30. Cara
30
CARA
O ne year later…
Donal smiled as soon as my mother picked him up. I rolled my eyes, smirking at his biggest source of being spoiled.
“Mom.”
“Oh, hush,” she chided. “He’s just too darned cute to let suffer.”
“He wasn’t suffering. He needs to get more used to being on his tummy.” I couldn’t be mad. Seeing my mother healthy and happy, holding my son, would always make my heart swell with love and joy.
She’d put on some weight, and every day that she lived here, she seemed less like that shell of disease and weakness from before.
“Aren’t you?” she cooed at him, carrying him away and swaying as she hummed an old lullaby I recalled her using on me when I was younger.
“Again?” Riley laughed as she came into the room. She shook her head, smiling at my mother. “That boy’s never going to want to do tummy time if she saves him from it nonstop.”
I laughed at the cook. She’d become more of a friend than a member of the staff. Over the last year, I’d welcomed my role in the household. As the wife of a Mob lord. The mother of an heir. And the woman at the head of the castle the guards would do well to listen to.
Running wasn’t an option. It never had been. But right now, as I realized my mother could keep my three-month-old preoccupied, I wanted to run into my husband’s arms.
He’d come home just moments ago, and I was eager for a chance to talk with him.
And explore his rugged body.
Having my mother here was a blessing, but I still wished Donal could have met his namesake.
Declan and Ian’s father passed away three months before his grandson was born, but I was glad he’d had a chance to know he was coming soon.
After Declan and I confessed our love for each other, he took me up to the blocked-off floor and introduced me to his father. He was weak and gruff, but as soon as I learned that he was the one who spent so much time building up the impressive stables out back, I quickly bonded with him. Then when my mother moved in, she’d kept him company talking about horses too.
Oscar took over the farm I’d worked so hard to keep going. At first, I worried that Mom would struggle to give it up. Her love for me, and the excitement about having a grandchild, was plenty to persuade her to sell the farm to Oscar.
Declan practically gave it away, selling it for next to nothing because he felt that it was a repayment to the stable hand for always being there for me when my own father hadn’t been. With new equipment, rebuilt barns, and actual staff, Oscar was set to be very successful. He often visited, glad to check out the lands here and ride out with me, Mom, or Declan.
He’d become a family friend, not an employee, and I was glad it had worked out so well.
After Donal passed away, Mom split her time between helping me prepare for the baby and at the stables. That was how I cut my time too. Although I was a new mother, I was young, and there was so much to enjoy and do with the stables here. Breeding plans were in place, and I was eager to see how the stables would grow with my influence.
Unfortunately, after Donal passed away, Ian grew distant. Declan worried about him. My gruff husband seemed to always be worried or concerned about something or the other.
Being the head of the head of the Sullivan Family was no small role to fulfill. But he was just the man for it, always quick to act and level headed enough to rule.
I knew he noticed how Ian had pulled away. I was curious about it too. I’d gotten slightly closer to my brother-in-law, and I was happy to see him enjoy being an uncle, but what if it wasn’t just grief? What if he was bothered about something other than losing his father?
Motherhood was a blessing, even though it was hard. And fitting into my role in this family and household was a constant challenge too. Now, it was one I welcomed.
Yet, when I spotted Declan heading upstairs, on his phone, I hustled after him. I was determined for him to take me to bed, to spend time with me, not all the issues of the week.
I caught up to him just outside our room, but I didn’t surprise him. It was almost impossible to ever actually catch him unaware. Trained and skilled as a fighter, he had to be quick like that.
As I reached up to pull his phone down from whatever he was texting, he caught me in his arms and heaved me up over his shoulder. It wasn’t often that he loosened up to be this playful, but I loved it when he was.
“Trying to sneak up on me?” he teased.
I giggled, reaching around his waist to unbutton his pants as he carried me into our room and shut the door.
“Sort of.”
He grunted a laugh, setting me down on my feet. I resumed taking off his pants, eager to have my way with him. “What’s the hurry?”
“I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to do this with you,” I teased back.
With his pants gone, I dropped to kiss up along his shaft.
“Oh, it’s my fault?” He sighed and rocked up to my face. “You’re the one doing too much.”
I rolled my eyes, sucking him in.
“If you’re not busy at the stables, you’re busy with Donal.”
I hummed, laving his veiny length.
“And if you’re not handling the household, you’re catching up with your mother.”
His hands cupped my face, and I gazed up at him with his cock stuffed in my mouth. “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you about overworking yourself, wife of mine.”
“Well,” I said after he pulled out of my mouth and picked me up to set me on the bed, “I like to stay busy.”
He pulled my clothes off, kissing my flesh as he exposed it. “I’ll keep you busy here.”
I grinned. “You have to remind me when I overdo it,” I said. “I get too worked up on controlling every little thing and get ahead of myself.”
“I know,” he agreed, lying with me. “And I will do better.” He sighed against my skin as he trailed hot, wet kisses down the sides of my breasts.
“This week has been a long one,” he added.
“Aren’t they all long?”
He teased my nipple, staring up at me. “I had to deal with your father.”
I tensed. “Way to kill a mood there, Declan.”
He grinned, slipping his fingers in me and getting me right back on track with my arousal.
“Do I want to know?” I asked, not too far gone with him to maintain a conversation.
“Keira tried to have him killed.”
No way.
“She put a hit on him?”
“Yes. It seems that he wanted to pull the same stunt he pulled with you. He arranged Saoirse in a marriage with someone Keira hated, all so he could get some easy money.”
I shook my head, smiling.
Over the winter, they’d lost it all. The mansion went up on the market and failed to sell. Jewelry, clothes, designer crap, and cars. They pawned it all to pay Declan back, and the last I heard from Ian, they were nowhere close to being able to clear that debt.
“He planned to have Saoirse be Smith’s bride.”
I laughed, amused when he chuckled too.
“He’s, like, ninety years old!”
“I had to intervene. I don’t need anyone killing off your father. He’s going to live the longest life possible, miserable every minute he has to pay me back.” He stared at me, hungry and wicked as he considered how I opened wide for him.
“Enough talking,” I begged at the sinister intention in his eyes.
“Hmm, you think?” He reached up for the drawers. That motion usually meant that he wanted to tie me up or play rougher than usual.
“Not tonight,” I said.
“No?” He arched a brow.
I loved his darkness. I thrived when he was rough and hard with me. Under his careful balance, I could rely on that hit of pain to result in the best blessing of bliss. His dominance was the ultimate turn-on, and I loved that he knew it too.
It didn’t matter whether we were in the bedroom or not, he always knew how to appease me and see to my every carnal need. If I’d never met him, if I hadn’t thought twice about marrying him, I never would have known this sweet release. I never would’ve been welcomed to this raw passion that I needed from a hard man like him.
Declan took my virginity my wedding night, and he had done so violently. It was my introduction to sex, and it was only under his dominating treatment that I learned what I liked. He was my first, and would be my last, and it was because of him that I realized I liked it hard. That I enjoyed it when he pushed me. Tied me up. Spanked me. Even fucked my ass.
I never would have known that about myself without him.
And I never shied away from his darkness, craving it instead.
“Why not tonight?” he asked, crawling back over me and teasing me with his erection poking at my stomach. He lowered more, lining up to enter me.
“It just might not be a bad idea to go easy on me,” I said lightly.
I didn’t know if he’d make the connection. The last time I'd voiced my concerns about his taking me too roughly was that night when I told him I was pregnant with our son. When I told him that I loved him and when he confessed the same to me.
The doctors and midwife assured me that sex was fine. Even a harder level of intimacy. Declan and I compromised, making sure we were comfortable and sated, but he knew that I worried about carrying a child.
He had been right. Keira finally admitted that she’d lied to me about my supposed infertility issues. Soon after word got out about us expecting our first son, she’d made a nasty comment and ended up coming clean. She’d only done so to try to hurt me further, but I didn’t care.
I was over the moon that she was wrong, and I’d spend the rest of my life having a family with my husband.
Declan smiled, staying deep inside me without moving. “You want me to go easy on you tonight?”
I smiled wider and nodded.
“Are you…?” His brows shot up high. “You’re pregnant? Again? So soon?”
The excitement and joy in his tone thrilled me.
I nodded again. “It looks like we’re going to have Irish twins, my love.”
After his search to secure an heir, I was well ahead of the game.
“I fucking love you,” he growled.
I kissed him back as he filled me, knowing my heart would never stop swelling with adoration for this hard Mob man.