“I love you,” he whispered. “It’s always going ta be you.”
They crashed together in a desperate tangle, her chest molded to his and his hands in her hair, fingers tightening to hold her close as he swept into her mouth, taking everything.
And Tess gave it. Declan kissed her hard and slow, so thoroughly that she was certain that if he kept it up, she might come from his mouth on hers alone. Between them, they managed to make fast work of his clothes, piece after piece falling to the floor until finally—ah, finally—they were skin to skin.
This. This. Only this. “Oh, God, you feel so good,” Tess murmured, her voice husky with want. Her nipples beaded against the solid plane of his chest, and Declan didn’t wait. Hooking one arm around her shoulder and the other around her rib cage, he walked her back to the bed, guiding her carefully against the mattress. For a minute that felt like forever, all he did was look, the glittering intensity of his stare raking over her as palpable as a touch. His gaze traveled from her face downward, over her breasts, her belly, then lingering on the spot between her thighs where she ached for him the most.
Declan braced himself over her body, leaning in to let his mouth hover hotly over her ear. “So beautiful,” he said, his voice thick, like honey and need. He sent a string of open-mouthed kisses down the column of her neck, his lips parting in a suggestive smile over the slamming pulse point at the juncture where it met the slope of her shoulder before tracing her collarbone with the tip of his tongue.
Tess arched up into the contact, giving herself over fully. Declan kissed past the indent where her throat met her chest, sending sparks of pleasure over her skin that caught fire as soon as he slid lower.
“Oh.” Her sigh escaped unbidden, but the sound of it made Declan cut out a sharp exhale of his own. The wet friction of his mouth turned Tess’s nipples into hard points. Closing her eyes, she rooted herself in the moment. She pressed further into his touch, gasping as his lips closed over her nipple, then gasping again as he swirled and licked and sucked. Her breath grew heavier, her clit throbbing with every slide of Declan’s tongue.
But he didn’t stop there. Breaking away from her body, he bracketed her hips with both palms, continuing lower until Tess moaned.
“Declan,” she murmured. He looked up at her then, and the intensity banked in his stare stole her breath. Tess watched as he dragged a finger down her aching center, making her pussy clench in greedy need.
“So wet. Do you want me here, love?” Declan asked, and Tess nodded, her eyes taking in every move.
“Yes.” It took all of her restraint not to tilt her hips and thrust against his sinful, sexy mouth.
“And you want to watch me make you come with my fingers?” Another glide, the barest brush of his fingertip over her clit. “With my mouth?”
His stare was a promise, and Tess had never felt anything so deeply in her life. She was powerless to do anything other than nod, but it was enough. Declan sent a broken exhale over her inner thighs, shocking her with its reverence.
But then, his mouth was on her, and she was helpless to do anything other than feel.
The frame of his shoulders fit snugly against the backs of her thighs, his mouth hot and soft, and Tess wanted to freeze time, drawing everything out so she could stay right here with him, forever. Then his tongue flicked up to take a wicked taste, then another and another, filling her with need so dark and dirty that her movements became primal.
“Oh, God. Yes. Just like that.” Tess thrust against the bold strokes of his tongue as he pushed deeper and deeper inside of her, relentless. Declan closed his lips over her clit, sucking in hard, fast pulls, and for one bright heartbeat, she was suspended in that breathless spot between rising and falling. Then, with one last tug of his mouth, she was breaking apart and coming together all at once. Rather than satiating her, though, the release made her want more, and she hooked her hands beneath those big, beautiful shoulders to haul him up her body.
She didn’t need any words to tell him exactly what she wanted. Angling his hips over hers, Declan notched his cock against the slick folds of her pussy, thrusting forward to fill her in one hard push.
Tess’s breath came crashing out in a heady exhale. Sensations hit her from every direction—pressure, pleasure, so much need—and for just a beat, she thought it might be too much. Then, Declan started to rock his hips against hers, and Tess realized she would never have too much of him. He fucked her in rough strokes, one hand gripping her hip, the other curled around her shoulder to keep her locked into place. The friction of his chest on hers heightened her pleasure, her clit throbbing in rhythm with his movements. Need spiraled through her with each thrust, and all too soon, it became a demand. Tess pumped her hips, taking every press of Declan’s cock as he filled her, hard and fast. She came again, her inner muscles gripping and releasing in wave after wave. Her moans turned Declan’s movements almost desperate, and he pistoned into her as far and hard as he could until his body tightened, then went rigid. He shuddered, the blunt edges of his fingers grasping her shoulder and hip as he called her name. Tess took everything he had to give her, steadying him through his shaky breath and trembling movements, then finally wrapping her arms around him to pull him close.
“I love you,” Declan whispered, his forehead on hers.
“I love you, too,” she whispered back.
They lay together for a while, their breath eventually slowing and their bodies disengaging. Declan pulled her close, and Tess settled her cheek against the crook of his shoulder. Whether it was the post-coital bliss zinging through her veins or the hope-laden happiness that had been building over the past few weeks, she couldn’t be sure. But something made her say, “Thank you.”
Declan chuckled. “Believe me, love. You don’t have ta thank me. I enjoyed that at least as much as you did.”
“Not that.” Tess laughed. “I meant, thank you for suggesting that we come to this wedding. I might’ve thought it was crazy at the time, but facing my mother and standing up for myself once and for all turned out to be exactly what I needed.”
“I know it wasn’t easy for you. But family can be difficult. Sometimes, the best thing to do is stop hopin’ and cut ties so you can move on. Trust me, I know firsthand that sometimes, all you can do is walk away.”
Tess’s brows cranked down in confusion. She played the words over in her head, trying to make sense of them, but… “What do you mean, walk away? I thought you didn’t have any family left.”
“I don’t.” Declan tensed, his voice growing rough. “I’ve told you. My mam passed away and I never knew my father.”
“You had a sister, though.” Tess was certain. He’d mentioned a sister on that first day, when they’d explored his health history, then again, briefly, when he’d told Tess about his mother. Declan hadn’t spoken of his sister again, and had made it very clear he was all that was left of his family. In truth, Tess had assumed that the girl had died in a way that had been too painful for him to talk about.
At least, she had until now.
The silence between them grew until Tess could no longer stand it. “Declan? What is it that you’re not telling me, here?”
“It’s not past tense,” he finally said. “I have a sister.”
“She’s not dead?” Tess asked, shock tightening her throat over the words.
“No. Saoirse isn’t dead. But she made it clear a long time ago that as far as I’m concerned, she might as well be.”
29
God damn his fool fecking mouth. Declan knew—damn it, he knew he shouldn’t have gone down this road. But Tess had looked so beautiful, so utterly lit up inside and brimming over with bliss ever since she’d told her mother off. Validating it as the right decision had seemed like a complete no-brainer.
Right up until he’d let his own overwhelming happiness loosen his fucking lips just enough to let the truth about his sister slip.
“Wait.” Tess pressed up to look at him more fully in the sh
adows of the hotel bedroom. “You have a sister? Like, a living sibling?”
Unease knotted Declan’s gut, but there was no way Tess would let this go without an explanation. “Saoirse is my half-sibling,” he corrected. “We have different fathers. And it’s…very complicated.”
“Un-complicate it for me.” Tess’s voice softened any bossy demand her words might have carried, but still, Declan had to shake his head.
“I can’t. We haven’t spoken in over a decade, since my mam and I left Ireland to live in LA.”
Of course, Tess wasn’t going to let that go. “So, what…she’s your only living family member and you just don’t speak? There’s got to be more to it than that.”
Declan could see that she wouldn’t let go until she’d had the whole story, and in truth, trotting it out wouldn’t matter. It damn sure wouldn’t change how Saoirse had abandoned him when he’d needed her most.
So he said, “Saoirse is five years older than I am. We’d always lived together, me and her and our mam, and she and I were close. The last six months before we moved to LA were different than the others, though. Rough.” God, the arguing. He’d had to cover his head with a pillow some nights just to block out the half of their shouting. “She and Mam were always at odds. It didn’t help that Saoirse had been one hell of a headstrong teenager, with a rebellious streak ten miles wide.”
“That sounds like a lot of teenagers,” Tess said. “Did something happen between them? Something that made it worse?”
Declan paused. “I don’t know. No.” He hadn’t been privy to every conversation that had gone down between them, of course, but if something big had come between his mother and sister—especially something that would’ve made Saoirse cut ties with them so completely—surely he’d have known. “Saoirse was trainin’ ta be a pastry chef. It’s what she’d wanted ever since she was a little girl. When Mam told her she wanted us ta come here to the States, they got into a terrible row. Saoirse had a job at this fancy hotel and she didn’t want ta leave, kept sayin’ Ireland was where we belonged, that it was home. She kicked up a huge fuss, goin’ on about how I should stay and live with her rather than uprooting to move to a completely different country.”
Here, he stopped, a shiver moving over him at the memory of Saoirse’s anger, so bright and sharp as it had sliced him clean through. “Mam said no—not that I’d have let her go to LA alone. My sister was furious. Said if we went, we’d be dead to her. Both of us. But, of course, I came with my mother, and Saoirse stayed in Ireland. She never forgave me. Or Mam.”
“Okay, but this was, what? Thirteen years ago, right?” Tess tried. “She can’t possibly still be mad now.”
The anger that Declan had finally felt toward his sister after four years of missing her before their mother had died snapped beneath the surface, threatening to rise. “It seems she can. I don’t know how many times I called her in the beginning. Left her messages. Emails. Tried to get her ta see reason. She never responded. Eventually, I stopped tryin’. But then…”
Tess connected the dots with a soft gasp. “Your mother died.”
Declan nodded, grateful for the cover of the near-darkness. “It had been years since we’d spoken, but I thought, surely Saoirse would answer me then. She was the only family I had left, and I was hers.”
“Oh, my God,” Tess said, her disbelief ringing through every syllable. “She didn’t answer when your mother died?”
“I tried everything I could think of to reach her,” Declan said, and the truth of it was that he had. Christ, but he’d hoped they could mend the rift between them. He’d needed her so much. With no family, he’d felt so lost. So fucking alone.
“Her old phone number was a dead end, and she wasn’t on social media. At least, not as Saoirse Flanagan, anyway.” Not that Declan had been on social media at the time, either, but… “My internet search came up with only one really feasible lead, and even then, I couldn’t be sure it was her. I thought it might be, but the letter I sent went unanswered. So did the three I sent to our old address, and the one I sent to the hotel where she’d worked came back marked Return to Sender.”
“Oh, Declan. I’m so sorry you had to go through losing your mother alone,” Tess said, and her steady presence, the feel of her right there beside him, gave him the strength to tell her the rest.
“I am, too. But that’s exactly what I did.” Anger flared, familiar and hot, for the way his sister had abandoned him so thoroughly, even in the face of such sudden and unfathomable loss. “That was when I knew I had to let go of Saoirse, once and for all. I’d been a fool ta hold out hope that she’d care. After that, I enlisted, and my unit-mates became my family. My sister was as dead ta me as I am ta her.”
Tess paused. “But you two were close once, right? Is it possible that she might have had a change of heart now that more time has passed?”
“No.” It was a fact of which he was certain. “If she’d wanted ta find me, she would’ve.”
“You were enlisted, though—active duty, doing God knows how many ops in different countries that the government probably didn’t want civilians to know about,” Tess said. “Maybe she tried.”
Frustration burned over the hope threatening to spark in his chest. “I appreciate that you want a happier ending to how Saoirse and I parted ways. But this is exactly like your relationship with your mother, Tess. It’s best left behind.”
“My mother doesn’t have a kidney that might save my life,” Tess said.
Ah, he should’ve known she’d get right to the heart of it. “Neither does my sister.”
Tess sat up, gathering the bed sheet around her chest. “Saoirse is a living blood relative, Declan. You two share DNA.”
These were all things Declan had considered ad nauseam over the past six months. “Only some. We have different fathers.” It decreased the possibility significantly.
Not that Tess would be deterred. “But you have the same mother! Declan, Saoirse could still be an organ match.”
No. No. He wasn’t going to do this, no matter how badly he needed a fucking kidney. That sort of hope was dangerous, and he couldn’t have it again only to see it crushed. He couldn’t. “You know the way of it just as well as I do, Tess. Under these circumstances, the chance that she’d be a match isn’t that much greater than me finding an unrelated donor. Which is quite beside the point.”
“How is that beside the point?” Tess asked, and here they were. Right at the bitter truth of it all.
“Because kidney donation is one hundred percent voluntary. Even on the off chance Saoirse could be found and was a match—which, together, is doubtful—she’d have ta agree ta do it. And she won’t.”
Tess reached out, her touch gentle even as her words made his gut bottom out with dread. “Isn’t it at least worth trying?”
“No.” His pulse was slamming now, but he knew this above all else. “It’s not. I’ve already lost Saoirse once, in the most painful way I could have. She wouldn’t help me when our mother died, and I’ve no reason to believe she’d help me now, even if she could. Any hope I ever had for her is long gone. She left me for dead years ago, Tess.”
Declan sat up, making sure their eyes were wide-open and level before swearing, “I’ll not let her do it again.”
For a minute, Tess said nothing, simply staring at him in the shadows before she finally nodded and gathered him close. But even as he finally drifted off to sleep hours later, Declan couldn’t help but feel as if the conversation was far from over.
Tess watched through a crack in the curtains as the sun turned the sky from purple to pink to orangey gold. Declan was beside her, eyes closed and chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, and she rolled over carefully so she didn’t disturb him. She’d spent half the night replaying his words in her head, turning them over, piece by piece, then the other half trying to figure out how she felt about what he’d said.
His sister was alive. She’d abandoned him when he’d needed her most. Hurt
him in ways Tess could only imagine. Might have the kidney that could save his life.
And if she did, and refused to give it? That would ruin Declan all over again.
Turning back to look at him, his dark lashes fanning low to soften his face in sleep, Tess’s heart clenched. She didn’t know what had happened to make Saoirse cut him and their mother out of her life so completely. But what kind of person would look at her brother—her only living relative, for Chrissake—and say no to saving his life?
The same kind who would shun her child like your mother shunned you, whispered a voice from a dark hallway in her mind. The truth was, as an emergency physician, Tess had witnessed the results of a thousand different ways one person could harm another, and that was just physically. She hated to believe someone related to Declan could be capable of inflicting such horrible mental anguish on her own brother, who she’d seemed to have once loved, though. Maybe Saoirse had had a change of heart over time. Maybe, if they could find her, she’d agree to at least take a blood test. Maybe—
Declan was right and she’d say no.
Tess brushed back the thought. He was right about one thing, for sure; namely, that they didn’t even know if Saoirse was a match. Declan hadn’t been too far off base when he’d said there was a decent chance she wasn’t. Yes, they shared some DNA. But Tess had seen far more than a few cases where parents weren’t even compatible with their own children. Blood and tissue types had to match, the donor had to be in good health. Plus, Saoirse might be diabetic, just like Declan. A hundred different things could tank the chances of her being a match.
Still…
No, Tess whispered to herself. Declan had made it clear that he had no interest in trying to find his sister. He was doing well in Gupta’s trial. She needed to just let it go, like he’d asked.
Beyond Just Us (Remington Medical Book 4): A Single Parent Marriage of Convenience Romance Page 26