Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
DECLAN
After we untangled ourselves, Andy and I showered in the massive ensuite bathroom. We took turns washing each other and getting nice and clean, only to get dirty again when she dropped to her knees and took my cock down her throat.
I’d braced my hands on the glass shower wall and watched her while she sucked me. To show my appreciation, I came into her mouth, and she swallowed my load. She even showed me her pink tongue to prove she drank everything I had to give her.
Such a fucking good girl.
Now, we’re lying in bed. The only light in the room is coming from the floor-to-ceiling window, which gives us a view of the Las Vegas strip. Something about the city being alive outside the window calms my racing mind.
Andy is cuddled into my side, using my chest as a pillow as I trace slow, lazy circles over her bare skin, singing the words to a new song I’ve been working on. We couldn’t be bothered to get dressed after the shower, so after drying off, we climbed into bed and haven’t been able to stop touching each other since.
Knowing we need to talk about Tuesday, I clear my throat and dive in. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you.” Her breathing is calm beside me, her body still, but I know she’s not asleep.
She does make me wait a while before responding, but her response has me blowing out a breath of relief.
“I know you are. And I forgive you.” She hikes her leg over mine. “Why did you get so angry when I asked about your past?”
My body tenses. She deserves the truth and to know everything that has made me the way I am, but I can’t tell her. Not yet. Not when I haven’t been able to accept it myself. “It’s not something I want to discuss.” I sigh.
Thankfully, she doesn’t pressure me into telling her and spilling the secret I've buried the deepest since I was thirteen years old.
“Can you promise me that one day you will talk about it? Whether it’s with me or a therapist, just please, Declan, talk to someone because it’s affecting you.” My jaw clenches, my hands stilling around her body.
I take a deep breath, count to ten, and then let it out slowly, the tension escaping my shoulders. “Yes,” I grit out. “One day, I promise you.” I’m not naive enough to think my secrets aren’t controlling me, but I am stubborn enough never to share them. At least I’d never planned on it. Not until now, at least. For her, I’m willing to get help, even if that means sending myself down a dark path and a downward spiral.
“Where’s Max’s dad?” I ask the question that has been lingering on the tip of my tongue for weeks now.
Andy sighs, body pressing closer into mine. “I don’t know,” she confesses. “I’m not sure who her father is. I was a very promiscuous teenager and had slept with a few guys around the time I got pregnant. Once I found out, I told them all that I was pregnant and asked if they’d be willing to do a paternity test. Only one of them was willing. The other’s denied Max was theirs and blocked me. The one guy who was willing to take the test was negative.” I wrap both arms around her, holding her tight to my chest while she shares something that is not easy for her to discuss.
“When she turned one, I made a new social media account and found one of the guys. He was newly married and having a baby, so he told me never to contact him again.” My eyebrows raise at her words, anger filling my veins at the fact the pieces of shit she fucked were man enough to fuck but were too cowardly to get a DNA test.
“Silly me.” She scoffs. “I thought the guys would’ve been more mature than that. But I guess it’s not a good look when you get a sixteen-year-old pregnant at twenty-six.” What the actual fuck? That was not what I was expecting her to say.
“You were fucking around with grown-ass men?” I attempt to keep the judgment out of my voice, but I’m not sure I do a great job. And I’m the last person who should be judging anyone.
Besides, I’m ten years older than she is.
“Yup. Disgusting, right?” She sighs. “I’d been so desperate to be wanted. My dad left me before I was born. My mom was too busy getting high. I felt so alone, so I turned to men. No one my age held my attention, so I started talking to older men.”
“I kind of figured you had a thing for age gaps, considering I’m thirty-oneand you’re twenty-one,” I say playfully, shifting to look down at her. She tilts her head up to meet my gaze, a grin on her lips.
“Oh, yeah. I’m with you because I’m interested in those senior citizen discounts I’ll get by being with you.” A teasing smirk spreads across her face. “How does it work with AARP? Do you add me so I can take advantage of the discounts too?” She bellows with laughter, and despite her teasing me about my age, all I can do is smile because she’s so fucking carefree right now. Her body is loose, and the tension she always carries is gone.
I love that she’s getting a night off from worrying about everything and enjoying herself.
“Probably on our next date, I’ll get to sit on your walker, and you can push me.” She rolls onto her back, laughing so hard that her only sound is a near-silent wheeze.
“Alright, you’re going to get it now.” I quickly roll on top of her, caging her in with my arms.
Her eyes widen. “Oh no! Don’t move too quickly, or you’ll break a hip.” Her eyes close as she laughs, her mouth open wide. God, I love her laugh.
Everything about this woman below me has my head all fucked up and in a tailspin.
“Andy.” Hearing my serious voice, she calms down and looks up at me.
“What’s wrong?”
A lazy smile spreads across my mouth. “You’re in love with me,” I say, admitting something that I realized tonight at the show. How she watched me on stage, unable to keep her eyes off me, tracking every movement—it made me realize something. This girl loves me. It was more than being awestruck by being at a concert. It’s how she cares for me and allows me to see parts of herself that she doesn’t show anyone else. Even the way she forgave me after being a dick was enough to confirm it.
She fucking loves me.
Her face goes blank, all laughter a thing of the past as she stares at me.
“You’re going to break my heart.” She whispers her fears into the silent, dimly lit room. The confession hangs between us, but I cannot deny it. Destruction is what I do best. I break all beautiful things, and her heart is the most beautiful.
“I don’t want to,” I whisper, my eyes softening. I hope she can see the fears and truth swimming in my eyes.
She gulps, her throat moving with the swallow. “I won’t survive if you do.”
I never want to hurt her, and all I can do is try not to. Considering it’s me we’re talking about, it may happen unintentionally.
Suddenly, I find myself asking a question that I’ve been thinking about since the first time I shoved my dick inside of her. “Are you on birth control?”
She laughs. “You’re asking me this just now? After all the times you’ve came inside of me?” I shrug, rolling off her and lying on my back beside her, turning my head to watch her. “Yes. I’m on birth control, but I haven’t been with anyone since getting pregnant. My periods were bad after giving birth, so I got on it.” Both statements excite me. It thrills me to know I’m the only man who has been inside of her for years and that I can continue coming inside of her without having to worry about accidental pregnancy. Not again.
“Do you want more children?” I ask, turning onto my side and propping my head up with a pillow. She mirrors my position, rolling on her side to face me.
Without taking the time to think, she shakes her head.
“Are you sure?”
She nods. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and I have the baby I’ve always wanted. I don’t want any more. I’m not interested in being pregnant again, giving birth, or raising another child. Max is enough for me.”
Each time I’ve come inside of Andy, I’ve thought of how she’d look with a pregnant belly growing my child, but as much as I like to fantasize, I have no intention of ever making that a reality. I’m not interested in ever having another child.
My, how the tables have turned.
Years ago, I was the one begging Camille for another child, and she was the one denying me. Now, she’s pregnant, and I’m the one who doesn’t want another kid.
“Do you?” she asks, teeth biting into her bottom lip nervously.
I shake my head. “Luca was enough for me. I don’t want another. Marriage, either. I’m not interested in ever being married again.”
“Good. I’m not either.” That surprises the hell out of me. Most women are all about getting married and having a house full of children. She must see the surprise on my face because she grins before continuing to speak. “Marriage is a piece of paper. My grandparents were married for fifty years, and they had a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. I love how they loved each other, but I don’t want to be married to have that.” She holds her left hand out in front of her face.
“Now, would I look good with a diamond ring? Absolutely. But I don’t want the legal attachment.”
“So, you wouldn’t turn me down if I gave you a ring and asked you to be mine forever?” I cock an eyebrow, needing her answer for my next move.
Smiling, she brushes loose curls from her face. “It would have to be a pretty large rock for me to agree.” Say less. I smirk, give her a quick kiss, then climb off the bed butt-ass naked and go toward the grocery bag sitting on the coffee table.
“What are you doing?” She sits up in the bed, pulling the white sheet around her beautiful golden body and leaning back against the headboard.
I rummage through the bag of candy bought for me until I find what I’m looking for, then quickly tear off the wrapper. Since I stopped smoking, my bandmates have been keeping my pockets full of hard candies. Apparently, having suckers around helped Cole when he quit smoking, so they’ve been doing the same for me.
Sticking the cherry-flavored candy behind my back, I approach the bed and sit beside Andy with a wide grin.
She eyes me suspiciously. “What’s behind your back?”
Holding her gaze, I remove my hand from my back, revealing the cherry-flavored ring pop. I clear my throat before speaking. “Andy Harris?—”
She cuts me off as she playfully shoves me away from her. “Are you proposing to me?” She scrunches her face, eyes shifting from me to the ring pop.
“No, because we’re not getting married. But I’m giving you my ring, and you will agree to be mine.” Her eyes soften, and she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Declan.” My whispered name is full of awe.
“Andy, I’m a fuck-up that doesn’t know how to love. Everything I feel is intense. My highs are high, and my lows are low. I can only express my feelings when I’m writing songs. Other than that, I’m shit with words.” She holds my free hand, the ring held between us in offering. “I’m not asking you to marry me, but I am asking you to not give up on me and to love me with all you’ve got. I’m asking you to be by my side as I become a better man. The type of man that you deserve. You’re the one I want by my side when I look at my life tomorrow. I would say in the future, but tomorrow is as far ahead as I can promise because I’m not good at making plans.” Her brown eyes shine with unshed tears as she looks at me.
“You are becoming the very best part of me, Andy. You’re already the best part of my day. You’re the light to my darkness.” How have I known this woman for less than two months, yet it feels like we’ve shared a lifetime together?
“I want you to spend all the tomorrows with me.” I reach out, and she places her left hand in mine. I can’t give her a future, but I can give her tomorrow.
Slowly, I slide the cherry ring pop on her left ring finger, admiring the way it looks. One day, I’ll replace it with a real diamond the size of the moon, but for right now, tonight, this will do.
“I’ll spend all of the tomorrows with you.” She wraps her arms around my neck, lips finding mine in a slow lingering kiss. She pushes me back, then climbs on top of me and rides me slowly until we’re both yelling our releases. Then we kiss, portraying all the love we have for each other. My kisses tell her everything I need to say but fail to find the words for.
The only thing I can commit to is the ink on my skin.
Right now, all I can promise her is tomorrow and another orgasm.