14. Declan #3
I sink to my knees before her. This is not an act of submission.
It’s an act of worship. I press my lips to her stomach, just below her navel.
I can feel the faint, rapid beat of her pulse against my mouth.
I look up at her. Her head is tilted back, her throat a long, pale column in the dim light.
Her hands are resting on my shoulders, her fingers digging in slightly.
I use my mouth to tell her what words cannot say.
I kiss a path lower, through the neat, trimmed thatch of dark hair between her legs.
I can smell her arousal, a sweet, musky scent that makes my head swim.
I part her folds with my thumbs, revealing the slick, pink flesh of her pussy.
She’s already wet, glistening in the soft light.
I lean in and run the flat of my tongue through her cunt, a long, slow lick from her entrance to her clit.
A deep, satisfying moan rips from her throat.
It’s a raw, uninhibited sound of pure pleasure, and it destroys me more than if she had screamed my name.
It shatters something inside me, something I didn’t even know was still intact.
I do it again, and again, lapping at her like a man dying of thirst. I taste her, salty and sweet, and I can’t get enough.
I circle her clit with the tip of my tongue, feeling it swell and harden under my touch.
Her hips begin to move, a subtle, rocking rhythm against my face.
I close my lips around her clit and suck.
Hard. Her hands fly from my shoulders to my hair, her fingers tangling in the red strands, holding me to her.
“Declan,” she gasps, my name a broken prayer on her lips.
I redouble my efforts, my tongue flicking and stroking, my mouth sucking and teasing.
I fuck her with my tongue, thrusting it into her tight, wet hole, feeling her muscles clench around me.
I lick and suck until I can feel her start to tremble, a fine, uncontrollable shiver that starts in her thighs and spreads through her entire body.
Her breath comes in ragged pants, her moans growing higher, more desperate. She’s right on the edge.
I rise to my feet, my own body thrumming with a desperate, urgent need.
I hook my arms under her knees and lift her, carrying her the few steps to the massive mahogany bed.
I lay her down on the silk sheets, her pale body a stark contrast to the deep, rich colour of the fabric.
I follow her down, covering her body with mine.
We lie together in the dim room while danger moves beyond its walls, a distant, irrelevant hum.
The only world that matters is this one, right here.
I position myself between her legs, my cock nudging against her slick, swollen entrance.
Maeve keeps her eyes on mine, her gaze clear and unflinching.
The intimacy of being seen, of being truly seen by her in this moment, nearly destroys me.
It’s more terrifying than any gunfight, more dangerous than any enemy.
I push forward, sliding into her in one slow, deep thrust.
The feeling is… overwhelming. Her cunt is hot and wet, a tight, slick sheath that grips me perfectly.
I bury myself to the hilt, my balls flush against her ass.
Every movement is slower than the last time, stripped of fury and defence.
There is no anger here, no desperate attempt to claim or conquer.
There is only this. This profound, aching connection.
I pull back, almost all the way out, before sliding back in, just as slowly.
I set a languid, unhurried rhythm, a deep, steady rocking that stokes a fire low in my belly.
Her face tightens as pleasure builds, her brows drawing together, her lips parting on a silent gasp.
I lean down and kiss her, swallowing her soft moan.
I kiss her when pleasure tightens her face, a gentle, possessive press of my lips that says, I’m here.
I see you. Her arms wrap around my back, her nails digging into my shoulders, not in pain, but in a desperate attempt to hold on.
She holds me when grief threatens to follow, when the memory of all the wasted years rises like a tide, threatening to pull us under.
Her embrace is an anchor, a silent promise that we will not drown.
For the first time since she returned, we touch without using hatred to protect what remains between us.
There is only the slide of skin on skin, the shared rhythm of our breathing, the quiet, desperate communion of two broken people finding their way back to each other in the dark.
The danger outside these walls can wait.
The world can wait. Right now, there is only her. Only us.
Afterward, Maeve rests against my side while I examine the photograph of my father and Eamon.
Her fingers move across my chest in quiet patterns.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table with a message from Elena.
She has decoded a coordinate string concealed inside Callum’s final audio file.
It matches the original route number Patrick flagged before his murder.
I show the location to Maeve. She recognises the Gallagher warehouse code immediately.
Callum’s final records lead us to an abandoned Irish warehouse.