3. Declan
Declan
Idon’t answer. If I open my mouth, something honest is going to come out, and honesty has no business being here right now.
Shay is still leaned over my bar, palms flat on the worn oak, watching me.
Daring me. His scent is everywhere—sandalwood and dark chocolate turning sharp and argumentative, cutting through the background noise of stale beer and lemon polish.
It gets in my lungs, under my skin. One stupid word hammers against the inside of my skull.
Mine.
I clamp my jaw on it.
He reads the silence as hesitation. “Well?” he asks, the corner of his mouth lifting. “Did I finally manage to short-circuit the famous Byrne customer service skills?”
I just look at him. At the small scar that splits his eyebrow, the stubborn line of his jaw.
He’s aiming for a smirk, but it isn’t quite landing.
He got stood up tonight, and he’s been taking it out on anyone who’s tried to be kind to him since.
This isn’t about sex. It’s about not going home alone.
That should be reason enough to shut this down.
Instead, I reach under the counter and kill the neon sign. The green Byrne’s in the window dies, plunging the bar into shadows.
Shay straightens up, his body going rigid.
The silence is sudden and heavy. I grab my keys from the hook by the register. The clink of metal sounds impossibly loud.
“Declan,” he says. His voice is different now. Quieter.
I come around the end of the bar and stop a few feet from him.
He’s not a small guy, but I’ve still got a few inches on him, and I hate what that small fact does to me right now.
The way it makes me want to close the distance, back him into a wall.
His chest rises and falls too quickly under his shirt.
He looks exhausted and furious and younger than he’s pretending to be.
My voice comes out rough. “I live upstairs. If you mean it.”
A short, bitter laugh escapes him. “You’re giving me an out?”
“Just making sure.”
His gaze drops to my mouth, then flicks back up. He takes a step forward, right into my space. I can feel the heat coming off his skin. “And if I didn’t?”
“Then I’d still be locking up.”
He sucks in a sharp breath. For a second, he just stares, his eyes wide. Then he rolls his shoulders back, pulling his armor tight around him again. “It’s an apartment over a bar, not a fucking castle.”
“Got a mattress and a lock on the door,” I say. “It’ll do.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Not a smile, not quite. “Take me upstairs, Byrne.”
There it is. The end of pretending this wasn’t going to happen.
I take his hand without another word. The skin of his palm is soft, callused at the tips of his fingers. Shay glances down at our joined hands like he’s not sure how they got there, his expression open for just a second before his fingers tighten around mine.
The back door clicks shut behind us. The stairwell is cool, smelling of old brick, dust, and the faint lemon cleaner Tessa uses. My keys jingle once in my other hand as I start for the stairs.
We make it two steps up before his body is pressed flush against my back. I stop.
His hands slide around my waist, fingers gripping the fabric of my Henley.
Then his mouth is on my neck. Hot. Just the damp pressure of it, no kiss.
His scent floods the space between us—dark chocolate and rain going sweet with heat.
It gets in my lungs, goes straight to the base of my skull.
My free hand finds the wall, mostly to hold myself up.
I can feel his breath on the skin right over my pulse.
“Shay,” I manage.
He hums against my throat, a low vibration that I feel all the way down my spine. “What?”
I turn on the step. He’s one below me now, which brings us nearly eye to eye. He looks up at me with that same furious, reckless expression he wore at the bar, like he’s daring me to find the part of him that’s hurting.
I cup his face in my hand. His lips part on a sharp inhale. My thumb finds the corner of his mouth, feeling the tension there. “Tell me you want this.”
“Then kiss me.”
I do.
It isn’t careful. His mouth is demanding, his tongue sliding against mine like he’s trying to win something.
I give him a second to set the pace. Maybe two.
Then I put one hand on his lower back, the other tangled in the curls at the nape of his neck, and kiss him until the fight drains out of him and a low sound breaks in his throat.
He shoves at my chest, but it’s not to push me away. “Move,” he says against my mouth. “Before I decide to do something indecent on your tetanus-trap stairs.”
A laugh breaks out of me. I feel Shay go completely still.
That small, surprised hitch in his breath does something sharp and unfamiliar to my insides.
I hook an arm under his knees and just pick him up.
“Fuck,” Shay says into my shoulder, his arms locking around my neck as I lift him. “Declan, what are you—I meant walk.”
“I am walking.” I take the stairs two at a time.
“This isn’t—” He breaks off with a grunt when I pin him lightly against the brick wall of the stairwell, just to get a better grip. His thighs tighten around my waist instinctively. He’s all lean muscle and surprising weight, and the solid reality of him in my arms sends a jolt straight through me.
My hips press into his. He’s already hard. So am I. The seam of his jeans grinds against me, and the air goes thick with his scent. Sharp, sweet, and coming right from where his thighs meet my ribs, soaking into the fabric of my shirt.
I bury my face in his neck, breathing it in. “You’re soaked for me,” I mutter against his skin.
His head falls back against the wall with a soft thud. “Don’t sound so fucking pleased with yourself.”
“I’m pleased with you.”
That gets me a sharp intake of breath and fingers digging into my shoulders. He kisses me again, hard, his other hand tangling in my hair and pulling just enough to make my scalp ache in the best way. I groan into his mouth, grinding against him once, twice.
“Sorry,” I say when his head bumps the wall again.
“Don’t be.” His voice is thin, tight. “Just keep going.”
I do. By the time we reach the landing, his shirt is shoved halfway up his chest and my Henley is unbuttoned wrong. His skin is warm and smooth under my hands. I splay my palm over the frantic pulse in his stomach, feeling the rapid beat against my skin.
The third stair from the top groans under my weight. Shay gives a breathless laugh against my mouth.
“You’re lazy,” he says.
“Still came up.”
“Don’t get smug about it.”
I get the door open on the second try. It’s hard to work a key when Shay’s mouth keeps finding mine, his teeth catching my lower lip, his body squirming in my arms. The lock finally gives, and the door swings inward.
I set him on his feet just inside.
My apartment is dark, quiet. Streetlight cuts across the clean kitchen counters, the living room with its one armchair. It’s exactly how I left it. Orderly. And until this second, I never realized how empty it is.
Shay turns, back to the door, and takes in the room. A slow, critical sweep.
“It’s clean,” he says, like it’s an accusation. “No personality. I bet you own matching towels.”
“I own towels.”
He lets out a shaky laugh. “Fucking chilling.” Then he’s on me, his hands grabbing the front of my shirt, pulling me into another kiss that’s all teeth and frustration.
I walk him backward toward the bedroom, his mouth still moving against mine. He talks between kisses, a running commentary that feels like he’s trying to outrun the silence.
“Don’t think this means anything,” he says, his fingers fumbling with the buttons of my Henley. “I’m not staying.”
“Didn’t ask you to.”
His hands still on my chest. He looks at me, really looks at me, and swallows. “Good.”
“Take your pants off,” I tell him.
He does.
His eyes drop to my cock, and then widen. The bravado he’s been wearing all night just… shorts out. His mouth opens, then closes. He looks from my cock back to my face, a fresh glare already loading, but it’s undermined by the heat that floods his cheeks. His pupils are blown wide.
“That’s… excessive,” he finally manages.
A rough sound gets stuck in my throat. “You haven’t even touched it yet.”
“I have eyes, Byrne.” A beat, and then he adds, voice fraying, “Get on the fucking bed.”
I don’t argue. I settle back against the headboard, leaving him room. He strips his shirt off and tosses it onto the floor. The streetlight catches the lean lines of his body, the black ink of a small tattoo curving over his ribs that I want to taste.
He climbs onto the mattress, straddling my thighs. His hands push my unbuttoned Henley down my arms, and I let it fall away. He leans in, his mouth hovering over mine, his breath shaky.
“You still good?” I ask, low.
“I’m not made of glass, Byrne.” He grinds his hips down against me, the hard line of his cock pressing against mine through his jeans, and we both suck in a breath. “Do I feel like I’m about to break?”
I flip us. It’s not gentle, but he goes easily, a surprised sound escaping him as his back hits the mattress. I settle my weight over him, one knee between his thighs. My body covers his. The heat of his bare skin seeps into mine.
“You feel like you’re about to vibrate apart,” I say, my mouth against the side of his jaw. “That’s all.”
“Yeah.” His eyes find mine, dark and unguarded. “But I don’t want you to stop.”
I kiss him then, slow and deep, until his hands stop pushing at my shoulders and start clinging to them.
I drag my mouth from his, down the hard line of his jaw.
The skin over his throat is flushed, and when I press an open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive spot over his scent gland, his whole body gives a violent jerk.
My teeth ache. I know what my instincts want. I force myself lower.
His collarbone is sharp under my tongue. Shay arches into me, a frustrated sound catching in his throat.
“Are you stalling?” he breathes.
“I’m taking my time.”
“Don’t you dare go gentle on me, Byrne.”