Chapter 6
Declan
Despite wanting to be near Dervla, I’m grateful for the respite. I haven’t fully processed what my dad said about being in the mafia. Well, implied. He didn’t say it in as many words, but I know I inferred correctly. I stand in my room and stare out of the window at nothing.
Rain taps at the back windows. My phone sits on the desk like a little slab of delayed childhood trauma.
My dad is connected.
Not vaguely. Not socially. Not in the Irish way, where everyone knows everyone and somebody’s cousin once drank with a councillor in Galway. Properly connected. Structured. Useful. The sort of connection that explains too many things I never bothered to line up because I didn’t care enough to ask.
Why Whitmore never managed to get me expelled.
Why my father always took those calls and came back from them looking annoyed rather than worried.
Why he shoved me towards St. Augustine’s in the first place, then acted like it was a burden and a privilege.
I should probably feel betrayed.
Mostly, I feel irritated.
Because of course. Of fucking course.
I hear the other guys moving around downstairs and leave them to it. Right now, I just need a bit of peace. Which is usually when shit hits the fan.
Luckily for me, things stay peaceful.
For about five seconds.
“Dec?” Dervla shouts. “You up here?”
“Yeah,” I call back, pushing off the window. “What’s Alanna said now?”
Her door opens down the hall before I reach it. She steps out with her phone in one hand and a look on her face that tells me she’s either about to start a war or ask me to help bury one.
“Come here a sec.”
I head over. Up close, she looks steadier than she did ten minutes ago. Calmer. Sharper. Like she’s taken all that grief and rage and hammered it into something with edges, and it looks a lot like taking control of her life that is currently spiralling in five different directions.
She beckons me over to the window. “Look who I see.”
Frowning, I move over and look where she is pointing. “Huh,” I mutter. “Wondered what rock he crawled under. I didn’t see him at the assembly.”
“No, me either, now that you mention it. Not that I was looking for him, but one would assume I’d have noticed his annoying face.”
“So, what is Troy Kavanagh up to lurking across the road from your house while it has armed guards stationed outside it?”
“Most of me wants to go out there to ask him. The other part just wants to give him the finger and go to bed.”
“Take the second option. He clearly isn’t causing concern for Séamus’ men.”
“He would be insulted by that, and I find it amuses me,” she says, slipping her hand into mine. “How are you doing?”
I stare down at her. “Me? Fine. Why?”
“Your conversation with your dad earlier.”
“Oh, that.” I shrug it off.
Her fingers tighten around mine, not hard. Just there. Grounding. It does something unpleasantly effective to my chest.
“Yeah, that.” She studies my face like she’s trying to decide whether to call me on the lie or let me have it. “You don’t have to be fine.”
“Bit late to develop that standard now, isn’t it?”
One corner of her mouth lifts, but it doesn’t stay. “Still.”
I look back out at Troy across the road.
He’s lurking, or rather walking past, slowly, pretending to stare at his phone so he looks like he is occupied rather than snooping.
“I’m not shocked, if that helps. My dad has always had the vibe of a man who knew where bodies were buried.
Turns out he just also knew who was burying them. ”
“That is deeply Irish.”
“Mm.”
She still doesn’t let go of my hand. “Are you angry?”
“No.” I think about it for a second. “Actually, that’s a lie. I am. Just not in the dramatic betrayal way, because look at my life. More in the for fuck’s sake, one more secret? way.”
“That’s going around.”
“No shit.”
Troy ambles away, clearly deciding the armed guards are not worth whatever fuckery he was about to get up to.
“Alanna—” I start, but Dervla pulls me to her.
“No more talking. Only fucking.”
I stare at her for half a beat.
Then I shut the bedroom door behind me and lock it.
I catch her by the hips, walking her backwards until her shoulders hit the wall beside the window.
She makes a sharp little sound that goes straight through me.
Her hand is still in mine until I pin it over her head and kiss her hard enough to shut both of us up.
Her mouth opens under mine, and she bites back like she’s trying to win something.
I kiss her deeper, rougher this time, and she answers with teeth and heat and that furious greed she gets when she needs out of her own head. Her fingers hook in my shirt, dragging me closer, and I let her. Gladly. Always.
I slide my hand under the hem of her top, up the warm skin of her stomach.
She shivers once. My fingers trace higher, brushing the underside of her breast, and she arches into the touch with a low gasp that sounds more like a demand than surrender.
I pull back just enough to see the way her eyes darken and her lips part, bruised from our kiss.
She’s all fire right now, and I want every bit of it.
“Declan,” she breathes, yanking at my shirt like it’s in her way. “Don’t fucking stop.”
I release her wrist and grip her thigh instead, lifting her leg around my hip so I can press closer, grinding against her until she moans into my mouth.
The heat of her seeps through our clothes, and it’s not enough, it never is with her.
I need skin, friction, the raw mess of us colliding until nothing else exists.
She tugs my shirt up and over my head in one rough pull, her nails scraping my back as it goes.
I don’t flinch; I lean into it, letting the sting fuel the hunger twisting low in my gut.
Her hands roam my chest, possessive and urgent, and when she digs in just below my ribs, I hiss and capture her mouth again.
I shove her top higher, exposing her bra, and bend to suck at the curve of her breast, teeth grazing lace until she bucks against me.
“Fuck, yes,” she mutters, her fingers threading into my hair, pulling hard enough to make my scalp burn.
It’s perfect. Her control is fraying, mine is holding just enough to drive her insane.
With one hand, I unhook her bra and push it aside, my mouth closing over her nipple, tongue flicking until she whimpers.
Her hips roll against mine, seeking more, and I oblige, slipping my free hand between us to cup her through her leggings.
I rub slow circles that have her panting my name like a curse.
Hooking my fingers into her waistband, I shove her leggings down.
She helps, kicking them away with her underwear in a tangle.
I drop to my knees, spreading her legs wider, and look up at her flushed face, the bruises on her cheek a stark reminder of why we’re both so wound up, her red hair still damp from the shower and tumbling around her.
She watches me with that defiant spark, chin lifted, but her breath hitches when I lean in and drag my tongue along her inner thigh. “Declan—”
I don’t let her finish. I bury my face between her legs, tasting her, licking deep and deliberate.
She cries out, one hand slamming against the wall for balance, the other fisting my hair again.
Her thighs tremble as I work her clit with my tongue, fingers sliding inside her, curling to hit that spot that makes her whole body tense.
She’s close already, grinding against my mouth, moans turning ragged. I don’t ease up. I suck harder, thrust faster, until she shatters with a sharp, broken sound, clenching around my fingers as her release floods through her.
I stand slowly, and she’s on me before I can speak, kissing me fiercely and messily, tasting herself on my lips. Her hands fumble with my belt, unzipping me, and when she wraps her fingers around my cock, stroking firm and teasing, I groan into her neck.
“Bed,” she demands, pushing me back.
We make it there in a stumble, her shoving me down first. She straddles me, guiding me inside her with a slow, torturous slide that has me gripping her hips hard enough to bruise.
Fuck, the way she sinks down onto me steals my breath, her heat wrapping around every inch like a vice I never want to escape.
I thrust up to meet her, fingers digging into her hips as she moves, rolling in a rhythm that’s all demand and no mercy.
Her nails score my chest, leaving red lines that sting and pull a growl from my throat.
I love it—love how she takes what she needs, how she rides me like she’s claiming territory.
I sit up halfway, capturing her mouth in a bruising kiss while my hands roam her back, pulling her closer until our bodies slam together with every grind. She’s slick and tight, clenching around me. “That’s it,” I mutter against her lips, voice rough. “Take it all, Dervla. Use me.”
She moans, head tipping back, exposing her throat, and I latch on, sucking hard enough to mark her as mine.
Her pace quickens, hips snapping down faster, harder, chasing the edge.
I match her, thrusting deep, one hand sliding between us to rub her clit in tight circles until she’s gasping, trembling above me.
“Declan—fuck, I’m—” Her words break off into a cry as she comes undone, pulsing around me.
I groan in response, edging myself so I don’t unload into her. Not yet. I want this to last much, much longer. Just the two of us.
I flip us over, pinning her beneath me, and she lets out a surprised laugh that turns into a moan as I thrust deeper.
Her legs wrap around my waist, pulling me closer.
Her pussy is hot and eager as I set a punishing pace, each thrust drawing out a gasp or a curse from her lips.
Her nails dig into my back, the sting mixing with the pleasure, driving me harder, faster.
“More,” she demands, her voice hoarse and desperate.