fail at any second and it would burst forth, that he could also be a lion, annihilating anything that might threaten to harm me.
“I’ll just…get a lock on it and then—” I began.
“Close your eyes. Relax. I’m here, Jussy. Not goin’ anywhere. I got you.”
Yes, he did.
I closed my eyes and pressed my face into his chest. I felt the tickle of hair there and was glad for it. Deke having hair on his chest was the only way I could imagine it. And it was also the way I liked it.
“I need to know your favorite hooch,” I told his chest.
“You’ll know you shut up, relax, and get some sleep. You do that, I’ll tell you in the morning.”
“Just an FYI, I’m buying you a case of it.”
“You say that like a threat.”
“You’re not good at receiving gratitude.”
“I will be, that gratitude comes in the form of a case of my favorite hooch.”
I smiled against his skin.
His hand slid up my spine and started stroking the back of my neck under my hair.
“There’s my Jussy,” he whispered.
He felt the smile.
His Jussy.
I relaxed in his arms.
“That’s it, gypsy,” he encouraged, his body settling more weight and warmth on me, and I felt the tremors start to subside.
Moments slid by. Then more moments.
Until, trembling long gone, sleepily, I mumbled, “It’ll get better.”
“Yeah it will, baby,” he murmured. “We’ll get you there.”
“Thanks, Deke.”
“Sleep, Jussy.”
I drew in a breath and halfway through the exhale, held in Deke’s arms in Deke’s bed, feeling small and safe and warm in my teddy bear’s arms, protected by my own personal lion, I was out.
Chapter Eleven
I’m Justice’s
Justice
The next morning, I sat next to Deke in Deke’s behemoth of a truck, my hands wrapped around a travel mug of coffee that I made in my coffeemaker that the girls had brought to Deke’s trailer.
We were on Ponderosa Road, closing in on my house.
And my mind was not overwhelmed with thoughts of returning to the scene of the crime, that crime being perpetrated against me.
My mind was consumed with thoughts of seeing Deke in a pair of loose-fitting, light gray, drawstring, fleece shorts, the jagged hems having been cut off just above his knees, the rest of him bare.
There was a lot of him, this I knew.
What I didn’t know was that it would all be so…incredibly…Deke.
I knew that made no sense.
It was still true.
He had broad shoulders, bulging biceps, fantastic forearms, all this more of what I knew.
He also had something else I’d discovered in the dead of night.
A hairy chest.
I just didn’t know how fabulous that was until the sense of sight was engaged.
It wasn’t like he had an overabundance of hair that grew over his shoulders and down his back.
There still was a lot of it. All of it covering exceptional pecs and the most amazing stomach I’d ever seen.
Not abs.
A manly stomach.
I had to admit, I was over the cut leanness that was all the rage. In the beginning, it was hot. But now it seemed daunting, men being so developed they didn’t have an inch of extra flesh on them, not like they were human beings but like they were diagrams of a body’s muscularity.