10. Declan #2
I stand up, my movements jerky with urgency. I make quick work of my own clothes, my shirt, my pants, my boxers, until I’m as naked as she is. Her eyes drift down my body, her gaze hot and heavy, and my cock twitches in response.
I reach for my wallet, my fingers fumbling for the foil packet. I rip it open with my teeth and roll the condom on, my movements quick, efficient.
I settle back between her thighs, my cock nudging at her entrance. I look down at her, my eyes searching hers. “Talia,” I say, my voice rough. “Are you sure?”
She reaches up, her hand cupping my cheek, her thumb stroking my skin. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
I push into her slowly, inch by inch, savoring the exquisite feeling of her stretching around me, accommodating me. She’s so wet, so tight, so perfect. It feels like coming home.
When I’m fully seated inside her, I still, giving her a moment to adjust. I look down at her, at the woman who has been the ghost in my life for seven long years, and I feel a wave of something so powerful, so overwhelming, it almost brings me to my knees.
Love.
It’s a thought for another time. Tonight, there’s only this.
I start to move, a slow, deep rhythm that builds a pressure deep inside me. Each thrust is a declaration, a promise. I watch her, my eyes dark and intense, as I move with her, holding her there with me, like this is something we’re choosing instead of something I can lose again.
The pace quickens, the control shattering, until all that’s left is the sound of our bodies meeting, our ragged breaths, and the whispered fragments of each other's names.
The tension coils tighter and tighter at the base of my spine, a white-hot pressure building until I can’t hold it back anymore.
“Talia,” I groan against her neck. “Come with me.”
Her inner muscles clench around me, and that’s all it takes. I drive into her one last time, deep and hard, and let go, my release tearing through me in a blinding, shuddering wave. I follow her over the edge with her name rough in my mouth like it's the only truth I have left.
For a long time afterward, neither of us speaks.
Talia lies beside me, one arm folded beneath her head, her hair loose against the pillow. She looks younger like this. Not less strong. Never that. Just unguarded in a way I know better than to take for granted.
I stay still, afraid that if I move too quickly, the night will remember all the reasons it shouldn’t have happened.
Her eyes open slowly. “You’re staring.”
“I’m observing.”
“That sounds worse.”
“It’s more professional.”
She turns her head toward me, and the look she gives me is so dry and so familiar that I smile before I can stop myself.
“There is nothing professional about this,” she says.
“No.”
The answer is simple, and somehow that makes it heavier.
Her gaze drops to my mouth, then away again. Color rises softly along her cheeks, and I have to remind myself that she’s not the only one trying to understand what happens now. I’m simply better at pretending hope isn’t already trying to take root.
She reaches for the sheet and pulls it higher, not out of modesty exactly. More like she needs something to do with her hands.
“Talia.”
“Don’t.”
“I was only saying your name.”
“That’s the problem.”
I breathe out a quiet laugh, then let the silence return because she’s right. My voice has become something dangerous between us. So has hers. So has the space that no longer exists.
For a while, we lie there without speaking, watching headlights trace pale ribbons across the ceiling. The room smells faintly of hotel linen, her perfume, and the remains of a night neither of us can pretend was accidental.
Eventually, she says, “I forgot how quiet you get afterward.”
The words surprise me. Not because they’re untrue, but because she remembers.
I turn my head toward her. “I forgot you noticed.”
“I noticed everything.”
That should feel like an accusation. It doesn’t. It feels like grief.
“I know that now,” I say.
Her throat moves, and for one second I think she might retreat into the careful version of herself again. Instead, she looks at the ceiling.
“You were different tonight.”
“I hope so.”
“I don’t mean from seven years ago.” Her fingers tighten in the sheet. “I mean, from what I expected.”
That reverberates in a place I’m not prepared for.
“What did you expect?”
She’s quiet long enough that I almost tell her she doesn’t have to answer.
“I expected you to make it easier for me to regret this.”
The honesty hurts, but not in a clean way. There’s too much tenderness tangled inside it.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
A small smile touches her mouth. “You’re not.”
“No.” I reach for her hand beneath the sheet, moving slowly, and when she lets me take it, I thread our fingers together. “I’m not.”
Her thumb moves once against mine. The touch is slight, almost absent, but I feel it everywhere.
“I don’t know what tomorrow looks like,” she says.
“Neither do I.”
“I have to go back to Flynn.”
“I know.”
“I mean emotionally too.”
The smile fades from my mouth.
She looks at me then, and the fear is back, quieter now but no less real. “I can’t let one night make decisions for him.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it tomorrow too.”
She studies me for a long moment, searching for the weakness in the promise.
I let her look. If she needs to test every word I say before she trusts one of them, I’ve earned that.
Eventually, she nods, though I don’t know whether she believes me or simply wants to. For tonight, I accept the difference.
Her grip on my hand loosens as exhaustion begins to pull at her. I can see it moving through her now, the weight of the day, the drive, the presentation, the kiss, the choices she will almost certainly interrogate the second sunlight returns.
“Sleep,” I say softly.
She gives a faint, sleepy laugh. “Bossy.”
“Efficient.”
“Terrible habit.”
“I have several.”
“I noticed.”
The words fade at the end, slurred by sleep.
I lie beside her and listen as her breathing evens out, half expecting her to pull away, to remember all the reasons tonight should never have happened. She doesn't. Instead, there is only Talia’s hand still resting loosely in mine and the impossible quiet of a hotel room.
Hope is a dangerous thing. I know that.
I’m old enough, experienced enough, and bruised enough to understand that one night does not repair what we broke. It doesn’t return the years I missed. It doesn’t answer the questions waiting for us, a home where Flynn exists in every decision neither of us can afford to make carelessly.
But beside me, Talia sleeps. Not peacefully exactly. Not completely. Even in sleep, there is a faint crease between her brows, as if some part of her is still trying to solve a problem the rest of her has finally set down for the night.
I want to smooth it away. I don’t. I simply stay where I am, holding the hand she left in mine and allowing myself one truth I have been careful not to name too soon.
I want this.
Not the secrecy. Not the hurt. Not the complicated, fragile road ahead. This. Her beside me. Flynn somewhere in our future. A life that doesn’t require pretending the past meant less than it did.
Tomorrow will come with consequences. It always does.
But tonight, Talia is here.
And for the first time in seven years, I let myself believe she might still be here when morning finds us.