CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There was a knock at my door, and I looked up from the lesson plan I was reviewing to find Declan standing in the doorway of my classroom.
My heart somersaulted in my chest at the sight of him, and I was on my feet and moving before he could blink, my face colliding with the center of his chest.
It was Wednesday evening, three days after meeting Cassidy, and eleven since our romantic picnic date in the park. And even though we’d spent the last week and a half together, I missed him, despite leaving his apartment this morning for work.
Declan immediately wrapped an arm around me for a tight hug, then took his time expertly working the hair tie loose from the messy bun I had piled atop my head, freeing my unruly curls so they dangled loosely around my face and shoulders.
Gently, and with a serene smile on his lips, he lovingly worked his fingers through the strands from root to tip.
He’d commented one night during our post-coital snuggle that one of his favorite features about me was my hair.
He’d confessed to liking the coarser texture, which was so very different from his own.
He’d even admitted to going online and researching more about my hair type and the products that I’d need to keep it healthy.
Going as far as purchasing a few of those products to keep his bathroom stocked for whenever I stayed at his place.
He’d admitted these things so freely, like my hair care needs were of his highest priority. And in that moment, my heart opened a little more, allowing him to slide another piece of himself inside, slowly repairing the fissures of my past.
When he was done massaging my head to his heart’s content, I stepped out of his embrace and gazed up at him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, unable to keep the joy of seeing out of my tone.
Declan smiled and brought his hand from behind him. He was holding a large takeout bag from my favorite Chinese food restaurant.
“Brought you dinner,” he announced, a sweet smile on his handsome face. “I have a little break before I have to get back to the office for a conference call, so I figured I’d bring you dinner since you won’t be coming home tonight.”
My heart fluttered at the tenderness in his tone when he spoke the words ‘coming home’. Because that was how it felt with Declan. Every time I got to talk to him or see him or even just think about him, it felt like coming home.
Taking his hand in mine, I led him to my overcrowded desk, quickly clearing away a spot for him to lay his bounty. And ten minutes later, we were digging into our food—sweet and sour chicken with a hefty serving of lo mein for me, while Declan devoured his Kung Pao chicken and fried rice.
We chatted about our respective days in between bites of delicious food, and I listened intently as Declan recounted a meeting he’d had with one of his casino managers in Las Vegas this morning.
Over the past week, I’d learn that McKenna Enterprises consisted of a number of businesses in different fields.
From active commercial operations such as casinos, nightclubs, restaurants, and shipping ports, to the more regulated ones, like his pharmaceutical research companies.
Which, by the way, his sister, Cassidy, was in charge of—having completed her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences a few years ago and had taken over as the lead researcher at his top facility.
Which would explain why she didn’t always have the time to pick up and drop off her daughter at school. She was busy perfecting lifesaving medicine. And honestly, go her!
Orla was well-adjusted and didn’t seem to be lacking in any way, and baby Ciaran was happy and well-fed. So Cassidy had to be doing something right.
I only wish to be half the mother she was someday. A mother who thrived with a career she loved, while doting on her children and family. Sure, her husband might have lost his mind and run off somewhere. But that didn’t stop the wheels from spinning in the McKenna-Smith household.
I’d learned in the recent week that her hyphenated last name was also a source of contention in her marriage.
Cassidy had opened up over dinner one evening that her soon-to-ex-husband wanted her to drop her family name altogether and replace it with his.
She’d refused, citing that her name was a source of pride for her and her brother, explicating the history of the McKenna clan and their roots in Ireland.
To which her husband then accused her of being in love with her brother, and the arguments kept spiraling from there.
Cassidy had vowed to drop her marital name the second her divorce was finalized, and if her husband was willing to sign away his parental rights like her lawyers were pushing for, she was going to change her children’s last name to McKenna as well.
“What if you end up getting remarried in the future?” I’d asked.
To which she’d flashed me a devilish grin and said, “Then I guess you won’t be the only Mrs. McKenna in town.”
I, of course, had then choked on the wine I was drinking; pretty much coughing up a lung in the process. The ruckus then caused Declan to damn near break a toe as he scurried into the room to investigate what had me at death’s door.
We’d ended the night with me icing Declan’s foot, and his twin laughing hysterically at his predicament as she shoveled ice cream down her throat.
Oh, the joys of a healthy sibling relationship.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me tonight?” Declan asked, having tossed our empty containers into the trash, and ambled over to the tiny sink at the back of my classroom to clean his hands.
“I want to,” I said, and I truly meant it. “But I need to do laundry and check to see if the house is still standing.”
“You can do laundry at my place,” he prodded.
“I could, but that would mean wearing the same outfits to work this week that I wore last week, and I love my clothes too much to betray my closet in such a way. She needs to see me, and I need to see her so I can reassure her that I love her and that our relationship hasn’t changed.”
Declan frowned, tossing the paper towel he’d used to wipe the excess water from his hands, and turned to face me. “Just so we’re clear, you are talking about your closet and not some random woman, right?”
I chuckled. “Yes, Declan. I’m talking about my closet. I only have eyes for you. Plus, I’m straight. Remember?”
He gave a nonchalant shrug. “So is Cassidy… Except for that one time when she wasn’t.”
I gaped at him. “Are you serious?”
He shrugged again. “She was experimenting. Of course, I only know about this because she made me put on a dress and a full face of makeup to see if she would date herself… We were seventeen, and to this day, I still hate the color purple. Which, coincidentally, was the color of the dress she made me try on.”
I was laughing so hard my ribs ached, all while Declan smiled, watching me with a tenderness—and something else I refused to name—in his eyes.
“What time are you getting out of here?” he asked, my giggles subsiding as I took a sip of my water.
I glanced at the creepy clock and saw that it was almost seven. I hadn’t even realized it had gotten so late. I was enjoying spending time with Declan. I hadn’t bothered to check the clock.
“In another forty minutes or so,” I answered, knowing I’d need a few minutes to wrap up what I was doing and organize my desk for tomorrow morning.
“Hmm,” he rumbled as he sauntered over to the door.
I had a moment of irrational panic, thinking he was going to leave. But Declan simply closed the door and turned the lock.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he prowled toward me.
“I figured since I won’t be seeing you tonight, that I’d give you something to remember by.”
I arched an inquisitive brow. “What did you have in mind?”
He flashed that sexy smile that had me aching for him in the best way. “How about I just show you?”
Then he took me by the waist, and in one effortless move, hoisted me onto my desk.
I let out a startled squeak, grabbing onto his shoulders just as his lips came down on mine.
The kiss was deep and tender, and said all the things he wanted to do to me without him having to utter a word.
I moaned into his mouth, then let out a muffled squeak when his hand swept under my skirt, his fingertips quickly finding their target as they brushed over my clothed clit.
His touch lit me on fire. And in one smooth motion, Declan curled his long fingers into the soft cotton covering my privates and quickly swiped them from my body, tucking the fabric into his pocket.
“I’ll need my underwear back,” I whispered, the sound fading into a moan as he pushed my shirt down to suck on my collarbone.
“You’ll get it back when you come back home,” he murmured, licking a path up my neck to my chin, his lips settling over mine once more.
“Until then—” he whispered between kisses, “—it’s mine.
I might even jerk off to the scent of you tonight.
Maybe soak your panties in my cum so I can remember the smell of us together.
Then I’ll wake up in the morning and do it all over again until there is nothing of yours that isn’t dripping with my seed. ”
His filthy words had me wet and aching for him, my pussy clenching around an emptiness that only he had the remedy for.
Still, he didn’t touch me where I needed him.
Instead, his fingers soothed a path up and down the inside of my thigh, leaving trails of molten heat in their wake as he licked and sucked at my skin.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognized that it was wrong to be exposed and intimate like this in my classroom—my place of work, where I nurtured young minds. But, honestly, I couldn’t care less.
I’d spent my life doing what was presumed right and appropriate in everyone else’s eyes. And where did that get me? Nowhere.