Chapter 4 Declan
DECLAN
“Declan, is everything alright in there?” It’s Orla.
My heart is thudding.
My face is still buried between Amelia’s legs.
I can’t let her find us like this. It wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
“Everything is fine. I dropped a glass.”
I glance at Amelia who is watching me closely, waiting for her cue to move and get dressed. I shake my head and raise a finger to my lips.
“Have you seen Amelia?” Of course, Orla is worried that I might’ve already dismissed her.
“She is in here with me.”
There’s a pause.
“Fine. Well, I hope she talks more sense into you than I did.”
I listen to her footsteps retreating across the foyer before I realize that Amelia’s legs are shaking in my grip. “I’m sorry, Amelia. I didn’t—”
“No.” She twists her hips out from under me, and slides backwards across the desk, sitting up and facing me squarely. “Don’t you dare tell me that you’re sorry this happened.” She folds her arms across her naked breasts and closes her legs. Her cheeks are rosy from her orgasm.
I’m aware of my exposed cock. The taste of Amelia’s cum on my lips.
The adrenaline pumping through my veins.
I fucked up. This is all down to me, but I don’t regret a single moment of it.
If this hadn’t happened, if I hadn’t acted on the overwhelming desire I felt when I first met her, she’d be upstairs packing her suitcase right now, and I’d have spent the rest of my life regretting it.
“I’m not sorry this happened.” My voice is low but thick with want. Need. Lust. “I’m sorry that I put you in this position. I’m sorry that we almost got caught.”
“That’s it?” she asks.
“That’s it.”
I move closer to the desk, reminding myself that she wanted this too. She could’ve stopped me. She could’ve screamed sexual harassment and gone running to Orla. But she didn’t. Her passion matched mine in a way that I’ve never experienced before. Not even with Niamh.
“In case you didn’t notice, I want you, Amelia. I want every part of you. I want to know you inside and out. I … felt it the first moment I saw you.”
She doesn’t move, and I wish that I could get inside her head and know what she is thinking. “I felt it too,” she murmurs.
“I don’t know what I can offer you.”
I spent all night trying to process this desire, and the best I could come up with was sending her away. I can only take this one step at a time. The most important thing right now is for her to know that I’m not going to use her and discard her.
“Do you still want me to leave?”
“Fuck no! I’d have been a fucking idiot to let you walk straight back out of my life.”
She smiles, and my heart performs somersaults inside my chest. “Can you still work with me?”
“The honest answer is I don’t know. But I’ll give it my best fucking shot. That is, if you still want to work for me.”
She chews her bottom lip and, without thinking, I close the distance between us and tug her lip out from beneath her teeth with my thumb. I cup her face with both hands and brush her lips with mine.
“Please say yes, Amelia.”
“Yes.”
My blood pumps around my veins and straight down to my already engorged cock. It’s more than I deserve. I’d be lying if I said that I wanted to avoid this because I never wanted to be this kind of fucking boss. The sexual pervert kind.
But I have to ask. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m old enough to be your father?”
“Stop talking, Declan, and kiss me already.”
She fists my hair, pulling me close. Her kisses are not as hungry as they were when I first touched her. Those kisses were driven by excitement, the fear of getting caught, the knowledge that what we were doing was wrong on so many levels.
Now, she kisses me like she wants me. Really wants me. I slide two fingers between her legs, stretching her, smiling at how wet she is. Still. Despite the interruption.
“Where were we?”
“You were going to fuck me.”
“I was?” I smile against her lips and slide my fingers deeper. She pushes back, wanting more.
“I seem to recall you saying that you wanted to know me inside and out.”
She slants her big brown eyes suggestively, and I already know that I’m powerless to resist anything Amelia York wants.
I wrap my free arm around her back and scoot her forward along the desk until her ass is perched on the edge. Then I pull my fingers out of her and guide the head of my cock towards her opening.
“Are you ready for me, Amelia?”
She takes my hand and licks her taste from my fingers. “Do you really need to ask?”
I slide my shaft inside her, all the way. Amelia leans back to accommodate my length, but I grip her hair, needing to kiss her while I fill her up. It feels like coming home. Like this is what has been missing from my life since Niamh died.
And I already know that I won’t be able to get enough of Amelia York.
That once tasted means never forgotten, and that if I go through with this now, there’s no turning back.
Her hands tug at my shirt, and I don’t stop her. She feels her way through the buttons, pulls the shirt over my shoulders and drops it onto the floor. Then, she presses her breasts against my chest. Her nipples are hard, sending a thrill straight through to my cock sunk deep inside her.
“Want more?” I murmur against her lips.
“I want everything.”
I grip her hips and lift her off the desk. I lower her onto the rug and hook her legs over my shoulders. With her body bent double, I can slide my shaft in all the way, seating it in her warm wetness.
“That’s my good girl. I knew you could take all of me.”
She traces my mouth with her fingertips and studies my face. No one has looked at me this way since Niamh. It sends all kinds of emotions swirling through my chest, and I grind my cock deeper into her with a low growl, so that she doesn’t see the effect she has on me.
Not yet.
Not until I figure out what the fuck I’m doing.
I kiss her long and hard. She clings to my neck, my hair, my lips, tiny sounds escaping from her as I slide my cock in and out of her pussy. All the way, until the head finds her clit, and then deep inside her, filling her up.
I grip her hair, tilting her head backwards and find her neck with my mouth. I suck. Not enough to mark her, but enough to make her arch her back and press her breasts into my chest. “Let me feel those sexy fucking nipples, Amelia…”
She arches her back even more, baring her neck for me like I’m a vampire about to draw blood. “Bite me, Declan.”
“I… Fuck…”
I nibble her neck, and she lets out a low moan, fisting my hair and holding my head in place. I suck harder, knowing that she’ll be marked but unable to stop myself. My cock throbs inside her.
I’m going to come and I’m not ready for it to be over.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.
My lips find their way back to her mouth of their own accord. “Has anyone ever told you how fucking sweet you taste?”
She licks my lips and smiles with a glint of mischief in her eyes. “I’ve never wanted to hear it from anyone else.”
That’s good enough for me. Amelia is so fucking gorgeous she could have any man she wanted. But she chose me. She’s here with me, and I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make her realize how amazing she is.
“I want to come in you. Is that alright?” It’s been a long while since I’ve had to ask this question.
“Yes. I want you to.” She stops any further discussion with her tongue.
I grind my shaft, dragging the base across her clit until she’s panting with the force of her own orgasm, and then I allow myself to explode deep inside her.
Amelia holds it together during dinner as if nothing happened between us.
As if I didn’t fuck her on my desk, on the rug, in my leather chair.
As if I didn’t check that the coast was clear in the foyer when I opened the door and watched her head back upstairs to her room, her torn panties in her pocket, to rinse the smell of our sex from her body in the shower.
She’s wearing a thin, cerulean turtleneck sweater to cover the mark on her neck from where I sucked the blood to the surface. The color suits her. The sweater hugs the curves of her breasts, reminding me how fucking sexy her body is.
Whenever our eyes meet across the table, a faint blush steals into her cheeks, and she looks away, careful not to get caught exchanging glances that are anything more than a boss and housekeeper relationship.
“You’re quiet, Declan,” Orla says, setting down her cutlery on her plate halfway through the meal. “Did you think about our conversation earlier?”
I steal a glance at Amelia before I can stop myself.
Her expression is neutral; she’s clearly a lot better at handling this than I am.
Put me in a room filled with mob bosses armed with an assortment of weapons and I won’t even flinch.
But sit me at a table with my beautiful housekeeper and I’m like an awkward teenager who got caught kissing his best friend’s girl.
“I discussed it with Amelia, and she is going to stay.” Because there isn’t a fucking chance in hell that I’m going to let her slip through my fingers.
“Amelia,” Orla shifts her attention to our new housekeeper. “Are you happy with the situation?”
Amelia smiles, and I’d be shocked if Orla hasn’t noticed the way she lights up the room with her presence. “Yes, I’m very happy. Thank you.” She pauses. “And I’m sure I’ll soon get used to the colder weather here.”
Orla’s gaze hops between the two of us. Any moment now, I think, she’ll call us out about what happened in the study. She’ll say that she heard us, that she could smell the pheromones from the other side of the house, that we missed the giveaway signs when we were clearing up.
Then she smiles, and I unfurl my clenched fists. “I hope you brought some warmer sweaters with you. Perhaps Declan could take you into town tomorrow and make sure that you have everything you need.”
If she realizes what she’s doing by throwing us together, she hides it well.
I smile at Amelia, and my cock reminds me of all the things I still want to do to her. Because I’m only just getting to know Amelia York and, so far, I love what I see.
“Is that alright?” she asks. “If you’re busy, we could always go another time.”
I’d clear my diary for the next fucking twelve months for Amelia if I thought it would make her happy. But instead, I say, “Tomorrow works for me.”
We drive into Dublin the following morning.
Just the two of us.
Amelia soaks up the views through the passenger window, asking questions along the way. It feels awkward between us—more my fault than anything she has done—until I reach for her hand across the center console and squeeze it.
She smiles at me then, and it feels as though everything is right with the world.
If this were wrong, I believe that I’d have been struck dead already, and I remind myself that she wants this too.
She’s a grown woman who knows her own mind, and we’re not hurting anyone.
She’d have said if she was in a relationship back home.
Wouldn’t she?
“Amelia, is there anyone in your life… Back in the States?” My mouth is dry. I don’t know how I should react if she says yes.
But she shakes her head, and her perfect smile is back. “No, there isn’t. What would you do if I said there was?”
Good fucking question. I grip the steering wheel so tightly, my knuckles turn white.
“I’d make sure that nothing ever happened between us again.”
She licks her lips, opens her legs, and rubs her pussy through her jeans. “Are you sure about that?”
I barely drag my gaze from her lap and back to the road in time to avoid mounting the verge and rolling us into the field. “Jesus fucking Christ, you’ll be the fucking death of me.”
She laughs. “I’ll take that as a no then.”
“You can take it as whatever the fuck you want, but much more of that, and I’ll pull over and fuck you on the back seat.”
“Is that a promise?”
“I’m tempted.” I’m so fucking tempted my pants are pulling across my erection.
“But…?”
“But you’re worth more than that. You’re worth so much fucking more than that, Amelia.”
She watches me intently, and I have to force my foot to remain on the gas pedal before I go back on what I just said, tear her clothes off, and fuck her in the car like a couple of teenagers with nowhere else to go.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t want your thanks.”
“What do you want then?” It’s a genuine question, and it deserves a genuine response.
“You.”
Wandering around the city, Amelia is more interested in the sights than she is in buying warm clothes for the winter.
I give up trying to convince her that, as her employer, I have a duty of care to make sure that she doesn’t freeze to death while working for me, and we leave the city behind to grab lunch in a traditional Irish pub in the countryside.
We sit in a cozy nook by a crackling fire, in an inn in the middle of nowhere.
We drink Guinness and eat Irish stew followed by Irish cream cheesecake with raspberry coulis. She talks about growing up in New York as the daughter of a strong, fiercely independent woman. I tell her about my grandma who was the only person who could handle my grandpa when he lost his temper.
It’s easy to forget the rest of the world when we’re in this warm, comfortable bubble. I don’t think about the age difference, or the fact that we’ve known each other for less than forty-eight hours, or that she works for me and that we’ll be living in the same house for the foreseeable future.
We relax with each other. And when we leave the inn, Amelia holds my hand as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Do we have to go back now?” she asks.
“Where would you like to go next?”
“The beach?”
“It’s been a long while since I went to the beach.”
“That settles it then. You can’t live somewhere this beautiful and not enjoy all that it has to offer.”
That pretty much sums up how I feel about Amelia. I can’t look at her and not enjoy everything that her beautiful body has to offer, but I keep this to myself.
Perhaps my eyes give me away though, because she adds, “The more secluded the better.”