Chapter 28
THE DOWN BAD PLACE
Declan
Ginny sleeping in the early morning light is one of the greatest wonders of the world.
Her arm is flung over her head, all of those curls spilled on her white-and-blue checkered pillow, the sun’s first rays touching her pink cheeks as she inhales softly, then blows out an even softer exhale.
The rest of her room is a subject for a different kind of documentarian and world wonder, but the woman herself—she’s so fucking gorgeous.
So peaceful.
So sexy and brave and strong.
So—
Her eyes fly open, her lips part, and she gasp-snorts so loudly that Flow pops her head over the edge of the bed and whimpers.
I smile. Can’t help it.
“Morning,” I murmur, squeezing her bare hip. After the third time we had sex last night, I no longer feel the need to reassure myself that she does, in fact, want me to touch her.
She tilts her head at me, and then she does the last thing I expect, and she screams.
Full-on, blood-curdling, nightmare-having scream.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, it’s okay.” My heart tries to rip itself out of my chest and panic floods my mouth. “Just me. Just me. I can go.”
She opens her mouth like she’s about to scream again, but then blinks quickly and squints at me.
Mabel’s voice comes through the door to the bathroom. “Ginny? Did you have a nightmare?”
Ginny grimaces, then looks at me, and she starts to smile a sheepish smile that brings light into her eyes. “Sorry,” she whispers. “Sorry, sorry. I—I slept hard.”
“Good,” I murmur. “And you don’t need to apologize.”
“Ginny?” Mabel calls again. “Did you trip on something in your room?”
I snicker. “Your room really is an epic disaster.”
There’s a click of a knob, and Ginny shoots straight up to sitting, breasts bare, hair bouncing. “Don’t come in if you don’t want to see Declan naked!” she shrieks at the door. She told me that the bathroom connects her room with Mabel’s.
There’s a beat of silence, and then— “So you finally did something about that?”
Ginny’s cheeks turn pink. “Yes.”
“And you’re okay?” Mabel asks.
“I’m great.”
“Just great? Not phenomenal?” I gesture to my morning wood. “I can try again if you want.”
Am I in a good mood?
Yes. Yes, I am.
Made better by the way Ginny’s eyes cross and then the belly laugh that explodes out of her?
Absolutely.
“I’m going downstairs,” Mabel calls. “Tell me later if the sex was good.”
“It was good,” Ginny replies.
“Now I’m being downgraded from great to good?” I clap a hand to my heart. “You wound me. I demand a redo.”
“If this is what you’re like the morning after, this isn’t happening again,” Ginny tells me.
“Because you don’t like him, or because you like him too much and you’re enjoying yourself and that makes you terrified?” Mabel asks through the door.
“Hello? Best friend code?” Ginny says.
She’s not trying to hide her naked breasts.
Or her naked pussy.
I have a very, very good view of her naked pussy right here.
“Being best friends means saying the hard things,” Mabel says. “Good morning, Declan.”
“Morning, Mabel.”
“Hurt Ginny and die.”
“That was always understood.”
“No one’s murdering anyone on my behalf,” Ginny says.
Flow barks.
“Or on Flow’s behalf,” Ginny adds.
Flow snorts.
It’s a very resentful thank you, like she doesn’t appreciate being an afterthought. Or that people aren’t willing to murder for her.
My dog might need to see a doggy therapist if that’s the case.
“So you’re good today?” Mabel says. “And waking up screaming was…what? Just another normal day?”
“I figured it meant she doesn’t wake up with men in her bed often,” I say.
“Can you two not before coffee?” Ginny grumbles.
She’s always been slow to get going in the mornings, and considering she’s settling back into her bed, scowling at me even as she pulls the sheets over both of us and snuggles up against my chest, I’ll give it to her.
“I’m not-ing until after coffee,” I call to Mabel.
“At least you know some of what’s good for you. Ginny, call if you need me.”
“Can you take Flow out?” Ginny asks.
“Will I have to see Declan naked?”
“No, I covered him up.”
The bathroom door cracks open, and a hand appears and snaps twice. “Come on, Flow. You don’t want to watch this either.”
Flow darts for the safety of Mabel’s side, and the door closes again.
Ginny snuggles closer.
I don’t hate it.
“If you weren’t watching me like some kind of creepy stalker, I wouldn’t have screamed,” she grumbles.
“If I wasn’t afraid for my life if I got out of this bed, I wouldn’t have still been here with you.”
She pokes me in the gut. “Stop making fun of my room.”
I stroke her hair and press a kiss to her forehead. “Do you need apologies in the form of sexual favors?”
“Yes.”
“From me?”
She laughs against my chest. “Now stop being funny.”
“I like making you laugh.” I slide one hand down her back, enjoying the soft happy hum that comes from her mouth. “You okay? For real?”
“Yes.”
“Not freaked out about last night?”
She shakes her head against my chest. “I’m happy,” she whispers.
“That scare you?”
“Yes.”
“You okay with that?”
“Yes.”
“Not just saying that to make me stop talking?”
She shakes her head again, and this time, her hand drifts down my side.
My morning wood sits straighter, begging for pets the same way my dog does when we’ve been separated for an hour.
“It’s okay that you’re still leaving,” she whispers.
My heart, unlike my morning wood, flops over and heaves a sob.
Huh.
Apparently good sex with the woman I’ve been madly in love with for almost a decade makes me melodramatic.
But I get where my heart’s coming from.
I don’t want to leave.
I want to stay here, in Ginny’s bed, in her disaster of a room, and simply exist without the rest of the world existing.
I press a kiss to her forehead. “Not leaving today.”
Her hand drifts over my hip, and she drags three fingers across my ass cheek before bringing her hand forward again and gripping my cock.
My eyes cross at her touch, and I reflexively pump my hips into her grasp. “Fuck, your hand feels good.”
“As good as my pussy?”
“A desperate man doesn’t argue with anything he’s given.”
She kisses my chest. “Are you desperate?”
“For your touch? Always.”
She shivers against me.
“Ginny?” I murmur.
“It’s impressive that you can turn me on before coffee.”
She’s deflecting.
For all that she’s told me already though—I’ll let her have this one.
Not that I can argue while she’s rubbing my hard-on.
“I’m glad my sacrifices haven’t gone unnoticed,” I grunt out as she adds a second hand to cradle my aching balls.
She laughs, and then she does the last thing I expect, and she shimmies down my body.
“Well, good morning to you too,” she murmurs to my dick. “You’re beautiful, aren’t you?”
“Don’t—need to—prop up his ego,” I pant as she teases my cock with a finger.
“He was a very good boy last night,” she purrs back. “He deserves praise too.”
Fuck me, have I ever been this hard?
“You were such a good little man,” she coos.
I gasp out a laugh. “Little?”
“Shh. This is how I keep him humble.”
“Humble didn’t give you four—oh fuck, fuck, fuck.”
The little minx has sealed her lips around my head, and I have now seen the afterlife, and it’s a cloud of Ginny Rhodes giving me sexual favors for all of eternity.
I’m never playing hockey again, because I’ve died right here in this bed at the feel of her mouth on me, and I have zero regrets.
She takes me deeper, treating my cock with her tongue, sucking, scraping her teeth, while she rolls my balls in her hand.
I slap my hands to my sides and grab the sheets to have something to hold on to that’s not her soft curly hair, while I pant and order myself not to come yet, and I know I’m not grabbing sheet in my left hand, but I don’t know what I’m holding onto either, and I don’t care.
Not when Ginny’s head is bobbing over my cock, her hot, wet mouth driving me closer and closer to—
Fuck me.
I’m a professional athlete.
I have stamina.
I have stamina, goddammit.
Except I don’t.
“Ginny—” I gasp out. “Ginny, I’m gonna—”
She sucks harder, squeezes my balls tighter, and I groan as I come in her mouth.
No stopping it now.
She sucks and licks me through my release, using her mouth to bring me higher and harder until I’m seeing stars and I can’t feel my feet and my lungs are inside out and my heart—
My heart.
My heart is leading the parade to offer all of me to Ginny.
Fully.
Wholly.
Completely.
No hesitation.
No doubts.
I’m hers.
I’ve always been hers.
I sag into the bed in an afterglow, pulses still making my cock jerk and twitch as Ginny pulls her mouth off of me, then grins, eyes sparkling, cheeks pink, lips wet.
She crawls back up my body, rubbing her breasts over my stomach, her legs sliding against mine, until she presses a kiss to my lips. “And now that I have you completely under my command, I demand pancakes.”
My eyes drift shut. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re supposed to argue.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
She dissolves into giggles and kisses my neck, making my body twitch. I’m still electrified from the blow job.
“Good job,” she whispers. “Also, you can let go of my dildo now.”
I blink my eyes open and lift my left hand, which is, indeed, holding a large, veiny, pink dildo.
I lift my head as I hold it near my flaccid cock, studying the two side by side.
“It wins,” I say.
Ginny laughs so hard she cries.
I get to hold her while she does.
All while the mosquito in my head returns.
You need to talk to Alex.
I do.
I have to talk to Alex.
Fuck.