Chapter 24
Talia
The elevator ride is silent, but the air between us screams.
Declan stands close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his arm, though we aren’t touching. He holds my key card in his hand, turning it over once, thumb tracing the plastic like it’s something fragile.
When the doors slide open on my floor, he waits for me to step out first.
The hallway is quiet. Fluorescent lights hum overhead. I lead him to my door, my pulse beating a frantic, heavy rhythm against my ribs.
He slides the card into the slot. The light blinks green. The mechanism clicks.
He pushes the door open and steps back, letting me cross the threshold into my own sanctuary.
Then he follows, closing the door behind us.
He eases the door shut. There's no slam, no hard latch—just a click that's barely a whisper. A small courtesy that feels like it was meant for me. Like he’s thinking about my nervous system before his own.
The room looks different with him in it. Smaller. Warmer. Too intimate and not intimate enough at the same time. My desk lamp casts a soft glow over the full-sized bed, the blanket half-tucked from this morning.
I lock the deadbolt.
Declan’s eyes track the movement—careful, aware—but he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t ask if I need space or if he should leave. He just stands there, waiting for me to decide what happens next.
“Sit,” I murmur, my voice thin.
He sits on the edge of my bed immediately, forearms resting on his thighs.
The mattress dips under his weight. The lamplight catches on the bruise darkening under his cheekbone—a souvenir from Friday’s game—turning the tan of his skin into deep purples and yellows.
It should make him look rough, dangerous.
It makes him look human.
I drop onto the bed beside him, legs folding up instinctively. His thigh presses to mine, solid and grounding. My breath wavers, just a little.
Everything is too much. My dad’s job. His father’s threats. The plan we made at Genny’s. And the way Declan looked at me in the car when I told him what happened before Briarcliff.
It churns together until it feels like the room is tilting.
“I can’t wrap my head around all of this,” I whisper.
His hand moves—slowly, clearly telegraphed—until his fingers settle over my knee. Warm. Steady. A gentle anchor.
“You don’t have to,” he says softly. “Not tonight.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t try to fix it. He just stays with me in it, thumb brushing a warm line along my jeans. The motion sends something loosening through my chest.
“We’re not doing this alone,” he adds, voice low. “Not anymore.”
My throat tightens.
I turn toward him slightly. “You mean that.”
“Yeah,” he says, jaw tight but eyes soft. “I mean it.”
A beat passes. Then another. The air between us shifts, growing heavier, thicker.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I whisper, heat creeping up my neck.
“Like what?” His mouth curves—barely, but enough that I feel it everywhere. “Like you matter?”
“Declan…”
He lifts one hand—slowly, letting me see every inch of the movement—and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. His knuckles graze my cheek, and then the pulse at my throat, sending a quiet shiver down my spine.
“You do,” he says, voice rough. “You really do.”
A tiny, helpless sound escapes me. I look down at his hand on my knee, then back up to his face.
“You’re in my room, Reid,” I say, trying for lightness and landing on breathless. “Pretty sure that breaks about five different team bylaws. Coach would have a stroke.”
His eyes glint, dark and amused. “Technically, the bylaws say no overnight guests before a game day. It’s Sunday. No curfew. Coach gives us twenty-four hours to bleed out the lactic acid.”
“Loophole,” I accuse softly.
“Strategy,” he counters. “Goalies read the rulebook.”
“And do you follow the rules?”
His gaze drops to my mouth, heat flaring in his eyes. “Depends on who’s asking.”
My heart stutters.
I shove his shoulder, embarrassed by how much I like that answer.
He catches my wrist.
The contact is light, fingers warm around my skin—but the moment stretches, deepens, thickens. His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist just once, right over my pulse point, and everything in my body tilts toward him.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “You push me like that again and I might start thinking you’re flirting.”
“I’m not,” I breathe.
“You are.”
I am.
Heat rises under my skin, slow and molten. My pulse is a warm flutter in my throat.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I lean in—just a little—and whisper, “You don’t have to look at me like I’m something you want.”
He exhales, slow and shaky.
“Talia,” he says, voice dropping, rough with a need he isn’t hiding anymore. “I can’t look at you any other way.”
And then he kisses me.
It’s not rushed. Not frantic. It’s slow—deep, gentle, sure. His lips move against mine with a kind of reverence that makes my chest ache.
He cups my jaw, tilting my head just enough to kiss me deeper. My fingers slide into the fabric of his hoodie, pulling him closer. The warmth of him wraps around me, heavy and intoxicating.
When his tongue brushes mine, a soft whimper slips out of me.
His breath hitches. “Come here.”
I shift onto his lap without thinking, straddling him, thighs bracketing his. He steadies me with both hands at my hips, the touch firm but not forceful. My hands slide up the planes of his chest, feeling heat through cotton.
His lips trail down my throat, slow and hot.
“Declan,” I whisper, fingers tightening in his hair.
He groans—a low, wrecked sound—and kisses me hard again, sinking a hand under the hem of my shirt, fingertips brushing my skin. Heat cracks open in my belly.
“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he murmurs against my mouth.
“I don’t,” I breathe. “I want you.”
“Then we’re not stopping.”
His hands help lift my shirt. I pull it over my head, tossing it aside. His hoodie comes next. I drag it up his chest, my knuckles grazing the hard planes of his stomach, the V of muscle disappearing into his jeans.
When the hoodie is gone, I stop.
There’s a bruise on his side, right over his ribs—a mottled map of blue and purple where a puck or a stick caught him hard on Friday.
I reach out, tracing the edge of it with my fingertips.
He flinches, just a little, his breath hissing in.
“It’s fine,” he murmurs. “Part of the job.”
“You take hits for a living,” I whisper, looking up at him.
“I stop them,” he corrects softly. “So they don’t get past me.”
The words land heavy between us. It’s not just about hockey.
I kiss the bruise. Gently.
His hands tighten on my hips. “Talia.”
I pull back and kiss his mouth. Hard.
The air between us crackles as the rest of our clothes fall away.
By the time his mouth finds my collarbone, my body feels electric. My legs slide around his waist, pulling him closer. His fingers trace up my ribs, slow and exploring, like he’s learning me by heart.
“Do you have—” I start, breathless.
He shifts his weight, reaching for his back pocket. He pulls out a wallet, sliding a foil packet from the inside fold.
He sets it on the nightstand.
His eyes meet mine, dark and hungry.
“I didn’t plan this,” he says, voice rough. “But I’m not losing my mind so much I forget that.”
I should be embarrassed. I’m not. I’m molten.
He stands, lifting me with him effortlessly. My breath catches as my legs tighten around him. He sets me gently onto the mattress, following me down, his body braced over mine. He kisses me again—slow and delicious.
Declan’s descent was a slow, deliberate tease.
He eased back, sliding the length of his body down mine, a trail of sweat-slicked skin replacing the heavy heat of his weight.
The air was thick with the scent of sex and anticipation.
My breath hitched as his mouth found its target, the shock of his cool breath instantly replaced by the hot, slick press of his tongue.
A sharp, involuntary gasp tore from my throat, and I fisted my hands deep in the soft cotton of the sheets, pulling the mattress up on either side of my head.
He was an artist, his movements precise and purposeful.
The tip of his tongue traced the delicate, hypersensitive peak of my clit, a light, teasing caress that drew a whine from my chest. Then, without warning, he dragged his thumb across the throbbing nub with firm, staggering pressure.
The sudden shift in sensation—from feather-light to intensely grounding—was too much.
My hips bucked, a desperate, instinctual movement to chase the feeling.
“Declan,” I managed to choke out, the sound ragged and unrecognizable. The word was a plea, a command, a shattered fragment of my control.
He pulled back, the movement slight, just enough to tilt his head and look up at my face.
His eyes, dark as midnight and intensely focused, were alight with a deep, primal hunger.
A low, gravelly sound vibrated in his chest as he spoke.
“Not yet, baby. I need you completely loose for me. Completely undone.” His words were a promise and a threat, binding me to the pleasure he controlled.
He didn't wait for my response. His hand moved, a slow, mesmerizing slide up my inner thigh.
Two long, strong fingers parted the slick folds of my pussy and sank deep inside me.
His thumb, meanwhile, returned to the aching, demanding center of my need.
He worked them in tandem—circling, pressing, then stroking with a relentless, building rhythm.
The deep penetration of his fingers stretched me, while the focused pressure of his thumb began to wind a thick, heavy coil of tension low in my belly.
My body answered the unspoken command, arching violently off the bed, meeting the powerful thrust of his fingers with every frantic, straining movement.
The world narrowed to the pulse point under his thumb and the relentless rhythm of his hand.
It took only a few frantic, breathless seconds for the pressure to become unbearable.
A delicious, agonizing wave of tension crested, sharp and dizzying, and then I shattered.
The climax was a convulsive shockwave that stole my vision and my breath.
My muscles clamped down, tightening uncontrollably around his fingers as my body shook with the force of the release.
I collapsed back onto the mattress, boneless and breathless, my body thrumming with the aftershocks. A deep, heavy buzz resonated through my limbs, and I blinked slowly, my eyes hazy and unfocused, trying to orient myself in the aftermath.
Declan didn't move. He watched my face with an unwavering intensity, his gaze following the path of my ragged breath and the lingering tremors in my body.
A slow, predatory smile—the look of a man who had claimed his prize—spread across his mouth.
He finally pulled his hand free, the slick withdrawal of his fingers drawing a final, shuddering sigh from my lips.
Then, he slid up my body, settling his weight between my thighs, his gaze never leaving mine, ready to claim the rest of the night.
He rolls the condom on, then settles between my thighs.
He pauses there, hovering.
His forearms brace on either side of my head, taking his full weight. He is a wall of muscle and heat above me, blocking out the light, blocking out the room.
For a split second, a flicker of old panic sparks in my chest. The memory of weight that crushed. Hands that pinned. The suffocation of having no way out.
But Declan doesn’t crush.
He waits.
He watches my face, scanning my eyes with that goalie intensity, looking for the flinch.
“You with me?” he rasps.
I look at his hands. They aren’t pinning my wrists; they’re buried in the mattress, grounding him so he doesn’t put an ounce of pressure on me that I don’t ask for.
This weight isn’t a cage. It’s a shelter.
The panic dissolves, replaced by a rush of safety so potent it makes my eyes sting. My muscles unlock, sinking into the bed instead of fighting it.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m with you.”
He nods, jaw clenched tight, and pushes forward.
When the head of his cock presses against my entrance, I gasp. He’s big—thick and hard and stretching me in a way that feels impossible and perfect all at once.
He sinks in slowly, inch by excruciating inch, letting my body adjust to him.
“Oh my god,” I gasp, fingers digging into his shoulders.
His forehead drops to mine, breath hot and uneven.
“Talia,” he groans, the sound dragged out of him. “You feel… incredible. So tight.”
He withdraws almost all the way, then pushes back in, a long, smooth glide that hits every nerve ending I have.
My hips lift instinctively, meeting him.
“Just like that,” he murmurs, his voice dark and praise-heavy.
He sets a rhythm—slow, deep, relentless. Every thrust fills me completely, stretching me open, claiming space I didn’t know I had to give. My body clenches around him, wet and aching, demanding more.
We lose ourselves.
The world narrows to heat and breath and the slide of his hands over my body. He shifts one hand, sliding it down between us to find my clit.
I cry out, my back arching off the mattress.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, watching me come undone. “Let go, baby. I’ve got you.”
The friction of his thumb and the deep, heavy thrust of his cock is too much. The tension coils tight in my belly, sharper and sharper until I can’t breathe.
“Declan…” I breathe, voice catching. “Declan, please.”
He doesn’t speed up. He just grinds deeper, hitting that same spot over and over until I’m sobbing his name.
My climax hits hard, tearing a cry from my chest, my thighs tightening around him, milking him.
He groans into my mouth, thrusts stuttering, and then he’s coming too, body shaking above me, pouring himself into me.
He collapses to the side immediately, dragging me into his arms, keeping our bodies tangled on the small bed. We fit, somehow. Limbs woven together, skin damp and cooling.
He presses a soft kiss to the back of my shoulder. Then another. And another.
His hand covers my waist, splayed wide, protective.
“You okay?” he murmurs—soft, quiet, meant only for me.
I turn toward him, pressing my forehead to his.
“I’m perfect,” I whisper.
His fingers brush a slow line down my spine.
I fall asleep with his arms wrapped around me and his breath warm against my hair.
Safe.
Wanted.
Chosen.
Exactly where I want to be.