He waited while she poured a modest, yet still decent, measure of whiskey into a glass for him, then filled her own with wine. “But you didn’t, though.”
“My divorce is still pretty fresh,” she said with a shrug, leading the way into the living room. “And now you and I are married, so it would look kind of weird if I changed it back to Jameson, at this point.”
She wasn’t wrong there. “But you’re okay keeping Alec’s name until this is over?”
“It’s weird.” Tess settled in on one end of the couch, her back to the arm of the thing and her feet—which were encased in a pair of oddly adorable floppy yellow socks—halfway across the cushions. “You’d think I’d want to be rid of him, right?”
Declan sat on the other end of the couch, angling himself toward her so his leg was just shy of her toes. “I doubt anyone would blame you.” A week later, and Dec still wanted to fucking flatten the douchebag.
“I really did intend to change back. But Michaelson is the name I became a doctor with, you know? Plus, it’s Jackson’s last name, too, and I’m his mom.” She chased the words with a sip of wine. “That’s who I feel like I am. Jameson never really felt…I don’t know. Important like that.”
So, so much to untangle there. Declan touched the whiskey to his lips, letting the smallest amount linger so he could stretch out the decadence of it as he thought. “So, you didn’t figure out where you belonged until you were Tess Michaelson, then.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. Before he could push further into the topic, though, her cell phone buzzed from the coffee table. She bit her lip in apology, which Declan waved off—her job involved saving people’s lives, for Chrissake—but it only took half a glance at the caller ID before she sent the call to voicemail with a frown, capturing his notice entirely.
“Everything okay?”
“Peachy,” she said, washing the word down with a huge gulp of wine. At Declan’s raised brow, she admitted, “That was my mother. We’re not exactly on the greatest terms.”
Dec thought back to what Tess had said about her maiden name not feeling as if it fit her, his curiosity bubbling higher. He shouldn’t push. He knew how thorny the topic of parents could be—he missed his own mam every single day, and his da…well. He should drop it, or at least give Tess some space to elaborate on her own if she wanted to.
So, naturally, he didn’t. “Looks like that’s putting it lightly.”
“Let’s just say she has extremely high expectations for what my life should look like, and I am missing the mark by a considerable margin.”
“Well, that’s a load of shite,” Declan said, without realizing he would. But Tess let out a startled laugh, so what the hell. He kept going. “I mean, you’re a great mam, and Jackson’s about as cute as babies come. You’ve got a respectable job. You’re sharp—smart as hell, honestly, and—”
Her wide-eyed blink made him realize how close he’d gotten to a ramble. But for fuck’s sake, he couldn’t help that it was all true. “Anyway. It hardly seems right that your mother would be disappointed in anything you do.”
Just like that, her toughness snapped back into place. “Ah, but she’s so good at being disappointed in me. Sometimes I think it’s her strongest skill. Like she actually practices just to be sure she’ll never lose her touch.”
Declan could tell by the way Tess had taken another long draw from her wine glass that she hadn’t meant for the admission to slip out. But the tension that had strung her shoulders up like parachute lines had weirdly loosened, and fuck it. He could always blame this on the whiskey later.
“You feel like talking about it?”
“I’m not sure there’s much to talk about.” Tess shrugged, matter-of-fact. “My mother’s disdain just kind of is what it is. I’m too brash. Too pushy. Not polished. Definitely not proper.” A pause here to smirk. “The fact that I’m a recently divorced ED doctor with a baby under the age of one doesn’t make me any more endearing to her.”
Yep. Declan really did need this drink, after all. “Your mother’s upset because you’re a doctor and you have a baby?”
Tess huffed out a laugh. “Bronwyn Jameson doesn’t get upset, darling. Too uncouth. No, she’s displeased with my choice of emergency medicine.” Her tone grew affected as she mimicked her mother. “Honestly, Tess. Couldn’t you have chosen something more appropriate? What’s so wrong with plastic surgery? Dean McNamara’s son went into plastics and made a fortune. He vacations in the south of France every summer.”
“I’m guessing plastic surgery didn’t interest you,” Declan said.
“Not even a little bit. Also, Dean McNamara’s son is a pretentious dick.” She paused for the sort of sassy smile he was growing to know—and like—all too well. “But neither of those things fazed my mother when it came time to co-sign for my medical school loans.”
Understanding hit him with all the subtlety of a rock to the face. “Your mother refused to co-sign for your loan unless you agreed to go into a specialty she approved of?”
“And now you’ve had the primer on Bronwyn Jameson: Mother of the Year. She steamrolls everyone into doing what she thinks is ‘appropriate’, from my father to her manicurist. Whether they want to or not.”
Jesus. “So, that’s why you went into the Army.”
“It was at first, I won’t lie,” Tess said, sipping her wine a little more slowly. “Joining the Reserves was the only way I could go to medical school on my own terms. But in the end, I was glad to serve. I learned a lot, and not just about medicine.”
Dec’s gut clenched with a familiar ache, and he stuffed it down with a well-oiled shove. “I’m betting that didn’t go over well with your mother.”
“Oh, she was furious,” Tess said in the same way she might’ve told him the earth was round. “First of all, no one defies her, and definitely not over something so huge. Secondly, it was the Army.” She paused, shifting toward him as she spoke. “As far as my mother is concerned, the military is strictly for other people. The whole thing made me the permanent black sheep of the family. Not even marrying Alec could bring her back around.”
Declan grimaced into his glass. “She was a fan of your ex, then?”
“My divorcing him is like the crown jewel of my fuck-ups, as far as she’s concerned. I’m about eighty percent sure she likes him better than me. But he turned out to be just as judgy and pretentious, so really, I shouldn’t be surprised.” Tess shrugged, just a simple lift and lower of one shoulder, as if letting their disapproval roll right off of her. “There wasn’t any point even trying to live up to Alec’s expectations at the end. I swear too much, I never pick good movies, I shouldn’t be eating that, I’m frigid in bed—”
Whoa. “You’re what?” Declan interrupted, sitting up straight. He had kissed this woman. The last label on earth he would tag her with was frigid.
“Shit.” She jammed her eyes closed in a long blink. “I need to stop drinking. And you need to stop being so easy to talk to.”
“I’d apologize, if only I were sorry,” Declan said. “But I’m speaking from experience here, limited as it may be. Your ex’s arse is on crooked if he thinks you’re frigid.”
For a moment, Dec thought she’d clam up. The way her cheeks had gone pink was indication enough that she’d said far more than she’d meant to. But then she stared at her wine glass and said, “He isn’t exactly wrong.”
“Yes, he is,” Declan argued, and she shook her head.
“Not quite like that. God, I cannot believe we are having this conversation.” She paused just long enough to take a breath before saying, “It’s not that I don’t enjoy sex. At least, I don’t think I don’t. I just…couldn’t seem to really, uh…enjoy being in bed with Alec.”
Understanding snapped into place with startling clarity. “You didn’t have orgasms with him.”
“Not usually. Or, fine, most of the time.” Tess finished her wine, putting the empty glass on the coffee table. “I don’t think it was all him, th
ough. I could never really turn my brain all the way off when I was with him. I’d get so caught up in things.”
“What sort of things?”
“All kinds of things, I guess. Like, was I pleasing him, did he like this or that, did my ass look huge. And he never, ah, really helped to relax me all that much. He mostly just acted like everything was totally fine and the sex was great.”
Christ, what an idiot this guy was. “Did you ever talk to him about it?”
“Once,” she admitted. “He didn’t really take it well. He said he was pretty sure he was more well-versed in pleasuring women than I was, and that he couldn’t really help it if I was too frigid to get into it. After that, I just assumed he was right and learned how to fake all my orgasms.”
Just like that, Declan had had enough. “Let me see if I’ve got this right.” He put his mostly full glass on the coffee table beside her empty one, leaning toward her until their knees touched. “Your ex implied you were bad in bed.”
“Yeah,” Tess said without meeting his eyes.
“And he implied this because you were never comfortable with him.”
“Yes.”
Declan had to send the next question past a considerably tighter jaw. “And he never made you lose your damned mind during sex?”
At that, Tess’s chin took a stubborn lift. “No, okay?”
He moved closer, making sure she didn’t look away as he said, “Then it sounds like it’s not you who’s shite in the sack, love.”
“Oh.” The word collapsed out of her on an exhale, and she sat silent for a handful of heartbeats. “I guess I never thought of it that way.”
“Well, you should, because it’s true.”
Her laugh whispered between them, the sound moving all the way down his spine before drawing him even closer to her, like the pull of the earth on the moon. “You don’t really know that.”
“I do really know that,” Declan insisted. “In case you’ve forgotten, we did kiss last week.”
Tess lowered her gaze to his lips. “Believe me, I have so not forgotten.”
The same vulnerable need that had flickered through her eyes that night made a comeback, and one word roared through Declan’s brain, his body—Christ, his whole fucking being.
More. More.
He wanted to give her more.
“I could show you how wrong he is,” he said, reaching out to cup her face, gliding his thumb over her cheek.
She warmed under the touch. “I’m not…looking for a relationship.”
“So now’s not the best time to remind you we’re married, then?”
Tess laughed, scattering the tension that had worked a path over her face. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I know what you mean,” Dec agreed. “The truth of it is, I’m not cut out for a relationship, either. I was suggesting something a bit more…”
“Naked?” she asked, eyes wide as if it had just occurred to her. “You want to have sex with me to prove that my ex was wrong about me being bad in bed?”
Declan’s headshake was immediate. “No. I want to have sex with you because I’m attracted to you. I have been from the start.”
Tess barked out a laugh. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”
“Um, are you looking at you?”
“No.” He slid a glance up her body before letting it settle on her whiskey-colored stare. “I’m looking at you, Tess. I see you.”
A stain of pink washed over her face in the soft light of the living room, and Declan couldn’t help it. “You’re very pretty when you blush like that.”
“Saying that is only going to make it worse,” she said. But then she closed her eyes and laughed, as if the compliment had made her feel as pretty as he’d said she was.
“Better,” he argued. “That blush is fucking gorgeous.”
“You do know I’m, like, fifty years older than you, right?”
Declan shrugged, refusing to give back any of the ground he’d gained. “I think it’s more like seven. But I don’t give a damn how old you are.”
“And you don’t think us sleeping together would complicate the fact that we’re fake-married so you have access to my health insurance?” Tess asked.
It was a legitimate question, so he answered with the truth. “Strictly speaking, I s’pose that’s possible. But only if we let it, and I think we’re both keen for that not to happen.”
“That’s true,” she murmured.
“So, I guess there’s really only one thing left to cover.” Here, he shifted back, wanting to make her breathing room a literal thing she could feel. “And that’s whether you want this, too.”
Her light brown brows arced up. “You’re asking me if I want to have sex with you?”
Dec nodded, keeping his hands at his sides even though he wanted nothing more than to reach for her. “Consent is important, love, and it should be clear. You can take some time to think about—”
“Yes.” She pressed her fingers over his lips to shush him, the contact sending wild heat sizzling through his veins. “Yes, I want that. So, so much.”
He smiled, just enough for his mouth to create the slightest bit of friction against her finger pads before he captured her hand in his. “Okay.”
Leaning in, he slid his lips over hers, and even though his cock wanted to call his brain every nasty name in existence, he ended the kiss after only a breath, then pulled back.
Tess looked at him in confusion. “But I thought—”
This time, he rested his fingers on Tess’s mouth. “Make no mistake. I have every intention of giving you as many orgasms as you’ll let me. But as much as I want you”—he kissed her again to let her know it was a fucking lot—“I think you should sleep on it.”
“I wouldn’t tell you I wanted this if I wasn’t sure,” Tess said with enough mettle in her tone to make him soften his.
“I know. But I don’t want this to be a snap decision.”
Her laugh was all irony. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but we got married on a snap decision.”
Okay, he had to give her that. Still… “Maybe, but unlike our marriage, when I make you come so hard you forget your name, it’s going to be very, very real. And that means I need you to be certain you won’t have any regrets.”
With that, he stood, walked to his room, and quietly shut the door.
16
Tess had given up on the notion of getting valuable sleep somewhere around one in the morning. Instead, she gazed up at the ceiling through the shadows in her room, replaying her conversation with Declan in her head over and over, until she’d practically memorized it.
He thought she was beautiful, and he wanted to have no-strings-attached sex with her.
No, wait. That wasn’t quite accurate. He’d heard her word-vomit about all of her shortcomings, the ones so bad that her mother pretty much referred to her as “oh, Tess,” by default and her ex-husband had deemed her a sexual ice princess, and he hadn’t run screaming from the room. Nope. Not Declan Riley. Instead, he’d told her he wanted to give her as many orgasms as she’d let him.
How was this even happening?
Finally, after some on-and-off dozing and a few X-rated dreams that did not one thing to calm her lust-frazzled thoughts, Tess had had enough. Getting out of bed, she did what she should’ve done from the start.
She put on a giant vat of coffee and sent a group text SOS to her girlfriends, begging for help.
The sun was up, albeit barely, so she threw in the towel for real and got in the shower. Declan’s room was quiet, as usual for the mornings, and even though she’d swear she’d heard him moving around on cat-feet once or twice, she’d never seen him before she left for work. Today was no different, and by the time she was dressed and caffeinated, Jackson was baby-babbling away in his crib. Tess took the time to let him eat some Cheerios and yogurt—leaving the house with a hungry baby was a mistake she’d made only once, and her eardr
ums had barely survived the fallout—then made her way to the hospital.
“Good morning, Don,” she said to their intake desk manager as she key-carded her way into the ED.
“What’s good about it?” Don replied, wearing the same frown that had probably been on his face at birth. Two centuries ago.
Tess smiled, unfazed. “I do so treasure these morning exchanges of ours.”
“Mmm.” Don grunted, but she could see the microscopic smile he’d hidden behind a bite of his breakfast sandwich. They both spoke fluent sarcasm, and as such, Don had always had a soft spot for her, even if he’d rather be boiled alive than admit it. “Your little coven is waiting for you in the lounge.”
“You’re a peach,” Tess said, prompting the old guy to scowl.
“You take that back.”
She moved all the way past the intake desk before saying over her shoulder, “You’re a grizzled, cranky, cantankerous old man.”
“That’s more like it!” he called down the hall.
“Don’t worry, sweetie,” Tess murmured to Jackson, who had dubiously taken in the whole exchange from his perch on her hip. “Sarcasm is just Mr. Don’s love language. Come on, let’s go see the aunties.”
Tess reached the staff lounge a few seconds later. Just as Don had promised, Charlie, Natalie, and Harlow all sat at the six-person table, along with Parker, Jonah, and Connor, who must’ve driven in with their respective partners. Emmett Mallory, their ortho attending and another of Tess’s close friends, stood by the coffeepot with his signature cocky grin fully in place, and an intern—Sofia Vasquez, judging by the dark, disheveled ponytail splayed in about six different directions—lay curled up on the couch, fast asleep.
“Holy sh…crap.” Tess course-corrected her swear, just in time. She was all for free speech, but the last thing she needed was for her son’s first word to be of the expletive variety. “I didn’t think you’d all be here.”
“Uh, we work here,” Mallory said, confusion sending his dark brows upward.
Beyond Just Us (Remington Medical Book 4): A Single Parent Marriage of Convenience Romance Page 13