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She let out a very Deke-like grunt, unamused by the hint of teasing in his tone. Her snake thought it was funny, though. She thought the whole damn situation was funny. When it was not. “Get off me.”
“Later.”
“Later?”
“Need to fuck you first.”
Her stomach twisted. She debated his claim quite fiercely, but those hands of his—skilled and bold—changed her mind pretty quickly. Soon, he was taking her from behind, and she was loving it.
Then she went back to being annoyed. Which he seemed to find entertaining, the shithead.
Her movements quick and sharp, she washed and dressed. He did the same—though much more relaxed, as if this was the norm for them. Ignoring her protests, he then ushered her into the kitchen and onto a chair at his dining table before setting about making them coffee and cereal.
“Stop scowling,” he told her, his eyes dancing.
“Don’t wanna.”
He pulled two mugs out of a cupboard. “It ain’t a big deal, Bailey.”
“I don’t do overnight stays.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
Deke didn’t bother hiding his smirk. Bailey rarely got pissed at herself, accepting of her flaws and habits and quirks. But whenever she realized she’d subconsciously lowered her guard, she’d get all moody and snarly. That was exactly what she’d done last night or she wouldn’t have been relaxed enough to fall asleep beside him.
He honestly hadn’t realized until recently how much she made a point of keeping people at a distance. Maybe because she was so tightly bonded to Havana and Aspen. But he’d paid more attention lately. And he’d sensed that though she didn’t mind befriending people, she was hesitant to make them close friends.
The more time he spent around Bailey, the more he came to realize that he’d harbored many misconceptions about her.
Because she treated life as if it were one big party, he’d fallen into the trap of believing that she didn’t take it seriously. He’d been wrong. Bailey took the things that mattered most to her, the things that were within her control to influence or change or keep steady, very seriously—such as her responsibilities and her close friendships. Everything else? She shrugged it off rather than stress over it; laughed rather than dwelled; joked rather than whined.
He used to think she possessed no principles. But she’d guarded his secret that his cat was having issues. She hadn’t liked that his marking her might hurt Dayna. And though she wasn’t always sweet about it, she was honest. Also, though she cared little what people thought, she didn’t consider their emotions unimportant. She was far more compassionate and understanding than she might appear.
Though she provoked people like she was born for it, it wasn’t to be hurtful. Unless you’d pissed her off, of course. Mostly, she did it for two reasons.
One, yes, it just plain amused her. But also for the same reason that others might tell a lot of jokes or funny stories—it was really her way of connecting with others. She took it several steps further than most would, and he suspected it was to discourage people from getting too close. In that sense, it was her armor. Probably had been for a very long time.
That she was so dismissive of what most considered factual and rational made it easy to miss that she was highly intelligent and insightful. She just questioned things rather than accepted them as pure truths, likely due to her distrust of authority figures. And who wouldn’t be so distrustful of authority when the adults in your life, including your Alphas, threw you away like you were nothing?
He still didn’t know exactly what went down when her old Alphas banished her. He’d poked and prodded at her, wanting answers, but she’d resisted coughing up the info. Still, he felt he could safely conclude that her trust issues and hesitation to get close to people stemmed from her old nest’s betrayal.
Once he’d set their coffees on the table, Deke carried the bowls of cereal over. Noticing she was still glowering, he leaned forward, planted a palm on the table, and then wrapped his hand around the back of her neck. “Ask yourself what difference it really made that you slept here and not in your own bed. Nothing has changed. The world isn’t on fire. You didn’t turn into a vase.”
She mumbled something beneath her breath, still scowling. He couldn’t say why he found it an adorable sight, he just did. So he gave her a quick kiss—or that was his intention. But the moment his lips touched hers, their sexual connection flared. He took her mouth, sweeping his tongue inside, gorging on her taste.
He’d known that fucking their attraction into dust wouldn’t be an easy feat, but he’d thought he could at least take the edge off it by getting his fill of her. He’d thought that acting out his fantasies would give them a mundane feel and he’d eventually lose interest.
