13. Declan #2
Shay cries out, my name broken and furious, and the part of me that should be ashamed just gets worse.
His body gives around me because it knows mine, the bond teaching us a language we haven’t earned.
He’s slick and hot and clenching around me, and I hate how perfectly he takes me.
I hate that my body thinks this is home when he’s standing there like he’s trying to get away from me.
The stretch of him around the head of my cock is so tight it borders on pain, that first ring of muscle resisting before it yields with a wet sound that should embarrass us both.
I feel every millimeter. His scent—dark chocolate gone syrupy and thick—hits my throat, and my cock jerks inside him.
The way his hole flutters, trying to adjust to how thick I am, the ridiculous amount of slick that eases the way even while his shoulders stay locked with tension.
I’m hyper-aware of the inch still between my hips and his ass—a mile of restraint I don’t want to cross but have to.
“Fuck,” he gasps. “You’re—”
“I know.”
“Don’t be smug.”
“Then quit talking shit while I’m trying not to hurt you.”
He shoves back against me, the movement driving me deeper, and the sudden rush of wet heat makes my jaw lock.
I focus on the line of his throat again, the way it strains when he swallows another sound, the tiny flutter of his pulse visible just above his collar.
My hands stay planted on either side of his on the bar, not touching, the almost-contact screaming louder than if I’d grabbed him.
“Too late,” he says, his voice shaking. “You already did.”
That gets through. I go still inside him. His whole body tenses under the nearness of my chest.
“Declan,” he says, low and dangerous. “If you stop now, I swear to God—”
“I’m not stopping.” My forehead hovers an inch from his shoulder blade, close enough to feel the heat coming off him. “I’m not.”
“Then move.”
There it is. The order. The bratty little demand he uses when he’s scared of needing something. Usually, it makes me smile. Tonight, it makes my stomach turn.
I start moving again. Harder.
The bar thuds against the wall with every thrust. Bottles rattle.
A glass near Shay’s elbow tips, rolls, and shatters on the floor.
Neither of us flinches. He’s cursing into his forearm, his body arching back, chasing it.
Slick is everywhere, on my hands, on my jeans, a mess neither of us cares about.
“You’re soaked,” I pant, my brain narrowed down to stupid, filthy facts. “Fucking dripping for me.”
“Shut up.”
“You told me to do it.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
He makes a choked sound that isn’t an answer, and the bond flares between us—a live wire, not a comfort.
It carries every jagged piece of him straight into me.
His anger, his fear, the awful, stubborn want underneath it all.
And my own ugly mess answers back. Grief, and rage, and the sick terror that I’ve already ruined the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
“Look at you,” I hear myself say, my voice low against his ear. “Taking me so fucking well.”
Shay’s breath stutters. His fingers scrape the bar. “Don’t.”
The word is so soft it stops me cold. I freeze, chest heaving.
“Don’t what?”
He turns his face toward me, eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t be nice.”
Jesus. My throat burns.
“Okay,” I say. It’s the only thing I can give him.
I fuck him without praise after that. Without the quiet words that usually make him fall apart.
He takes it like he needs the roughness more than he needs air, and I give it to him because I know exactly what he’s doing.
If it’s rough, it’s familiar. If it’s ugly, maybe he doesn’t have to believe it mattered.
His body is shaking. He’s close. I can feel him starting to clench around me, can hear the sharp little breaths he’s trying to swallow. The way his hole keeps fluttering around the thickest part of my cock, greedy even while the rest of him stays braced like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Don’t you dare come before me,” he says through his teeth.
Even now. He’s still trying to be in control. A laugh punches out of me, empty of any humor. “You want to make rules now?”
“Fuck you.”
“Already doing that.”
He lets out a sound that’s half sob, half laugh. Then he shoves back against me again, and I lose what’s left of my restraint.
My hand closes on his hip. The other finds the back of his neck, not squeezing, just holding him there as I drive into him. He’s warm and slick and trembling, and I feel the knot start to swell.
“Declan,” Shay gasps.
That does it. My knot catches.
Shay cries out as I push in one last time, locking us together. The stretch of it makes him go rigid, then boneless, his forehead dropping to the wood. I come hard, teeth clenched, my body claiming something my heart has no right to.
He comes a second later, his whole body jerking, his fingers clutching the bar. He says my name again, but there’s no victory in it. Just pain.
And then the fever breaks. Fast.
I’m still inside him. Tied to him. My chest is pressed to his back, my hand at the nape of his neck. And all I can see is the way he’s curled in on himself. The way he isn’t reaching for me.
The way he went still when I got mad.
I close my eyes.
What the fuck are we doing?
Every fear he has was in this room with us tonight, and instead of talking, we fucked straight through the middle of it.
The knot holds us together, awkward and awful. Shay’s breathing is shallow. So is mine. The bar smells like spilled liquor, sweat, sex, and the citrus cleaner Tessa used hours ago.
“Shay,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
I pull my hand away from his neck.
He flinches anyway.
That hurts more than anything he could have said.
So I don’t touch him again. We just stay there, locked together, staring in opposite directions while the last of the gold confetti glitters under the lights.