Page 32 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Shade wasn’t going to be any help tonight. Wynn had disappeared into thin air. And somewhere out there, someone who maybe wasn’t even Wynn had tried to put a bullet through both their skulls.

She lingered in the guest room doorway, her go-bag hanging from one hand, exhaustion written in every line of her body. Deacon should’ve let her settle, should’ve backed off, should’ve given her the space she clearly needed.

Instead, he heard himself say quietly, “You okay?”

Jessa lifted her gaze, and something flickered there. Tired, raw, but edged with a heat he remembered far too well. “I don’t want to kiss you, Deacon,” she murmured.

The hell she didn’t.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked, voice low.

A beat. A breath. A faint tremor in her throat. “No,” she whispered.

That one word hit him like a fist.

He stepped closer, slowly, giving her room to back away. She didn’t. She held his eyes as if she was daring him. Or maybe daring herself. He knew he was playing with the exact fire that had burned them to the ground once already. Too bad the fire was still there. Too bright, too hot, too dangerous.

Too damn familiar.

“Jess…” he warned, because he had to, because if he didn’t, this was going to go places they weren’t ready for tonight.

But she didn’t move.

So he leaned in, close enough to feel her breath catch, and he brushed his mouth over hers. A ghost of a kiss. Barely a touch. But it punched straight through him.

Heat, memory, want, regret, all tangled up and razor-sharp.

She sucked in a shaky breath. “This is exactly why Roman didn’t want me coming here,” she muttered. “He knows you and I are stupid around each other.”

Deacon couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his mouth. “He’s not wrong.”

There was chemistry, and then there was whatever the hell burned between him and Jessa. Always scalding. Always reckless. Always ready to consume them both.

And tonight, standing three feet from his bedroom door, it felt dangerously close to catching fire again.

Jessa pulled back first, breath unsteady, eyes still warm from the spark they’d just lit. Then she dragged in a long breath, shuttering it all away.

“This,” she said, motioning between them, “is exactly why a reunion is a terrible idea.”

Deacon arched a brow. “Because you don’t trust yourself?”

“Because we don’t focus.” She groaned softly. “Someone wants us dead. We don’t know who. We don’t know why. And now we have my mother’s murder to solve.”

That last part hit like a bucket of ice water, extinguishing whatever flicker of heat had dared crawl into the room.

Her shoulders tightened. “And besides,” she added, stepping back, “you’re in pain. And our kisses? They don’t stay tame. They never have.”

He huffed out something that might’ve been a laugh if the situation weren’t so damn bleak. “That’s fair.”

She pointed toward his room like she was sending a misbehaving kid to bed. “Take some pain meds. Sleep. We’ll regroup in the morning.”

Ranger padded up beside him, tail sweeping low across the floor as if herding him toward the bedroom. Traitorous dog.

“All right,” Deacon said, backing toward his room. “But if you so much as hear a twig snap outside—”

“I’ll wake you,” she promised.

He nodded and turned away, Ranger trotting at his heels. Deacon was already outside his bedroom door when her phone suddenly rang, loud in the quiet house, sharp enough to cut straight through his ribs.