27. Declan
DECLAN
My eyes snap open, my breathing rapid, sweat beading along my forehead.
For a minute, I’m still trapped in that closet in my father’s office, his taunting voice drifting through the slit at the bottom of the door.
He would mostly take work calls after he locked me in, chewing out one person or another for not doing their job to his specifications.
But sometimes he would talk to women—women who were very much not my mom.
My stomach would churn as I listened to him give them orders about where to be and what to wear.
The nightmares used to be more frequent, but I haven’t had one in a while.
It must be all the shit he’s pulling that’s stirred up the unwanted memories.
I start to sit up, and that’s when I realize there’s something warm and soft in my way.
My first instinct is to panic because who the fuck is in my bed?
But then my eyes catch on a strand of wavy auburn hair hanging against my arm, and I relax.
Leaning over, I watch as her eyes flutter in her sleep while soft, steady breaths escape her lips.
She climbed into bed with me.
Suddenly, nothing else matters—not my father or the nightmare—and all I want is to kiss her.
I want to wake her up and show her just how happy I am that she’s here, but she looks so peaceful.
As my head hits the pillow, she wiggles, burrowing her ass into me, and my cock stirs, thickening beneath my boxer briefs.
I try to will it down because the poor girl doesn’t need to be poked while she’s trying to sleep, but it’s no use.
“Someone’s happy to see me.” Her voice is rough, sleep-worn, but she turns around as she says it.
“It will go away,” I tell her.
“What if I don’t want it to?”
“Skylar. It’s the middle of the night.”
She reaches out, a smirk playing across her lips. I can only see it because the moonlight illuminates her face at just the right angle. She grabs my dick through my underwear, and my eyes fall closed. “What if I want to play?”
Fuck.
I sit up, giving her more space to use her hand, my eyes locked on hers, and whisper, “Then play.”
She sits up on her knees, letting go of me so she can peel my boxer briefs off. Then she takes my hand, guiding it slowly past the hem of her shirt to her pussy. At some point while I was sleeping, she crawled into my bed without underwear.
“Does this feel like I care that it’s the middle of the night?”
“No,” I rasp.
She hikes her leg over my hips, her cunt drenching me as she slides along my aching cock. I grab her ass, kneading the soft flesh while she grinds against me.
“I’m on birth control,” she says, looking down at where we’re touching. “I want to feel you without anything between us this time.”
“Then do it, Skylar. Fuck yourself on me.”
She looks ready to obey, but then she hesitates and goes still. “I haven’t had sex in a while,” she admits. “Have you…” She trails off, shaking her head. “You said you couldn’t imagine being with anyone after me.”
“I meant it.”
“But you have. I mean, obviously you’ve been with women since me.”
I shake my head, letting the reality sink in.
“Declan, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I haven’t been with anyone since you, Skylar.”
“But Ash…”
I sit up further, causing her to fall back slightly. “Do you seriously think it’s okay to have another man’s name in your mouth while I can still feel your bare pussy rubbing up against me?”
“I’m trying to make sense of all this, Declan. It’s been six years. You’re telling me in six years, you haven’t slept with anyone? Gotten a blowjob? A handy?”
I chuckle, taking her hand in mine. “Other than you? No. Doesn’t mean I didn’t try to keep up appearances.
I brought dates to parties, always had a girl hanging off me so no one would ask questions, but it never went further than that.
I hadn’t even kissed anyone since high school until that day with you in the shower. ”
She takes a deep breath, and I’m not expecting her next words to come out on an exhale. “Why not?”
“I told you. After what happened, I couldn’t stand the thought of being with anyone else. I thought it was a phase. That I was punishing myself for what I did to you, but…it wasn’t. The only time I could even get it up was when I was thinking about you.”
The truth is, I’ve always been a sexual person.
Left to my own devices, I discovered sexuality at too young an age to know how to handle it.
I quickly found out I like to be in control, having someone else at my mercy.
Skylar was right, and I’m sure all the rumors were true, but I’m not proud of how I went about it.
I didn’t respect the women I slept with—shit, they were just girls back then.
After Skylar, I tried to understand the dark urges.
I even went to a BDSM club once. I didn’t actively participate, but I learned enough to know that you need complete trust on both sides to wrap your hands around your partner’s throat.
“When you fucked your fist to the thought of me every night?” Skylar’s words interrupt my thoughts, bouncing off the walls in the silent room.
“Yes.”
“Everything you said about not wanting to be tied down in college—”
“Lies. It was all lies, Skylar, but I’m not lying now.”
“How do I know?”
“You don’t.” I let my thumb brush her cheek. “Look, maybe we should wait.” My throbbing dick screams in protest, but I ignore it. I want her to be able to trust me before we take this step, and clearly she needs more time.
“Yeah, okay.” She removes her leg, huffing as she sinks back into the bed next to me. “Guess I ruined the mood.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Take the blame for this.” I turn on my side so I’m facing her. “It’s the same as apologizing. You didn’t ruin anything, and you have nothing to be sorry for. I fucked up. I made it impossible for you to ever trust me again.”
“But I want to. I want so badly to trust you. I want to pick up where we left off before…before you…”
“Made you think it meant nothing?” I supply.
“Before you lied to me.”
“What exactly are you saying, Skylar? That you want to tr—”
“I don’t know,” she interrupts me. “I don’t know what I’m saying. You’re right. It’s late. We should get some sleep.”
I nod, shoving my hand under the pillow. “Can I still hold you?”
“Yes, please,” she says softly, snuggling back into the crook of my arm. I wait until I hear her breathing even out and then I allow myself to drift off.
It feels like it’s only a few minutes later that the banging starts, but it must have been longer because sunlight filters in through the edges of the window.
“What is that?” Skylar groans, grabbing her pillow and shoving it against her ears.
It sounds like it’s coming from the front door.
It couldn’t be my dad. For one, he doesn’t bang on doors, and two, he’s been avoiding me ever since he dropped by a couple of weeks back.
It could be Claire. She didn’t seem too happy with me when we got off the phone last night.
“Someone’s at the door. I’ll get it.” I slide my arm out from under her head so I can get up.
“Just make it stop,” she groans, burrowing further into the blankets.
She lifts a hand to adjust the top so it’s all the way up to her chin and that’s when I notice it.
She’s wearing the ring I made her. My heart soars, but it’s short-lived because the damn knocking starts up again.
Cursing, I get out of bed and throw on a pair of gray sweats.
Whoever is knocking my door down at this ungodly hour is going to have to deal with me being half-naked.
Of all the possibilities running through my mind, the last thing I expect is Ashton standing on my front steps absolutely seething.
“Hey, man. What the—”
I don’t have time to finish my sentence because he rears back and punches me in the face so hard I stagger backward.
“You fucking asshole,” he spits, cradling his split knuckles in the palm of his other hand. “How could you do that to her?”
He winces in pain, and I realize he must have caught my lip ring.
“I asked you a question.” As Ashton pushes his way inside, he slaps my bare chest, and I let him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what he’s mad about, and if I’m right then I deserve whatever else he does to me. “Answer me!”
“Why? You have it all figured out already. What’s the point of explaining myself?”
“Because I want to hear it straight from your fucking mouth, Dec. I want to hear about what could have possibly made you fuck our best friend and then break her heart in the same sentence.”
“I don’t know, Ash. Your sister was busy that night.”
I’m not sure what reaction I’m expecting, but the vein pulsing in his forehead softens, before a smile breaks out across his face, and he starts to laugh. “You’re so fucking pathetic. You know that?”
“So I’ve been told.”
Ash takes a seat on the bottom step of the staircase, passing a hand through his light hair right as Skylar hurries down the steps. “What the hell is going on?”
“Why don’t you ask your knight in shining armor over here?” I nod at Ashton. “He came to defend your honor.”
“Shit. I’m s—” She’s starting to wring her hands, but she stops when I pin her with a look. “We started talking last night, and it just came up.”
“Don’t you dare make this her fault.” Ashton lifts his head, his usually soft brown eyes boring into me.
“It’s been a long time coming. I let you guys have your little secret because it wasn’t my business or maybe I was used to sticking my head in the sand when it came to things I wasn’t sure how to handle, but I’m done with that shit now. ”
I can’t help the smirk that splits my lips.
Ashton blinks. “What?”
“Nothing, I’m happy you finally grew a set of balls.” I rub the side of my face. “Your right hook isn’t bad either.”
“Oh, fuck off. I got in some good hits the last time.”
“I do remember a couple of light slaps. It was kind of soothing, actually, like the caress of a butterfly’s wings.”
Ashton stands up, anger written all over his face again. “Stop changing the fucking subject.”
“Wait, what were you guys fighting about that night junior year? Skylar asks. “You never told me and then I got so drunk, I forgot about it.”
“You,” we both say in unison.
“Me?” Her brows crash together in confusion.
“He found out we kissed,” Ashton explains, still exasperated.
Skylar reaches back, touching the base of her neck with her palm. “I don’t…” She shakes her head slightly. “We were only fifteen when that happened.”
“I was sixteen,” I clarify. Not that it makes a difference. “And the bastard stole your first kiss,” I add, glaring at Ashton.
“I didn’t steal anything,” Ash cuts in. “We both consented to it.”
“Why would you even care?” I see the metaphorical wheels turning as she works it out in her head. “You…you had a thing for me back then? Before we even—”
Ashton nearly cackles, but I shoot him a look that effectively shuts him up. I’m not having this conversation with him here, especially because he still has an unhinged look in his eye.
“Can we talk about this later?” I ask her.
She takes a long, steadying breath. “Yeah, okay.”
I jog up the stairs two at a time, ignoring Ashton’s insistence that he’s not done with me.
He can kick the shit out of me another time.
I’ll happily lie down and take every blow, but right now, I need time to think.
Not because I’m angry that she told Ashton—it was time—but because Skylar deserves to know that I still love her, that I’ve never stopped loving her.
Not since I laid eyes on her when I was thirteen years old.
In order to do that, for there to be nothing else that gets between us, I have to figure out a way to take down my father.
Unfortunately, the one person who might be able to help me is the last person I want to call.