Chapter 19 #2
He sinks his fingers into the meat of my thighs, holding me open, holding me steady. His mouth is relentless, tongue flicking and rolling and dragging until I’m shaking, panting, grinding against his face.
“Oh—fuck—Declan—”
He seals his mouth around my clit and sucks.
Lightning bolts through me. My back arches, and a strangled moan tears from my throat as my orgasm hits, wave after wave crashing through me.
I pant his name, begging without knowing what I’m asking for as I shatter on his tongue.
His strong hands hold me there—mouth latched, fingers gripping, feeding off every twitch and cry that rips out of me.
When the stars fade from my vision, and I can finally remember how to inhale, he rises.
His face is flushed, his mouth wet, his eyes so dark there’s no light left.
“If I had to die between those thighs,” he growls, licking his bottom lip, still tasting me, “it’d be the best fucking ending I could ask for.”
My body clenches around nothing, desperate and wet, already aching for more. That line shouldn’t do what it does, but I am ruined.
I lunge for him and crash my mouth to his. I taste myself on his tongue, and I suck, dragging a guttural sound from his throat. My teeth scrape his bottom lip, and I bite down until he groans into my mouth, hands flying to my hips.
I want to devour him. Or be devoured.
The ties of his pants resist for half a second before they give way beneath my fingers. I dip my hand inside, skin already fever hot, and curl my fingers around the base of his cock. He’s so thick, velvet stretched tight over steel.
I drag my hand up the full length, then use my thumb to circle the swollen tip, which is already leaking for me.
He snarls against my mouth, hips jerking, and starts to back me toward the bench.
I shake my head and press my hand to his chest.
“Sit.”
His eyes flare, and he kicks his pants the rest of the way off before sinking back onto the stone bench. Declan spreads his legs wide. His cock juts up between us—thick and hard and absolutely fucking perfect.
I climb into his lap, and his hands lock onto my hips, fingers bruising, desperate. I reach between us and wrap my fingers around him, slower this time, savoring the way he twitches in my grip.
“Fuck,” he hisses between clenched teeth.
I drag the head of his cock back and forth through the mess between my thighs, teasing us both. The swollen tip bumps my clit, and I jolt, a gasp tearing from my lips.
“Goddamn, Amanda,” he growls, jerking up into my fist, barely holding himself back.
I rock forward, slow and merciless, taking the tip. Enough to tease, to burn.
His head snaps back, teeth clenched like he’s fighting for his last shred of control. “You’re gonna kill me.”
I lean in, brushing my lips against the shell of his ear, letting my teeth graze the curve of it. “For the man who always does what he’s told, who’s always in control, you sound a little wrecked.”
He grabs my jaw, and his thumb slides along my lower lip, dragging down until my mouth parts for him.
“You think I’m wrecked now?” His voice is molten, blazing, scorching. “Sit all the way down, baby. Break me.”
So I do.
I tilt my hips and sink down on his cock.
Every thick, perfect inch stretches me open, heat flooding between my thighs, flames racing up my spine in a wild, uncontainable blaze.
My mouth falls open, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a plea as I take him fully.
My head drops back, a moan finally tearing loose from my throat.
The stretch is obscene. Perfect. Too much and still not enough.
“Fuck—Amanda—” His voice breaks around my name as his fingers bite into my hips.
I rock in slow, grinding circles, rolling my hips, watching him unravel one thrust, one unhurried grind at a time. His eyes flutter shut, his jaw tight.
But I want him here. With me.
I reach up, both hands cradling his face. “Look at me.”
His eyes open, and his gaze is bare, defenseless, all storm and surrender, firelight flickering in those coal-dark pools.
His hand lifts, brushing the hair from my cheek with a tenderness that slices something open in my chest. I whimper as his thumb drags slow across my skin like he’s memorizing the shape of this moment.
“I’ve never wanted anything like I want you,” he says, voice splintering. He pulls me down until our foreheads press together, breath mingling. “You make everything beautiful, colorful. You make me want to live.”
His words shatter the cocoon around my heart—the part of me that believed I had to earn love.
Perform for it. Be perfect for it. My body trembles, clenches around him, tears blurring my vision even as I ride the edge of something I’ve never let myself feel before—being wanted without performance. Being chosen for exactly who I am.
My mouth finds his again, and I kiss him like it’s the only proof that any of this is real.
His hips roll up, slow and deep, filling me with that perfect, devastating stretch. I gasp, nails digging into his shoulders as the pressure builds. His next thrust is harder—deeper. The moan I let out is ragged, shaking.
Another thrust that slams my ass into his thighs, and my back bows.
My toes curl as he grips my hips and uses them for leverage, dragging me down to meet every merciless stroke.
I can’t think. Can’t breathe. The world narrows to the stretch, the slick drag of him inside me, the filthy sound of skin on skin echoing off the stone as he fucks up into me.
He grunts out a curse, sweat beading along his brow as I brace my hands on his chest and start to move like I mean it—like right here, on his cock, is how I break myself apart and rebuild into someone new.
My thighs burn, my rhythm turns frantic.
Every time I slam down, his dick hits a spot that makes my vision blur.
“You feel me right here?” He presses a hand to my stomach, just below my navel.
I nod, desperate, frantic. My nails score his chest. My thighs quiver around him.
He slides his hand between us. “You’re so wet,” he grinds out, thumb circling my clit in tight, ruthless spirals. “You gonna come for me again?”
“Yes,” I pant. “Yes. I want to come on your cock.”
His head snaps back like I yanked a leash. “Fuuuck.”
The sound he makes is primal, feral. His hands clamp down on my hips, and then he’s thrusting up into me again, brutal, relentless.
My moans turn into cries, each one louder, more desperate than the last.
It hits like an inferno, violent and all-consuming. I shatter around him with a scream, my thighs clenching, body spasming.
“That’s it, baby,” Declan groans. “Come for me. Drench my fucking cock.”
My vision whites out as pleasure blazes through me. I ride it out, writhing, gasping his name like it’s the only word I remember.
He lifts me enough to pull out and comes with a broken curse, his release spilling hot across my thigh.
We collapse into each other, sweat-slicked and breathless, and his arms wrap tight around me. We’re both shaking, both breathing like we’ve crawled from the smoke and finally found clean air.
His chest rises and falls against mine in uneven waves. My hand settles at the nape of his neck, fingers threading through damp strands of hair as I press closer, needing the feel of his skin against mine to keep from floating away.
“I think you broke me,” he murmurs, voice rough and raw at the edges.
A slow, shaky laugh bubbles up from deep in my chest. “You asked for it.”
He pulls back enough to look at me. His eyes are heavy-lidded, pupils still blown wide, but behind the wreckage is something gentler. Something new.
“Amanda…” He says my name quietly, and it lands differently. Like a hope. Like a wish.
“What is it?” My fingertips run along the rough scratch of his cheek as my thumb sweeps beneath his eye. Vulnerability flickers in his gaze, and it makes my heart squeeze. “You can tell me anything, Declan.”
The nod he gives is thin and unconvincing.
He grabs the nearest fur throws and wipes up the mess on my thigh before draping the second around my shoulders.
His arms slide around me, his hold tightening at my waist until I’m pressed flat against him as if he’s afraid the moment he lets go I might run away.
“I don’t want to be the man I was. Not after this. Not after you.”
“I don’t want to be the woman I was either,” I whisper. “I want—” My throat tightens, the words snagging on old patterns, old fears.
But I won’t let them win. I deserve to say what I feel. And Declan deserves to hear it. All of it. The truth in its full, messy, unfiltered form, and nothing but the truth.
I sit up. Declan needs to see me when I say this, to know that it’s the truth.
“I want this. Us. Whatever we become, I want it to be real.”
His brow furrows slightly. His lips part like there’s something else he needs to say, but the words catch on a rough inhale.
I press a kiss to his cheek. The slope of his nose. The space between his brows. “We don’t have to go back to who we were.”
“No,” he says softly. “We don’t.”
Hope is a dangerous kind of fire. It burns just like fear. I’ve spent my whole life flinching from joy the same way I do from pain, well aware that either one can turn me to ash if I’m not ready.
I draw the fur throw tighter around my shoulders, trying to hold the moment in place. Like our softness might be enough to make me safe. Like if I stay still enough, quiet enough, maybe the universe won’t notice I finally have something to lose.
“Hey,” Declan murmurs, his hand finding my waist beneath the blanket and squeezing. “You’re here. I’m here. That’s real.”
My mouth finds his again. The kiss is deep and aching, more need than heat. His hands cradle my face like he knows exactly how fragile I am. My fingers knot in his hair, trying to memorize the way he feels when he’s not holding anything back. I want to stay here forever.
Unfortunately, forever lasts less than a minute.
Voices echo through the Tower. Fast footsteps across sand. The crackle of torches.
“Keep searching! Their footprints led this direction.” A voice I know all too well barks orders.
Declan’s body goes rigid beneath me, every muscle wound tight as a spring.
“If they’re not dead now,” Dav snaps, “they will be soon.”
I tilt my head back, gaze searching the dark ring of sand that surrounds the top of the Tower like the rim of an ancient hourglass. The blanket falls to the floor as I move, and Declan slides out from under me. He snatches up his pants. Then my wrap. Then my bra and panties.
“It’s the guards,” he says, handing me my bundle of clothes. “We missed our performance.”