Chapter Thirty-One Declan
Chapter Thirty-One
Declan
One day until the wedding
I wake up with warm arms around me. Peeling my eyes open, I look down to see Colin’s hand resting on my chest. It tugs at my heart to feel him so close. To know he was here, comforting me in the middle of the night.
What does this mean?
I run my hand along his arm and intertwine my fingers with his. Holding our clasped hands over my heart, I take a deep breath and imagine waking up like this every morning.
What have I been doing with my life that I let him out of my reach?
“Good morning,” he whispers behind me.
“Morning,” I reply.
Neither of us moves. Surely, it’s highly inappropriate to be lying with one of the grooms in bed like this the day before the wedding, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“I came in to sit for the painting last night, but you were already asleep,” he says.
“So you decided to lie down and cuddle with me instead?” I ask.
After a moment of hesitation, he says, “You were restless. Having a nightmare, and I couldn’t leave you.”
For reasons I don’t understand, I squeeze his fingers. “Thank you.”
As I climb from the bed, I let out a groan from the pounding in my head. “What time is it?” I ask.
He glances at his watch. “Just past seven in the morning.”
Turning back, I stare at him in my bed, and it does something to me. The sight of him sprawled on my mattress, his golden-blond hair against my pillow. His warm, blushing skin in the early morning light.
Too many memories come flooding back. Good memories.
Exquisite memories.
“I need to wash up,” I mutter as I stand from the bed. But before I leave the room, I turn back to him. “Don’t…go anywhere,” I stammer.
He rises onto his elbows and stares at me. “I won’t.”
Heat blossoms in my groin. It’s arousal that feels too much like hope.
As I disappear into my bathroom and stare into the mirror, I let the reality of this situation settle in.
My heart is betraying me. What I want is to get through this week and this wedding and prove my siblings wrong and finally be alone and at peace. That is what I want.
But right now, my heart is trying to convince me that I want to walk back to that room and pull him into my arms and tell him he can always trust me. It’s trying to tell me that I should forfeit everything I want for him. To hell with this wedding and that fucking fiancé of his.
I should make Colin mine again.
As I’m rushing through my morning routine, I’m replaying the conversation with Pierce, and anger begins to boil inside me. How can Colin be such a pure and kind soul and be willing to marry that selfish and arrogant prick?
When I make it back into the bedroom, Colin is still there, and I’m a bit surprised. I mean, I did tell him to stay, but I have to wonder…why is he here? Why did he sleep with his arms around me all night?
“What’s wrong?” he asks, noticing my disposition.
I take a deep breath, and it feels like I’m breathing in rage. Why do I care about what Colin does?
But I do. I care a lot. Try as I might to not care about him, I do. More than anything.
“Declan, talk to me,” he says as he stands and reaches for me.
“Why the fuck do you let guys treat you like trash?” I bark. My hands itch to grab him, shake him, hold him.
“What are you talking about?” he asks suspiciously.
“That…” I point to the door but hold myself back from calling Pierce some very harsh names. “Do you know what that fiancé of yours just asked me to do last night, Colin?”
His face falls and I watch him shrink into himself. “Yes, I do.”
“What on earth is wrong with you?” I can’t hold back this time. I step toward him, taking his face in my hands and backing him against the wall. “Is that what you want? To be treated like a piece of property? I mean really.”
“So what if it is?” he replies defiantly.
“Is it?”
He pauses as he stares at me intensely. “It’s not about what I want.”
“What?” I ask with a gasp. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I like, Declan. You remember how I am. If it’s what Pierce wants, then I’m going to give it to him.”
“You’re infuriating,” I growl.
“If you don’t want to do it, then just say no, Declan.”
“Of course I’m going to say no, Colin.”
“The thought of sleeping with me again repulses you so much,” he mutters sadly.
My eyebrows leap upward. “Don’t be daft,” I argue. “You know that’s not why.”
“Then what is it?”
“You don’t get it,” I argue, squeezing him tighter until he winces. He leans into me, closing his eyes.
“No, you don’t get it,” he whispers. “Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it wrong. So what if he likes to see other men appreciate what’s his.”
“What’s his?” I growl. “That’s not how you should be treated. Not unless it’s what you truly want. If you are really his, Colin, he should protect you and listen you.”
“If I’m going to do it with anyone, I want it to be with you,” he argues, opening his eyes and staring into mine.
Fuck.
My thumb runs along his cheek as I let those words dismantle me one by one. A piece of my chest warms as if it’s overflowing with heat and love. My sweet, beautiful, perfect Colin.
“It’s nice to be someone’s,” he whispers.
“Does he truly appreciate you, Colin? Does he know what he has?”
I’m saying too much. Letting too much out.
“What does he have?” Colin whispers.
My mouth hangs open as all the words I wish I could utter hang on my lips unspoken. Instead, I draw him closer, pressing my forehead to his. I feel his breath on my face, the familiar scent of him. It’s almost too much to resist.
I’d like to remind him that he was once mine.
Or that he still is.
He’s clinging to my arms as if I’m holding him up.
“Colin,” I mumble in a low rasp, but he cuts me off before I can continue.
“Don’t call me that,” he says. His gaze is pleading and hopeful as he stares at me.
“Shakespeare,” I say and notice the way his mouth twitches with a hint of a smile.
We’re standing too close, and this is far too intimate. Warning signs are going off in my head, but I don’t pull away or stop myself.
“Say it, Declan,” he whispers, staring into my eyes. “Please.”
Like always, the words are tied up on my tongue. I know what he wants to hear, but do I have it in me to say it?
Instead, I tug him closer and hover my lips over his. “You don’t need me to tell you that you deserve better. No one deserves you,” I add.
His gaze flashes to my lips briefly and then back up to my eyes, and I think he’s waiting for me to kiss him. And I want to. More than anything, I want to, but then what?
Then frustration flashes over his face as he shoves me away. “Nothing has changed. What is wrong with me?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, grabbing his arm before he can leave.
“This!” he shouts, waving his arms. “You! It all feels a little familiar, Declan. You always want me within reach, available to you.”
“What do you want?” I ask frantically.
“God, I can’t believe we’re having this fight again,” he says with a laugh.
“We never had the fight, remember? You just left.”
“What was the point, Declan? It was too late then, and it’s way too late now.”
“Don’t say that,” I mumble in defeat. “It’s not too late.”
He lets out an acrimonious huff. “It’s not too late? So suddenly, after seven years, you’ve decided that you love me? That you’re willing to give me more than eight days in the summer? That you’ll be faithful and committed to me? Now, after all this time?”
He steps toward me, the morning sun catching hints of gold in his warm blue eyes. And in this moment, right now, I realize that I will fight for him. I have to. I was a fool to ever think I could let him go after this week.
“Admit it, Declan,” he says, softly touching my cheek. “What we had was fun, but I always loved you more. You haven’t given me a single thought since I left this manor seven years ago, and that’s okay. But I can’t let myself get attached only to be heartbroken again.”
For a moment, I can’t move. I’m reeling as his words play over in head, because they don’t make any sense. He thinks he loved me more? As delusional as it sounds, I could understand that.
But he thinks I haven’t thought about him since he left?
Without a word, I walk away from where he’s standing, and he watches me with a perplexed expression.
There is a chest across the room covered with a dusty tarp and some paint supplies that I toss to the floor.
They clatter noisily, but I don’t care. After unlocking the chest, I hoist it open, and it creaks while papers spill out near my feet.
I knew it was overfilled, but I didn’t know it was this much.
Colin shuffles over. “Are those…me?”
But I don’t answer. I just grab page after page and toss them toward him. Some are charcoal sketches. Some elaborate paintings. It sort of depended on my mood and the amount of emotion tied to the memory.
But every single one is him.
He picks up a piece of paper and stares at it.
I’m suddenly reminded of the day in uni, moments after we graduated, when I handed him the sketch I had done of him.
It wasn’t close to being the first, but it was the first I had given him, and I watched his expression when he accepted it.
The teardrop that fell, and how I was mortified because I thought it meant he knew my secret—that I was in love with him.
Only someone who drew portraits the way I did of him was surely in love. A classic tell.
“Declan…” he whispers. “What is all this?”
I continue tossing pages of him on the floor. “This was the last fifteen years. Most are from memory, but when I ran out of those, I used your movies.”
His mouth is hanging open as he flips through drawing after drawing. They are of him up close and full body. Of his hands and his legs and his lips. This is how I held on to him when I had nothing else.
“Shakespeare, I’m sorry it was only eight days a year to you. It was never just eight days to me. You were with me every bloody day.”
Colin is staring at me with his mouth hanging open, his eyes searching mine as if he’s seeing me for the first time. Goose bumps erupt across my skin as I wait for his reaction.
Being vulnerable is hard. Will he think I’m out of my mind for this? Will he hate it? Have I revealed too much of myself?
But then he lunges. Crinkling the papers on the floor beneath us, he throws himself into my arms. Taking my face in his hands, he crashes his mouth against mine.
I wrap him up and delight in the taste and feel and scent of him. It’s all the same. A memory wrapped in skin and bones.
His tongue slides against mine and his teeth take gentle nibbles of my lips. His passion and need are so intense, I let out a yelp just from the feel of him in my arms.
My hands eagerly roam his body, sliding up and down his back before easing down to his arse. The moment I squeeze the firm globe in my hand, he hums into my mouth, grinding himself against me the way he always did.
“Fuck, Shelby,” I mumble as I back him up toward the table. There are pages everywhere, under our feet as I lift him onto the surface.
As I settle between his legs, he wraps them around me and pulls away from the kiss to stare into my eyes. We are breathless and turned on, like we’ve been swept up in a storm.
For a while, neither of us moves.
As much as I want to kiss him and make him truly mine again, Colin is still engaged to someone else, and I know his heart. He isn’t the type to betray someone he cares about, even self-righteous dickheads.
Finally, he rests his head on my shoulder and just breathes as if he wants to stay frozen in this moment. As for me, I’m dying to know where his head is at.
I drift my fingers up and down his spine. And I wait.
Then we hear footsteps down the hall and we both pull apart in a rush. Staring at each other with wide eyes, we freeze and wait to see who is approaching.
When Blaire finally appears in my doorway, I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Sorry,” she says, averting her eyes. “Mr. Hall is looking for Mr. Shelby. I’ll tell him he’s sitting for the painting then.”
“Thank you, Blaire,” I reply.
“Might want to come down soon though,” she adds.
“I will,” Colin replies in a rush.
As she disappears out of the room, I look at Colin with my brows raised and my mouth set in a thin line.
Now, I’m the one waiting for validation.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispers.
“You don’t have to do anything, ya ken,” I reply.
He nods. Then, he appears flustered as he drives his hands in his hair. “Why couldn’t you have just shown me all of this sooner?”
With a shake of my head, I shrug.
“Dammit, Declan,” he mumbles before turning toward the chaise lounge and dropping into it as if in surrender.
Even with him on the other side of the room, it’s like there is a string from him directly to my heart, and the farther he is, the more it hurts.
“I just…need to think,” he says, sounding flustered.
I don’t respond. I can’t even move. I’m just standing in a sea of Colin, staring at the sketch on the easel and the living sight of him in the same frame.
They both belong to Pierce.
I’m too numb to move, wondering if that kiss was the last one I’ll get. Will he still marry that man after everything? Have I messed things up so badly?
What is the point of wanting? It only brings pain.
Eventually, I do what I always do when it hurts.
I reach for my apron, and I lift it over my head.
In a drunken-like stupor, I begin preparing my paints, like I’m moving on autopilot.
Somehow I can do these tasks while also replaying the events of this week from the moment Colin arrived to this one right now.
How every single encounter was a minor tipping of the scales.
And I never saw this coming.
This longing. This doubt. This love.
Colin reclines on the couch in the same position he was in two nights ago.
The kiss we just shared lingers between us and neither of us speak of it.
We ignore the fact that there are things to do today and a wedding tomorrow.
I get to work and he watches me as I do, and for one more precious hour, we exist as us.
When we are together like this, I live for him and him for me. As if we were designed to be together. Like I am the night sky, and he is the stars.