by Naima Simone
“Have me, Declan.” She bit her lip, trapping anything else that would’ve spilled forth without her permission. “Please have me.”
Without further prodding, he stripped her panties off and dived into her.
He tongued a path up her folds, swirling and licking. Sucking. No part of her remained a mystery to him. She dived her hands into his hair, clutching the strands and holding on as he lapped at her, his ravenous growl vibrating over her flesh and through her sex.
Two thick fingers pressed against her entrance then inside her, stretching her, filling her. She cried out, grinding against his hand, his mouth. Pleasure struck her, bolt after bolt streaking through her. And as his lips latched on to her clit, and his tongue flicked and circled the pulsing nub, she curled into him, breathless, aching.
Declan rubbed a place high inside her, and she exploded, came so hard black crept into the edges of her vision. She tumbled back to the bed, her breath a harsh rasp in her lungs, her bones liquefied. Dimly, she was aware of Declan standing at the foot of the bed and the whisper of clothes sliding over skin.
The mattress dipped, and she focused on the gorgeous sexual beast crouched above her. While she silently watched, he tore open a silver packet, removed a condom and sheathed himself. And oh God...
Renewed lust fluttered, then flowed inside her in a molten rush. A cock shouldn’t be lovely, but then again, this was Declan. It didn’t seem possible that anything about him could be less than perfect. Including his dick. And long, thick, with a flared, plum-shaped head, he was indeed perfect. And mouthwatering. Before her mind could send the message to her body, she was reaching for him...
“No, sweetheart.” He caught her wrist, bending down to crush an openmouthed kiss to the palm. “I want to make it inside you. Sit up.”
He didn’t wait for her to comply but tugged on the hand he held. Quickly, he divested her of her bra and dipped his head, sucking a beaded nipple into his mouth. Cradling her, he lifted her breasts, his thumbs circling the tip he hadn’t treated himself to yet. Yet.
She clawed at his shoulders, tipping her head back, those pulls of his mouth echoing in her sex. Where she needed him. Now.
“Declan,” she whispered. Pleaded.
“Take me in, Remi.” He took her hand, wrapped it around him. “You take me.”
She did.
Raising her hips, she guided him to her, notched him at her entrance. And cupping his firm ass, welcomed him inside her.
Their twin groans saturated the air.
She’d thought his fingers had filled her. No, they’d just prepared her for this... Possession. This branding.
Never had she felt so whole.
Slipping his arms under her shoulders, he gathered her close, and she did the same to him. Clinging to him. He held himself still, allowing her to become accustomed to the size and width of him. And yes, she needed those few moments. But as a fine shiver rippled through his body, she nuzzled the strong line of his jaw, nipping it.
“Move,” she urged, flexing her hips against him. “Your turn to take me.”
Tangling his fingers in her hair, he tilted her head back and claimed her mouth just as he claimed her body.
Over and over, he tunneled deep, burying his cock inside her, marking her as his. She undulated and arched beneath him, giving even as she accepted. The slap of skin on skin, the musk of sex, the damp release of sex greeting sex punctuated the room, creating music for their bodies’ erotic dance. Each thrust, each grind, each growled word of praise shoved her closer to the edge, and she flitted close, then scampered back, not wanting this to end. Needing to be in this moment, in this space with him forever, but the pleasure—the mind-bending, body-aching pleasure—wouldn’t permit that.
He reached between them, rubbed a thumb over the rigid bundle of nerves cresting the top of her sex. The scream building inside her was more than a voice; it was physical. And when he pistoned into her once, twice, three times, her body gave it sound.
She flew apart.
Her body. Her mind. Her soul.
Pieces of her scattered, and she doubted she could possibly be whole again.
As he stiffened above her, his hoarse growl of pleasure rumbling against her chest and in her ear, she gave in to the darkness closing in on her.
I love you. I love you.
And as she let go, she whispered the words in her head that she could never permit herself to say aloud.
* * *
I LOVE YOU.
Remi’s whisper echoed in Declan’s mind, crashing against his skull like waves against the shore.
I love you.
She probably hadn’t meant to let the admission slip out; she’d been halfway asleep as she uttered those three words that carved fear into his chest.
Maybe she didn’t mean them. People said things like that in the heat of passion all the time, and they regretted it later. Let sex—especially such cataclysmic, hot as hell sex—get mixed up and muddled with emotion, and they were temporarily confused. Yes, that was it. Remi didn’t—
That wasn’t Remi. She might not have meant to say she loved him—might not have intended to let him know—but she’d meant it.
Or else Remi believed she did.
He propped his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head into his hands.
I love you.
A howl churned in his gut, surging up his throat, but at the last second, he trapped it behind clenched teeth. Pain, fear and anger—yes, anger—eddied inside him in a grimy cesspool. He wanted to lash out. To yell that he didn’t ask for her love. That love wasn’t part of their deal.
He wanted to curl his body behind hers and beg her to take it back, to please take it back. Before love crushed them both and he lost the woman he’d come to depend on, to admire, to desire, to need... God, he’d come to need her. Her texts, her calls, her smiles, her...
Everything.
Love would ruin who they were to each other.
Just as it’d diminished his mother, so she’d had to rediscover who she was as a person.
Just as it’d morphed into something ugly and destroyed his marriage.
People used that particular affection as a reason to hurt and damage one another every day, and he wanted no part of it.
Not even from Remi. Especially not from Remi. Because to witness how it would extinguish the light from those beautiful hazel eyes... How it would steal the radiance that shone from her like a beacon piercing darkness...
“I’m surprised you’re still here.”
Declan slowly straightened, glancing over his shoulder. Remi, with the cover tucked under her arms, sat up, her expression shuttered. Grief careened through him. It’d been weeks since he’d seen that look on her face. Since she’d closed him out.
“Remi...” he murmured, turning to her.
She shook her head. “At first, I thought it was a bad dream, but when I woke up and saw you fully dressed and sitting on the side of the bed as if you couldn’t wait to bolt out of here, I knew it wasn’t a dream. More of a nightmare.”
“Remi, I don’t want to hurt you.”
She huffed out a low, dry chuckle. “This isn’t about hurting me, but just the opposite—you’re the one who doesn’t want to be hurt.”
He couldn’t deny that. Hell, if he were brutally honest, he’d been running scared since he’d signed his divorce papers. But he’d been doing it so long, he didn’t know how to stop. Didn’t know if he had the courage to stop.
Even for her. And if anyone deserved someone to be brave on her behalf, it was Remi.
“You don’t want to take the risk of falling in love and being hurt again, of being betrayed. And your greatest fear, Declan? You’re afraid of loving someone so much, so deeply, that you lose yourself. That you become your mother. And there’s nothing I could say... Not that I would never betra
y you, never do anything that would demean you rather than support you. Not that I might very well hurt you, but I would hope my love would pave the way for forgiveness, that you would see it wouldn’t be intentional. True love only makes you stronger, better. You could never lose yourself in it. Because it would never allow you to become lost.”
She spread her hands wide on her crossed legs, staring down at them before lifting her gaze to him. Tears didn’t glisten in her eyes, but he almost wished they did. He’d rather have the tears than the bottomless, hard resolve he saw.
“But there wouldn’t be any point in trying to make you believe that, because your heart is closed by fear. I’m scared, too, Declan. Scared to trust, to take a leap of faith on love when it’s only disappointed me in the past. But I’m willing to take a risk on you. On us.” She shook her head. “What I’m not willing to do is fake it any longer or settle.”
Her shoulders straightened, and the deep breath she drew in resounded in the room. That, too, held the ring of finality.
“I love you, Declan. And you need to leave.”
“Remi, I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. And that makes you refusing to fight for yourself, for who we could be, sadder. Now, if you have any feelings for me, any respect at all, please go.”
Stay, dammit. Don’t you fucking go.
But he stood, exited the bedroom and her house as she requested.
Like the coward he was.
He drove through the dark quiet streets of Rose Bend, images of the evening bombarding him. Of them laughing and working together at the library. Of their kiss in the car. Making love in her bedroom. Of her eyes, dark with pain and pride, ordering him out.
A while later, he pulled his car to a stop and switched it off. But he didn’t sit, parked outside his home.
Opening his car door, he numbly climbed out, rounded the vehicle and climbed the steps to the blue-and-white Victorian with the dark blue shutters. Even before he knocked, the front door swung open and his mother stood in the doorway.
“Declan? What on earth? What’s wrong?” she asked, tying her robe belt.
“Mom,” he rasped. “I messed up.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I LOVE YOUR MOTHER,” Briana growled, sailing up to Remi with a smile that appeared more like a feral baring of teeth, “but she is seriously working my last living nerve.”
Remi hid her grin behind her glass of wine, sending up a prayer, not for the first time, that she’d found a safe corner out of the path of Hurricane Rochelle. The whole week before the engagement party, their mother had been driving all of them nuts with the preparations. And today, with guests crowded into their home, enjoying the hors d’oeuvres and sipping a variety of beverages and celebrating the happy couple, Rochelle hadn’t calmed down yet. After being ordered twice to circle the room with the appetizers, then told she wasn’t doing it right, then being barred from the kitchen, Remi had been trying to fly under the radar.
“You know she’s in her element. Even if she’s acting a little batty. She just wants everything to be perfect for you.” Remi slipped an arm around Briana’s shoulders, hugging her close. “Besides, you have to give it to her. The place looks ah-mazing. The food is great. The guests are enjoying themselves. And you’re engaged to a truly great guy.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Briana grumbled, then chuckled. As if she couldn’t help herself, her sister sought out her fiancé, locating him next to the living room fireplace, surrounded by several of his friends. “He’s wonderful. And I can’t wait to marry him.”
“There you go. Just keep that in mind. And avoid Mom, like I’m doing.”
Briana laughed, wrapping an arm around Remi’s waist and squeezing. But then she sobered, wincing. “God, Remi, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Are you okay being here with all—” she twirled her hand in the direction of the party “—this? You know I wouldn’t have minded if you begged off. I would’ve understood.”
“I would’ve minded, though. And I’m fine. No way I would’ve missed my sister’s engagement party. But thank you.”
God, she loved her sister. Both of them. After Declan left her house a week ago, she’d called her sisters. Sherri and Briana had come right over and stayed with her for most of the weekend, holding her while she cried, bingeing Netflix and snacks with her when she didn’t. And they’d been running interference with their mother, whose disappointment at her and Declan breaking up had seared her.
But it didn’t make her change her mind or call him. She’d made the right decision for herself.
“What are we doing over here in the corner?” Sherri shoved a sun-dried tomato and basil roll-up in her mouth, following it with a healthy sip of champagne. Her older sister, barely five feet and willow thin, could eat her weight in hors d’oeuvres, run roughshod over her adorable three-year-old twins and rule her husband, who worshipped the ground she walked on. “Talking about people? Ditching Doug so he can’t leave me with the kids? Avoiding Mom?”
“C,” Remi said, taking her sister’s glass and sipping.
“Oh, me, too.” Sherri scrunched her nose. “And you know I was just kidding about the kids, right?” When Remi and Briana gave her the blandest of bland looks, she sighed. “Fine. Sue me. Doug so owes me for...for sticking his penis in me.”
“Wow.” Briana slipped the champagne away from their sister with a snicker. “We’re going to lay off these until the toast, ’kay?”
“What? No, I—” The doorbell rang, and she clapped her hands, nearly bouncing on the balls of her feet. “That should be the babysitter. She was running late so she offered to pick the twins up from here. Sooo...” She snatched her glass back and took a healthy sip.
“You’d think she didn’t get out much,” Remi drawled, laughing, but as her mother led the newest guest into the living room, the humor died on her lips. “Oh God.”
Declan.
Her breath stalled in her lungs, increasing the deafening thud of her heart in her ears, her head. Adrenaline rushed through her, temporarily making her dizzy, and she pressed her palm against the wall, steadying herself.
What was he doing here?
“What is he doing here?” Sherri whispered, echoing the question in Remi’s head. “I thought you said he wasn’t coming.”
Remi had confessed everything to her sisters—the true reason behind The Kiss, the fake relationship, Declan’s agreement to be her beard at the engagement party.
“I didn’t think he was, either.” She couldn’t remove her eyes from him. No matter how much her pride begged her to stop making a fool of herself in front of all these people.
She’d been here before, except this scene had taken place in a diner, not at an engagement party. But her romance woes being center stage for the townspeople of Rose Bend again? No. Thank. You.
She straightened, pushing off the wall, and maybe he sensed her movement, because his gaze scanned the room before unerringly landing on her. It was like crashing into a star—hot, consuming and so close to flaming out.
She froze.
Inside, she longed to flee. Away.
Or straight to him.
“Sweet baby Jesus, Remi, that man is in love with you,” Briana breathed.
Remi tore her gaze from Declan and frowned at her younger sister.
“What? What’re you talking about, Bri?”
“C’mon, Remi—the man showed up at an engagement party. No man shows up at an engagement party all alone, voluntarily, unless, A, he’s the groom or one of the parties involved is family, B, he’s being blackmailed, or C, he has an agenda. You, big sis, are his agenda. That man is so in love with you.” She leaned forward, jabbing a fingertip in her arm. “But I swear to God, if he proposes to you at my engagement party, I’m tackling him to the ground like J. J. Watt. And then I’ll show up at your wedding and announce I’m pregnant. And expe
cting quadruplets.”
Remi stared at her sister, caught between laughing hysterically and being horrified. Because she suspected Briana meant it.
“Remi, can you help me in the kitchen for a moment?” Their mother appeared in front of their trio, smiling brightly, but Remi spied the taut edges.
“Sure.”
She followed her mom, pausing to smile at a few guests, putting on a good front, but her belly twisted into knots. Strain rode her shoulders, so by the time they entered the spotless kitchen, where more food platters covered the butcher-block island, her body was rigid with the strain.
“Declan showing up is certainly a surprise,” her mother said, leaning back against the edge of the island.
Jumping right into it, are we?
Remi smothered a sigh, wishing she’d stolen Sherri’s champagne.
“It is.”
Rochelle threw her hands up, huffing out a breath. “Remi, he’s here. That means something.”
“It could mean a lot of things. The main thing being not wanting to be rude by not showing up.” Although, she wondered, too. As of the night she’d kicked him out of her bed, her house, he didn’t have an obligation to her anymore. “Mom, don’t get your hopes up.” She was preaching to the choir. “He’s a nice guy, and that’s all there is to it. We’re done.”
“Honey.” She shook her head. “Why can’t you just put in a little effort? You had a man who actually took an interest in you, and what happened? What did you do?”
Hurt slapped at her, and her head jerked back. “What did I do?” she whispered. “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”
“Oh stop,” Rochelle snapped, slicing a hand through the air. “I’m not assigning blame. I’m just saying I wish you would try harder—”
“And do what?” A calm settled over her. Almost as if she stepped out of her body and gave herself permission to speak, to no longer hold back on every hurt, every wound that she’d paved over with excuses, disregard or laughter. “Talk less, laugh softer. Wear baggier clothes. Lose fifteen pounds. Try harder for Declan or any other man? Or try harder for you, Mom?”
