Chapter five #4
She comes with a silent scream. Her mouth opens, but no sound comes out, just a rush of air, a shudder that starts in her core and radiates outward. Her inner walls clamp around my fingers, pulsing, and fresh slick floods my hand, my wrist, my chin.
I don't stop. I work her through it, slowing my tongue, easing my fingers, drawing out every last tremor until she's trembling and oversensitive and pushing weakly at my head.
I pull back and look up at her.
She's wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. Slumped against the wall, chest heaving, eyes closed, and lips parted. Her jeans and underwear lay beneath her on the floor, and her slick is on my face. And she's beautiful. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I press a kiss to her inner thigh. Then the other. Then I stand, slowly, because my knees are aching and my cock is throbbing and I'm so hard it hurts, and I pull her jeans back up, button them, and smooth her shirt down.
She opens her eyes. "Deklan." Her voice is destroyed. Raw. "That was…"
"Not a placeholder," I finish. "Not a function. Not a body."
Her eyes fill with tears, but different this time. Not grief. Not fear. Something softer. Something warm.
"Home," she whispers.
I frame her face in my hands and press my forehead to hers. "Home."
We stand like that in the darkened room while Lily sleeps. The city hums below us. And for the first time in six months, the empty space behind my ribs feels like it might be filling.
I pull back, find a tissue on the nightstand, and hand it to her. She laughs, a wet, shaky sound, and wipes her eyes.
"You're a mess," I say and the ghost of a smile tugs at my mouth.
"You made me a mess." She blows her nose. "On purpose."
"I did."
She looks at me, really looks at me, the way nobody has since Mara. Like she's seeing past the glasses, the scowl, and the spreadsheet brain to the person underneath. The scared kid. The grieving brother. The man who just knelt on a floor and tasted heaven.
"Deklan?"
"Yeah."
"What Serena said, about you guys getting bored, about the match fading…"
"Won't happen." I say it with absolute certainty.
Not because I'm naive, not because I'm ignoring the possibility, but because I know what I felt.
I know what JD felt. I know what Knox felt.
"The match with her was a spark. With you, it's a bonfire.
It's not going to fade, Willow. If anything, it's going to burn us alive. "
She laughs. A real laugh. Quiet, but real. "That's the most romantic thing a man has ever said to me. And I think it included a threat of spontaneous combustion."
"I'm a strategist. I deal in probabilities."
"What's the probability of this working?"
I consider. "Low, statistically speaking. Three men, one omega, a toddler, and a population of emotional issues that would keep a therapist in business for decades."
"Deklan."
"But I've never trusted statistics." I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "And I trust this. I trust you."
She catches my hand and holds it. Presses her lips to my knuckles, a gesture so gentle it makes my throat tight.
"Thank you," she says. "For showing me."
"Anytime." I manage a smirk. "Literally anytime. I'm available. My calendar is surprisingly flexible."
She laughs again, and the sound is warmer this time. Brighter. The honey and vanilla in her scent have returned, sweet and clean, the fear and doubt burned away.
I want to kiss her. The urge is so strong it's almost physical, a pull in my chest, a tightness in my throat. I want to press my mouth to hers and taste her laughter and feel her smile against my lips.
But I don't. Not because I don't want to, but because I want it too much. Because a kiss from me right now, in this room, in this moment, would mean something I'm not ready to name. And Willow deserves more than a Beta who doesn't know how to express himself.
She deserves everything.
"I should go," I say. "JD and Knox are probably combusting out there."
"They're probably listening at the door."
"Undoubtedly." I turn toward the door. My hand is on the knob when she speaks.
"Deklan."
I look back, and she's standing in the shaft of light from the hallway, silhouetted, rumpled, beautiful. Her hand rests over her heart.
"You said you couldn't feel anything since Mara died," she says. "Can you feel it now?"
I look at her. At the light in her eyes. At the tears drying on her cheeks. At the slight curve of her lips, uncertain, hopeful, and brave.
"Yes," I say. "I can feel it now." I open the fully door and step into the hallway.
JD is leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, jaw tight. Knox is beside him, his green eyes dark and unreadable. They've been listening. Of course they've been listening.
I look at them, my brothers, my family, the only people in the world who know me, and I say the only thing that matters. "She's not leaving."
JD's jaw unclenches, a fraction. Knox's mouth curves, a fraction. And behind me, in the dark room, an omega who smells like home hums a lullaby to a sleeping child.
The sound follows me down the hallway like a prayer.