Deacon (The Sovereign Mountain, #3)

by Raya Morris Edwards

This book is for everyone who wants a tatted up, unhinged cowboy daddy with a special piercing. Deacon is for you.

The worst word Bittern knows is a name for a part of my body. Maybe that means something, maybe it doesn’t.

The world has made it clear that sex will change me, but men, they reincarnate themselves before the bed is cold. Sin doesn’t stick to them, somehow.

Hurricane Aiden off to ruin somebody else’s day.

Alone is my favorite place. Quiet is my favorite sound.

The door is fern-green, my favorite color.

clicks into place—Deacon’s rider.

Even that pales in comparison, though, when I figure out they’ll let me put my head between their legs. That’s better than liquor, maybe better than barrel racing.

“I want to know about her,” I say firmly. Tracy sets my cup down, brow raised. “No.” “What?” “No,” she says. “You’re a bit of a whore. And a menace.”

But they’ve also kept people out. I don’t want that anymore. I have a dark empty house. I want a wife, I want kids. I think I want her specifically.

She’s patient, she’s kind. She’s everything I’m not. And that makes me want her more.

I lift the ribbon and place it against the paint. It’s the same shade. The color of ferns, deep in the woods. A dark, peaceful shade for a beautiful woman.

She could be mine. All I have to do is play my cards right, and I can make it happen. I have a place for her already built. She’s the missing piece, I’m sure of it.

Somebody is about to get a bullet to the temple. I’m tired of courtrooms.

So, I buy it, because I’m pussy whipped for a girl I’ve never even spoken to. And I get some fern-green lace to go with it.

The idea was, the submissive could be suspended with her head hanging upside down so only the sky and stars were visible— a kind of sensory deprivation.

“You’re clearly shocked, so you’re going to listen to me until you feel better.”

It’s like she was made for a different world. I don’t know, but I do know that she was made to be mine.

I have a problem. But I don’t have a problem with it.

This isn’t my fault, after all. He’s the one in charge. “You want to be fucked dirty?” he presses. Flushed, wet, my pussy spread for him, I nod hard. The corner of his mouth turns up and, in one movement, he slides an arm under me and flips me onto my hands and knees. The wind knocks from me. I don’t have time to recover before his hand goes to the back of my head. His fingers fist in my hair, dragging my head back. I see myself reflected a dozen times in the mirrors inlaid in the headboard. I’ve never seen myself so desperate. “Let’s fuck then, sweetheart.”

There’s no going back for me. She’s worth everything I’m going to do to make her mine.

“You look me in the eyes when you’re on my cock,” he says.

“Fuck,” he murmurs. “That’s my girl.”

“I’m gonna fuck you good and hard, sweetheart, so keep your head on straight for it.”

He makes me wild. Fearless.

“You’re something,” he says. “Something I shouldn’t be allowed to have, but I want anyway.”

“I’m not like you, sweetheart, I don’t have nice words. But I know you stopped me with one look. That has to mean something.”

“I should have guessed you had company,” he says. “I can tell when you just got laid.” “Shut up. You can’t.” He jerks his head at my hat. “You sleep on your right side when you sleep alone. The other side is flat.” I touch the side of my head. The corner of Jack’s mouth curls. “She’s on the porch,” he says. “I’m just fucking with you.”

“You call me daddy, sweetheart,” he says. “At least when I’ve got my cock this far up your cunt.”

“Why put flowers in my hair?” she whispers. “Because I’m about to give you the most disrespectful fucking you’ve ever had, and I want you to feel beautiful for it,” I say. “Remember when you’re gasping for air and begging like a whore that I can be gentle.”

If I am the girl who wanted to live in the stars, he’s the mountains down below. Together, we feel like that place where the heavens and the Earth meet.

It feels like coming home after being gone for so, so long.

We’re both broken in two, but together, I think the two halves could make up the whole world.

“You want to bully somebody, bully me, motherfucker,”