There was so much I wanted to say—so many cutting, biting responses I wanted to throw out so he’d know how badly I was hurting right now, how he continued to hurt me by refusing to open up—but in the end I settled on asking him to simply let me in.
“I might if you tell me.”
The room fell silent and while I waited for his response, my hope died a little with each second that passed. Eventually, I stood to leave but for a few brief seconds I silently begged him to look at me, for him to plead with me to stay, but the longer I waited, the more my heart broke.
Finally, I did what I should have done from the very beginning—I walked away from Declan O’Shaughnessy and everything I’d grown to feel for him.
Gathering my purse, I paused at the door and took a deep breath. It was only when I twisted the door handle, his voice broke in.
“I don’t do this,” he choked out and when I turned, I saw monumental cracks in his cocky, confident aura.
“Do what?” I asked, even as I knew I should just go.
Begging for an explanation made me the type of woman I never wanted to be. Not again. But I couldn’t help myself.
His eyes finding mine, he cleared his throat and said, “Intimacy. Tenderness. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t do it.”
You asked, my bitchy sub-conscious drawled. What did you expect him to say?
Whatever he must have seen on my face made him wince and he clenched his fists between his knees and dropped his head forward.
“But when I had you in my arms, I couldn’t stop thinking what a lucky fucking bastard I was and how I never wanted to let you go. I wanted to throw you onto your back and fill you up, inch by inch, as I made you mine. And when it hit me that I had my cock inside of you, bare, I felt powerful. Strong. Because in that moment I knew no man would touch you again as long as I lived.”
He raised his head and I gasped at what I saw.
“You’re mine Sophie.”
His confession left me breathless. Wordless. Astounded. Terrified.
All those emotions must have shown on my face because he smiled sadly and shook his head.
“Yeah, it scared the fuck out of me too. That’s why I pushed you away.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Declan
Goddamn it. I hadn’t meant to say any of that, especially now, but I couldn’t let her walk away from me thinking she’d done something wrong, that she didn’t deserve to be worshipped.
She was the best of everything in this world and if anyone should feel unworthy, it was me. The fact that I’d made her feel the opposite was unacceptable. That’s why I’d said what I had even though my gut churned with dread and I wished I could take it all back. Un-say it. Keep that confession pushed deep down inside of me where I kept all of my emotions locked away from the light of day.
Because whatever this was between us? It was a limited time deal. I had no business getting caught up in her, wanting more than a few stolen moments before she packed her bags and flew home to America. Before the Six Nations took up all my time, energy, and focus.
Rugby is my life, I tried reminding myself. There’s no room for anything more than that. Any one, I amended staunchly.
Even as that thought came and went, I pictured Sophie sitting in the stands at Lansdowne, a green jersey stretched tight across her chest, those luscious tits I wanted to spend hours feasting on bouncing up and down as she cheered for me. But the tournament didn’t start until February and she’d be long gone by then.
I’d always known we had a firm expiration date. Fuck, we’d both known it, and yet when I held her in my arms, my cock sheathed by her pussy, I’d had this insane moment where I wanted to be inside of her always. It was complete rubbish but that hadn’t stopped me from feeling, for a brief second, that Sophie felt like home.
Shit, fuck, arse!
When the look on her face morphed from panic to skepticism and then to what looked a lot like pity, I pressed on. Only this time, I attempted to walk my confession back.
“Listen, just ignore me. I don’t know what I’m talking about,” I said, trying to muster a smile but the gesture wouldn’t stick. My heart wasn’t in it, didn’t care to play along.
To my shock, Sophie crossed the room and dropped to her knees in front of me. Resting her hands on my thighs, she leaned forward and placed a tender, gentle kiss to my lips, our mouths barely touching. Sitting back on her heels, she examined my face for a few heartbeats.
“It’s okay Declan,” she whispered into the air that separated us. “I feel it too—” she swallowed “—and it terrifies me.”
I let out a breath and slid my hands across her shoulders, lacing my fingers behind her neck.
“I don’t deserve you,” I confessed. Then—more somberly—added, “This a bad idea, Sophie.”
She nodded. “It is.”
I swallowed, then laid out all the reasons why, since it seemed we both needed convincing.
“I have zero time for a relationship and you’re leaving soon so even if I did have time, you’re pretty much already gone.”
“Yup. Gone,” she agreed.
“And yet …” I continued, rubbing the pads of my thumbs in small circles over the nape of her neck, afraid to give voice to the thoughts swirling in my head.
“And yet?”
I pulled Sophie close and dropped a kiss on her forehead, another on the tip of her nose, then still more over her full, rosy lips.
“And yet I can’t stop thinking about you. I don’t want to stop thinking about you. You’ve got me tied up in knots Sophie, and I don’t want to unravel them.”
“Then don’t.” She cupped my face and kissed me softly, slowly, like she was savoring the moment. “Let’s get tangled up in each other,” she whispered as she trailed her lips along my jaw and into the crook of my neck where she nibbled, sending a rush of adrenaline through my body.
I wanted to undress her and bury my face between her thighs again, taste and tease her until she whimpered and soaked my face with her passion, but I held back. Against all my instincts, I nudged her away so we could talk. So we could figure out how to move forward. Because one way or another, Sophie would be mine.
“Declan?” she asked, confusion clouding her eyes.
I ran my hands down her arms until I reached her delicate wrists and felt the rapid beat of her pulse against my fingertips.
“I know,” I responded mirthlessly, shaking my head. “Believe me, I’m as surprised as you are … but we need to talk about this.” I squeezed her hands in mine. “As shocking as this might sound, I want more than a few weekends with you.”
Sophie rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, something she did when she was nervous or thinking. Or in this case, nervously thinking.
“I want to give this a real shot,” I continued.
It was like I didn’t even know myself anymore. Sophie had me feeling things I couldn’t name, saying things I never thought possible, contemplating the notion that maybe the way I normally did things wasn’t how I wanted to do them with her. I lost my damn mind when I was with her, felt like she could see all the way down to the depths of my tarnished soul, and suddenly I was okay with that.
I want her to see me, know me … love me.
The thought had my heart kicking against my chest, my adrenaline spiking.
She dropped my gaze for a few heartbeats and then dragged it back. Her jaw twitched and her chest rose and fell.
Studying my face, she eventually asked, “How would that work?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I don’t have any experience with relationships, let alone long distance ones.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” she laughed but it came out sounding forced. “It’s not like I’m ever in one place long enough to make anything last.”
She stood and, pulling her hands from mine, sat on the sofa across from me. Leaning her head back, she pitched her arm across her eyes.
“I’m probably
as big a failure at it as you are, maybe more so since I’ve actually had relationships. Bad ones.”
She raised her arm a few inches and eyed me speculatively.
I didn’t know a lot about Sophie’s romantic history but I had my suspicions. For awhile, there’d been a man named Stephen she’d referred to as “my friend” on her blog and—instinctively, as if he was competition—I’d known he was special to her. When you made a habit of studying someone the way I’d studied Sophie over the years, you got to know things about them. And I knew she’d been in love with him.
“It sounds like there’s a story there,” I said, giving her a chance to tell me about him. About them. About what had gone wrong. Because I sure as shit wasn’t going to repeat his mistakes.
She gripped the back of the sofa. “You really want to do this?”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Okay,” she said on an exhale. “We’re doing this.”
“We are,” I confirmed, settling more comfortably into my seat as she did the same.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“For starters, I want to know how many serious relationships you’ve had, and then I want you to tell me why you think you’re an even bigger failure than I am.”
“Wow,” she huffed. “No starting small with you, is there?” she asked as she climbed into my lap and settled herself against me.
“That’s what she said,” I deadpanned and she burst out laughing.
“I guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
My mouth hitched up and but she threw up her hand to stop me from delivering another zinger. “No, don’t. I did it again.”
“You’re making this way too easy,” I laughed. “But seriously. Talk to me Soph.”
After a couple of seconds where I watched her mind work silently in her pretty little head, she blew out a breath and sat up straight.
“I’ve been in love once,” she admitted. “Maybe twice,” she added, as a look of confusion, then hurt, crossed her face.
I decided to let her keep the secret of that one. If she hadn’t known if she’d loved the guy or not, I figured she hadn’t. Maybe someday she’d tell me that story, but I didn’t need it now. What I wanted to know about was Stephen.
From Alaska to San Diego, they’d traveled together by ferry, car, and train, stopping along the way whenever the mood suited. I’d read with fascination as she described working on a seafood boat in Alaska; how they’d camped on the beach in Canada and ended up staying a week hanging out with local surfers; and then a couple of weeks later, how they’d worked at a vineyard in Napa, learning how to blend wine and run a tasting room.
I loved rugby, it was in my blood, and when I died I knew my name would go down in the annals of Irish greats, but Sophie had lead a much more interesting—and probably fulfilling—life than I ever would.
“Before you say anything else, if I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?”
I was putting her on the spot, but after the way she’d avoided talking about him directly for so long, I was worried she’d try that with me now. That she’d dance around what he’d meant to her and for some strange, powerful reason, I needed her to tell me everything. I needed to know that she trusted me enough with this part of herself.
“Sure.” She took a breath and nodded. “Yeah, okay.”
“It was that bloke Stephen, wasn’t it?”
Her eyes widened and her head jerked back, surprised by my observation, probably by my even remembering the guy’s name in the first place. When I felt her body clench for flight, I locked my arm around her waist to hold her in place. She struggled for a second but then relaxed and, taking a moment to compose her features, studied me speculatively.
“How did you …?”
On the one hand, I had this weird sense of pride that I’d seen something in Sophie no one else had—that I did know her as well as I’d always assumed I did—but on the other, I felt a strange churning in my gut at having spoken aloud the name to the only man Sophie had ever loved.
I ran my hand in tiny circles across her back, as I told her what I’d figured out along the way, pausing here and there to try and find the words to accompany the thoughts that had simmered in my brain for far too long.
“I told you I read your blog and your articles for as long as you’ve been writing them, yeah?” When she shook her head I glanced down at our entwined hands and ran my thumb across her knuckles, back and forth, then looked back up, willing her to see the sincerity of my words. “I told you, I know you Soph.”
Her brows furrowed in uncertainty. “Someone must have told you.”
“How would anyone tell me something about you and him?” I demanded, my tone somewhat belligerent.
Taking a deep, calming breath, I continued, “No one, save your grandda, knows how I … what I …” I took in another breath and pushed that confession aside for a later time.
“Look, I know you said you don’t share who you really are on your blog, but there’s a part of you—a very big part—that you do. No don’t interrupt,” I interjected, placing my fingers over her mouth. “Let me finish.”
When she nodded, I said, “I think you hide in plain sight. Maybe I’m wrong, but when you wrote about your time with Stephen there was something … more … about that trip. I don’t know how to describe it, not really, except to say your descriptions became more vivid, your thoughts more introspective, and it just felt like you were being more heartfelt in your experiences.”
“I never said his name,” she whispered when my hand fell away.
“No,” I agreed slowly. “You didn’t.”
I don’t think I’d ever crossed any lines, but to explain how I’d pieced it all together might make me sound like a stalker.
“Then how?” She notched her chin, the stubbornness she’d inherited from the Fitzpatrick side of her family evident in her determined features.
“What if I said I think you wanted people to know about him?”
She flinched and went to move away again so I held onto her.
“No, don’t run. Hear me out,” I implored. “I hate to burst your bubble, but it wasn’t that hard.”
I looked toward the ceiling, mentally running through everything of hers I’d read during that time until the lightbulb had gone off and I’d realized what she was saying … without ever actually saying it.
“You’d been blogging about your trip and it was all ‘my friend and I woke to a gentle fog rolling through the Sitka spruce,’ and ‘my friend and I reeled in a fish together that was as big as my leg,’ or ‘my friend and I tasted a special wine made from grapes from 100-year-old vines.’”
Shock registered on her face when I quoted her own lines back to her. I thought about quitting while I was ahead, but I’d come this far so the only thing to do was to finish what I’d started.
“Shortly after, your granny was showing off an article you’d written that was basically a condensed version of your road trip and it got me thinking. I flipped through the pages, which is when I noticed the photos had been taken by a Stephen something or other. At first I figured he was just the photographer you were working with but then you started attributing pictures on your blog to him and it piqued my curiosity even more. There was one …” I trailed off, hesitant to say too much about the photo I’d printed out and even now had hidden in my wallet.
In it, Sophie was tan, her long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and tucked into a red cap. She’d been standing on a hill, looking out across a vineyard, her right hand shielding her eyes from the sun. I remembered thinking the photo was more intimate than the others she’d posted, that whoever had taken it might have done so without her knowing. She’d looked relaxed, happy. She’d seemed at peace.
Sophie swallowed and then whispered, “Which one?”
“The vineyard.”
“Right.” She blinked and looked away. “The vineyard.”
I was surprised when I heard a not
e of scorn creep into her voice. When she moved to rise, this time I let her go, sensing she needed space to think without me crowding her.
As she paced across the suite, she told me about her relationship with Stephen, from its beginning until the bitter end, three weeks after that photo had been taken. They’d known each other casually as he’d been the photographer for one of her first big assignments. Their relationship had remained strictly professional for a long time but they’d gotten close on a three-week excursion to Chile, Bolivia, and Peru, that ended with a trek to Machu Picchu. The trip had been plagued with problems, including botched accommodations, broken down transportation, and several people falling ill along the way. They’d started sleeping together before the first week was over. By the time they reached the mountain’s summit, she and Stephen were inseparable. On their flight back to the U.S., he’d told her he had fallen in love with her.
“When the trip was over, we compared schedules and made plans to meet as often as possible. Because we were both freelancers, we were able to coordinate our assignments so that I wrote the articles and he took the photographs,” she explained, and I got the impression she wanted me to understand how it’d happened, why she’d fallen so quickly and so easily for him. “After a while our clients started to view us as a package deal, happy to hire us as a pair.”
She took a deep breath and when she started speaking again, her voice had changed, grown scornful and bitter. “It felt like we’d been together forever, but we actually only spent a total of nine weeks together over the course of ten months.”
Like I’d told her earlier, I didn’t have the first fucking clue about how to make a relationship work, but even I knew that was a crock of shit. My spidey sense was telling me something didn’t add up about that. No man who truly loved Sophie could stand to be apart from her for so long and so frequently.
“Didn’t you think it was strange you never spent any time together outside of work?”
“Not at all,” she answered quickly. “I was fine with the arrangement, especially since I didn’t technically have a home outside of my mom’s place in Boston.”
Trying Sophie: A Dublin Rugby Romance Page 22