9. Declan
DECLAN
Igo straight to my office, my body on fucking fire.
I close the door behind me and lean against it, my breath coming in harsh gasps like I've been running.
Fuck… like I've been fighting. My cock is so hard it hurts, straining against my jeans, and my skin feels too tight, too hot. Like I'm burning from the inside out.
Jesus Christ.
I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and try to breathe, and think about anything other than the image burned into my brain—Elena on her bed, her hand between her legs, that small vibrator humming against her through silk pajamas.
The flush on her cheeks. The way her breath caught when I walked in.
The way she looked at me when I left, so furious, and so fucking beautiful.
She’s so gorgeous when she’s angry, even when she’s trying to make me feel small, and I don’t know what fucked-up part of my psyche is responding to it.
She’s a fucking ice queen most of the time, and the desire to watch her—to make her—melt is almost painful.
I should feel like I won something. I told her she doesn't get to come until she stops undermining me, and I meant it.
I'm not going to let her tear me down in my own house while she gets off thinking about me in private.
If she wants relief, she can admit what's between us.
She can stop pretending I'm beneath her.
She can stop treating me like I'm not good enough.
But I don't feel victorious. I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind.
My cock throbs, demanding attention, and I have to bite back a groan.
I'm thirty years old. I've been with plenty of women.
I've had good sex. But I've never felt like this—like I'm going to crawl out of my own skin if I don't get relief.
Like I'm going to break something, or do something I'll regret.
Like I'm going to go back to that bedroom and finish what I started regardless of the consequences.
No.
Every instinct is screaming at me to go back to her, to pin her to that bed and make her beg the way I described. To show her exactly what I can do and prove I'm not the upstart she thinks I am.
To make her mine.
She is yours. She's your wife.
But only on paper. Not in any way that really matters. She married me because her father told her to. She wears my ring because she has no choice. She lives in my house and sleeps in my bed while looking at me like I'm something she scraped off her shoe.
And I want her anyway. I want her so badly I can't think straight.
I can't focus on work. I feel like I can't do anything except replay every moment we've had together—the dance at the party, the wedding night when I made her desperate and then walked away, the arguments and the cutting remarks and the way she looks at me when she thinks I'm not watching.
Like she's trying to figure me out. Like she's trying to decide if I'm worth her time.
Like she wants me too but hates herself for it.
I brace my hands on the desk. My reflection stares back at me from the dark window—copper hair disheveled, green eyes wild, and jaw tight with tension. I look like a man on the edge. A man who's about to do something stupid.
A man who's about to break his own rules.
Because that's what this is about, isn't it? Rules. The code I've lived by all my life. I'm not going to be the kind of man who takes what he wants without asking. I'm not going to have sex with someone who doesn't want it—who doesn't enthusiastically want it.
Even if that someone is my wife. Even if she's clearly as desperate as I am.
Fuck.
I unbuckle my belt and unzip my jeans, my hand shaking with how badly I need this.
My cock springs free, hard and aching, and the relief of not being confined is almost enough to make me groan.
I bite it back, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth hurt.
I wrap my hand around myself, and my hips jerk forward involuntarily, seeking more friction.
I'm so hard it hurts. So desperate I can barely breathe.
And the image of Elena on that bed won't leave my mind.
I start to stroke. Slow at first, trying to ease the ache without giving in completely.
But it's not enough. It's never enough. My hand moves faster, my grip tightening, and I have to brace my other hand on the desk as I start to jerk roughly, giving myself over to the knowledge that I’m going to have to come in order to move on from this for even a little while.
I imagine her watching me, imagine her on her knees in front of me. I imagine telling her to open her mouth and the feel of her lips around me, her tongue on me, the way she'd look with my cock in her mouth.
Christ.
My breathing gets harsher. My hand moves faster. I'm too wound up, too desperate, too fucking needy for this woman who doesn't want me. Or does want me but won't admit it. Or wants me but hates herself for it.
I don't even know anymore.
I imagine pushing her back on that bed and spreading her legs, seeing her wet and ready for me. Imagine making her come so hard she forgets every reason she has for hating me.
My hand moves faster, rougher. I'm chasing something I can't quite reach, something that stays just out of grasp no matter how hard I try, a pleasure that my own hand won’t satisfy. The pressure builds in my spine, coiling tighter and tighter, and I know I'm so fucking close.
I remember the sight of her with that vibrator, so pretty and delicate, still in her silk pajamas while she teased herself, and I just barely manage to grab tissues in time to keep from spurting all over my desk.
I thrust into my palm, soaking the tissues as I clench my teeth against a ragged groan, pleasure burning down my spine as I fuck my hand.
My entire body goes rigid, my hand still moving, milking every last drop of pleasure from myself.
I come hard, and for a moment everything goes white and blank, empty of everything except the sensation.
Then it's over. I'm left standing in my office with my cock in my hand and the crushing realization that nothing has changed. I'm still desperate, still losing my fucking mind over a woman who sees me as beneath her.
I clean myself up and try to pretend that helped. It didn't. If anything, it made it worse. This isn't just lust or deprivation, or the natural result of being married to a beautiful woman I can't touch. This is something deeper. Something more dangerous.
This is obsession. And I have no idea how to make it stop.
I'm still trying to pull myself together when there's a knock on my office door. "What?" My voice comes out harsher than I intend.
"Boss." It's Cormac. "There's someone here to see you."
I glance at the clock on my desk. Nearly midnight. "Who?"
"Says his name is Dante Moretti. Says he works for the Capettis."
My hand freezes as I fasten my belt. A Capetti man, here, at midnight.
That doesn’t feel like a good thing. I’m under no illusions that Don Capetti likes me now, even though he’s given me his daughter.
This was a reluctant alliance, and our men aren’t working together.
There’s no reason I can think of for a surprise meeting this late at night.
"He armed?"
"We checked him. He's clean."
I consider the fact that I'm in no state to be making any kind of decisions right now. But I'm also curious, and desperate for a distraction from thoughts of my wife.
"Bring him in."
Cormac disappears, and I take a moment to straighten my shirt and try to look like a man in control instead of a man who just jerked off in his office thinking about his wife.
The door opens, and Cormac ushers in a man I don't recognize. He's maybe forty, with dark hair going grey at the temples. When he looks at me, there's something like respect there.
Or maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see.
"Mr. Murphy." He extends his hand. "Thank you for seeing me."
I shake it. His grip is firm and confident. "You've got five minutes to tell me why you're here."
"I want to work for you."
I blink. Of all the things I expected him to say, that wasn't one of them. "You want to defect?" I frown. “Or has Don Capetti sent you here, with his blessing?”
"No. The don is unaware. I’ve left of my own volition.”
"Why?"
He doesn't hesitate. "Because I think the Capettis are wrong about you. And I think you're the kind of man I want to work for."
I lean back against my desk and cross my arms. "Explain."
"I've been with the Capetti family for fifteen years," he says. "I've seen a lot of bosses come and go. I've seen a lot of ways of doing things. And I've learned that the old ways aren't always the best ways."
"The Capettis would disagree."
"The Capettis are stuck in the past." There's conviction in his voice, and it rises a bit, a hint of passionate belief there.
"They think tradition is more important than progress.
They think bloodlines matter more than ability.
They think a man like you—a man who came up through a motorcycle club, who doesn't have the right last name or the right connections—can't possibly be worthy of leading an organization. "
"And you think differently."
"I know differently." He meets my eyes. "I've watched you since you took over from Lachlan. I've seen how you handle things. You're not afraid to do things your own way. You're not afraid to challenge the status quo."