Chapter 34 #2
He kissed under my jaw, teeth grazing skin, then released me long enough to tug my sweats down. My underwear went with them. Cool air hit my thighs, then his hands were on me, spreading me open.
“Declan,” I said, already wrecked and embarrassed by how fast I got there.
“Stay on your feet.”
Then he went down behind me.
The first touch of his mouth made my forehead drop toward the cabinet in front of me. He gripped my hips and pulled me back into him, beard scraping the backs of my thighs, tongue hot and deliberate as he licked over me.
My thoughts shattered.
Not disappeared. Not cured. Nothing that clean.
But they lost their edges. The list, the legal names, the ownership meeting, the future, all of it got pushed back by sensation so specific I couldn’t outrun it.
His hands held me open while his mouth worked me with filthy patience, licking and sucking until my shoulders shook from the effort of staying upright.
“Fuck,” I gasped. “Declan.”
He hummed against me.
My hips jerked. He held them still.
That was the part that broke me fastest. Not being forced. Being held. Being given one instruction simple enough to follow when the rest of my life had become too complicated to touch.
Stay on your feet.
I stayed.
He pushed his tongue inside me and I made a sound I would have denied in court. My cock was so hard it hurt, trapped against nothing, leaking onto the lower cabinet. I tried to move back, tried to get more, and his grip tightened in warning.
“Please,” I said.
He pulled back just enough to speak, breath rough against wet skin. “Please what?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “Fuck me.”
“Ask properly.”
I groaned, half frustration, half need. “Declan, please fuck me. I need you inside me. I need it hard. I need you to make it quiet.”
There was a beat where all I heard was his breathing.
Then he stood.
His hand came around my throat, not squeezing, just resting there while he kissed the side of my neck and reached into the drawer beside him with the other. Lube. Thank God for organized men with filthy habits.
His fingers were slick when they found me. One pushed in slow, then another, his mouth at my neck the whole time. He sucked a mark under my ear and I shuddered against him, body opening in pulses, needy and impatient.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I am.”
“You’re holding it every time you want to rush.”
“I hate being observed.”
“No, you don’t.”
I laughed, but it came out broken when his fingers curled.
“Asshole,” I whispered.
He bit lightly at my shoulder. “Again?”
“No. Sir.”
The word hit us both.
It had been a while since I’d used it. Not because we’d stopped, but because things had shifted and stretched around us.
Tonight it came back without performance, without the sharpness of early power games.
It came from somewhere deeper. An answer to a question my body had been asking since I walked through the door.
Declan’s forehead pressed to the back of my neck. “Good.”
Not boy. Not habit. Just good.
I shook under it.
He withdrew his fingers and I heard fabric shift behind me, the slick sound of his hand on himself. Then the blunt head of his cock pressed against me.
I looked over my shoulder as much as I could. “No condom.”
His face was flushed, control frayed but present. “Jace.”
“I mean it. We’ve both tested. We’ve been only each other since...” I swallowed. “Since this became this. I want to feel you. All of you.”
His hand tightened on my hip. “This is a decision, not a heat-of-the-moment reward.”
“I know.”
“We can go back at any time.”
“I know.”
“No pretending you want something because you think I do.”
“I’m not.” I held his gaze. “I want it with you.”
He searched my face for another second, then nodded once.
The trust in that nod nearly destroyed me.
He pushed in slowly at first. Bare. Hot. Too much and exactly right. My mouth fell open, but no sound came out. He filled me inch by inch, one hand braced on the counter beside mine, the other wrapped around my hip, holding me steady while my body fought and welcomed him at the same time.
When he was all the way inside, he stopped.
I could feel him shaking.
“Move,” I said.
“Give yourself a second.”
“I had a second. Move.”
His laugh was rough against my neck. “Impatient.”
“Yes.”
He pulled back and drove in.
The counter dug into my palms. Pleasure punched through me, bright and deep, knocking the air out of my lungs.
He did it again, harder. Then again. The careful patience snapped into something faster, rougher, not angry, never that, but hungry in a way that felt like confession.
His hips hit my ass with a sound that made my face burn.
His beard scraped my neck as he kept kissing me, sucking, biting soft places while he fucked me hard enough that the dishes rattled in the cabinet.
I couldn’t track anything except him.
His hand slid around my cock, but didn’t stroke yet. Just held me, slick and firm, while his thrusts pushed me into his grip.
“Stay with me,” he said.
“I’m here.”
“Say it again.”
“I’m here.”
His hand began to move.
My elbows nearly gave out.
He adjusted, arm across my chest, hauling me up against him while he kept fucking me. The angle changed and I swore, loud enough that Tiny barked from the living room like he had concerns about workplace safety.
Declan didn’t stop. “He’s fine.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m going to come.”
“Then come.”
Permission. Simple. Devastating.
I came all over the side of the counter and his hand, shaking so hard he had to hold me upright.
It tore through me with no dignity at all, my body clenching around him, sounds falling out of my mouth that I couldn’t organize into words.
Declan cursed against my shoulder and drove in deep, once, twice, then stayed there as he came inside me.
I felt it.
The pulse of him. The heat. The final loss of distance between us.
For a few seconds, neither of us moved.
Then my knees remembered they had resigned.
Declan caught me before I could slide. He turned me carefully, pulled my sweats up enough to keep me from tripping, and lifted me onto the counter like I weighed nothing. My head fell against his shoulder.
“There you are,” he murmured.
I didn’t have the energy to make fun of him.
My brain was quiet.
Not empty. Not fixed. Just finally down to one channel. His heartbeat under my cheek. His hand rubbing slow circles between my shoulders. The kitchen smelling like garlic and sex and soap. Tiny grumbling somewhere nearby because his humans were weird and inconsiderate.
Declan cleaned me first, gentle and unhurried, then himself, then the counter. I sat there uselessly, boneless, watching him move around his kitchen with his shirt pulled up at one side and his hair wrecked from my hands.
“I helped clean,” I said.
He glanced at the mess. “You contributed.”
“Team effort.”
“I’ll put that in the report.”
I smiled, sleepy and loose.
He came back and stood between my knees. “How’s your head?”
I took inventory slowly. Body heavy. Chest open. Shame absent for once. Fear still somewhere in the building, but no longer banging on every door.
“Better,” I said. “Quiet.”
His palm settled along my jaw. “Good.”
I leaned into it.
Then my phone rang from the island.
The sound cut through the room so sharply I flinched. Not because it was loud. Because reality had terrible timing.
Declan reached for it, checked the screen, then looked at me.
“Your dad.”
Everything inside me tightened and softened at the same time.
Cal Holloway.
My thumb hovered when Declan handed it over. I could let it ring. Call back tomorrow. Tell myself this wasn’t the time, that I was half naked in Declan’s kitchen with his come inside me and a life-changing confession did not belong in the same paragraph as that reality.
But maybe nothing about this was going to arrive at a clean, respectable time.
Maybe ready was just picking up the phone before fear made the decision for me.
Declan watched me without pushing.
I answered.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, kid.” His voice came through warm and familiar, a little tired. “You got a minute?”
I looked at Declan. He didn’t move closer. He didn’t move away.
Tiny waddled into the kitchen and dropped heavily beside my foot, like he had also decided to stay.
My throat went tight.
“Yeah,” I said, holding Declan’s gaze. “I’ve got a minute. There’s something I need to tell you.”