by Cox, Chloe
“I got a few texts,” Molly said, looking at her fingers. “But they were kind of bullshit. I know she’s hiding something. It’s just so weird, you know? Like, I don’t care if she’s dating a guy or whatever. I just want to show up at dad’s place the day she turns eighteen with keys to our own apartment and an empty suitcase for her to pack. I just…”
Damn. The waterworks started again. Molly did her best to hold it down.
She took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and said, “I’m going to do right by her. I am not fucking that up, too.”
“Molly, look at me,” Declan said. His voice was calm, strong. Certain. And his face… Lord help her, but she found comfort there.
He waited a moment, then he fiercely said, “You never did anything wrong.”
Why did it sound different, coming from him? Why did it sound weightier, more real?
Why did she want so badly to believe him?
“I know,” Molly said, smiling a little bit. “But knowing that isn’t the same as knowing that, you know?”
“Uh huh,” Declan said, running his hand through his sexy ass hair. “Fuck yeah, I know all about that.”
Declan closed his eyes for a good moment, and when he opened them again, he looked at her, clear, calm. Like something had been decided.
“I’m going to tell you something,” he said. “Something I haven’t told anyone besides Jim. Or maybe Soren told Jim, I don’t remember.”
“Wait,” Molly said, taking his hand. She just…she needed to touch him. Needed to feel the calluses, needed to know he felt her, too. Especially with what he was about to do.
She said, “Declan, this isn’t about the book. Honestly. You don’t have to—”
“Quiet,” he said, and squeezed her hand. “Forget about the book. I don’t give a shit, honestly. You can put this in it if you want, but that’s not why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because you’re you. You get that?”
Molly was pretty sure her heart stopped.
“Molly?”
“Yes,” she whispered. His hand was hot in hers.
“I left my mother alone that night,” Declan said, his voice never wavering. “I’d known she was off for at least a week, the way she used to get. I don’t know, she’d be diagnosed with something now, probably. But I was just so fucking tired of it. Twelve years old, and just…done. So I went out with some kids and drank some beers and threw some rocks at shit down by the boat dock back in Ridgeback. Just a stupid night, you know?”
Molly knew what was coming. How could she not? She knew how it ended, knew that sixteen years later the little boy in this story would grow up to be Declan, strong, confident, successful Declan, and yet she couldn’t help but cry for him.
“I found her when I got home,” Declan said. “I tried to carry her to the bathroom, to get some cold water on her, but I couldn’t make it. I was a late bloomer,” he said, as though he needed to explain. “It wouldn’t have helped, probably. She’d taken everything she could find, probably just after I went out, and I was gone all night, so there wasn’t anything anyone could do. She’d been dead for a while.”
“Oh God,” Molly whispered. “Declan.”
“I don’t remember much after that, to be honest. Soren was with me. He was the one who got me out, I think, called the cops.”
Declan paused, frowned. Soren. Soren was still a deep, fresh wound underneath all of those layers of scars. But he pushed ahead, looking up intently into Molly’s eyes, wanting to make sure she heard whatever came next.
“The point is that I blamed myself,” Declan said. “I still…I’ll never not wonder what would have happened if I’d stuck around that night. If maybe she would have cleaned up eventually, or…I don’t know, something. Maybe somewhere down the road. But I know, like you said, that it’s not my fault. But that isn’t even close to knowing.”
Molly couldn’t grip his hand tightly enough. She kept thinking to something he said back in Springfield, when she’d asked him why it was his job to calm the crowd—he’d said it was his job because he could do it, where others coulnd’t.
She looked at him now, sitting across from her in this rented car, having just shared something so intensely personal in order to make her feel better, and wondered.
What kind of man is this?
“You feel responsible for everyone, don’t you?” she asked him.
“No,” Declan said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her. “Just some.”
This was not a man who would ever let someone in pain slip by him. This wasn’t a man who would wash his hands of a situation, think it wasn’t his problem. He had contracts for his lovers, saying he wouldn’t get involved—maybe that was because otherwise he always got involved.
Very quietly, Molly said, “Was Bethany in the hospital for drugs and alcohol? Or something else?”
Declan took a deep breath. He didn’t look upset. In fact, he almost looked…relieved. His eyes sparked a little, his shoulders relaxed, his thumb brushed against the back of her hand.
All he said was, “It’s not mine to tell.”
Molly felt it coming on, that feeling, that drowning, overwhelmed feeling she’d get when Declan tied her up, or coaxed her over an edge, or pushed inside her—except now he was sitting across a car, looking at her with the sense of wonder she felt. She just wanted to be close to him. Closer. Wanted him, for once, to feel the thing he helped her to feel all the time, to not be thinking about any of the people he worried about, to simply get to feel.
Molly wasn’t thinking about Bethany, or jealousy, or her book, as she climbed over the gearshift. She was just thinking about him. Just looking at Declan as she hiked up her skirt, just wondering if she’d be able to do it, if she could give that release to him, all on her own.
He didn’t move for a moment.
Didn’t seem to breathe.
Then he exhaled long and slow, his hands moving up her thighs, pushing her skirt up around her waist. He never broke eye contact as he fished a condom out of his pocket—she smiled; of course he had a condom—and gave it to her. He was unnaturally still while she put it on him. Like a man held rigid, on the edge of…something.
Molly saw that her own hand was shaking as she let the back of his seat down. While she positioned herself over him. While she slowly, slowly lowered herself down, gasping at the first touch, at the feel of him sliding through her folds, as his erection pushed back at the first resistance from her body. Her mouth fell open, breathing fast. She’d never felt him like this before, looking him in the eye while she slowly sank down around him.
Declan’s fingers dug into her hips. He was breathing fast now, his chest rising, falling, his veins popping out of his neck.
He seemed so much bigger, going slow. She was almost drunk on it, on him, on watching him. She couldn’t take it any longer, and when she leaned forward to kiss him, he surged upwards, into her, all the way to the hilt, and they both cried out.
Molly held on, her mouth seeking his, her body knowing better than she did, and rode them both over the edge.
chapter 22
They were woken up by overly polite knocking on their door at Volare.
Or at least Declan was woken up. Molly curled up, made some kind of absurdly adorable snuffling noise, and opened her eyes when she reached for him and he wasn’t there.
They were doing a lot of sleeping together.
They’d both been exhausted when they had gotten back from Uncle Jim’s and had decided on a nap. Declan figured it was the stress of a tour and the constant sex, but truthfully it felt like more. Whatever happened in the car on the way back from Uncle Jim’s had taken everything he had. He wasn’t sorry. He just didn’t know what the hell was happening.
Neither did Molly. They didn’t try to talk about it, to name it, or to categorize it, which was good, as far as Declan was concerned. He didn’t know what was happening here yet, and he didn’t want to jinx it by telling it what to be. He’d already gone further than
he should have, broken his own rules. Whether he’d gone too far…
“What’s up?” he whispered as he cracked open their door. It was Adra.
Smiling.
“Ok, normally I wouldn’t disturb you two,” she said, grinning as Molly threw a pillow at the door. “But you’re late. The non-debauched portion of the baby shower has begun.”
“Non-debauched?” Declan asked, yawning. “Why would we go to that?”
“Ignore him,” Molly called out from behind him. “We’ll be right there.”
Adra raised an eyebrow.
“Excuse us,” Declan said politely. “We’ll be a little bit late.”
Declan closed the door only to find Molly grinning and barely holding up enough sheet to conceal herself. Declan had made a rule that she wasn’t allowed clothes in this room—and it was a damn good rule.
“You did that on purpose,” he said, feeling himself harden in his hastily pulled on boxers.
“Maybe.”
Declan grabbed the edge of the bed sheet and pulled, stripping her down to nothing.
“Goddamn,” he muttered. He would never, ever get tired of that.
He climbed onto the bed, watching Molly’s smile broaden, thinking she’d gotten away with something. Declan just shook his head and pinned her naked body underneath his.
“You know what the worst thing I can do to you is?” he said.
Molly’s eyes got very, very large. “No.”
“Make you wait,” he said, and kissed her, deeply and thoroughly, while his hands roved over her body. He teased her nipples, her ass, her thighs, and ground himself against her clit until she moaned—and then he stopped.
“Oh God, you were serious,” she panted.
“You are going to pay for that,” he growled, tearing himself off of her. He was left with his own aching erection. “Get dressed. Be ready in five.”
“Where are you going?”
“Cold shower,” he said ruefully. He didn’t even mind when she laughed.
Sometimes being a Dom was hard work.
His shower, though, left him feeling contemplative. The weirdest thing about all of that was how natural it all felt. It was easy. Fluid. With no respect for the boundaries that Declan normally set up with subs. By the time they were ready to go, Declan was glad, for once, that Adra stopped by to kidnap Molly—there was some kind of girls’ thing that had nothing to do with him.
“Where do the boys go?” he’d asked.
“They’re not banned, you know,” Adra said. “Go wherever you feel like, just let us have our fun grilling Molly on our own for, like, twenty minutes.”
“Should I be scared?” Molly asked.
“Probably,” Declan grinned. “Is Ford around yet? I have to talk to him about Savage Heart stuff anyway.”
Declan didn’t miss the shadow that passed across Adra’s face, and neither did Molly. He hadn’t been wrong about what he’d sensed over the phone—that was a fresh wound for Adra.
“I think he’s upstairs, on the terrace,” Adra said. “No idea if he’s alone. C’mon, Molly, there are mimosas.”
Declan didn’t think he’d ever seen Adra move so fast. That was a situation that could get weird, quick. Adra and Ford were the twin pillars of Volare L.A., with Chance heading up the place. And it was Adra and Ford together that had helped Declan through the darkest moments after what went down in Philadelphia with Soren and Bethany. He felt loyalty to both of them. He didn’t want to see either of them unhappy or hurt.
Declan brooded.
And thankfully, when he did find Ford, smoking a cigar on the upstairs terrace, the man was all alone.
Looking like someone had just run over his dog.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Declan asked, falling backwards into the chair across from the normally put together lawyer. Normally hanging out with Ford made Declan feel like he was contributing to the balance of the universe; where Declan was all rough edges, jeans and tats, Ford was blond and chiseled and wore tailored suits. They’d clashed at first, but in the end they’d figured out that they understood each other. And now Ford was obviously not himself. Rumpled shirt, disheveled hair, a scowl—something was up.
“Nothing,” Ford said, shaking his head.
Declan decided to let it slide—temporarily. There was uncomfortable stuff to get out of the way first.
“So did you find him?” Declan asked.
“Yeah,” Ford said. “I found him. Or at least found a representative authorized to speak on his behalf. And his representative, who, by the way, asked not to be identified, asked me what the hell a lawyer wanted with Soren Andersson. Very cranky.”
“Jesus. This whole thing…”
“So do you want me to make an offer? They have to know why your lawyer is contacting them, and I got the sense they wouldn’t be amenable to a deal. You’d probably have to pay out the nose for the rights to those songs.”
“I don’t care about the money,” Declan said.
“What do you care about?”
Good question.
“Declan, should I make an offer for the full rights to those songs?” Ford said.
It was something Declan had put in motion almost immediately after he’d kicked Soren out of the band, when he’d been enraged with the image of Bethany, limp in his arms, still fresh in his mind. It was the closest thing he could think of to severing ties completely with Soren. And now it seemed…childish. Probably because it was childish. Angry. Just a way to hurt Soren.
“No, hold off,” Declan said, sighing.
“Ok, honest question,” Ford said. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“No idea,” Declan said. “First time in fucking ages I’m lost at sea. How about you?”
Ford said nothing.
“Dude.”
Ford glared.
“Not buying it,” Declan said. “I saw Adra already, man. You have some other sub? That you brought here?”
Ford closed his eyes. “Yeah, that hasn’t worked out. I let her go. She has her own room; she’ll be doing her own thing.”
“Don’t think that’s gonna make a difference to Adra. I do feel tempted to kick your ass for that,” Declan admitted.
“Adra and I are not anything,” Ford snapped. “Adra doesn’t want—”
Ford stopped himself, obviously with great effort. Something had obviously happened, even if nothing was currently happening.
Declan knew all about that.
“Declan, believe me, I’m not going to hurt her, not ever, not intentionally,” Ford said finally. “It’s more complicated than it looks, so just…stay out of it for now, all right?”
Declan swiped Ford’s whiskey, taking a sniff. “Yeah, that’s fair. Complicated is complicated. It’s not like I’m one to talk right now, you know? What is this, Green Bonnet?”
“Good nose,” Ford said. “I got a bottle smuggled in from Ireland.”
Declan laughed. “Smuggled?”
“Sounds more fun that way, right?” Ford grinned, pouring Declan a finger. “So you know all about complicated, then. Things getting real with Molly Ward?”
Declan swirled his whiskey and laughed softly. “Hell yes,” he said. “Things are getting mighty real.”
Declan fell silent. That’s what it was, wasn’t it? The Dom/sub dynamic—one of the things that made it perfect for him was that it existed outside of real life for most people. It was a walled off garden of sex and power, and that was just fucking perfect for a man like him, who wouldn’t put his own damaged bullshit on anyone if he could help it. More than that, he didn’t want to deal with the kinds of women who were drawn to a man like him—women like Bethany. Because it ended up being the same dance again and again, reliving the same painful drama over and over.
But Molly somehow transcended all of those limits. Molly was the perfect sub for him in ways he didn’t yet truly understand, but she didn’t stop there. She kept going. She was in his thoughts all the damn time.
If that wasn’t real, Declan didn’t know what real meant. But that was also terrifying. Declan was man enough to admit when he was scared, and if he was falling for Molly Ward—well, everyone should be scared, because obviously the apocalypse was coming. The day Declan Donovan put himself in a position where he might one day hurt someone…
Declan slugged his expensive, illegal whiskey and stood up.
“Ford, I gotta go do a thing,” he said.
Ford raised his glass. “Be fleet of foot, and…whatever the rest of that saying is.”
Declan barely heard him. Because the thing he had to do was Molly. Just Molly. He needed to see her, be with her, smell her. See for himself, once again, if he was really losing his mind.
~ * ~ * ~
If Molly had any lingering reservations about how she’d handle a baby shower, they were quickly dispelled by what counted as a baby shower for Lola Theroux. It really was just an excuse for a party that a pregnant lady happened to be hosting. Or presiding over. Something. Molly couldn’t quite figure it out—she’d assumed Lola was Roman Casta’s sub in their marriage, but Lola herself was one commanding woman. Maybe there was more to that situation than met the eye.
Interesting.
And Molly herself had been quickly embraced. Like, literally, embraced. This was a huggy crowd, and Molly was surprised to find that all the hugs really did melt away the social anxiety she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying around with her. Because these people, they were all…well, if they weren’t all rich, they were all definitely successful. And she was Molly Ward from a trailer park.
And none of it seemed to matter.
No wonder Declan liked this place.
Ugh. Just thinking the man’s name made her clench. He’d wound her up expertly just before sending her out to this party, and she’d never quite come down. It was torture—just like he’d intended.
The bastard. So why was she smiling about it?
Because you…
Her mind blinked back to that moment in the car, just before she’d taken him inside her, when the look in his eyes had been just…pure gratitude. Gratitude to her, when she had him to thank for everything, everything. She’d felt something move then. Something big.