Bounty (Colorado Mountain 7)

“So you were nervous too.”

He grinned. “There was that, but mostly I figured I was good because you’re really fuckin’ into me.”

“Sometimes your cocky is not hot,” I snapped.

His brows went up. “There’s times my cocky makes you hot?”

I didn’t answer that.

He was sure of himself.

But I wasn’t quite sure of us, what was happening in a future that I was hoping would be our future, and I really, really needed to be sure.

Or as close as I could get.

So I stated, “We’ve established you don’t like rich people and want nothing to do with me being famous. I’m down with the road. It’s part of my life and always has been. But, just to say, I didn’t buy a house so I can leave it empty all the time.”

“Settle in August, September, sometimes weather’s good, October, Jussy. Sometimes that road comes with my trailer hitched to my truck so home goes where I go. Most of it’s me on the back of my bike. Weather turns, most roots I got is me bein’ rooted to Carnal for a solid six months. Sometimes more.”

That was half a year.

I could totally do that.

“That’s acceptable.”

He grinned his cocky grin again.

“But you take me with you, Deke, just pointing out, the money, me being a Lonesome, that comes too.”

“I don’t have a crystal ball, gypsy. Cannot say however that hits me the first time it hits me I’m gonna know exactly how I’m gonna react. But I’m thirty-eight years old. I know the man I am. And this good we got keeps goin’, it won’t be about that. It’ll be about you.”

“That is me.”

He shook his head. “Steph’s chicken is you. Whatever went down with you and Krys in her Camaro is you. That isn’t you. You now know the baggage I got that you’ve gotta put up with. That’s the baggage you got I gotta put up with except part of it means you can lay down a load without blinking to buy a seventy-inch TV.”

“So you want a future with me,” I stated.

“No,” he replied firmly, a strange look hitting his eyes.

It was a look I couldn’t read, but it seemed unsure, and Deke never seemed unsure. So him giving me that answer to my question, that unsettled look in his eyes, my stomach clutched again.

But he wasn’t done speaking.

“I’m gonna lay this on you and hope like fuck it doesn’t freak you but you gotta hear it,” he began.

I took a deep breath.

Deke kept going.

“I got a lotta friends I watched go down for the count and stay down because they like the feel of bein’ stuck. And what I mean when I say that is they went down to the women they decided to spend their lives with. Watched that, dug that for them, straight up wanted it for myself. But I know the man I am and knew what that would take for it to happen to me. And never, not once, Justice, did I ever find one I even considered havin’ this conversation with so the shit I’m tellin’ you, baby, you gotta know up front not to take it lightly. And I’ll share what I mean by sayin’ that I don’t want a future with you. Where I’m at right now, after seein’ those cruisers at your house, is that I can’t imagine a future without you.”

I lay beneath Deke, staring at him, my mind filled with poetry.

Wither to dust, crumble like rust,

Only by your side.

Fresh air, cold beer,

Root myself in you,

Consider my life, you’re all that’s right,

Breathless to bring on the night.

Wither to dust, crumble like rust,

Only at your side.

Just what I need when I have everything,

The breath that I breathe,

I only get when you’re laughing.

Chain links, worn jeans.

Wither to dust, crumble like rust,

With me at your side.

I could search ‘til I’m done, ‘til moon becomes sun,

To discover I know, you’re the one.

There’ll be only you, only you that’s for me.

Through your eyes I finally see.

Holding your heart I can be.

At your side, I find peace.

Chain links, white tee.

Wither to dust, crumble like rust,

All I need is to be at your side.

“Jussy, need you to give me something, baby.”

I focused on Deke.

He was watching me intensely and I still saw the uncertainty.

It was a thing of beauty.

God, he really, really, so totally liked me.

I lifted a hand and held it to his cheek as I whispered, “Please, honey, get off me.”

Something passed through his eyes that I hated to see.

But I needed him up so I could give him something.

He angled off me and I wasted no time scrambling off the couch. I got my bag. I pulled my phone out of it and I dug in the side pocket to grab the wound-up ear buds I always kept with me.

I dropped the bag, plugged the ear buds into my phone and turned to him.

It took three steps to get to where he was standing, watching me, face blank, but I could see the distance forming. Perhaps he was confused at my movements but he didn’t even want to give me that vulnerability.

He wanted an answer to the question he didn’t pose but it was a question all the same.

One that meant everything to him too.

And I was going to give him one.

I got close, put my hand to his chest and put pressure on.

He was Deke so he gave me what I was asking for.

He sat.

I crawled into his lap and I saw relief strike through the blank as his arms started to curl around me.

That relief…

God, I was absolutely falling in love with this amazing man.