Decline (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #1)

by Michelle Irwin

  It was only when I reached the bathroom that I recalled Alyssa was the last one in there. With that thought, her naked body was back in my head. She would have been all wet and hot from the steam. I could almost see her sliding her hands up into her hair to brush the water off her face. Fuck me. I shouldn’t be thinking about her like that.

  The small tattoo on her chest raced into my mind. For the first time ever, I wished I knew which constellation was which. Maybe the stars and lines had something to do with the story everyone kept mentioning—the one they said was Alyssa’s to tell me.

  Knowing there was nothing else to it, I turned on the water and stood under the stream while images of Alyssa assaulted me relentlessly.

  The trip wasn’t supposed to go that fucking way. I was supposed to get Alyssa out of my head—not lodged even more permanently inside. Standing under the water, the images of our fun-filled night raced into my head again. I couldn’t stop my hand making a quick downstairs visit. I needed to think clearly and as long as my cock was in charge, I wouldn’t be able to.

  Stroking up and down in rapid succession, I brought myself to the edge as fast as I could. I needed relief, not love. Closing my eyes, I didn’t even need to try to fantasise—Alyssa was already there. I saw her as she had been that night, lying on the floor underneath me, her legs wrapped around my neck. Oh fuck. I leaned against the bathroom wall as my orgasm hit me almost painfully, providing only a fraction of a moment of brain-emptying, mind-numbing relief before everything flooded back in. Fuck!

  I climbed out of the shower and dried myself off. For the first time since before I’d jumped on the plane, I looked at myself in the mirror. Fuck, I was fucked-up. I still had the black eye, although it was more yellow, green, and brown now. Along the right side of my head was a long, deep black bruise from where I’d smashed into the floor and passed out. I shuddered to think what the fuck might have happened to me if Alyssa hadn’t been there to call the ambulance. Especially with the cut on my arm. I looked at the waterproof covering. Fucking five stiches they’d told me I had. I looked at myself in the mirror again, meeting my own gaze. I saw Phoebe’s face staring back at me. Did she deserve that sort of fuck-up as a father?

  The answer was a resounding no, but what exactly did that mean? Did it mean I couldn’t—shouldn’t—even bother? Maybe it just meant I needed to try to be less of a fuck-up.

  The first step was going out and facing the fucking world. If I hid away in the apartment, I would go fucking crazy. I would drink the other bottle of whiskey, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t return to that fucking lifestyle. A shudder ran through me at the thought. I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t submit to it and live like I did just after I joined the team, between the November I arrived and the February before the first race of the season.

  Now that was fucked up. I was only lucky that Danny had never found out about how badly I’d fucked things up then. If he had, I wouldn’t still be on the fucking team. I was fucking thankful that I was just driving production cars then. Their drug testing wasn’t nearly as rigorous and preseason activities were much more limited.

  I could still remember the first time I’d given in to the temptation of the lifestyle Morgan had introduced me to.

  The spiral had escalated pretty quickly after that night.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN IT’S IN THE PAST

  “COME HERE, SQUIRT,” Morgan called over the pounding music.

  He’d given me the nickname on my first day with the team, even though he was only six years older than me. Because he was already in a ProV8 car, and I was only a production car driver, he thought he was king fucking shit.

  Truthfully—he was.

  That was just the ranking in the team. Morgan was it. He couldn’t shit without fifteen people knowing about it. Me, on the other hand . . . I got to skulk around doing whatever fucking shit I wanted to most days. So long as I was in the car on race day, and ideally on podium at the end of the event, I was left alone.

  Even though it meant losing my anonymity, I wanted what he had. The thrill of the fucking V8, the roar of the engine, the bonus money for every win, and the fucking women coming at him from all angles—if only as a way of getting rid of the one who haunted my dreams. I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but I hadn’t been with anyone since my one night with Alyssa. In Morgan’s eyes that left me practically still a virgin. The thing was that I wasn’t sure whether I even wanted to be with anyone else. The thought of it hurt my chest and made it hard to breathe.

  To make things worse, she’d called me practically every day since I’d first moved to Sydney. It was all I could do to ignore her. A big part of me wanted to call her back and beg for forgiveness, but she deserved more than I could ever give her. She was due to start uni around the same time that the racing season kicked off so it would never work between us. I was better off not returning her calls at all. Calling her would start me down the path of getting back together with her.

  It was easier to try to forget about her and go out on the town when Morgan had invited me. The thought raced through me that maybe he was right. Maybe I just needed to get over myself and get my dick wet.

  “See those sweet-arse honeys over there?” He tipped his head toward a gaggle of girls wearing nothing more than thin slips of clothing.

  I nodded. Moments earlier, the three had been dancing with him in a very seductive fashion while I minded the booth and drank anything that Morgan ordered for me. I was definitely a third—or possibly fifth—wheel. With his wavy blond hair, ice-blue eyes and boisterous personality, he’d been centre of attention at every venue and could have taken any number of girls home—maybe even had some of them on the spot.

  While I wasn’t bad on the eyes, I didn’t have the confidence he had either—especially not when I knew I wasn’t even supposed to be in the club. I wasn’t even eighteen, and yet Morgan had dragged me along with him from nightclub to nightclub all night long. None of the bouncers had questioned him or even batted an eyelash at me, but I still didn’t want to draw extra attention to myself.

  “What about them?” I asked.

  “They’re coming home with us.”

  I didn’t see any point in arguing.

  “Betty and Veronica are coming with me.” He pointed out two of the girls. I knew Morgan enough to know the names weren’t real names. He often came into work telling stories of his conquests, always giving them names from comics. Betty and Veronica had obviously been duelling for his affections, like most of the other girls, and he’d obviously convinced them to do a double act. The things I’d learned from the periphery of his life would probably have made my mother’s hair turn grey. “I’ll toss the third your way. Trust me, she’ll be an easy catch. She’s ready and waiting for it.”

  I did a double-take at his words. “W-what?”

  “C’mon, squirt, it’s time we made a man of you.” He slapped my back.

  My breathing came in fast bursts. At that moment, I couldn’t even remember why I’d gone along at all, except I didn’t have anything else to do but mope around my apartment and try not to think of Alyssa. “But . . . I . . .”

  He laughed. “Seriously man, you are far too uptight. Maybe getting fucked by a woman who knows what she’s doing is exactly what you need.”

  Before I could argue, he moved away—back toward the group of girls. He whispered something in the ear of the one he’d designated for me and she’d laughed before casting a sneaky glance at me with a smirk on her face.

  It was a little after two in the morning when we left the club. My head spun with whatever alcohol Morgan had funnelled down my throat all night. It was the first time I’d ever been truly drunk. Like really fucking-smashed-off-my-face drunk.

  We stumbled into a maxi taxi. Inside the cab, Morgan had started his night with Betty and Veronica. The three of them were going hard at it right then and there. I tried to look away as he pressed his hands against the breast of one of the women as the two girls kissed each other but I had
to admit that the sight was making me so fucking hard.

  The girl who sat next to me looked a bit more timid up close than she had in the club. A bit younger too maybe—although she still had a couple of years on me. I smiled shyly at her in apology for the way Morgan was acting. As soon as we got back to his place, he disappeared into the bedroom with the two girls, only to come out minutes later and grab a can of whipped cream and a bottle of chocolate sauce from the fridge. He threw a couple of condoms at me and winked.

  I sat next to the girl he had graciously “tossed my way” as he’d fucking put it, and wasn’t sure what to do. The moans and sounds of sex had started in earnest from the bedroom and I was fucking hard as a rock. I didn’t want to do anything the girl didn’t want though, especially when I still didn’t even know if I wanted it.

  “Is there another bedroom?” she whispered in my ear after a minute.

  I nodded and pointed in the direction of Morgan’s guest bedroom where I’d stayed during my first month in Sydney and still did from time to time.

  “Let’s go then.” She stood and gave me what I guessed was supposed to be a seductive smile. It had nothing on Alyssa’s though. The thought was enough to push me into action—however long my ex danced in my head, I would never be able to enjoy my life.

  I allowed her to pull me to my feet. Once we reached the bedroom, she pushed me down onto the bed. She grabbed something out of her purse and popped it into her mouth. Then she climbed over onto me, straddling my waist and kissed my mouth deeply. Her tongue pushed a small tablet into my mouth, and it fell to the back of my throat. Before I could protest or ask what it was, it was gone; washed away as I’d swallowed. I moved to sit, to question what the hell she’d done, but she silenced me with a finger pressed to my lips. Sitting up, and brushing her fingers through her hair, she moved her hips against mine. The sensation of her hips rocking against my cock distracted me and sent thoughts of the tablet rushing from my mind.

  While she writhed above me, she peeled her shirt off to reveal a lace and diamante bra. It occurred to me that she wasn’t quite as shy and reserved as I’d assumed. She grabbed my hands from the bed, where they were lying prostrate at my side, and pressed my palms against her breasts. I massaged them in small circles over the cups as she tipped her head back and moaned a little. Although the sound was a little off, and very different from the sexy little moans my ex had offered when I’d been with her, it was enough to keep me moving. I slid my hands around to her back and unfastened her bra. Quickest hands in the west I was—I’d taken off my ex’s bra more than enough times to have perfected it to a fucking art form. The constant thoughts of Alyssa made me harder, and the girl above me took it as a sign of interest.

  The chick leaned over and dropped the tip of one of her breasts into my mouth. I sucked it as deep into my mouth as I could, and held her sides as I licked and nipped at her skin. It felt wrong, because it wasn’t like Alyssa’s. It didn’t fit the same way, or even feel or taste the same. It just wasn’t what the sensation was supposed to be like. Nothing about the situation was right.

  I tried to push her off, but whatever she had given me started to take effect on top of the alcohol. I felt dizzy and woozy and wanted to be fucking sick. Obviously she’d taken one herself because her eyes had grown glassy and she started to giggle. She pulled my pants down just far enough to pull out my dick before rolling a condom over me. She pushed her panties to the side and holding my shaft tightly in her grip, slid herself over the top of me. Just like that, I was fucking someone else. Someone who wasn’t Alyssa. That’s all it was though—fucking.

  Throughout it all, my mind was disconnected from my body. I could have been watching a porno for all I accepted the actions as happening to me. A complete fucking stranger bounced on top of me and although my balls grew tighter and tighter until they finally released into the latex wrapped around my cock, I felt nothing. Not even when the fucking whore who straddled me had licked my neck to entice me to come.

  No joy, no love, no anything except a vague sensation of release. It was fucked-up, pure and simple. I was empty and wasn’t sure if I was even capable of feeling anything outside of the hole which had opened up inside of me and sucked the joy from me like a giant fucking black hole.

  My head spun and even though Alyssa and I had well and truly broken up—even though I didn’t plan on ever seeing her again—I still felt like I’d just cheated on her.

  Once I was done, the chick slid the condom off my cock before taking my shaft into her mouth to lick me clean. The move was too much for me to fucking stand. It seemed far too intimate and left me disgusted.

  “Fuck off,” I said to her, pushing her head away.

  “What?”

  “I said fuck off, slut.”

  At first, she looked shocked. A moment later, she went fucking nuts, launching herself at me. She beat at my chest with her fists and called me every name under the sun. I endured it for a minute before her words, the alcohol, and whatever the hell it was that she’d given me pushed me to the edge.

  In less than a second, I went from irritated at her actions to pissed off. I just wanted her to get the fuck off me. I screamed and shouted, telling her to fuck off, but when that did nothing to stop her attack, I grabbed her arms and shoved her away. I pulled myself to a sitting position and scrambled backward on the bed to escape her. She came at me again, swinging her arms wildly. One of her hands connected with my cheek, and her nails raked the skin like talons. Not even trying to be gentle anymore, I pushed her again. She smashed into the wall near the door with a loud thud. For a moment, she appeared dazed and disorientated.

  When she looked back at me, she spat in my direction. “Fuck you, arsehole.”

  ONLY CERTAIN things of the following three months stayed in my memory. I remembered the races, the track tests, and the days when I was at the team offices. Around those times, my days and nights were a fucking blur of alcohol, bongs, pills, and women—anything that could offer even a semblance of relief from the pain I felt constantly. Without fail, my trysts all ended the same way: me having my fill—not giving a shit about what the bitches wanted—then angrily throwing them out on the street. Somehow in my mind, it was always their fault. In every case, I threw them out for one simple reason—they weren’t and never could be Alyssa. That fact alone was enough to piss me off, especially when I was high.

  Eden had been the one to help me wake up to myself. There’d been a moment when I was at a true crossroads between straightening up and fucking up. Every day after, I thanked my lucky stars that she’d been there just as I was starting to slip even further into the clutches of drugs and alcohol abuse.

  On my absolute worst day, I’d turned up to work stoned. Eden had grabbed me just as I was about to walk into the offices.

  Danny would’ve had my arse ripped to pieces if he’d seen me. The one thing he’d demanded was clean drivers.

  “DECLAN!” EDEN’S voice was shrill and as sharp as her nails, but neither were enough to pierce my mellow. The only thing that surprised me was that she knew my name. She was the strategist for the ProV8s and didn’t have anything to do with my class. We’d probably had four conversations in total since I’d started.

  “What?” I asked with a lazy smile.

  “You go in there,” she pointed to the offices, “like that,” she pointed to my eyes, “you will be given your marching orders quick smart.”

  I went to shrug away from the hold she had on my arm, but she just gripped more tightly. My mellow dissolved and my lips curled into a snarl. “What does it fucking matter to you?”

  “It matters because you’re fucking talented. You’ll be a fantastic driver one day and I would love to work with you on the ProV8 team. In fact, I’d be willing to bet it’ll be sooner rather than later that you’re given a chance in one of those cars. That will never happen if you get kicked off the team though. You think anyone else wants to touch Danny’s trash? They all know Danny’s regulations. The simple
fact is you fuck up here, you’re fucked everywhere.”

  It was easiest to pretend I didn’t care, so I shrugged.

  She wasn’t buying it. She squared up her six foot frame and, despite her slender build, somehow managed to be fucking intimidating as she stared into my eyes. “Why’d you come here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why’d you move here? To Sydney. Why are you here at Sinclair? What is it that you want to do?”

  My brows knitted into a frown. “I want to race. Why the fuck else would I come here?”

  She sighed. “If that’s what you want, then you have to do yourself a favour and listen to me. Go home, get yourself sorted, and come back in tomorrow clean. Then get off the fucking drugs for good.” She paused for a second to let her advice sink in. “If you don’t, I will tell Danny everything you’ve been doing in your spare time.”

  “And how the fuck would you know what I’ve been doing?”

  “Morgan.”

  I snarled at her. I’d forgotten that she’d straightened him out a few weeks prior and they’d been fucking each other exclusively ever since. Honestly, I could threaten to expose them to Danny, but it wasn’t worth making enemies, especially when she was just trying to look out for me.

  “Fucking whatever,” I said, but I still took her advice and turned away.

  “Oh, and Declan?” she called after me.

  “What?”

  “Give this guy a call.” She handed me a card for a fucking shrink, a Dr. Henrikson. “He’s discreet, he’ll help, and it won’t get back to Danny.”

  AFTER EDEN had straightened me out and put me onto Dr. Henrikson, I didn’t actually stop drinking, but I’d never touched illegal drugs again. Since that day, I’d known it was a fucking fine line for me to end up back there whenever my life went to shit.