by W Winters
Neither of us eats, neither of us moves.
“I need you to forgive me and help me so I can handle you better.”
“You’re sorry?”
His jaw clenches at my questions and I think for a moment I shouldn’t have said it. “I can’t fucking stand what happened yesterday and I keep thinking where I went wrong. I will not let a meeting interrupt us again. Never. Until I’m satisfied that you are well, no one will distract me.”
Emotions create a storm around me as he tells me, “I want you to walk me through everything that happened so I can understand. I need you to, Braelynn. I have to know where I went wrong and I think I know, but I need to be sure because what happened … it cannot happen again.”
“What if I don’t want to talk about it?” I question in a whisper.
His fork hits the coffee table with frustration.
“I am not a good man. Every rumor, every whisper you’ve ever heard … consider them to be true. Even the most fucked up. Even the most depraved. It’s all true. Knowing that, do you think I have the capacity for mercy?” The cords in his neck tense and tighten as he stares at me with a longing in his dark eyes.
“Do you think that if you don’t tell me, that I will know limits and boundaries?” His voice is tight as he whispers the question, “Do you think I’ll know when I hurt you?” My gaze slips from his lips, back up to his tortured eyes. “Because if you think I’ll know, you should run. You should run far away. If you don’t tell me, I will destroy you without even realizing it.”
Of all the things to question, all I want to know is, “Will you tell me everything too?”
“It depends on what you ask.”
My mind races with every question that’s bubbled to the surface since that first day I saw him in his office. Before I can ask a single one, Declan starts.
“Your ex hit you. And it triggered you to see me over you?”
I nod.
“Does it matter what side?”
“What?”
“When he hit you, did he always come to a certain side? Is that what did it? I need to know what triggered it, because I quite like spanking your ass when you disobey me. Do you?”
My face heats and my thumbs play with one another. “Yes. I like it when you do that.” Just talking about it brings back the lust for him and what we do.
“So … do you know if there’s something I did?”
The memories flit by and I know in an instant. “It was when I’d lie down, he’d wait and come up to the bed on my right side.”
“Do you think that’s it?” he questions after nodding.
I almost tell him I don’t know again. Instead I offer, “If I think of anything, I’ll tell you.”
He hums in appreciation. “Good girl. Now, do you like it when I call you my pet and fuck toy?”
“Yes.” My answer comes with an eagerness and I slip my hand over his. His thumb rubs soothing circles and his gaze drops for a moment to where we touch.
Rather than waiting for me to push further, he questions, “Yesterday … you didn’t like being naked in front of Joshua? Or you didn’t like the position. You didn’t like what, exactly? What was it that made you want to leave?”
I swallow thickly, remembering the embarrassment. “I didn’t like being naked in front of him … like that.”
“It will never happen again.”
“I know I was before but—”
“You do not have to explain yourself. You don’t want to be naked in front of other men. Fine. I love your body, I love that you’re mine, but showing you off isn’t something I need. It won’t happen again.”
Blinking, I let each and every statement sink in. He loves that I’m his. He said love.
“What else? There was something before that. I know there was.” He waits, hunched over the plate, the fork tapping against the table. He stares back at me expectantly.
“Sometimes I go to a dark place and I have a problem getting out of it.”
“What took you there?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. He turns away for a moment, clearly frustrated and I don’t want to lose him so I offer what I know to be true and tell him, “I just wanted you to hold me.” My answer is tight as tears brim. I drop the fork and cover my face before I can cry, hiding from him.
He doesn’t let me, though, he pulls me into his lap in an instant.
“I can do that,” he whispers into my hair and it tickles down my neck and shoulders. He shushes me, rubs soothing circles down my back and it keeps the sobs away. It only takes a moment of him rocking me, holding me close, of breathing him in, to calm whatever it was that wrecked my composure.
After a moment I pull away. My hands press against his chest, just to put distance there. I part my lips to thank him or apologize or something, but he stops it all, every word, every thought with the way he looks down at me.
“If you need me to hold you, tell me. I can do that. I like holding you.”
Nodding, I climb out of his lap and retake my spot. It’s so overwhelming my hands tremble when I grab the fork.
“Is everything okay?” I ask him, feeling a vulnerability that threatens to dismantle me.
He nods and then clears his throat. “I think so. So long as you still want to be mine.”
Nodding, I tell him I do. It feels like I’m on the cusp of falling. Part of me instinctually craves whatever Declan will give me, while the other part wants to run because it’s obvious there’s no going back from this.
“Can we eat?” I suggest in a murmur, pushing the rice around with my fork.
“I need to know if that’s it, Braelynn.”
“I think that’s it.”
“Are you all right?” Nodding, I do what I can to stay upright and just breathe. “You’re intense, Declan.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
It’s silent for a long moment while we pick away at the food slowly, and I can hardly stand it. All the while I want to kiss him, to touch him. But I don’t.
“You have questions for me?” he asks, having barely eaten and sitting back on the sofa.
I swallow a bite of fried rice. “When was the last time you had a girlfriend?”
He huffs a laugh that breaks the tension and I peek over at him, his smile soothing something inside of me. A simper pulls at my lips.
“Never.” He watches me lift the fork to my lips again. “Is that what you think this is?”
I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know what to think of us at all. Maybe we’re just two broken pieces trying to fit together, but cutting each other instead.
“I think what this is and what we are … requires me to open that bottle of wine,” I suggest, taking a deep, steadying breath.
“I think we need something …” Declan agrees, his gaze roaming down my body. There’s an immediate warmth from the hungry look he gives me. His shoulders straighten when he tells me, “Take your clothes off, I don’t want to ruin them.”
Standing abruptly, he leaves me sitting there, speechless and paralyzed as he takes long strides to the kitchen. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he warns and I’m quick to strip my sleep shirt off.
I can hear him rattling around, and he reappears a minute later with the bottle of wine in his hand. “What I want,” he stresses as he sets the bottle down and then clears off the coffee table, “is to get drunk off of you.”
“Lie down,” he commands and I do as he says without thinking twice. In a swift move, he takes his shirt off over his head. The sight of his rippled muscles, the evidence of his powerful body, brings out a primal need.
I’m naked, trembling, wanting him and Declan comes to stand over me. He opens the bottle of wine, his eyes flashing. “Open your mouth, like a good little pet.”
A shiver of desire comes over me as his hand rests on the dip in my hip, so close to where I need him.
I obey, and he tips the bottle over my lips. Wine flows directly into my mouth, but he doesn’t
let me drink much of it. He moves the bottle over my body, letting wine splash on my skin, and I shiver from the contact. Declan’s on his knees a second later. His hand slips between my thighs as he licks up the bit of wine.
His tongue is rough and hot on my flesh, moving over sensitive areas, licking and licking until he’s had all the wine. My nipples harden and a wave of desire rushes to my most sensitive bits. My hand flies to his hair, and he tsks.
“Now, now, be a good girl. You know better,” he gentles his tone with these words and I nod, placing a hand on each edge of the coffee table.
He runs his nose down my navel and then lower before kissing just above my clit, teasing me and forcing me to protest in a small moan. He chuckles, deep and masculine, the warmth of it keeping me on edge.
In between openmouthed kisses, he pours more wine that pools to my navel, sucking it up and then giving me more. He toys with my body, swirling his tongue over my nipples, nipping and biting. More often than not, I’m given the wine and he devours my body without it until his hands are on my inner thighs, parting my legs. He groans against my clit before licking and sucking it into his mouth.
I’m on the verge of coming already by the time he kneels between my legs and puts his mouth there. His tongue works me over. I’m instantly on the edge as he toys with me, nibbling and licking while he holds my thighs apart. The pleasure builds and my back arches. He keeps me down, his grip nearly bruising.
I let myself fall into it, feeling the weight of the last twenty-four hours melt away into nothing. I cry out his name as I come on his tongue and he murmurs, “That’s it, little pet.”
Exhaustion weighs down on me after I find my release. I’m tired from the long day without him and tired from the orgasm. Without much sleep, and with the bit of wine, I could sleep here on this coffee table, I could drift away right here, right now.
That’s how damn tired I am. I’m pulled into Declan’s arms and my arms wrap around his neck, holding myself as close to him as I can be. He carries me to the sofa and drapes the blanket around me, kissing my temple. His thumb tilts my chin up and his lips meet mine; at first they’re gentle, but he deepens our kiss. He takes from me in that kiss and I moan from its intensity.
When he breaks it, I’m reminded of something I confessed long ago to Amy: All I want is a man who’s going to fuck me and then hold me afterward. That’s exactly what Declan’s doing. I close my eyes and try not to think about it.
But I can feel him watching, so I open my eyes again. “What?”
“Nothing,” he whispers and then rests his head on the back of the sofa. He shifts the way he’s sitting so he can rub at his shoulder.
“Are you sore?” I wriggle up from his lap, and when I’m standing he raises his eyebrows at me. “I used to do massage. Let me.”
Declan gives me a suspicious look, but he turns over on the sofa and stretches out. With him laid out, I realize just how broad his shoulders are. Just how powerfully his body is built.
Warming my hands, I wish I had oil so I could do a better job. He’s so tight, the muscles barely loosen up. I get to work on his shoulders first. Deep, hard strokes for a deep tissue massage.
I’m rewarded with a groan I could easily become addicted to.
“Does that feel good?” I ask him, watching his eyes close. He hums a response.
Kneading his muscles, I realize just how tense he is. “Tell me if it hurts,” I murmur, but I’m not sure he hears me. He groans, and then again a minute later.
“You were a masseuse?” he questions, his tone sleepy as I work his back.
“Yeah, for a year or so … a while ago.”
“Why did you stop?” he asks and lets out another groan.
“Travis didn’t want me touching other men.” My lips turn down at the memory. “He made a scene at the spa I worked at.”
“Your ex sounds like a problem.”
“He used to be.” I speak without thinking, focusing on his shoulder. “You’re really tight here.” I’m hesitant, not wanting to hurt him, but there’s a knot that won’t give.
“Don’t stop.”
I put my hands back on his body. Declan’s melting into the couch. “I pulled it a while ago,” he says. “Tore a ligament.”
“How did you do that?”
“When I was like, seventeen I think, my brother and I were running from … I don’t know,” he tells me with his eyes closed. “Maybe ten or a dozen guys. So, very outnumbered.”
“Running from them?” I keep up the strokes, running along the lines of his muscles as they relax under my touch. “It was a deal gone wrong. They set us up.”
My hands pause as I realize what he’s telling me.
“They had their guns pulled but we took off, ran behind this row of buildings.” He swallows and as I press down along his back, stretching the muscles, his expression is so serene with his eyes closed, even if the story he tells me chills me to the bone. “There was an alley and behind it a fence. My brothers jumped first and then I was right there, but my shirt caught.”
He pulls his arm behind him, letting his finger trail down a faint scar. “I got scraped up from it pretty bad, but I was stuck. Separated my shoulder.”
Adrenaline courses through me at the thought of what he’s describing.
“You were just hanging there? With your brothers ahead and the other men behind you?” I’m grateful his eyes are still closed, because my expression must show the terror I feel for him.
“No, they didn’t go ahead. I screamed when it happened.”
“So?” I feel the blood drain from my face.
“We had guns too. We made it out, Jase got hit in the shoulder, I had my fucked-up shoulder. Carter and Daniel went around the house for weeks making fun of it, pretending to injure their shoulders so they could fit in.” A faint smile grows on his face at the memory.
I’m careful in between strokes to keep my breathing even so I don’t let on.
Seventeen years old and he was in a shoot-out. He could have died. That’s when I realize, he killed someone at seventeen. When I knew him. He had already committed murder.
We were only kids.
Questions pile up and I swallow them all down. I hurt for him. I hurt for all of them as the silence settles comfortably around us.
The thing about pain like that is it never seems to go away. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer.
I keep massaging his shoulder, easing up on the pressure. When I peek down at him … his eyes are closed. His breathing is deep and even.
Declan fell asleep on my couch. Sound asleep.
I let my hands go still. He looks so peaceful. I can’t possibly wake him. I can’t lie here with him either, because he takes up the full width of the sofa.
What am I supposed to do now that he’s asleep? I find myself going to get him a pillow and a blanket before I can overthink it. His story dwells in the back of my mind. His confession earlier about every rumor being true. There’s a darkness to Declan that’s very real. It’s all I can think as I make my way upstairs.
In the bedroom, I open the closet door and tug the pillow down. I’ve got a box on top of it, so I do it gently. I don’t want a big thud to startle him awake. I have the box out of the way and I’m getting the blanket when his voice comes from the doorway.
“Did you drug me?”
Fuck! I can’t stop myself from gasping, my hand flying to my throat. “Declan. You scared the shit out of me.”
His eyes are dark and suspicious, bordering on angry as he stands a good ten feet away in the doorframe of my bedroom. “Answer me.”
“No.” My heart is going to jump out of my body. “Of course not.” He stares at me, looking in my eyes like he doesn’t believe me. “You fell asleep. I was getting these for you.” I hold up the pillow and the blanket to show him. It’s insane he thinks that and I almost say it. But then I remember calling him a psychopath and I bite my tongue.
It’s more t
han evident that he’s paranoid, but I would never do that.
“I would never,” I tell him, stressing each word. “You fell asleep and I was just getting you these so you’d be comfortable. I didn’t want to wake you up.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
Although my heart calms slightly, everything is on edge. “I didn’t drug you, Declan.”
He nods, although his eyes search mine and then he glances around the room as if he’s looking for something before running a hand over his face.
In the back of my head a voice screams, Say something, and I don’t know if it’s yelling at me or if the command is meant for him. Another moment passes in silence and the passage of time creates more space between us.
“I’m going home. Good night, Braelynn.” Remorse coats his farewell.
“Wait,” I call out in a breath, dropping the pillow and blanket. “Don’t go.”
“I have to.”
“Please, kiss me first.” I bite my tongue before the explanation can get out. I don’t feel right. It feels off again. I don’t want us to go back to the tension that was there. “Just kiss me good night?”
A beat passes my uncertain heart before he stalks toward me, both of his hands around my face and he kisses me with a possessiveness and a need that stuns me. His lips press against mine, his tongue parts the seam and he devours me, brutally taking until my back is pressed against the wall.
When he breaks the kiss, I have to catch my breath.
“Good night, Braelynn.”
Declan turns on his heel, and I can hear him leaving the house. I move to follow but the door closes. A car starts up outside, and by the time I reach the door, it’s gone.
Declan Cross is a brutal storm, unforgiving and reckless. That’s all I can think as I sit on the stoop, wishing I had the pillow still so I could hold on to something.
To anything other than the dark tales of a man who never had a chance to live a life other than this hell he was born into.
Declan
I haven’t been able to sleep easily for as long as I can remember.