Chapter 26 #2
He kissed me against the wall halfway up. I yanked at his shirt. He pulled mine over my head in the hallway and left it there. Tiny followed us with the destroyed duck in his mouth, then tried to come into the bedroom until Declan pointed down the hall.
“Out.”
Tiny froze.
“Bed,” Declan said to him.
Tiny huffed, deeply offended, and flopped in the hallway with his back to us like he planned to file a complaint.
Declan shut the door.
After that, there was no pretending we were moving slowly.
We stripped each other with impatient hands. His jeans hit the floor. Mine followed. He stood in front of me naked, big and hard, tattoos shifting over muscle as he breathed. I had seen him like this before, touched him, been under him, beside him, wrecked by him.
Still, the sight took my thoughts and flattened them into one clean want.
I got on my knees.
Declan’s hand went to my hair, but he didn’t push.
I wrapped my fingers around his cock and stroked him once, learning the weight of him again. He was thick, flushed at the head, already slick at the slit. I leaned in and licked him there, tasting salt and heat, and his breath left him in a rough exhale above me.
“Jace.”
I liked my name like that. Not praised. Not warned. Stripped down.
I took him into my mouth.
The stretch made my jaw ache almost immediately, but it was good, grounding.
I used my hand where my mouth couldn’t reach, slicking him with spit, working him in a rhythm that made his fingers tighten in my hair.
I looked up and watched his face because I wanted to see what I did to him.
Declan Reid, controlled, disciplined, unshakable, staring down at me like I’d put a fault line through him.
I pulled back, licked along the underside, then took him deeper.
“Easy,” he rasped.
I ignored that just enough to make him curse.
His hand flexed, not forcing, just holding. I cupped his balls, warm and heavy in my palm, rolling them gently while I sucked him. When I took one into my mouth, he braced a hand on the dresser and tipped his head back.
That did something to me.
I sucked harder, then dragged my tongue up the seam and took his cock again, messy now, spit slicking my lips and chin.
My own cock pressed hard against my stomach, neglected and leaking, but I didn’t touch myself.
I wanted to do this. Wanted to feel him lose some of that iron restraint because of my mouth and hands and choice.
He tugged my hair once. “Stop.”
I pulled off, breathing hard. “Color?”
“Green,” he said, voice rough. “But I’m close.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I want you inside me.”
Everything in the room narrowed.
Declan crouched and put both hands on my face. “Say that again when you’re not trying to make me come down your throat.”
“I want you inside me,” I said, slower. Clearer. “I’ve been thinking about it since this morning. I want it. I’m green.”
His thumb moved along my cheekbone. “We do this carefully.”
“I know.”
“If it hurts wrong, we stop.”
“I know.”
“Protection.”
That word cut through the heat, necessary and solid.
“Yeah,” I said. “Condom. Lube. I’m clean, but, yeah. Not like this. Not yet.”
His eyes held mine for a second longer. “I’m clean too. Last test was after Olivia and I stopped having sex regularly. Nothing since.”
The honesty hit awkwardly, painfully, but I appreciated it. “Same. Before Vanessa and I got lazy about being together in general.”
His mouth tightened, not jealousy this time. Reality.
Then he kissed me, and it softened the edges without erasing them.
On the bed, he took his time even though both of us were shaking with wanting. He kissed down my body, opening me with hands and mouth and patience that made my skin feel too tight. When he spread my thighs and put his mouth on me there, I nearly came off the mattress.
The first touch of his tongue was shockingly intimate.
Hot, wet pressure circling me, then pressing firmer until my hands grabbed the sheets.
I cursed, embarrassed by how much I liked it, then stopped being embarrassed because Declan made a sound against me like he liked it too.
He licked me slow, then deeper, his beard rough against sensitive skin, his hands holding my hips open when my body tried to close from instinct.
“Breathe,” he said, mouth wet against me.
“I am.”
“Barely.”
“Because your tongue is in my ass, Coach.”
He bit my thigh, not hard, and I laughed once before it turned into a groan.
By the time he reached for lube, I was shaking in a different way. Loose and tense at once. Empty, which was a new kind of unbearable.
His first finger slid in slowly. My body clenched around it.
“Don’t fight it.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“I know. Let me work.”
He did. Patient circles. Slow presses. One finger, then two, stretching me open until the burn became pressure and the pressure became something that made me push back without meaning to. When he found that spot inside me again, my entire body jolted.
“There,” I gasped.
“I know.”
“Again.”
He gave it to me until I was incoherent and furious with him for not being inside me already.
“Declan, please.”
He opened the condom with hands that were steadier than his breathing. I watched him roll it on, watched him slick himself, and reality punched through the haze.
This was happening.
Not a fantasy built in the dark. Not hands and mouths stopping before the biggest line.
Him. Me. No going back to not knowing.
He settled between my thighs and looked at me. “Color.”
“Green.”
“If you need to stop, say red. If you need slower, say yellow.”
“I know the system.”
“I need to hear you now.”
My throat tightened. “Green. I want you. I trust you.”
His expression broke for half a second, and then he was kissing me as the head of his cock pressed against me.
The stretch stole every sound out of my mouth.
He went slow. Infuriatingly, perfectly slow. My body resisted, then gave a little, then clenched again. It burned. Not bad, not wrong, but intense enough that my hands locked around his shoulders and my nails dug in.
“Breathe with me,” he said against my mouth.
I tried.
He stopped halfway, forehead pressed to mine, muscles shaking under my hands. “Talk to me.”
“Green,” I panted. “Just full. God. Keep going.”
He pushed in another inch.
My eyes squeezed shut.
“Look at me.”
I opened them because that voice still reached places nothing else did.
“There you are,” he said, quiet and wrecked.
He pressed in the rest of the way, and the feeling of being filled by him was so much that my brain finally went silent.
No noise. No tabs. No guilt for one stolen breath.
Just Declan over me, inside me, holding still while my body learned him.
I exhaled shakily. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
“Move.”
The first thrust was shallow. Careful. The second made pleasure spark under the ache. By the fourth, I was clawing at his back and trying to get more. He found a rhythm that kept me right on the edge of too much, deep and controlled, each push dragging sound out of me I couldn’t stop.
He kissed me through it. My mouth, my jaw, my throat. His hand wrapped around my cock, stroking in time with the slow drive of his hips, and I lost track of everything except the pressure building fast and bright.
“Dec.”
“I’ve got you.”
“Harder. Please.”
He gave me a little more. Not careless. Never careless. But enough that the headboard tapped the wall and pleasure punched through me every time he hit that place inside.
I came with his name in my mouth, body locking around him, orgasm tearing through me so hard I went soundless first, then broke on a hoarse cry. He kept moving, hand gentling on my cock as I spilled over his fingers and my stomach.
His rhythm faltered.
I wrapped my legs around him tighter. “Come.”
He buried his face against my neck and thrust deep, once, twice, then held there with a low, rough groan as he came inside the condom. His whole body shook over mine. I held him through it, stunned by the weight of him, by the trust of it, by the fact that I wanted the weight to stay.
For a while, neither of us moved.
Then Declan kissed my shoulder and eased out carefully. Even that made me hiss.
“I know,” he murmured. “Easy.”
He dealt with the condom, then came back with a warm cloth and cleaned me with such quiet attention that my chest got too tight for jokes. After, he climbed into bed and pulled me against him, my back to his chest, one arm heavy around my waist.
I was sore. Relaxed. Raw in ways that had nothing to do with my body.
Tiny whined outside the door.
I laughed into the pillow. “He knows.”
“He knows nothing.”
“He knows betrayal.”
Declan sighed, got up, and opened the door. Tiny lumbered in with the ruined duck, climbed onto the end of the bed, and collapsed across our legs like a sandbag made of judgment.
“Boundaries,” I muttered.
Declan got back in behind me. “You keep using that word in his house.”
His house.
For tonight, I let myself be in it without flinching.
I was half asleep when Declan’s phone buzzed on the nightstand.
His arm tightened around me before he reached for it. The screen lit his face in the dark.
I didn’t have to ask.
I knew before he said anything.
Declan stared at the message for a long moment, then set the phone down carefully.
“Olivia?” I asked, voice low.
“Yes.”
My body went alert in spite of the exhaustion.
He pulled me closer, but his breathing had changed. Not panicked. Braced.
“She confirmed her arrival time,” he said. “Tomorrow night. Seven-forty.”
Tiny snored at our feet. The room stayed warm. Declan’s hand rested over my heart like he could feel how hard it had started beating.
Tomorrow had a time now.
And neither of us could pretend it wasn’t coming.