Forever Promised (40 page)

“She’s exhausted,” Crick murmured. “And she looks like she’s been crying.”

Deacon nodded, feeling slightly awful. “Yeah, well, we picked out baby names,” he said, digging into his tuna sandwich. They used low-fat mayo, which sucked, but he also used mustard, curry, chili powder, celery, onions, Bac-Os, and pickles. It was the one thing he could cook that people actually liked, and he’d made it for Crick, with some leftover soup, so Crick wouldn’t have to come home and cook one more goddamned time.

Crick had a sudden look of sadness and then one of absolute horror.

Deacon took a hard swallow of his sandwich. “I would
love
to know what just passed through your pointy little head.”

Crick put down his sandwich and actually appeared off his feed. Deacon would have checked the calendar for an apocalypse, except he could see out the window, and at present, there were no frogs raining down from above.

“It just hit me,” he said, still seeming a little frightened.

“What just hit you? That your sister’s going to have to give up the baby? That was part of the plan—we both knew it would suck for her going in, which makes us selfish bastards, and that’s just hitting you
now
?”

Crick glared at him, and Deacon watched him heft his game hand—which was the one closest to Deacon at this moment—like he was thinking about whether or not he had the wherewithal to smack Deacon in the head.

“No, asshole. See, first I thought that, but
then
I thought that Benny could change her mind, and we’d have to let her, because it’s her baby too, and then I got
worried
,
because that would suck, because it would so totally hurt, and then I thought that once she’d made the decision and the baby was ours, we wouldn’t have to worry about it, and
then
I realized that, no, we’d just have to worry about the baby for the rest. Of its. Life.”

Deacon blinked at him. “Yeah. Didn’t we talk about this?”

Crick nodded, that horror still there. “But it just hit me again! We’re going to be worried forever. We have
honestly
gotten on the train that there’s no going off.”

Deacon nodded. “Carrick James, you need to paint that baby’s room.”

“
What
?”

“Yup. Make a decision. Get on the fucking train and stop just looking at how fast it’s moving, okay?”

Crick opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, and Deacon stood up and kissed his forehead. “If it’s a boy, it’s James Deacon, JD for short. If it’s a girl, we’ll name her Daisy Sky.”

“Daisy Sky?” Crick sounded surprised but not adamantly opposed, so Deacon was hopeful.

“Yes. Daisy Sky. Because if it’s a girl, she’s going to be very individual here. No past.”

Crick grunted. “Now I’m sort of hoping it’s a girl.”

“Well, yeah. That’d be nice.” He thought about Crick, with big eyes and hope, watching him work a chestnut horse that first day. Thought about all the ways Crick could have gone wrong, and what an amazing person he was now. “But sometimes,” Deacon said slowly, looking at the man who shared his bed and his life and no longer jumped into things with both feet without looking, “it’s good to learn from past mistakes. Sometimes, that kind of strength is what gets you through.”

Crick scowled at him and took a big bite of his sandwich. “That is way too fucking deep for me. Eat, dammit. This shit is good.”

But later that night, when Mumford was lying next to Benny’s couch playing watchdog and the rest of the house was dark and quiet, Crick came behind Deacon as they were undressing, and slid a subtle arm around Deacon’s waist.

“I’ll paint the room after Christmas,” he murmured.

Deacon turned his head to kiss that spot under his ear where his jaw started, and Crick’s long body went limp and warm over Deacon’s back.

“What’re you gonna paint?” he asked, and Crick nuzzled his temple.

“A field of daisies, a big horse, a seashore, and sky.”

Deacon closed his eyes and couldn’t imagine it, but he knew he couldn’t see the world the way Crick did in his pictures. He relied on Crick sometimes for a view of a wider world, and he was always pleasantly surprised at what Crick came up with.

The picture Crick had given him at their wedding, complete with the signature of their family on the matte border, still sat in a place of honor on their wall. It showed Deacon breaking horses; holding Parry; nuzzling Crick’s old horse, Comet; and lying, exhausted and covered in mud, on the kitchen floor. The way Crick saw Deacon alone, as so much bigger than the man Deacon had always thought himself to be, was proof that Crick’s vision couldn’t be trusted for truth but could
always
be trusted for beauty.

“It sounds like freedom” is what he said, thinking carefully. “It sounds like big and wide and far away. I like it. Get the baby thinking outside The Pulpit.”

Crick made a hurt sound. “It’s not even born and you’re planning on making it leave?”

Deacon turned and cupped the back of Crick’s head and brought him down for the kind of kiss that would make Crick’s knees go weak. “I’m planning for this baby to
fly
,” he said, and then he made good on that promise of a kiss.

Crick tasted so good, so solid, and Deacon kissed him harder. With the width of his chest and the fierceness of his kisses, he pressed Crick back against the mattress until he was on his back, gazing dreamily up at Deacon, pliant and happy and ready to do anything.

Sometimes, Deacon loved him best like this. Crick had always been so passionate, even as a child. Deacon loved short-circuiting his brain with sex and tenderness and then just having his way. That wide motormouth would be still for everything except kisses and gasps, and wrapping around Deacon’s cock when the mood suited.

Right now, Deacon’s mood ran more to pulling off Crick’s clothes and wrapping
his
mouth around
Crick’s
cock, and letting that long body thrash around for a bit on the bed while Crick made soft, helpless noises into the air above him. Crick grounded himself, knotted his hands in Deacon’s hair, and Deacon suddenly craved the taste of him more than anything. Crick filling his mouth, filling his senses, filling his throat with come—Deacon needed it, loved it, wrapped his arms around Crick’s thighs and sucked for it, and Crick had never been slow about giving.

He muffled his cry behind his hand, and Deacon shuddered, holding on to his own orgasm from sheer force of will as Crick let loose in his mouth. Deacon never got over the sharp difference in the taste of Crick’s come, the texture of it in the back of his throat, the bitterness that slid down his tongue.

Nights like this, swallowing it down was the most natural thing in the world.

Crick stopped bucking and Deacon pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Crick cupped his cheek with a sweaty palm, and Deacon grinned at him.

“Ready for round two?”

Crick’s smile was a lot looser, sloppy and buzzing and dirty. “Haven’t you learned by now?” he asked, spreading his knees. He undulated a little on the sheets as Deacon backed away enough to strip down. “I’m
always
ready for round two.”

Deacon loved feeling wicked. What he hadn’t told Benny—what only Crick knew—was that when they were together, skin to skin, that was the baddest boy Deacon ever needed to be. He crawled up the bed, his erection bobbing under his body, and gestured imperiously for the lube they kept under the pillow. Crick handed it off, and Deacon greased his cock quickly and then thrust his wet fingers around Crick’s rim to stretch him. Hearing Crick cry out, watching him thrash some more at the mercy of those fingers—that was worth the time to prep, even if Crick sometimes wanted it without. (Crick was always delightfully dirty—Deacon loved that about him in bed.) But Deacon couldn’t last that long, and he replaced his fingers with his cock damned fast.

And then, as Crick’s body embraced him in the soft and the wet and the heat, time slowed down.

It all felt so good, being inside his lover, Crick’s hands on his chest, the limpid, trusting look in Crick’s eyes. Deacon couldn’t just thrust blindly now, he had to move slow, move long, take the time to kiss Crick’s cheeks, his bicep, the scarred parts of his forearm, to the lame hand Crick was rubbing against his shoulder. He loved all of it: the scars, the strength, the dirty, and now, the pliant and sweet—it was all Crick. Being wrapped up in Crick right now was like his destiny, his reward.

Crick started shaking, a sure sign Deacon had built him up to a second climax. Deacon pushed up and hauled Crick’s hips up, and there, right there, with Crick’s sweet spot under his crown, it was time to just pound the holy hell out of him.

Crick held back cries, making them whimpers and grunts, and Deacon thrust faster, faster, until his vision went black and he fell on top of Crick, still thrusting, while Crick wrapped his legs around Deacon’s thighs and his arms around Deacon’s shoulders and held on.

That feeling again—being inside, enveloped, held close—that sent Deacon over the edge, and he muffled his noises in Crick’s shoulder so they wouldn’t wake Benny up. He kept thrusting on his own, unable to stop the push and the tremble of aftermath for quite some time.

Crick’s spend slid between their stomachs, sticky and warmed by their skin, and Deacon laughed/groaned into the hollow of Crick’s neck.

“Baby, if you were any hotter, you’d kill me.”

Crick didn’t laugh.

Deacon pulled back and saw that Crick’s lower lip was quivering and his eyes were shiny. “What?”

Crick shook his head. “All those years,” he said, his voice rough. “I found this place escaping church. Deacon, I swear, this is the closest to God I ever feel.”

And now
Deacon’s
eyes were burning, and he buried his face in Crick’s neck again. “Amen,” he whispered, and finally, finally, he felt Crick’s wide chest shudder in laughter.

They cleaned off and made it into sweats to sleep, and that’s where they were, cocooned in each other, happy and unprepared for disaster, when the phone rang in the charger.

It was Mikhail, frantic and upset.

“She is gone—you need to find her!”

“Who’s gone?” Deacon mumbled, squinting at the clock. Eleven. Okay, so that was two hours of sleep. That made sense. “Who do I need to find?”

“She’s gone—she trusted us and that… that….” Mikhail said a word in Russian that sounded
really
vile and unrepeatable in English, and Deacon swung his legs up over the bed.

“Who?”

“You called her a ‘flaming twat’!” Mikhail spat. “She… she lied, and there was a terrible fight, and now she is gone.” Mikhail’s voice broke a little. “My cop, he is calling other cops, but… but she is gone, and I am worried.”

“Here, Mickey.” Shane’s voice was gentle. “Give me the phone.”

“Hey, Shane.” Deacon stood up and found a clean pair of socks and his sweatshirt. His denim jacket was hanging in the mudroom, and it was cold enough for the watch cap Jon
hadn’t
stolen, so he grabbed that. Crick used to have nightmares when he got back from Iraq—not so much anymore. For the past few years, he slept like he had as a child, limbs draped over the bed in a passable impersonation of a drugged puppy, and that’s what he was doing now. Not so much as a twitch.

“One of our girls ran away. She’s… she’s usually real stable, but I guess her and Crick’s sister got into it, and… well….”

Deacon remembered Crick taking off in a fury because he hadn’t understood what Deacon had been trying to give him.

“Kids are stupid,” he said, feeling that one in his gut. “Who is it?”

“Sweetie.”

He didn’t realize he’d made a noise until Crick startled in his sleep, splanging outward and then pulling those long limbs in to his chest.

“I know her,” Deacon said numbly. He remembered the girl, dark like a shadow, hiding in the stable and cleaning like her life depended on it. In the past few months it had gotten so he could walk in there and she wouldn’t startle, and they’d work in companionable silence, bound together by the common belief that horses were better to be around than people.

“Yeah, well, she’s a good kid. We want her back.”

Deacon swallowed. Mikhail seemed to think he could do something. God, he was supposedly going to be a parent—couldn’t he
do
something?

“I’ll call the soccer moms,” he said, feeling stupid even as he said it. “Can you send me a picture of her? If the police don’t find her by morning, we’ll put out fliers asking for her to come back.”

Shane exhaled. “Good. Good. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

“Have Jeff call hospitals—it’s really foggy out there, Shane. She could get….”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Hit by a car
. The fog had lingered all day, and between the time Crick walked in and the time they’d gone to bed, it had become deadly—the kind of fog where a flashlight or a headlight just sent back a sheet of white blindness.

“Yeah.” Shane’s voice sank. “Fuck. Mickey—Mickey, we’ve got to tell Martin.”

“Martin?” Deacon felt a little lost by the three-way, but Shane pitched his voice for Deacon this time.

“The boy and Sweetie—I guess they’ve been e-mailing. There was some sort of misunderstanding involving Crick’s sister… oh
fuck—
Mickey, get back here! Deacon, I gotta go. Get here when you can and we’ll put together a game plan, okay?”

“On it.”

Deacon grabbed the truck keys from the table and headed for the door.

“Hey!” Crick grumbled, sitting up. “Where’s my kiss?”

Deacon was going to snap something snarky at him, and then he remembered the boy who had taken off on a misunderstanding and who had stayed in the army because he’d given his word.

He turned around and captured Crick’s mouth with his own. “I love you, Carrick James. In case I forgot to say it today.”

Crick kissed him back. “You never forget to say it. Love you back. Be safe—it’s ugly out there tonight.”

Deacon grunted. He and Shane had installed lights on the connecting road between Deacon’s property and Promise House for nights just like this. “I know it,” he said quietly. “Be listening for Benny, okay?”