26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
~DECLAN~
It should be easy to be ready by eight PM.
It's Thursday evening, July thirty-first — eleven days since Miami, eight days since I withdrew the annulment paperwork, seven days since Darcy moved what remains of her Astoria life into my penthouse that has somehow already resulted in her dry shampoo on my bathroom shelf and her color-coded notebooks on every flat surface — and we are not going to be ready by eight PM.
Hell, we’re not going to be ready by eight-thirty.
And I'm genuinely concerned about nine.
Outside my penthouse’s glass walls, golden hour settles over Central Park two blocks west, the city lit up and alive, giving no fucks to the fact that I am standing in my bedroom watching my wife hold a black dress against herself, frown at the mirror, discard it, and reach for a second one.
"The blue," I say.
"The blue doesn't fit."
"It fit last week."
"Last week was before the OB appointment confirmed that things are—" She motions toward her midsection. "Progressing."
"You look exactly the same."
"The zipper disagrees with you."
"Then wear something without a zipper."
She turns and glares at me, and I nearly laugh.
"Right," I say. "Very helpful."
"Extremely helpful." She turns back to the closet. "You're a solutions-oriented man. Solve this."
"Wear the green one."
"I'm not wearing green to a nightclub closing party. I should wear black."
"Then wear the black one."
"I just told you the black one doesn't—"
"The other black one."
"There are many black items in this closet, Declan. You're going to need to be more specific."
I look at the closet, and dammit, she’s not wrong.
There are an unreasonable number of black items. Some of them are mine.
This is new.
Having someone else's things in my closet is new.
Having someone else's dry shampoo on my bathroom shelf and someone else's notebooks on my kitchen counter and someone else's very strong opinions about which mug is the correct mug for morning coffee — this is all new.
It’s also, and I say this as a man who spent too many years engineering his life to require nothing from anyone, the best thing that has ever happened to my apartment, my world.
My life.
"The wrap one," I say. "Third from the left."
She looks, pulling it out and holding it up.
"This is yours," she says.
"It's not—"
"This is a men's dress shirt, Declan."
"It's a—" I look at it. "Fuck, it might be mine."
"It’s definitely yours."
"It would look better on you."
She stares at me for a moment, over all the black items and the zip that won't zip.
And she laughs. It’s the laugh that I’ve spent two and a half months trying to earn and would spend the rest of my goddamn life trying to keep.
"We're going to be late," she says.
"We're already late."
"How late?"
"Antonio texted twenty minutes ago."
"Twenty—" She turns fully around. "Why didn't you say—"
"Because you were deliberating on the blue."
"You should have told me—"
"You seemed very committed to the blue."
"The blue doesn't fit—"
"I know that now."
She makes a sound that is half frustration and half something else — that noise she makes when she's trying not to find me funny — and turns back to the closet with renewed purpose.
And like the horny husband I am since she came into my world, I watch her.
She's in her bra and the skirt she's been wearing since our OB appointment this morning. The first OB appointment, which Darcy approached with her color-coded notebook and a list of a hundred questions, to which the doctor, a woman of considerable composure, handled with impressive calm.
I held Darcy's hand through the whole thing.
I held it through the questions and the confirmation and the small, impossible image on the screen that looked like nothing and everything simultaneously.
I have not entirely stopped thinking about it since.
"You shouldn't be going," I say.
"We've discussed this."
"You're pregnant. You should stay home. Or in bed. Or—"
"I'm eleven weeks pregnant, not incapacitated." She pulls out a dark navy wrap dress that I don't recognize and holds it up. "Is this mine or yours?"
"Yours. You bought it in SoHo last Thursday when you were supposed to be working from home."
"I was working from home. I took a break."
"A four-hour break."
"Creativity requires movement." She holds the dress against herself. "This works."
"Good."
"Stop looking smug."
"Sweetheart, I’m not—"
"You're very smug. You've been smug since you identified the wrap dress. You think you know my wardrobe."
"I identified it in under ten seconds."
"That's not the flex you think it is. It means you've been paying attention to my clothes."
"I pay attention to everything you wear." I cross to where she's standing and take the dress from her hands, holding it up. "Also, for the record, what you wear is significantly less interesting to me than what you don't wear."
She takes the dress back.
"Go check on Antonio," she says.
"Antonio is a professional. He's waiting."
"Go check anyway."
"You're trying to get rid of me so you can get dressed in peace."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because every time you stand that close I lose track of what I'm doing."
I take a step forward, my skin humming.
"That's useful to know," I say.
"It's not useful. It's a problem."
I take the dress from her again, stepping in front of her.
She looks up at me with an expression that is trying very hard to be exasperated and is not entirely succeeding.
"We're late," she says.
"We're already late. The distinction between late and later is academic at this point."
"You have a business to close. People are waiting—"
"Then they can wait twenty more minutes."
"This is the last party for the SoHo nightclub. You and your brothers are closing the businesses. It matters—"
"You matter more."
She stops, the exaggeration finally dropping, leaving just Darcy — eyes wide, the evening light catching the new princess-cut diamond ring on her finger.
"You can't just—" she starts.
"Say what's true?"
"Say things like that when I'm trying to get dressed."
"I'll try to be less honest." I reach out, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Unsuccessful historically, but I'll try."
She laughs, softer this time, and I reach for her skirt.
"Declan—"
"I know." I find the zip at the side, drawing it down. "We're late."
"We're very late—"
"We are." The skirt drops, and I step back, admiring my gorgeous wife.
I close the distance between us, walking her backward until her shoulders meet the wall beside the closet, and she gasps the moment her skin makes contact, the second it hits the cool plaster against her bare back.
I cage her in with one arm beside her head.
"The baby—" she starts.
"Is fine." I press a slow kiss to her temple, her cheekbone, the corner of her mouth. "I'm not going to do anything that isn't good for both of you." I place another kiss to her jaw, her throat. "Trust me."
"I trust you. That's not the problem."
"What's the problem?"
"The problem is that you're very—" She loses the word when my mouth finds her collarbone. "You're very—um, something…"
"That's the best you've got?"
"My vocabulary degrades when you do that."
"So I’m noticing." I find the clasp of her bra at the back. "May I?"
"You're asking now?"
"You're my wife. I ask."
She reaches back, unhooks it herself, and shrugs it off, and I drink Darcy in, devouring the sight of her beautiful bare tits, her slender shoulders pressed against the wall of our bedroom, the Manhattan evening through the windows gold against her olive skin.
"God," I say. It comes out rough. "Every fucking time, baby."
I close the distance again, my hands finding her waist. "You're more beautiful than you were a month ago. Than you were in Tulum. Than you were on that beach." My thumbs trace slow circles on her skin. "I don't entirely understand it and I don't need to."
She swallows.
"Sweet talker," she hums.
"I'm being factual."
"Your facts are very—" She loses it again when I drop my head and put my mouth on her breast. "—very—"
"Very what?"
"Don't stop."
"I won't."
I take my time, learning her again, like always—marveling at the woman I’m building a life with.
Because she changes slightly every time and deserves to be relearned.
And I want to know them all.
I want to know the special places that make her breath shudder.
The spots that make her grip my shoulders and the ones that make her laugh and the ones that make her go completely quiet in that way that means I've found something new.
"You feel incredible," I murmur against her skin. "Do you know that? Do you understand what it does to me—every time I touch you?"
"Tell me," she breathes.
"It undoes me." I kiss the curve of her taut pink nipple, her sternum, the soft skin of her stomach—going lower, slower before pausing there with my mouth pressed gently against the slight warmth of her belly that wasn't there a month ago.
"Both of you," I say quietly, against that warmth, sinking to my knees. "Both of you absolutely undo me."
"Declan—"
"I know." I stand, take her face in my hands and kiss her properly—deep and slow and with none of the urgency that the ringing phone and the party create.
Just this.
Just her.
Her hands find my shirt buttons, working them with more efficiency than I expect.
"You've gotten faster at that," I laugh.
"I've had practice." She pushes the shirt off my shoulders. "Pants too."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't 'yes ma'am' me. You're not—"
"Submissive? No." I unbuckle my belt. "But you asked nicely."
She laughs as I strip her underwear from her hips, sliding them down her smooth legs and tossing them away.
In seconds, we’re naked, and I don’t hesitate to wrap my arms around her thighs, palming her ass so that I can pin her against the wall.
Taking the utmost care for her and the youngest Shaw, I position my cock between her already soaked thighs, plunging in her pussy the second she nods.
And I can’t stop myself.
The dirty talk rushes from my lungs as I fuck the mother of my child in our shared bedroom, while my phone rings off the hook for the event we’re currently running late to.
And Darcy gives me everything she has, her pink mouth falling into a perfect oval as she moans, her gorgeous greedy walls gripping me hard when she falls apart.
I follow soon after.
But I don’t let her go.
I can’t.
She giggles as I reposition her ass in my hands and carry my wife to the bed while my cell phone goes to voicemail.
And immediately starts again.
We make it to the party at nine forty-seven PM.
Antonio, to his credit, says nothing.
As a man who’s been paid well to have no opinions, he simply opens the car door.
Wyeth is already waiting at the entrance.
"You're late," he says.
"Noted."
"You're never late."
"I was tonight."
He looks at Darcy, at the navy wrap dress, at the ring catching the light, and then my hand, which is at the small of her back, a move that requires no further explanation.
"Right," Wyeth says, his serious face softening, just slightly, at the edges. "Well. You're here now."
"We are," I say.
"The sellers asked about you."
"I'll find them."
"Henrik called."
"I'll call him back."
"The press—"
"Wyeth." I look at my brother. "We're here. The business is closing. Everything is exactly as it should be." I motion. "Can we go inside?"
Wyeth looks at me, eyes narrowing.
"You look different," he says.
"I'm the same."
"You're not." He says it simply. "You look—"
"Don't," I say.
"I was going to say well-rested."
"You were going to say something insufferable."
"I was going to say happy." He says it plainly, like it's nothing. Like it's not the first time that word has applied to me. "You look happy, Dec."
I don't say anything, simply nodding, as Darcy's hand finds mine.
"Come on," she says quietly. "Let's go close something."
And we go inside.
Together.