19. Declan
19
DECLAN
I woke up to Cara’s warm body pressed flush against mine, every soft and naked inch of her against me under the covers.
In the middle of the night, I woke up and checked my phone, finding messages from Ian and a couple of other men. They suggested that I was needed to deal with business, but I couldn’t give a shit. For the first time, I felt like indulging in staying right here and keeping close to my wife.
I couldn’t give a damn about going to the city. Now that I was here, I planned to stay for at least a few days.
Even though I took her last night, I was stuck under the need to have her again. And again. That was why I woke up hard and eager for her, sliding into her from behind while she slept in.
The moment she came to and woke fully, she wrapped her arms up around my neck and held on tightly as I thrust into her.
Her familiarity with me shouldn’t have mattered. Her lack of protest shouldn’t have made me smile.
“What’s going on?” she purred, her eyes still closed.
I growled at the needy, mildly curious tone of her sleepy, dreamy voice.
Seeing her smile yesterday, so thrilled to have fresh air and sunshine, would be a memory that would stick in my mind for a long time. Hearing her drowsy and relaxed in bed with me like this was another memory that I would hold on to forever.
“I’m telling you good morning,” I replied, grabbing hold of her breast, and she leaned more onto her side and welcomed me in.
She moaned at the deeper angle, arching back to me. Once I found her nipple and pulled it between my finger and thumb, her face broke into a wide smile of pure satisfaction.
This woman. She was a rare gem that I hadn’t counted on finding. Not only did she take what I gave her, but she reveled in it.
I didn’t want to leave her. How could I when I was becoming this addicted?
We came together moments later, and I figured it wasn’t such a hardship to stick around. Other people could handle some of the businesses. I had personally selected and trained the staff at the gym. I had no fights scheduled for myself in the near future. Besides, being near my wife would get me closer to having an heir.
That was the goal, right?
No matter that I was starting to care about her. Regardless of the fact that I wanted her for more than filling her with my cum. Her purpose remained the same. She had to give me a child. And she would. But that didn’t preclude me from enjoying myself while I was at it.
I desired my wife. I wouldn’t deny it, but it was the first time I could admit that. It was the first time that thought didn’t seem ridiculous.
Cara mattered. But I wouldn’t be so stupid as to let her realize it.
We showered together, and by the time we went downstairs for a late breakfast, we’d fallen back into our normal state of arguing. While I wanted to take her right back upstairs and fuck her again, I wanted to see that moment of happiness that she’d revealed to me outside.
She’d seemed so alive, more at home outside and near the animals.
I had a hunch that she was happiest out there, and if I could make her happy, then it was all the more power to me. It felt good to provide a source of pleasure—independent and different from what I gave her in bed.
She was a prisoner in my life, but she didn’t have to be shackled inside my home. If she was more agreeable with a chance to be content in my absence, I saw nothing wrong with that.
So, once we changed and I led her outside, I watched her guardedness slip away the closer we got to the stables. Then when I told her we were going out for a tour of the property here—horseback—she loosened up even more. I could tell she was too cautious to let me see how excited she was, but I noticed. It was impossible for her to hide her reactions and resist smiling.
“When did you learn to ride?” I asked as the stable hands saddled up a couple of horses for us.
She furrowed her brow, watching the man. “No. Hold on.” Stepping forward, she corrected and changed the straps to a more secure knot. “There.”
He nodded, sheepish a bit at having to be corrected.
“What’d you say?” she asked, coming back to my side.
I shook my head. “Never mind.” It didn’t matter. She knew how to handle horses better than my staff did. That told me enough.
“Oh. When I learned to ride,” she said, still watching the stable hands. “Um, when I was five? Maybe six?”
“Your mother provided lessons?”
She shook her head. “Well, I guess.”
I imagined that wouldn’t be an option. She’d given me the impression that she’d lived a hard life, one with poverty and not wealth. How could Nora have afforded horse-riding lessons?
There was still so much that I didn’t know about this sensual, defensive woman, and I hoped that this ride would provide a chance for me to rectify that as much as possible.
I hadn’t counted on her authority, though. More than once, before we could even mount our horses, she corrected more of my staff. Little things, it seemed. But she knew what she was talking about. No employee of the Sullivan organization could be called an idiot. I expected the best. Ian did too. All of the direct leaders and supervisors beneath us also held up the same standards.
These men in the stables and barn weren’t incompetent, so for Cara to be able to offer better advice, it proved that she’d dealt with animals a lot.
We rode out together, and I filled the quiet with an explanation of the land we owned here. It was vast, and I stuck with only a summary of so many details about our property. She seemed interested in the historical aspects of it too, but overall, she listened more than she spoke up and asked in-depth follow-up questions.
Weaving around trees, we stuck to an established path. In the open fields, we let the horses pick up speed and exercise their legs. When I wasn’t pointing out landmarks and other features that marked the boundaries of the Sullivan land, she asked about the stables, if we hunted, if we bred racing horses, and if there was any form of a crop nearby.
I didn’t know all the details, but I bet a conversation with my father would answer many of her inquiries. I wasn’t sure when to let her meet him. He was so fragile and cranky.
Like she wouldn’t be able to handle his grumpiness. She tolerated me, and I was worse.
It seemed more appropriate to wait until Ian—or someone in the family—could prove that Cara and Nora weren’t descendants of the Boyle family.
Plus, it would please Dad to have him meet Cara when she could attest to carrying the heir he refused to die without.
Soon. I’d arrange for her to meet him soon.
“As long as you are careful,” I said once we stopped at a clearing high up on a woodsy hill, “you can ride wherever you want on the property.”
“As long as I am careful?” she mocked.
I didn’t reply. We both knew she was more of an expert with horses than I was.
“If you want to ride, fine. A guard at the border will know if you’re trying to run.”
Gazing out at the vast landscape, she sighed and shook her head. “No. I won’t run.” She faced me, serious and calm. “I told you that I would be your wife for six months. And I will. I always stand by my word.”
I don’t. I narrowed my eyes, reminded again that she was still only willing to put one foot forward and brace the other one to escape.
“That was our deal,” she added. “The one we shook on at the church.”
I knew which one. It didn’t change the fact that I’d lied.
“Is that what you meant the other day? When you grumbled about sticking to a deal?”
She furrowed her brow and looked out to the distance again, clamming up. Her instant silence unnerved me, making me suspicious. “Yes. The deal you and I made. That you’d let me go if I’m not pregnant within six months.”
Not happening. I walked closer to her, standing behind her as I looked out over the sweeping hills and meadows below. “Where would you go?” I couldn’t shake this nagging doubt that she had something else in mind. That she wasn’t talking about the supposed deal we had, but something else was motivating her.
I had no intention to ever let her leave. And I hated the idea of her being motivated to leave.
“Where would you go after six months?” I asked again when she didn’t reply.
“Back to my mom.” She sighed. Her shoulders heaved up and down, and I couldn’t hold back from reaching out and massaging her there. Keeping my fingers digging in, I kneaded the tension there, rewarded when she leaned back toward me.
“She’s probably missing me badly,” she admitted, honest but cautious to open up like that.
“Would it make you happy if I gave you your phone back? To contact her?”
She leaned back, smirking. “Oh, my happiness matters now?”
I tugged her fully into my embrace, kissing her long and hard as I lowered one hand to cup her between her legs. She hissed, jolting a bit at my touch.
“Sore?” I teased.
She rolled her eyes and tried not to smile. “Maybe.”
I massaged her there, locking my gaze on hers. “I wondered if being on a saddle would hurt…”
“I’m used to it.” She frowned. “Being on a saddle. Not…”
I growled, kissing her again at the reminder that she was mine. I was her first and last. She’d come a virgin, and she would never leave me to be another man’s to fuck or pleasure.
All mine.
She wasn’t lazy. Eager and determined, she kissed me back as I unzipped her shorts and pushed them down.
“Here I was thinking I’d already proven to you that I do want to make you happy,” I whispered against her lips as I fingered her.
Breathing quicker and trying to reach up to kiss me at the same time she tried to free my erection from my pants, she whined a sexy mewl.
“Yeah. Like that, you do.”
I couldn’t picture her away from me, from this place. She belonged here, hungry for my cock, unafraid to go for it and to let me in as hard as I wanted.
I guided her to a tree and turned her around. “Bend over. Show me that ass.”
She did, and I slammed into her. Pressed up against the tree, her hands on the wet bark, she braced herself for a quick fuck.
“Harder, Declan. Harder .”
Fuck. I gritted my teeth. She’d never said my name like that. Never said it at all, maybe. And it was all I needed to unleash on her. I rammed into her until we were both ragged and worn. If her pussy wasn’t sore before, it was now.
Moaning and sated with her orgasm, she went easily into my arms as I pulled her up afterward. Turning her so I could kiss her sassy lips, I kept her close and pushed my fingers into her pussy, shoving my cum back up.
She sighed, kissing me back until I released her.
Then I surprised her, earning a raised-brow expression of shock after we righted our clothes.
Pulling her phone out of my pocket was the last thing she expected.
If having a way to contact her mother would be a compromise that kept her happy, I could make that sacrifice.
“Why?” she asked as she took it.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to tell me I couldn’t speak with my father.” I shrugged, feeling vulnerable to give in to her at all. That I wanted to give in. “You can contact your mother. No one else.”
She met my gaze and nodded. “Thanks, Declan.”
I smiled wickedly and lunged to kiss her hard.
“Say it again.”
She whimpered, but acquiesced. “Declan,” she whispered with her lips a breath from mine, “I think I need more than a minute to be pounded again.”
I took her hand, leading her back to our horses. “Race you home,” I teased, holding her to it.