Chapter 1 #2
“Rude,” I say with an exaggerated pout.
“You can text him back in the morning.” He raises a brow, using his fake ‘stern uncle’ voice. “Tell him Uncle Declan says he shouldn’t be texting you so late.”
Since we’d missed a few minutes of our show and need to rewind it, Uncle Declan leans forward to grab the remote. He winces, though, and arches his back, then twists side to side to stretch.
“Need a little help?” I ask, crossing two fingers in hopes that he will take me up on my offer. Please, please, please say yes. Just because we can never be together doesn’t mean I won’t take every opportunity to touch him.
“You know I do. I was trying to figure out how to ask without sounding pathetic.” He takes a few more sips of his beer, then sets both of our bottles on the coffee table with another wince.
I stretch my legs out, laughing when he dang near nose dives on top of me, sliding his hands up and under my shoulders, resting his temple just below my breasts.
Can he tell I’m not wearing a bra and that my nipples are hard?
Can he hear my heart beat faster? Surely he has to be aware of what his proximity does to me, even if he doesn’t attribute it to anything untoward.
Because why would he? I’m his niece, at least in his mind.
It’s taken the full year of living together to get to this point.
We’d started with him sitting on the floor, leaning back against my knees, while I massaged his neck and shoulders after he pulled a muscle lifting a bale of hay.
Then it turned into him sitting on the edge of the cushion between my legs so I could massage the middle of his back, forcing me to peek around him to see the TV.
One night, he could hardly get up off the couch, and he had to lie on his stomach while I sat on the backs of his thighs to work his lower back.
That’s when my growing crush turned into a full-blown obsession, straddling his half-naked form, nearly riding him like a bucking bronco as he wiggled and stretched.
Then there was that one magical night two months ago when his side spasmed and he slumped over on top of me.
My massages progressed to lightly scratching the nape of his neck and scalp after I’d worked out his knots and kinks, since I hadn’t wanted him to get up just yet.
He’d fallen asleep, claiming it had been the most relaxing night he’d had in a long time.
I, on the other hand, had hardly slept a wink, too turned on by his heavy body on top of mine.
I’m still all too aware of him now, how close his face is to my breasts, his head sometimes skimming the bottom of them when he turns just right while getting comfortable.
I bet none of his dates would have been too happy if they could have seen us like this, which brings a smirk to my lips that falls when I think of how my dad would react if he were alive.
In a heartbeat, it would have forever severed their friendship.
Sorry, Dad, I silently apologize when I roll my eyes up to the ceiling in case he’s watching from above.
* * *
Our one episode rolls into two, both of us content to remain where we are after I finish digging my thumbs into the last of the knots in Uncle Declan’s shoulders, his body lax and pliant as I move on to lightly scratching his spine.
“Ooh, that’s the spot right there,” he says in a deep, throaty rumble.
“Right here?” I ask in a whisper, dragging my fingernails straight up the middle of his neck, combing his hair back against the grain.
“Fuck, Corinne, yes.” He turns his head, ignoring the TV, his nose pressed to the valley between my stomach and breasts. He shivers, lifting his hips a fraction in time with my circuit. Does he even know what he’s doing or what it looks like from my position?
I’ve slowly been spreading my legs, inch by inch, until he’s all but lying between my thighs, and now I’ve come to regret it.
If I hadn’t moved, I’d be able to feel his cock every time his hips drop as I speed up.
Actually, that’s probably for the best, or else he would have called it a night earlier if he thought I could feel it.
“What am I going to do when you grow up and get married, and I’m back to living on my own?” he mumbles, pinching and playing with the thin spaghetti straps of my camisole.
“Hmm?” I can feel his hot breath through my top every time he exhales, and my toes curl, wishing I could feel him breathing directly against my skin.
He flexes his biceps, tightening his hold on me as he pulls himself up my body another inch, resting his chin where his nose had been.
His face matches his grumpy tone when he says, “I don’t think your future husband would take too kindly to me barging in every night and falling asleep on top of his wife while you scratched my back. I know I wouldn’t.”
“I guess you’d have to find a wife to do this for you.” The words taste sour on my tongue, and I dig my nails in a little deeper.
Uncle Declan groans and shakes his head. If he moved up another inch or two, his face would be right between my breasts. “Not gonna happen, sugar. You’re the only one who can stand my cranky, old ass.”
I didn’t drink enough alcohol for it to lower my inhibitions, so I can’t blame it when I tease him, saying, “We could be sneaky and take our lunch breaks at the same time, once I’m done with school and start working full-time.
You could come over and nap for an hour while my hypothetical future husband is at work. It’d be our little secret.”
He grumbles, “I’d want more than an hour with you.
And besides, once you have children, they’ll tell their daddy what Uncle Declan was up to with Mommy.
Make it sound like we’re having an affair or something, and then your husband would have no choice but to shoot me in the back. Thanks, but no thanks.”
“You’ve really thought this through, huh?”
“Preparing myself for a depressing future,” he mumbles with a grimace.
The air turns thin and hot when I blurt, “It wouldn’t be like that if you were my husband.” Oh no, I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
Uncle Declan snorts. “Your dad would roll over in his grave, and I’m pretty sure Kason would have a thing or two to say about it.”
My heart is in my throat when I boldly ask, “Is that your only objection?”
He flicks his eyes back and forth between mine, trying to decide if I’m joking or if I’m asking a serious question. He must settle on thinking it’s a joke because he cracks a lazy smile. “You’re talking crazy. How much have you had to drink?”
“Hardly any.” It’s then that I do something I’ve wanted to do since the very beginning—I raise my knees and drop them to the sides so that he’s lying firmly between my thighs, my pajama shorts riding up high to the crease where my legs meet my torso, baring more skin.
“If I were your wife, you wouldn’t have to worry about some future husband of mine getting between us or finding another woman who could do this”—I drag my fingernails across his scalp—“for you.”
“If you were my wife, sugar, this night would have started a whole lot differently.” His voice has deepened, something hot flashing in his eyes before he blinks twice, banking the heat, and he pushes up onto his elbows. “Maybe I’m the one who’s had too much to drink.”
I stop him by slipping both hands into his hair, because three drinks over the course of an hour and a half would hardly affect him at his size. “How would it be different?”
He pokes his inner cheek with his tongue, his brows drawing together as he looks off to the side.
“Pretend I’m your wife,” I whisper. “Tell me what you would do differently.”
Instead of calling me crazy again and leaving, he toys with my left camisole strap, pulling it toward the slope of my shoulder. Quietly, he says, “For starters, I’d have stripped you out of these clothes the second I walked through the door.” His breath quickens, and his eyes fly back to my face.
I grab his hand and tug, pulling the strap down my arm until the top half of my breast is exposed. “Then what?”
“Corinne…”
“Declan…” I mimic, dropping the “Uncle” for the first time ever. “What would you do next if I were your wife?”
It seems like an eternity that I wait to see what he’ll do until he finally pinches my right strap.
It takes him even longer to slip it off my shoulder, pulling it down far enough that he can see the outer rim of my areola.
“I would…I would…” His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat with his audible swallow.
“Fuck, I would do this,” he says, bracing his weight on one elbow so he can hook his fingers under the top edge of my camisole and tug the material down below my breasts.
When he stalls, staring wide-eyed instead of touching me like I so desperately want him to, I ask, “And then what?” When he still can’t bring himself to say anything, I work my arms out of my straps and tug my top down lower.
“Would you touch me…here?” I cup my breasts, well-endowed in that department.
“No, no. I can’t touch you, Corinne.”
“Maybe my Uncle Declan can’t.” I circle his left wrist. “But my husband, Declan, can,” I say, bringing his hand to my breast.
We both moan when he cups me, plumping my flesh in his warm, rough palm, rubbing his thumb back and forth across my nipple. “Corinne,” he says with a whimpering moan, as if it hurts him to touch me, yet he still can’t let go.
“Is that all you would do to me if I were your wife?”
He slowly shakes his head even as he lowers his mouth, his breath fanning across my skin. “I’d kiss you. Suck your nipple until it’s red and swollen.”
“Do it, Declan.”
“No, sugar,” he says, licking his lips and opening his mouth, hovering an inch above, then, “No! I’m Uncle Declan to you, and that’s it.
” He shoves up and off the couch, his cock long and hard and tenting his shorts.
“This can never happen again.” His bedroom door closes with a snick seconds later, leaving me cold and anxious.
Tears prick my eyes that I’ve done exactly what I said I wouldn’t—broken the bond between his family and mine with my impulsive, inappropriate actions. I sit up and pull my straps back onto my shoulders, then turn off the TV and tidy the living room.
When I pass Uncle Declan’s bedroom door on the right side of the yellow rose wallpapered hallway, I hesitate and even go so far as to lift my hand to knock. Insecurity gets the best of me, though. Unwilling to risk another rejection, I quickly escape to my room at the end of the hall.
With my pride wounded and my body aching for Uncle Declan’s touch, I spiral over whether or not my one moment of bravery has completely ruined our relationship and if he’ll ever let me massage or scratch his back again—or if I’ve only spurred him on to continue dating so he can find a wife, one who is not his dead best friend’s daughter, to do it for him.
Since I’m not tired yet and need a distraction, I unlock my phone and pull up my text message thread with the only person I love as much as Uncle Declan.