Declan's Demand

People get hurt.

People disappear.

The rumors are real.

I push myself up, prepared to give him everything he wants from me as if I’m saying goodbye. This could be our last everything. It is our last everything—my one moment to cherish in the dark when he finds out my deception. His hand travels back to my ass, shaping it under his calloused fingers, molding it to his grip. I take a deep breath as his finger circles the tight skin around my star, flexing the tissues.

“Not today, baby.” He laughs and grazes the skin, gently probing but nothing more. I can’t stop my panting breaths, and I wonder if I’ll ever fully trust him. Probably not, and the thought makes me sad.

We never had a chance, did we?

“I love fucking this pussy that’s mine.” He covers me and presses deep in a singular thrust, pinning me to the bedding in a long grunt of slapping skin and whooshing breaths.

I shut my eyes, blocking out the redemption of a new day and the morning sun. My tears fall, staining the four-hundred count Egyptian cotton with regret.

Chapter Eleven

Declan

“Hang on, Neil, I need to go into my office and grab the paperwork for the meeting. Meet you in ten minutes.” Ending the call, I slip my phone into my pocket. I adjust my suit, thinking how much Sydney dislikes the black-and-gray superfine pinstripe. She says it makes me look like a gangster from the twenties, some Bonnie and Clyde shit she worries too much about. Her favorite, my navy Brioni, is at the drycleaners until tomorrow. I have fun dressing her up in my vests, admiring her cleavage in the deep V. We have a lot of fun unbuttoning my dress shirts slowly. I’ll have an entire closet of new suits, if it makes her happy. There’s lightness in my step I never thought I would have before all this.

Before Sydney.

Damn that girl.

One night with her and I’m a goner.

A week and I’ve scooped her dad up and shipped him off to a rehab three states away. Best half million dollars I ever spent, clearing her old man’s debts. She twists me up in fucking knots, and yet when she offered me her delectable ass this morning I couldn’t bring myself to take it yet. I wanted to savor it, not slam into it as if she was some whore from the club. Using the debt against Sydney had been a game until it stopped being a game. The velvet box in my safe said everything I couldn’t when I’d gone and fallen for the girl. I never fall for the girl and all that messy shit.

Except for Sydney.

I thought long and hard about how I would ask her to be mine. Dinner out, or in? How long would I wait? It shouldn’t matter, but I want this one thing to be perfect. My hand reaches for the doorknob, and as I began to twist it I hear a rustling in my office that shouldn’t be. My office is empty unless I’m occupying it.

Maggie dropped off a casserole yesterday, trying to see what we were up to, nosy old bird. I lock shit up when I’m not there. A needle of pain lances my stomach, wondering, and I back away down the hall and around the corner waiting. I didn’t survive this long by being stupid, and my hand reaches for the concealed gun I carry.

I wait for what feels like minutes, pressing ignore on my phone when Neil messages me to hurry up. I hear the click-clack of small heeled feet coming closer. I step around the corner as if I had just gotten there.

“Shit, Dec!”

I grab her shoulders, righting her from falling. What the fuck was Sydney doing coming from my office?

“What’s up, baby?” I kiss her dry lips, licking the edges until she moans and lets me in for a taste. I have to meet Neil, but my cock has other ideas. I grind her against the wall in the hallway and her body goes soft for me.

She’s breathless, speaking between my bites on her neck and my hands cupping her breasts in her sundress. “Meeting Selma at the coffee shop.” Her eyes dart down the hall, not meeting mine. She’s lying, but I can’t figure out why or what has her so distracted.

“I can drive you there and pick you up later.” I can’t because I’m meeting Neil, but she doesn’t know that and I’ll make brother wait if I have to.

“No, it’s okay. We’ve got girl stuff planned.” Since she’s been in my house, my bed, and at my breakfast table, working had been out of the question. Sydney hasn’t been back to the coffeehouse or her apartment. I haven’t heard her call her co-worker or that roommate of hers that never seems to be home and I suppose she has things to take care of.

I smirk because I think she should take care of my dick right now, despite how crude that sounds. We haven’t discussed the particulars, but she’s a kept woman now—my woman, whether she likes that part of our deal or not. That’s how it’s going to be. Having her makes me vulnerable to my enemies, and now she needs her own protection detail, which leaves my two best guys or myself.

“Then let Stevens take you.”

She groans. “Declan, no.”

“Not negotiable.” My finger taps her nose.

“Fine, but it’s a waste of his time.” Her protest is cute but pointless.