19. Declan #3
“You’re still ridiculous,” he says, voice gone husky.
“You’ve handled me before.”
“Barely. There should be a warning label.”
“Want to stop?”
His expression goes soft.
“No.” He lines me up with his hole, the blunt head nudging slick-wet heat. “I want you in me.”
He lowers himself slowly.
The first press of my cock inside him steals the air from both of us.
Shay’s mouth opens on a breathy curse, fingers digging into my shoulders.
I hold his waist, steady and careful, letting him control every inch while my own thighs tremble with the need to thrust up.
The heat of him, the slick drag, the way his body has to stretch around the thickness of me—it’s almost too much.
I focus on the exact point where we’re joined, on the fraction of an inch still separating the rest of my shaft from being buried inside him, and breathe through the ache of holding back.
“That okay?” I ask, voice scraped raw.
“Yeah.” His eyes squeeze shut. “Fuck. Yeah. Just give me a second.”
“Take all the time you need.”
He breathes. Adjusts. Then sinks another inch.
Slick coats me, hot and messy, and Shay’s body grips mine like it remembers every part of me. He whimpers when he finally takes me deep, seated in my lap with my cock buried all the way inside him, the stretch so complete his thighs shake against mine.
I tuck my face into his neck, lips hovering over his mark without pressing down.
“Perfect,” I murmur against his skin, letting the word vibrate there.
“Don’t start saying things like that or I’m gonna get emotional.”
“You’re already emotional.”
“I’m sitting on your dick in a nest made out of your laundry. Of course I’m emotional.”
That gets a laugh out of me, but it dies fast when he starts moving.
Slow at first.
A gentle lift, then a careful drop. His body slides over mine, slick and tight, and he exhales like he’s been holding that breath for years. His hands brace on my shoulders, but he isn’t trying to pin me. He isn’t putting on a show.
He’s just here.
With me.
“Ours,” Shay whispers, the word breaking on a shaky inhale as he sinks down again.
I look up.
His eyes are closed. His head tips back, curls brushing his shoulders as he rocks down on me again, taking every thick inch with deliberate care.
The column of his throat works, the line of his jaw tight with concentration, and I can’t stop staring at the way the tendon there flexes each time he bottoms out.
My hands stay on his hips, thumbs pressed to the hollows above his hipbones, feeling the roll of muscle and bone as he moves.
The space between my palms and his skin feels alive, electric.
I don’t squeeze harder. I let the nearness of touch do the work, let the wanting coil tighter in my chest until my next breath comes ragged.
“This is ours,” he says.
My hands spread over his back.
“Our bed,” I say.
He nods, breathing hard.
“Our bar.”
Another slow roll of his hips. “Our life.”
The knot starts to swell before I’m ready for it, pulled up by the raw, impossible tenderness of him. I grip his hips a little tighter, feeling the exact moment the base of my cock begins to catch on his rim.
“Shay,” I warn, voice low.
He opens his eyes.
“You want it?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. “Knot me.”
I kiss him as I thrust up, and he takes it with a broken little sound, clenching around me.
The knot pushes in slowly, stretching him wide.
Shay’s nails rake through my hair, his body trembling as I hold him close and ease him through it.
The line of his jaw is right there—sharp, clenched, beautiful in its effort—and I drag my open mouth along it without quite kissing, letting my beard scrape while he shudders and sinks the last fraction of an inch.
“Good,” I tell him. “You’re doing so good, sweetheart.”
“Don’t stop,” he pants. “Please, don’t stop.”
“I’ve got you.”
The knot locks us together.
Shay shudders in my arms, then folds over me, his face buried at my neck. I can feel him crying, barely. Not sad. Not scared.
Just too full of everything.
I rub his back while my release pulses deep inside him, and Shay comes with a muffled cry against my shoulder, his whole body clamping down around me.
I hold him through it, tied to him, skin damp, nest tangled around our legs, the almost-touch finally, finally replaced by the press of his chest to mine and the steady thump of his heart against the place where mine used to feel empty.
For a while, neither of us says anything.
We don’t need to.
The partnership agreement sits on the nightstand beside the green bar towel, signed and waiting for morning.
Shay’s breathing evens out against my chest. His purr starts low, almost hidden beneath the sound of the fan, but I feel it everywhere.
Home.
I pull the blankets over us and press my mouth to his claiming mark.
“Love you,” I whisper.
Half-asleep, Shay curls closer.
“Love you too,” he says.
Then he falls asleep tied to me in the middle of the nest, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself do the same.