Chapter 22 #2
I didn’t know what to do with that.
“She’s in Chicago until Thursday,” he continued. “She talked about a client crisis, a delayed flight, a restaurant she wants to try when she’s back. I told her about the game. Tiny barked at the dishwasher. We sounded married.”
The ache in his voice was controlled, but it was there.
“That hurt?” I asked.
“Yes.”
My fingers twisted in the blanket. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for the part that belongs to me.”
“I’m in it.”
“Yes,” he said. “You are.”
No soft exit. No easy lie. Somehow that made me trust him more.
“Vanessa dinner is tomorrow,” I said.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I know that too.”
“I’m still going.”
“Good.”
The word was gentler than usual. Not reward. Recognition.
My body settled into the mattress.
Declan noticed anyway. “You sound exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“Try again.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m exhausted.”
“There.”
“You’re annoying.”
“Plug your phone in.”
“It is.”
“Across the room?”
I looked at the charger beside my bed. “Technically, the room is around it.”
“Jace.”
I groaned, but I got up. “You’re calling me while making me move away from the phone. This is bad engineering.”
“Speaker.”
I put him on speaker, carried the phone across the room, plugged it into the charger by my dresser, then stood there in the dark like I needed permission to return to my own bed.
“Blankets,” he said.
I went back and slid under them.
“Lights?”
“Off.”
“Water?”
“On the nightstand.”
“Good. Close your eyes.”
I did.
The difference was sharp and immediate. Not because he took over. Because I let him.
I wasn’t spiraling. I wasn’t overloaded. I wasn’t halfway to a panic attack. I could have handled bedtime on my own. Badly maybe, but I could.
I followed because I wanted the shape of his attention around me.
“That better?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
His voice dropped a little. “Where are your hands?”
The air changed.
My body knew before my brain caught up.
“On the blanket,” I said.
“Put one on your chest.”
I swallowed and obeyed.
“The other lower.”
My hand slid beneath the blanket, over my stomach. I was already getting hard, slow and heavy, not the frantic punch from the hotel, but a deep pull that made my thighs tense.
“Lower,” he said.
My fingers reached the waistband of my sweats.
“Color?”
“Green.”
“Push them down enough to touch yourself.”
I did, hips lifting in the dark. My cock was warm and thick in my hand. I wrapped my fingers around it and let out a breath I hadn’t meant to make.
Declan heard.
“Slow,” he said. “Don’t rush to the part where you stop feeling.”
That hit somewhere under the arousal.
I stroked once, slow enough that my stomach tightened. “Are you...”
“Yes.”
The word was rougher than before.
A picture formed before I could stop it. Declan in his bed or maybe on his couch, sweats pushed down, big hand around himself, phone near his mouth, voice controlled while his body wasn’t completely.
“Tell me,” I said before embarrassment could stop me.
His breath changed. “I’m in bed. Lights off. Tiny is snoring on the floor like he pays the mortgage.”
I laughed softly, then gasped when my thumb dragged over the head of my cock.
“Keep going,” he said.
I did.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Stroking myself. Slow. Thinking about your mouth when you try not to beg.”
Heat rolled through me. “I don’t beg that much.”
“You do when you’re past pretending.”
My hand tightened.
“Not faster,” he warned.
I forced myself back to slow, even though my hips wanted to chase.
“That’s it,” he said, quieter. “Stay with me.”
My eyes were closed. The room was dark. His voice came from across the room, making distance feel like another kind of restraint.
“I want to touch you,” I said.
“You are.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know.”
The honesty in his voice made my chest ache and my cock jerk in my fist.
“Spit in your palm,” he said.
I obeyed, messy and eager, then wrapped my wet hand around myself again. The slide was better. Slicker. My thighs shifted under the blankets.
“Now take your other hand,” Declan said. “Reach behind yourself.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“Color?”
“Green,” I said, hoarse.
“Touch your hole.”
My whole body tightened at the words. Not because they were crude. Because his voice made them precise. Instruction, not shock.
I bent one knee, reached down and back, fingers moving over skin I had barely thought about before all this. The first brush made my stomach flip. I stroked my cock slower, almost distracted by the vulnerable angle, the strange heat of touching myself there because he told me to.
“Just touch,” he said. “No pushing in.”
“Fuck.”
“Breathe.”
I did, badly.
My fingertip circled, tentative at first, then with more pressure. My cock throbbed in my fist. It felt dirty and intimate and terrifyingly good, like some closed door in my body had been waiting for his voice to name it.
“What does it feel like?” he asked.
“Too much.”
“Color.”
“Green. Too much green.”
A low sound came through the phone. It went straight through me.
“Keep your hand there,” he said. “Stroke your cock a little firmer.”
I did.
Pleasure built in layers. My fist sliding wet over my cock. My fingertip circling the tight ring of muscle. Declan breathing harder now, losing pieces of that perfect control because of me, because of us, because we were both lying in separate beds touching ourselves to the same secret.
“Are you thinking about my fingers?” he asked.
My hips jerked. “Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I’m thinking about your fingers.”
“Where?”
I bit back a groan. “There.”
“Use the word.”
Heat flooded my face even alone in the dark. “On my hole.”
“Good. Keep touching. Imagine me taking my time. Getting you used to it. Not forcing. Not rushing. Making you open because you trust me enough to let go.”
My hand faltered.
Emotion cut straight through the lust, sudden and sharp.
“Jace?”
“I’m here.”
“Too much?”
“No.” I swallowed. “That was... keep talking.”
He went quiet for one breath, maybe two.
Then his voice came back, lower. “I’d make you ask for every inch. Not because I need you helpless. Because I want you present. I want to hear when it changes from fear to want. I want to know the second your body understands it can take pleasure there.”
My cock pulsed hard.
I stroked faster without permission.
“Slow down,” he said immediately.
I groaned. “Please.”
“Not yet.”
“I’m close.”
“I know. Hold it.”
My body shook with the effort. My finger pressed firmer against myself, not inside, just pressure, and that alone nearly tipped me over. I heard Declan curse softly, the word broken around a breath.
“You close?” I asked.
“Yes.”
The idea of him holding back with me snapped something hot through my stomach.
“Please,” I said again, quieter this time.
He didn’t answer right away.
When he did, his voice was rough. “Take your hand away from your ass. Both hands on your cock.”
I obeyed, almost whining at the loss and the sudden intensity when both hands wrapped around me.
“Now,” he said. “Come for me.”
I came hard, hips lifting off the mattress, both hands working my cock as pleasure tore through me.
I tried to stay quiet and failed, a broken sound leaving my mouth while heat spilled over my fingers and stomach.
My vision went blank behind my closed eyes.
For a few seconds there was nothing but my body and his voice, low and steady, talking me through it without dressing it up.
“That’s it. Breathe. Don’t tighten up. Let it finish.”
On the other end, his control finally slipped. I heard the shift in his breathing, the rough pull of air, then his low groan as he came. He didn’t say my name like a performance. He exhaled it like it had been pressed out of him.
That did more damage than anything explicit.
After, the room felt too quiet.
I lay there sticky and stunned, one arm flung over my eyes.
Declan’s breathing evened slowly through the speaker.
“You with me?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Color?”
“Green.” I cleared my throat. “Sleepy green.”
“Clean up.”
I made a noise of protest.
“Jace.”
“I know.”
I dragged myself out of bed, grabbed tissues, cleaned my stomach and hands, then washed properly in the bathroom because I could feel him judging me through the phone. When I came back, he was still there.
That did something stupid to my chest.
“Back,” I said.
“Water.”
I drank from the glass on my nightstand.
“Under the blankets.”
I got in.
“Phone stays where it is.”
“I hate that part.”
“No, you don’t.”
I smiled in the dark despite myself. “No, I don’t.”
A silence settled, but it wasn’t empty.
“We’re lying to people who care about us,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I hate it.”
“So do I.”
“What happens if we can’t fix it clean?”
Declan took a while to answer. “Then we fix it honestly.”
My throat tightened. “That sounds harder.”
“It will be.”
I closed my eyes again.
He didn’t promise it would be okay. I was starting to understand that I trusted him partly because he didn’t hand me comfort he couldn’t back up.
“Dinner tomorrow,” he said. “You eat before you go if nerves make you forget. You tell her the truth you can tell. No cruelty. No delay tactics.”
My chest felt heavy, but not crushed. “Okay.”
“And after, you text Roman.”
“Alive or not alive.”
“What?”
“His rule.”
A quiet huff of amusement came through the phone. “Smart man.”
“Annoying man.”
“Usually the same thing.”
I turned onto my side, facing the dresser where the phone glowed faintly. “Are you going to sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Actually?”
“Yes.”
I believed him.
That was new too.
The call should have ended there, but neither of us hung up right away. I listened to his breathing through the phone and thought about him in his dark room, his dog on the floor, his wife in another city, his life as tangled as mine and somehow still steady enough to hold a line between us.
“Good night, Jace,” he said at last.
My chest tightened around my answer.
“Good night, Coach.”
The call ended.
I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling, body loose and mind quieter than it had been all day.
Then the quiet made room for the terrifying part.
Not the sex. Not the rules. Not the dinner waiting tomorrow or the lies already told.
The terrifying part was simpler.
I looked forward to hearing his voice.
And that was a much bigger problem.