Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
PENELOPE
After a day of feeling like absolute shit and a night of fitful sleep in between bouts of puking, I woke up disoriented but warm.
Not the feverish, skin-too-tight type of heat that had consumed me yesterday, but a different kind entirely.
The steady, solid, safe kind that came from being wrapped around another person.
My cheek was pressed against Declan’s chest, my fingers clutching the fabric of his shirt, my legs tangled with his beneath the comforter. I was clinging to him like a koala bear, and based on the drool puddle on his shirt, I had been for a while.
Mortifying.
I thought he was asleep—hoped he was, honestly, so I could peel myself off him with some semblance of dignity—until his fingers brushed the hair back from my face and his voice rumbled beneath my ear.
“How’re you feeling, rebel?”
So much for my dignity. Though after what he’d witnessed yesterday, any hope of that had probably flown out the window in the wee hours of the morning.
I took a cautious inventory of myself. My head was foggy but no longer pounding, and my stomach was hollow rather than violent. Overall, my body felt like it had been wrung out and hung up to dry, but the worst of the storm seemed to have passed.
“Better,” I mumbled into his chest because that was easier than admitting the truth.
And the truth was, I was a wreck. Not just physically but emotionally.
Because as my head cleared, more of last night came back to me, fragmented memories that I desperately wished were nothing more than fever dreams but knew were reality.
Declan holding my hair back while I threw up.
Wiping my face clean with a cool washcloth.
Making sure I kept taking small sips of water anytime I woke.
Murmuring I’ve got you, baby against my temple while I trembled in his arms.
I wanted to melt into the mattress and disappear.
Instead, I stayed still and focused on the steady beat of his heart beneath my ear. It was calm and even—the rhythm of a man who hadn’t spent the night panicking. Who’d simply…handled it. Handled me. Without complaint, without derision, and without expecting anything in return.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
“I need a shower,” I said quietly, painfully aware of how I smelled. Sweat and sickness and the stale remnants of everything my body had purged in the last twenty-four hours. And this man had let me plaster myself to him all night without flinching.
“You sure you feel up to it?”
I nodded against his chest, even though the idea of standing long enough to wash my hair sounded as appealing as running a marathon. Sounded about as plausible too. But it had to be done. I couldn’t lie here marinating in my own misery any longer, no matter how good his arms felt around me.
Rather than sending me off on my own, he guided me into the bathroom without hesitation. As if escorting a woman who looked like an extra from a zombie film was just another day for him.
I went straight for my toothbrush, needing to get the stale vomit taste out of my mouth. While I took care of that, Declan reached into the shower and turned on the water, adjusting the temperature with the same calm precision he applied to everything else.
Steam began curling through the bathroom, slowly fogging the mirror, and I stared at his reflection as he straightened and tugged his shirt over his head.
My toothbrush stilled as I watched him walk up behind me, bare-chested, his tattoos on full display.
His expression was unreadable, but his intention was clear.
“I can—” I fumbled, spitting out the toothpaste and giving my mouth a quick rinse. “I’ll be fine in there by myself.”
“Probably.” That was all he said as he held my gaze in the mirror. Calm. Steady. Completely uncompromising.
And honestly, I didn’t have it in me to argue.
He undressed me slowly—not like all the other times he’d gotten me naked. When his hands had always been hungry and urgent and everywhere all at once.
This was different. Careful.
He reached for the hem of the shirt he’d put on me last night and drew it up and over my head. Then he eased my panties over my hips and down my legs, squatting in front of me as he guided them past my knees and helped me step out before placing a quick, chaste kiss on my new tattoo.
When he stood back up, there was nothing in his expression but quiet intention. No heat. No hunger. Just firm, steady resolve.
After stripping out of his sweats, he guided me into the shower ahead of him. As soon as the warm water hit my skin, I nearly groaned at the sheer relief of it, my body melting even more when I felt Declan step up behind me.
“C’mere before you face-plant.”
I breathed out a laugh. “I won’t.”
“I could pick you up instead.” He tightened his hands on my waist, as if proving he could do just that with little effort.
I pretended to consider my options for all of half a second before giving in. The water cascaded over us as I leaned back against his chest, and his low hum of approval vibrated through me.
He was warm and solid behind me, his arm banding around my waist to hold me steady.
I could feel him hard against me, but he didn’t acknowledge the completely unsubtle situation at my back.
Didn’t shift his hips. Didn’t let his touch wander.
Just held me and took care of me as if his body’s response to my mere presence was irrelevant.
At least in this moment it was.
He moved his hands over me, soaping my shoulders and arms, his palms gliding down my sides with slow, deliberate strokes.
He washed my back in steady circles, pressing his thumbs gently into the knots along my spine.
Squatting, he ran his hands over my legs, making sure not to miss an inch of my body.
And the reverence filling every single one of his movements made my throat tight.
I’d never in my life been cared for like this…cherished like this.
He stood back to his full height. Then he gripped me by the hips and turned me to face him before reaching for the shampoo.
Oh my god. He was going to wash my hair? I was going to lose it entirely.
I tilted my head back when he guided me to, allowing the spray to wet my hair. “You’re spoiling me.”
“No, I spoil you when I make your pretty little pussy come until she cries.” He tipped my head back a fraction more, fingers firm but patient in my hair. “This is me just taking care of you.”
My stomach flipped in a way that felt a little dangerous for someone who’d spent the past twenty-four hours puking. “If you’re not careful, I’m going to get used to this.”
He slid his fingers into my hair, massaging the frothing bubbles into my scalp until my whole body went boneless against him. “A shared daily shower isn’t the threat you think it is, rebel.”
I breathed out a laugh, but that was about all I could do when the rest of me was too blissed out for anything else.
Because it wasn’t just the shower or him cleansing me or washing my hair.
It was the fact that he was tending to me, his hands steady and patient.
Like he had all the time in the world and nowhere else he’d rather be.
And something about it felt far more intimate than any of the ways he’d ever undressed me…
than even all the times he’d been inside me.
“Tilt back for me,” he said softly.
I obeyed without hesitation, letting him rinse away the suds while he shielded my eyes with his palm.
Then he worked the conditioner through my hair with the same unhurried attention, and I stood there beneath the spray, eyes closed, chest aching.
Wondering how in the world a man who insisted he wasn’t good with words could say so much without uttering a sound.
“Almost done, baby.” His voice was just a low rumble against the top of my head, and I nodded, not trusting mine.
Because if I opened my mouth to respond, something terrifying and irreversible might come out instead.
Like the fact that I no longer worried I was falling in love with him. I’d already taken a swan dive off the cliff and landed at the bottom, giving my heart over to him along the way.
Once we were done, he shut off the water and reached for a towel. He wrapped it around me, rubbing his hands over the material to help me dry off. And I could only stand there, cocooned in warmth, watching him watch me with an expression so soft, it made my thoughts scatter entirely.
“You’re still standing.” He absent-mindedly wrapped a towel around his waist, never straying far from me. “That’s a win.”
I huffed out a laugh and shook my head, leaning in to his touch. “Don’t know how much longer I will be, so that win might be premature.”
He raised a brow before tugging off my towel and replacing it with one of his T-shirts.
It was charcoal gray and soft from years of washing, his scent lingering even through the laundry detergent.
But it didn’t hang off me the way men’s shirts did on women in movies.
The material stretched tight across my breasts and clung to my hips in a way that left very little to the imagination and made me feel self-conscious.
But the look he gave me—the slow, heated drag of his gaze from hem to collar—made me feel like the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“That was an awful lot of words to say, ‘Carry me,’ rebel.”
And then, before I could utter a sound of retort, he did just that, scooping me up while I let out an undignified squeak.
“Declan! You do not literally need to carry me.”
He shrugged as he strode to my bedroom. “That was what I heard.”
Rather than fight him—because, honestly, what was the point?—I just settled my head against his chest and enjoyed the ride.
The last time I’d been in my room, it had been disgusting with a capital D. But now, the bed was made, fresh sheets pulled tight and the pillows stacked just the way I liked them. The puke bucket was gone, the garbage was emptied, and the air smelled like clean linen instead of vomit.
If I hadn’t lived through it, I’d never know this room had been ground zero for what felt like a scene from The Exorcist.
Declan had done all this. While I’d slept and clung to him and drooled on his shirt and made sounds no human should ever have to hear from another, he’d taken care of everything.
He’d taken care of me. Like no one else ever had.