Chapter 39
We broke the headboard
Dina
Before I enter my bedroom, I stare at the closed door as if a dragon will spit fire at me the moment I walk inside.
I’m being dramatic, ridiculous even, but I can’t help the butterflies fluttering in my belly.
They’re in my chest too, which I know is anxiety, but for once, I’m not anticipating that a man will hurt me.
It’s quite the opposite, and that’s why I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t think I’m used to anticipating pleasure, and I’m damn sure Declan Crossbow can please me quite well.
I almost want to knock, but that would be extra ridiculous. I twist the doorknob and enter on quiet feet to find Declan in the bathroom, his bottom half wrapped in a pink towel. I used to look at him in this position when we stayed at the Crossbow mansion.
“Come here, I need to re-dress your arm and leg,” he says.
I take stock of his body. There are bruises and cuts everywhere.
“Oh no, Declan. Do you want some pain meds?”
He shakes his head and wraps my leg and my arm in fresh bandages. While he does, I get to look at him. Really look at him.
Cropped hair, perfectly straight nose, kissable lips, wide shoulders, tattoos. Those hands that executed dozens today gently take care of me.
“I love you,” I tell him.
His head snaps up. “What?”
“I said I love you.”
Declan blinks as if shocked.
It occurs to me that I overshared. That the stress of thinking I was on my deathbed messed up our timeline, and that I’m rushing us into something neither of us is ready for, but I can’t help telling him how I feel about him. “You ought to know that.”
Declan smiles. He smiles widely, and his dimples show. I was wrong. He has them too. And now I want to watch him smile like that all the time. It’s as if my face has turned toward the sun, a radiant glow.
“I love you too.” He drops the arm he wrapped and takes my other hand to lead me into my bedroom, where he pulls off my head wrap to let down my hair.
“Why didn’t you shower with me?” he asks while I eye the towel that’s sitting low on his hips. Not many men can pull off pink, but Declan looks good in it. Declan looks good, period. I press my palm over his hard abdominals, and his muscles contract. Under the towel, he instantly becomes erect.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “You barely touched me.”
This guy is desperate for me.
Declan wraps his fingers around my throat and squeezes gently enough to make me wet. With his thumbs pressed against the bottom of my jaw, he lifts my face toward him at the same time that his lips touch mine.
Declan’s kiss is not rushed, frantic, or sloppy. A measured, easy kiss that gives me no clue as to how he feels about what we’re doing. Meanwhile, I want to climb him like a tree. If only I had the courage to do so. God, I can be such a fricking coward.
Before I ran this man over, I stayed in a loveless marriage for stability’s sake and for my daughter, even though I could’ve left and stayed with my dad. But if tonight has taught me anything, it’s that I can be brave when push comes to shove, when people depend on me.
As Declan kisses me, I reach for his towel and pull out the corner he tucked to keep it up. It falls to the floor, and Declan bites the bottom of my lip.
His eyes snap open, and he blinks lazily, then steps back. “You’re free to look.”
My God. I swallow hard. Not harder than…well, you know what’s standing upright. Graveyards, skulls, and grim reapers cover Declan’s entire chest and thighs. Not a single splash of color to be seen.
“Your turn,” he says.
My cowardice tries to get hold of me, but I can’t be a coward now when I’m facing the bravest man I know. He will not respect a meek woman who giggles and blushes at him. If he wanted a woman who would bend to his every whim, he would have gone to bed with someone else.
He wants a woman who is comfortable with herself. That’s not how I would describe myself, not always, at least, but I damn well can try. I want to be that woman for him. He makes me feel safe, and I’m sure he won’t make fun of me.
I let my towel drop.
I can’t remember ever feeling this exposed. It doesn’t help that Declan just stands there staring at me while fisting his hands at his sides. I should move toward him and touch him again. That seemed to work.
“Say something,” I whisper.
Declan blinks as if snapping out of a stupor and lunges at me. I scream at the sudden movement. He lifts me and throws me onto the bed. I bounce off the soft mattress while Declan crawls over and wedges himself between my thighs.
He’s warm and hard. So very hard. A hand reaches between us, and he rubs my entrance.
“That’s a good girl,” he says like he’s a daddy. What is happening here? A man a decade my junior is calling me a good girl? I don’t know how I got here, but I’ve arrived.
Two long fingers slide inside me, and I close my eyes and arch my back, releasing a breath I’ve been holding. Declan kisses my exposed neck and bites the side of it right before he replaces his fingers with his cock. He penetrates me suddenly and fully.
A second scream rips out of me.
Declan pulls back and thrusts inside me again. “You are so tight,” he breathes out, then bites his bottom lip, lifting his upper one like a wolf might. “Fuck, this is… So good.”
Thrust.
You feel…”
Thrust.
“So good.”
He lifts my breast toward his mouth so he can suck on my nipple.
I’m about to come. I am. It’s embarrassing, really, so I try to hold out longer, digging my fingernails into his shoulder blades.
Declan curses and grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks.
Gently but firmly, exposing my neck again.
He pounds into me, and the bed shakes, the headboard hitting the wall violently.
His lips are all over my neck. Sometimes he’s biting me, sometimes kissing, but when he starts speaking in a language I don’t understand, all bets are off.
“I can’t hold it anymore,” I cry out.
Declan bites my earlobe and whispers, “I will tell you when you can come.”
“Oh no, oh no, I can’t hold. I’m coming.” My body starts to shake. It wants a release, but I want to wait because Declan asked me to, whatever fantasy he has of controlling my orgasm. The two impulses war inside me and make me want to cry.
Tears spill out of the corners of my eyes.
Declan palms my butt cheek, squeezes, and spanks me while fucking me into the mattress.
I hold on to his shoulders when he violently thrusts into me.
His breathing is loud, almost like grunting, animalistic, really, and I realize that Declan Crossbow, the man who is always in control, has lost it. He’s lost it.
“Come. Come right now,” he barks, driving into me so hard that I slide up the mattress into a sitting position. Finally, I get my release, and it flushes through me like an avalanche of pleasure at the same time that Declan ejaculates.
Since I can’t get pregnant right now, and I trust we’re both clean, we’re okay without protection, which means I can feel everything he’s pumping into me until his cock is milked of every last drop.
Declan holds himself up by grabbing the headboard. He sighs, resting his cheek against his biceps. “Are you okay?” he asks.
My head hangs to the side, my body twisted in an awkward position under him. “Never better,” I tell him. Never better.