Chapter 16 #2
He quirked his head in that way that read pure canine curiosity. I didn’t deserve that level of patience when I was a cranky, old, broken bog hag.
“I’ve seen it before, Honey.”
But had he? I’d never really looked at his girthquake.
And if we had been in a situation for him to see me naked, I couldn’t recall.
Suddenly, I remembered he had never had to gaze upon the cellulite I faced in the mirror every day.
I mainly ignored it because there were better things to do with my time and no one saw it anyway, but now he was definitely going to notice when I didn’t clamber into the tub fast enough.
“I can get in, in my nightgown.” The pain was really making me think stupid, if that was the best I came up with.
He laughed until he realized I was serious. His hands fisted on his slim hips. “The hells you will. Then you’re going to be soaked and cold. Don’t be silly, Honey. Take off your clothes and get in the tub.”
“Close your eyes then.”
“I can’t close my eyes and help you into the bath. What if I drop you?”
I huffed in frustration.
“Because I am carrying you to the tub and I am getting in so you don’t have to rest against the metal sides. So take it off or I’m going to take it off you.”
My legs shook in a completely inappropriate fury. That tone low in his throat made me draw in a shaky breath. As he took off his nightgown, the kiss washed over me again and soothed the pain for a moment. My body went haywire trying to run in a million directions at once.
His entire being sharpened when my momentary lust hit his nose and I stood up as if I was about to fight the sweetest wolf shifter in existence. He stepped closer, gripping the front of my nightgown with his clawed hand.
“Your choice, Honey.”
I jerked back, the sound of ripping fabric in the air. My illness never gave me a choice and for him to hand one to me was an outsized gift. My heart crumbled a bit at the edges.
I had snuck a few of his books into the kitchen and this had to be the scene straight from The Lustful Rake.
Except Fabian, the main character in that book, never said, “Oh no, I ripped it.” His eyes grew wild. “Honey, I’m so sorry.” Declan tried to pat the fabric back into place.
His apology gave me the strength to grip his wrist, ready to tumble into him and surrender in every way. I never did anything by half-measures. “More.”
His frowning worry gave way to a hunger so intense that I had no idea how had I missed it before.
Mesmerized by his claws, they tore down the front of my nightgown with careful precision.
Torrid was not a word I had in my limited sexual vocabulary but that applied to the gaping fabric around me and the way Declan’s eyes ate every detail of my body, including the parts I wished he didn’t see.
“So beautiful.”
The look on my face must have been automatic horror because his mouth twitched into a silent laugh.
“You don’t believe it?” he asked.
I mean, I tried to believe it, but it was hard when my body was the enemy. When the world tilted, I realized I had been holding my breath. Declan’s powerful embrace encircled me.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my ear.
My gasp sucked in a deep breath, my brain fuzzy with relief, the rightness of the moment, the pain still lingering just around the bend of whatever this was.
Even during the worst flares, I had never fainted in my life, but Declan’s hands on my naked body edged me so close that black spots danced in my vision.
Then the warm water closed in, and not even Declan’s solid body behind me stopped the flood of pleasure, relief, safety.
“Invalid bathing wasn’t my choicest upgrade to our friendship.”
He huffed a laugh. “You're between my legs, Honey. Do you think I care?”
My shoulders slumped at that admission, some of my stiffness melting. But that made room for the agony to come back, tenfold. Skittering shards of ice up my arms, my legs, I held in my scream.
Declan was there to cradle me. Whatever happened between us in the temple was there again, and I let him sneak inside me. I felt it clearly now as he stiffened and adjusted in the water. Some of my pain lessened and his squirming increased.
“How do you stand this?” he whispered.
I didn’t have a clever answer for him. “I have to.”
His presence reassured me from the inside.
He stroked over my inflamed joints and numb hands.
He licked my spasming back. Some of the fatigue drained away as he settled deeper into the tub, head lolling against my shoulder.
I knew that motion like my favorite recipe.
When your head was too big for your neck and you just needed to rest somewhere.
My pain wasn’t gone, but he seemed to be sharing it, distributing it between us, and no one deserved that.
“Don’t, Declan.”
Once, when I had just arrived at my Aunt’s house after my parent’s death, she tried to help as well.
She thought diet, exercise, and grit were enough to overcome Hollow Fever.
They were tools to help me manage it, but when that didn’t magically cure me, it somehow became my fault.
Many healers since had to convince me surviving it with consequences was not my fault.
Some people lived and suffered. Some people died. There was no reason for it.
“Don’t what?”
Don’t care about me so you won’t be disappointed.
I froze. I hadn’t meant to say that so he heard it. To imagine I was enough in this current state was laughable.
He swirled the water around us in soothing circles. “You think you’re a disappointment, Fallon?”
How couldn’t I be when the Fever took everything at random? When I would never work hard enough to make up for it?
“I will disappoint you eventually.” It had always happened before. My sex drive wasn’t high enough. I didn’t clean the house when I came home from the bakery. Evie and Maggie took up too much of my time.
“You have it all wrong if you think I’m measuring you like them.”
“Who are they?” I was almost afraid to ask.
“Every faceless human and monster I won’t get to smother in their sleep who told you that you had to earn the right to be loved through the amount of work you do. The ones who made you think you’re unlovable otherwise.”
He said it so seriously, as if this was the most important moment of his life.
Emotional discomfort arrowed straight to my hands. I needed to do something with them even though they hurt. Declan understood immediately and lightly rubbed them, allowing me to grip his palms when I was able.
That was insane. Suicidal. I didn’t think I was unlovable if I didn’t work. Surely I had more self-confidence than that. “I don’t believe that.” I tried to inject conviction into my wobbly voice.
“Don’t you? When you sacrifice yourself to work that doesn’t care if you live or die, pushing until you break. What else would you fight so hard for but for love?”
“I work to make talons. To feed myself and others. To learn new things. And…”
I blinked hard, and tears spontaneously slid down my face. I was so weary to the bone that I couldn’t even be truthful with him. All the hours, the sweat and blood I poured into it, of course I wanted to be loved through my food, for my accomplishments. It was safer than being loved for myself.
I reached inside and found the tether to Declan I had ignored.
Instead of passing it off as a fake mating thing, or just the magic of our friendship, I really looked at it.
It had always sat between us in some form, but now it sparkled and solidified into a bridge between our hearts.
I didn’t know what to do with that kind of love, but I wanted it desperately.
With all his usual good cheer, Declan had waited for me to come to him, for me to see him the way he saw me - as someone to love.
Goosebumps erupted over every part of me.
If I hadn’t been still, I would have missed the dark core running through all the light in the bridge between us.
Yes, I plainly saw that the bond might mean shared laughter, lazy picnics and more romps in the snow, but it also carried the promise of flesh meeting flesh, wet kisses and tongues over skin.
I exhaled roughly, trying to adjust to the seismic shift of seeing Declan not only as a sexual creature but also as a monster aimed directly at me. All of that affection would ruin me if he backed it up with the anaconda lying against my ass.
I didn’t know if my body would take it, but I would have killed to find out.