Only for him, p.12
Only For Him, page 12
Amy: How’s the new job going?
Honesty is not at the tip of my tongue. I tap out a text telling her it’s all fine, just getting up to speed still, and send it. Chewing the inside of my cheek, it feels like I’m back years ago. Hiding from the truth and unwilling to tell a soul. When deep inside I want to scream it.
Maybe I should show up drunk, thank him for the bottle that sits on the coffee table, and then quit. That’s what a very large piece of me wants to do.
Just as the thought crosses my mind, there’s a knock on the door. I abandon my blanket and pad over. I check the peephole first.
Fuck. My blood goes cold and a nervousness rattles through me.
“Braelynn.” His voice is calm as he looks directly at the peephole. “Open the door.”
At the sight of Declan standing outside the door, goosebumps cover my skin. I fumble for the knob and pull it open.
His strides are steady and firm. His frame is so large in the small foyer.
He walks in with no hesitation, as if he owns this place as much as he owns The Club. It’s so shocking to see him here, especially given last night, that I don’t notice the bags at first. He holds up takeout. Chinese food, from the scent. It only takes him one look around to find the kitchen. His worn jeans and gray Henley are a change from the norm. As is all of this.
By the time I’ve shut the door, he’s going through the cupboards and pulling out plates. He rummages through the drawers until he finds the forks and knives, then pulls paper napkins from a holder on the countertop and wraps two sets of utensils.
My arms crossed over my thin sleep shirt, I dare to ask, “What are you doing?” Tucking my hair behind my ears, I remember I look like hell. Not an ounce of makeup and my hair is a frizzy mess.
“Feeding you,” he says, matter-of-factly. I watch him put food on the plates, his hands capable on the boxes. He glances to his right, to what should be a dining room but the table itself is still absent. Then he glances to the left, the living room, which is small and still filled with boxes. “Where do you like to eat?” he asks casually.
I take a moment, watching him. There’s something different, calmer and more relaxed, but he also doesn’t look me in the eye.
“The couch, mostly,” I admit. “It’s not the classiest thing in the world, I guess, but I like to flip through the channels while I eat.”
He nods, “’Cause you’re alone …” he peers back at me, “when you eat.”
There’s a touch of sadness in his tone that catches me off guard. “Yeah.”
He nods and then carries both of the plates and silverware out to the living room, setting it all on the coffee table.
As I take the seat beside him on the sofa, the couch groans. It’s so cheap beneath him. My face feels hot with him seeing this part of my life, even though there’s nothing special about sitting on my own couch. He takes the seat next to me.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I whisper. I’m starving and my stomach growls in protest of my statement. I could devour this plate in an instant. Instead the fork teeters in my hand.
“Yes I did.” His answer is immediate.
“You could have called,” I suggest, staring at his profile and willing him to look back at me.
“I was afraid you would tell me,” he starts, taking in a deep breath, and staring ahead before he falls silent. A car honks its horn outside, sounding like it’s coming from the parking lot of the yoga studio across the street.
“I can be … a lot,” he says, after a minute. The sound of him swallowing is the loudest thing in the room. “It’s been a while and I forget sometimes …” He seems to consider his next words. “I need you to communicate with me very openly. Very, very openly.”
“What do you mean?” My ears burn.
“If I ask you what happened or why you feel a certain way, I need you to be blunt.” He licks his bottom lip and then stares deep into my eyes. “I’m not good at guessing, Braelynn. And I don’t want to hurt you. I want you to tell me everything.”
The way he stares at me, as if he needs this, he needs me as if he’s begging me, I can hardly sit so close to him. The air in the room seems to thin and it’s only the two of us.
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 question 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 in 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.
