15. Declan
15
DECLAN
I stormed from the room, but I didn’t go far. I couldn’t. The man drew me like a magnet, and the pull to stay close refused to let me go any further than the dining room. While it was out of sight of the two I’d left at the table behind, I could still hear them.
Marcie looked innocent as fuck, but the way she fired questions at Hayden after I walked out made my face twitch with laughter. The girl had his number. And then she told him to eat, and I had to cover my mouth with my hand. The fucker had met yet another match to his dominating personality.
“Oh goody. Another bossy sub.”
That asshole. I wasn’t a fucking bossy sub. At least, not fully.
“What? How…”
Her indignant sputtering was fucking adorable. It wasn’t hard to see the sub in her, and if I wasn’t mistaken, there was a bratty middle in there, too. If so Hayden would be fucking ecstatic.
Then she asked, “Declan’s a sub?”
I wouldn’t let him answer that for me, especially not when he’d already called me a sub. Was I submissive to him? Yes. But that was the totality of who I was.
I stepped back into the kitchen, and the sight of Marcie glancing up at Hayden from under her thick, dark lashes made my stomach clench with need. I could see it as clear as day. Her on her knees before me, tears rolling down her face while she gagged on my cock and stared up at me. Hayden, behind me, opening me up to take him until I came down her throat.
I crossed my arms over my chest and said, “I’m a switch, which the Daddy Dom in the room likes to forget.”
“Oh!” Marcie gasped.
Her eyes widened as she squirmed in her chair.
Hayden smirked knowingly, glancing between Marcie and me and the door behind me. I wanted to punch the prick and wipe that smug look off his stupid, gorgeous face. His lips twitched as Marcie continued wiggling on the chair across from him.
He’d known I was listening. The asshole. He’d known I was listening and baited me to bring me back into the room.
Realizing what he was up to made me giddy as fuck. He wanted… something… from me. Glancing between Marcie and Hayden, I recognized the look in his eyes, and I swallowed a sigh. At least, I believed I recognized it. It had been a long time since we’d spent enough time together for me to. I didn’t know what it was or if I was ready for it to happen to us.
Did I want it?
Fuck, yes, I wanted it.
I wanted them both.
Separately. Together. However, whenever, and as many fucking times as possible and then to go back to the beginning and start all over.
But another part of me, the insecure guy who’d been languishing without for so long, who missed his husband to distraction, worried Hayden didn’t actually want me.
Maybe he was too chicken shit to come out and ask for what he wanted? If that were the case, I’d never understand, but okay.
I pushed that aside. I’d deal with it later.
“Hayden, can I talk to you? Privately.”
He glanced at Marcie and back at me, and I knew then that he undeniably wanted her. He nodded with a sigh and picked up his plate, taking it to the sink. I grabbed the containers to put them away as Marcie jumped to her feet to help.
If we pursued something with her, we’d have to watch her like a hawk to make sure she wasn’t overdoing it and giving more than she should. Because you could see the girl was a helper and a caretaker, and that was fine. We’d just need to make sure she wasn’t giving so much that there was nothing left for her.
With all the food covered, I piled the containers in my arms to put them in the fridge. She rushed ahead and pulled open the door, helping me stack them. When we finished, I cupped her neck, my thumb brushing the hollow of her cheek.
“Thank you, sweetness.”
She blushed prettily. The light pink color tugged at all the tenderness in me, but it also tossed gasoline on the banked fire that burned in my gut. It had been a coon’s age since I’d gotten fucked or fucked anything other than my hand and she, along with the giant I loved to distraction, had my libido going haywire.
Hayden came over to stand with us, bending down to kiss the top of her head.
“Good night.”
The deep rumble of his voice kick-started the lust his presence already had me battling, and I wanted nothing more than to grab him, kiss him silly, then throw him on the floor and ride him until we both screamed, but first, we needed to talk.
He’d done a one-eighty from when he came back from the hospital with Liam until now, and I needed to know if it was because he wanted something real or if he just wanted to get his rocks off.
“Good night,” Marcie whispered and following Hayden’s lead, I kissed her head and walked out of the kitchen screaming at my cock that adults talked before they fucked.
He wasn’t having it. He throbbed and pulsed and twitched until my balls ached. I wanted to adjust myself, but I didn’t want to alert Hayden to the chaos happening in my pants.
“Fuck she’s perfection,” he whispered.
I grunted and gave in. My palm slid over my dick and adjusted it to give myself some room. There wasn’t much to find in the jeans I wore. I glanced to see Hayden doing the same as I was. Unlike me, he had on tactical cargo pants, which were much roomier.
“I’m gonna need to get some of those pants if she’s going to be around regularly.”
Hayden laughed, and we climbed the stairs to the rooms made up for us. We stopped in the hallway, and I had to shake my head when we realized our rooms were side by side.
“Meddlesome fuckers.”
“Maybe they had the right idea.”
I looked at him with what I was sure was the most comical look of shock ever seen.
“Come again?”
“I’ll loop back around to that comment, but maybe they had the right idea. Maybe forcing us into a situation where we couldn’t walk away because people were counting on us was the best thing for us. Fuck knows we chased our tails for long enough.”
My heart stopped. Jumped. Stuttered. Then it took off like the hounds of hell were on its tail.
“You’re gonna have to break that down for me, Hayden.”
“Papi.”
I hated how overwhelmed I was by his one-word demand.
“Don’t play with me, Hayden. I’m begging you. I can’t take you jerking me around anymore. Fucking me senseless until shame or regret or whatever it is takes hold of you, and you shove me out the door. If that’s…”
He reached for me, but I backed up. The minute he touched me, or I touched him, I’d go up in flames, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not until I knew his intentions, as puritanical as that sounded.
His hands fell back to his sides, and his chin dropped to his chest. A moment or two passed before he crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat.
“I was hurt. Am hurt?”
“About what?”
He looked up, his gaze searching my face, and the pain I saw behind the shutters I’d never noticed made me want to go to him, but I held back. We had to get on the same damn page.
“Your lack of trust in me. Then to have Mara be the person who disclosed the info you were hiding… I’m not saying I would’ve taken it better had it come from you, especially so long after we married, but there was a much better shot I would’ve.”
“I get that, Hayden, I do, but when it came out…”
“I was an ass and I let my insecurities get the better of me.”
Chewing the insides of my lips and cheeks, I tried to process what he’d said. It wasn’t much, but it was more than Hayden had divulged since that day in front of the beach house. I understood being insecure with where you stood with the person you loved, especially after the last few years, but could I risk my heart again? I’d tried to fix things between us three times, only to be tossed out on my ear.
“I know I’ve hurt you, Declan. And there’s a lot of stuff I should probably be telling you… Hell, I should get down on my knees and beg, and I will if you want me to, but I want us to figure this out, because…” he paused, his liquid brown eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“Because…”
“Because I miss you. I miss what we were trying to build.”
I stared at him, trying to determine if he was sincere. I’d never known him not to be, but at the same time… being shoved out on my ass so many times made me wary.
“Is this because of her?” I couldn’t help but ask. No matter how attracted I was to her, no matter how much the idea of having her and Hayden together, I had to know that I was wanted for myself first.
“Yes and no.”
Water flooded my gaze. I nodded, closing my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him.
“What does that mean?”
The words came out in a gasp, even though I did not want to sound so hurt. Hiding it was futile. Teardrops squeezed out, making trails down my face.
“Yes, because I think we’re both interested.”
He wasn’t wrong. We were. And years ago, before things went to hell in a handbasket, I’d be all in for jumping into bed with them both, no questions asked. No hesitation. But that was before, and this was now.
“But…”
My gaze found his.
“I want to fix our shit and unfuck this mess we’re in no matter what. Because I miss you. I miss who I was when we were together. And, before we can think of adding a third, we have to be on solid ground ourselves.”
The sincerity in his words painted a beautiful picture in the chocolate depths. I couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried. I launched myself at him, my hands burrowing in his hair, popping the hair tie holding it back as I took his mouth in a deep, needy, long-awaited kiss.