by Anna Brooks
He blinks. “Okay. I’ll grab it and be right back.” Of course, he’s fine with it. Of freaking course!
“I need some Nair, too.”
“Fine.”
I look over at Clover and shake my head. I can’t bring myself to hold her yet. It’s going to kill me. It will rip me to fucking shreds, and I can’t do it. I can’t hold his baby and pretend I’m not envious, that I’m not gutted. “Dec, please just let me go.”
“No, I’m not ready to yet. And Larry’s still out there, so you can stay here with the alarm on. I’ll have Nik come sit outside.” He swallows before he stands with his beautiful baby girl and bounces her as he talks. “I was just about to put her to bed. You can stay here while she sleeps and I’ll go to the store.”
“Fine.”
I stomp back upstairs and sit on the bed. After a few minutes, I hear her door close, and he leans on the wall just inside my room.
“She’s sleeping. I’ll be back in a few. Nik’s on his way.”
“Okay. Here.” I try to hand him some money, but he just shakes his head and turns around. “Thank you.”
“Any time.”
My head begins to throb, and I pray, I freaking pray, that it’s not a migraine coming on. I don’t have my normal migraine meds with me, so I take some of the pain medication I do have and curl up in a ball, watching the numbers on the clock.
Thirty-seven minutes pass before Declan comes into my room. Without saying anything, he sets a bag next to me and walks out. I dump out the contents and find four different yeast infection creams and capsules, three different kinds of Nair, and a bag of Smarties, my favorite.
* * *
At one forty-seven in the morning, I wake up and cringe. My head is throbbing worse than ever. It’s been years since I’ve had a migraine. My head injury hurt less than this shit. I know it’s just going to get worse, so I get up, and as quietly as I can, I pad to the bathroom with the bag, since I fell asleep after he dropped it off.
A shooting pain causes tears to brim my eyes, and I grab onto the wall, inadvertently knocking a picture down. Forgetting my ribs are still painful, I reach down to grab the broken frame but weaken at the combined pain of my ribs and my head, and I fall to the ground. My shaky fingers reach out for the bottle that rolled out of the bag, but through blurry eyes in the dark, I can’t find it.
“Amie? You okay?” A sliver of light shines in front of me, and Declan’s shadow fills my line of vision. “Honey, what are you doing?”
He bends down and pulls me into his arms, cradling me.
“I needed to use the bathroom but knocked down a picture.”
“Come on.” He stands and turns the bathroom light on, but when I cringe he shuts it off, and then gently pulls me inside. He grabs the bag and its contents and sets it next to the toilet then leaves the door cracked behind him so I have a little light.
When I finally emerge five minutes later, he’s sitting on my bed. He’s pulled the sheets back for me and hands me some of my pain pills and a glass of water. Once I hand him back the glass, he sets it on the nightstand. “I’ll be right back.”
I toss back and forth, not able to get comfortable. If I’m on my side, my ribs hurt. If I’m on my back, my migraine intensifies. When he comes back in, I’m groaning and trying to get comfortable. He sets an ice pack on my head, and I sigh in relief as my pain begins to scatter throughout my head instead of just pounding in one spot.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He pulls the covers up, shuts the light off, and then lies next to me, running his hands through my hair. It’s what he did when we were together; he was always there for me. When I’d miss school because my migraines were so bad, he’d leave and come take care of me. If I couldn’t get out of bed on a Saturday night, he’d cancel his plans, and would comfort me enough so I could get some sleep.
I never knew that a man could be so attentive and caring. Nobody in my life has ever handled me with such care—not even my parents were so concerned. Not like they didn’t help me or give me what I needed, but with Declan, it was always different. I felt like if I was hurting, he was too. It’s a powerful thing to have that type of connection with someone.
I prayed and pretended he was next to me almost every night, and now that he’s here—that he’s back—I’m afraid I’ll wake up, and it’ll just have been a dream. I close my eyes, and a tear slides out—not from physical pain, but from heartache.
His fingers still in my hair and slide down, wiping away the wetness. “Try to sleep, honey.”
I’m so tired, but I fight it just to enjoy the feel of him again. To have his arms around me and to feel safe and loved and cherished. To feel like I matter. Much to my dismay, I lose the battle. My eyes become heavy, and sleep finds me.
When I wake up in the morning, I’m alone in the bed. I blink my eyes and am so happy my migraine is gone. A dull ache persists, so I take a couple more pills and get out of bed to get ready. By the time I get downstairs, Declan and Clover are already outside playing in the backyard. He has her propped up, and her little fist clenches a dandelion.
Dec takes another one and bops her on the nose with it. She laughs and hits him in the face with her flower. Watching him laugh and smile at his little girl is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. I yearn to go out there with them and participate, but it’s not my place. She’s not my daughter, and he’s not my man. Not anymore.
* * *
With the ceiling fan on, I stare at the blades and listen to the noises in the hallway until the house goes silent. Sleep doesn’t find me well tonight. It pisses me off that the one time I wanted to stay awake, I couldn’t. I haven’t been able to get a good night’s sleep ever since a week ago when Declan stayed in my bed with me. Since I didn’t have a migraine anymore, he went back to his own bed.
Now, I toss and turn until the sky starts to lighten. Clover’s soft cry startles me. I expect to hear Dec comforting her any second now, but after she goes unattended, I throw the covers off and tiptoe to her room.
Declan’s door is closed, but the faint sound of water comes from his attached bathroom. After the water doesn’t shut off and her cry gets louder, I look through the crack of her door and walk to the crib, where she cries even louder when she sees me. Her watery eyes plead with me to pick her up.
I hesitantly lift her out of the crib and hold her close. Her weight feels foreign in my arms, but welcoming at the same time. Natural. She stops fussing but pushes her fist into her mouth. Instead of focusing on the fact that I’m holding her, I put my energy into doing whatever I have to in order to be able to put her back down.
“You hungry?” She sucks on her closed hand, and her eyes well with tears. “Okay, let’s go get you a bottle.”
Quickly and carefully, I head downstairs to heat up a bottle, and I change her diaper while waiting. Declan keeps a drawer in the kitchen stuffed with a changing pad and clean diapers and wipes. He’s a smart man, such a good father. After testing the temperature of the formula, I carry her back upstairs and sit in her rocking chair.
As soon as the rubber nipple touches her lips, she sucks on it and her eyes close. I fight back the affliction surging through me right now. A tear falls out of my eye and lands on her pink onesie. Tilting my head up, I blink rapidly to force them back in, and when she finally falls asleep, I set the bottle on the floor and hold her a little tighter. Completely going against my gut, I allow myself this one moment. Just this one.
She’s so beautiful. A spitting image of Declan. Her hair is the same color, her eyes are the same color, and when she laughs, you’d swear angels were singing. This is everything. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I’ll never have. I rock with her warm body snuggled against mine and hold her as tight as I can without hurting her.
“I was wondering what it was going to take for you to hold her.” Declan leans on the doorframe, shirtless, the ends of his hair darker from still being wet. His arms are above his head, and his fingertips curl into
the wood. The gray sweatpants not only show off his sexy ‘v,’ but the bulge of his cock is clearly visible, and it makes my mouth water.
“What?”
“This is the first time you’ve held her since you’ve been here.”
“Oh, I didn’t notice,” I lie.
“Liar.”
I want to raise my voice and argue with him, but I don’t. One, because he’s right. And two, because I don’t want to upset Clover. It’s pointless anyway—he knows me too well to try to pull one over on him.
He still understands me better than I understand myself, except for that one thing he doesn’t know… something he’ll never know because even though I love being with him again, I ruined his life once, and I won’t do it again. I’d rather him hate me than to know the truth. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me why it’s taken you almost four weeks to hold her.” He drops his hands and walks farther into the room.
“I don’t know.”
“Amie.”
“It’s hard, okay?” I admit.
“What is?”
“Are you going to make me say it?”
He just nods; the handsome bastard isn’t going to make it easy on me… If he only knew.
“She’s not mine,” I whisper, tears finally unable to hold themselves in. “I always dreamed that we would have a baby together, and it fucking hurts, okay? I wanted your baby to be mine. I wanted to watch it grow in my belly and hold your hand while I gave birth. And you went and had one and named her what we were supposed to name our little girl. It hurts, but I deserve it. It’s my fault I don’t have it with you.”
Declan comes over to me and squats down, grabbing my hand. “You don’t think I always wanted that, too? That I didn’t dream of having a family with you? Christ, Amie, I lived for you. I planned my life around you. I fucking loved you.”
A choked sob bubbles up from my throat, and Clover moves around.
I hand her over to him and wipe my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” He shakes his head, and the disappointment in his voice burns right through me.
He easily comforts her, his concern for her wellbeing a beautiful thing. It makes me realize that I did the right thing. As much as it hurts, and as much as I sacrificed, I did the right thing so he could have her. “You have your daughter; you have nothing to be sorry for.”
Chapter 12
Declan
AMIE WALKS OUT OF Clover’s room and shuts the door behind her. I’m being an ass, but I don’t care. She’s been here for weeks and given me practically nothing. It’s like we’re old college roommates or something when we’re anything but. I’m done with all this avoidance bullshit.
I’ve given her enough time, and when it really comes down to it, she’s the one who should be kissing my ass, not the other way around. She cheated on me. She lied. She tarnished what we had… something so precious and extraordinary it ruined me in every good and bad way.
Amie’s body is healing, and mentally she appears to be in a good place, all things considered. She’s just shutting me out and literally turning her back on me every time I try to talk to her. No more. We’ve already wasted enough damn time.
I sit with Clover and rock her until she falls back asleep. I lay her in her crib, and then quietly close her door. My bare feet are soundless against the carpet as I make my way down the hall to Amie’s room. Without knocking, I open her door and freeze just inside the room.
She grabs a shirt and holds it against her naked chest. “Get out! What are you doing?”
My throat seizes up, and I have to clear it before I swallow. I take in her toned legs, her round, luscious ass, and the startled eyes that peek at me through the mirror with heat in them. Enough to tell me she’s not as unaffected as she’s been pretending. I bet that if I touched her right now, she’d be wet for me.
I close the door and slowly make my way to her. Her expression reflects how I feel… needy.
“Dec, stop,” she pleads with desperation, knowing what I’m about to do.
I don’t mind her back to me right now. I’m not sure I could look directly into her eyes without breaking down. I’ve wanted to touch her again so badly that it’s hard to breathe when I think about it. Nothing and nobody ever replaced her or filled the void that she left.
When I step behind her, she drops her head, and I press my bare chest against the smooth skin of her back. The warm familiarity of her immediately saturates, and I can feel myself hardening against her, my sweats an inconvenient barrier.
“Fuck, you feel good, honey.” I run my hands up and down her arms and press harder against her, rattling the dresser when she stumbles forward. “Drop the shirt, Mimi.”
She lowers her arms and allows her breasts to fall free, holding the cotton against her belly. My fingers itch to touch her there, and after waiting almost twenty years to do so, I become dizzy.
I glide my index fingers down her sides, then flatten my hands and slide them to cup her breasts in my hands. We both groan at the same time, and I lower my head and kiss her neck to taste her skin again.
“Damn, baby. You’re still fucking perfect.” I knead the soft globes and graze over the peaks of her hardened nipples. “I dreamed about touching these again. Sucking on them. Fucking them. Coming on them.”
“Declan.” Her ass presses against me harder.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“Yeah?” I ask, as I kiss down her spine, dropping to my knees so I can feast on her from behind.
“Yes.”
“Spread your legs and stick your ass out. Let me taste you again.”
She eagerly complies, and I lick her wet slit, her sweet flavor an aphrodisiac that makes my dick leak. “Fuck, Amie. You’re as good as I remember, better even. So good.”
I spread her open and admire her from this angle. The soft, pink wetness pulsates for me, throbbing, begging for my touch. She’s almost as desperate as I am.
“Please,” she begs.
Without delay, I eat her like I know she likes. Soft and slow, teasing her into oblivion. My mouth and tongue work together to make her feel good, to worship her body and show her how good it is. How much I love it. How much I’ve missed it. How much I want to be inside it.
She rocks back onto my face, and I grip her hips to hold her still. Her finger slides to her clit where she presses. I pull my mouth away and tsk her. “I’m making you come, Mimi. Touch yourself and I stop.” Immediately, her hand disappears, and I dive back in.
I circle her opening, and then do the same to her tight clit, deciding to have mercy on her. Her juices flood my mouth, and I know she’s close, so I slide my tongue inside her, and she cries out and tightens around me. “Declan!” she screams, and I continue fucking her with my mouth until her body sags, and my balls tighten, ready for their own release.
With one hand, I push my sweats down to my ankles then grip her hips and tilt her up even further. I slide in without delay, nice and easy since she’s so wet, and can’t hold back the growl that erupts from deep in my chest as my fingers clench her soft curves.
“Fuck. Goddamn. You’re like heaven, honey.” I grind into her, and my balls graze her thighs. A few slow glides are all it takes for my imminent release to reach its peak. “I need to fuck you.”
“Do it,” she pants.
I reach around and palm her tits to leverage myself as I slide out to the tip of my cock and pound back inside her wet heat. My heart beats as fast as I fuck her, and when she drops the shirt and reaches back to dig her nails into my thighs as she screams my name, I lose it.
My bones tighten in my spine and I still inside of her as my cum fills her up, my legs twitching with my release. I lean forward and press my sweaty chest against her back while we catch our breath. After a minute of my body shaking, I kick my pants off and pull out; my wet dick is still semi-hard and slaps against my stomach.
We both stumble over to the bed and
fall on it. Amie grabs the sheets and pulls them up to her neck. I prop my head up with an arm and use the other hand to pull her closer. I want to look at her closer; I want to make sure my memory is right.
As I’m studying her face, I pass over her lips and realize I haven’t kissed them, so I rectify the situation. Her mouth parts for me, and our tongues graze in an intimate, familiar dance. If I could lie here with her forever, I would. I’d lock out the world and just fix us so we can move the hell on.
I pull back with a final peck. My breathing begins to even out, and I contemplate what to say. I didn’t intend to take her the way I did, but fuck, seeing her like that and knowing how good it is with her was just too much. I’m not that strong. And goddamn, it was incredible. Almost better than the first time.
“I’m not sorry,” I tell her.
“I know you’re not.” She laughs.
A few moments of silence pass and she begins to nibble on her lip, so I take advantage of her silence. “I want you to take those self-defense lessons from Pierce. I think it’s still a good idea.”
She nods. “I will if he’ll allow it.”
“He will.”
“Okay.”
“We need to talk.”
Her head bobs, and she clears her throat. She sits back, grabs a pillow and clutches it against herself, then pulls her knees up. I have to force my eyes away from her pussy that’s peeking out between her legs, my cum dripping out and leaving a wet spot on the sheet.
“I know we do,” she agrees.
“So talk.”
She looks at my face, then down to my stomach, then at my cock, then down my legs, and licks her lips before her eyes slide back up even slower. “Can you put some clothes on?”
“Fine.” I hop out of her bed and reach for my sweats. “We probably shouldn’t be in a bed, either. Meet me in the kitchen.”
I saunter out of the room and stop in the bathroom quickly before I head downstairs. We need to talk about a lot of shit, but I also don’t want to make her uncomfortable and push her too fast. But after what just happened, she can’t expect things to continue the way they have been.
