Yeah, I really wouldn’t be losing sleep over Walter, even if Declan carried out his threats.
He unfastened my watch and set it aside on the counter, the light glinting off of the shattered face. “Shit, I’ve had that watch for years,” I mumbled, knowing it was such a small thing in the grand scheme, but…that was the last remnant of my old life. The only possession I’d retained that had any intrinsic value.
“That watch saved your life, actually,” Declan said in an oddly restrained tone. “I, ah. Put a tracking device in it before I gave it back to you. That’s why I gave it back to you.” I stared at him, half in fury and half in…awe at his forethought? But what a sneaky asshole! “I’ll buy you ten more,” he added quickly, as if trying to stave off my anger. “As many as you want. And I won’t put trackers in any of them, you have my word.” That didn’t really make me feel less offended, but when he lifted my wrist and kissed it, that took the wind out of my sails.
“I don’t need ten. I don’t need any.” He looked up from where he was bent over my arm, lips caressing me, and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Okay, one or two. No Rolexes, though.”
He shook his head and laughed, his breath heating my skin and raising the hair on my arm, and then let me go, starting to work on my shirt. It peeled down and drifted to the floor. Declan moved closer, his breaths the only sound except for the shower. His fingertips traced my ribs. “Blake,” he whispered. “Blake.”
As if that was the only thing he had to say, the only thing that needed to be said.
Declan knelt, undoing my belt and fly, the zipper slowly sliding down. I hadn’t been conscious of becoming aroused. Too exhausted, too overwhelmed, too shaky, too stunned by eating and healing.
But as he slipped his hand into the gap of my open trousers and ran his fingers over my length, I hardened, the blood rushing to my cock making me lightheaded.
Declan leaned in and nuzzled me, breath hot through the cotton of my boxer briefs. I lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, my own breath catching. I’d knelt for him so many times. I wanted to do it again, and soon. But I’d been on my knees for other men before. Giving a blowjob turned me on, even when it wasn’t the man I loved. Declan didn’t have a single submissive bone in his body. If he wanted to be on his knees at my feet…that was for me.Onlybecause of me.
“I should’ve just done it,” he murmured, and it took me a moment to realize what he meant.
“I wouldn’t have appreciated it,” I said. With regret, because I knew it was true. I wouldn’t have valued him at his real worth ten years ago. I’d been so stupid.
He glanced up, eyes sparking with desire and something predatory that sent a shiver down my back. “I’d have made you appreciate it,” he growled, and then he tore my underwear down and swallowed my cock all at once.
I staggered and practically doubled over, curling down around him in an effort not to come instantly, the hot, eager suction of his mouth overwhelming me. Steam curled around us from the running shower, the air thick and heavy with moisture and with two alphas’ pheromones, with Declan’s powerful, rich alpha strength winding around me. My lungs labored and my cock pressed into Declan’s throat, his hands on my hips holding me up as much as keeping me where he wanted me.
My balls drew up hard and tight, my stomach clenching. So close, his tongue dancing over the underside, my cockhead throbbing against the roof of his mouth.
Declan pulled off completely. I let out a cry of frustration.
“This is what I would’ve done to you. Gotten you so close. Gotten you fucking begging for it.” I whimpered, not even able to beg. I would have then, though, if he’d given me what I asked for—his version of it, anyway.
I’d clearly had no idea what I’d been inviting when I propositioned him.
He was shoving my remaining clothing off, my cock bobbing neglected in front of his face. I lifted one foot and then the other, and he’d gotten up and manhandled me into the shower before I could blink.
I slumped against the shower wall, the heat of the water shocking, the wall cold, my legs near giving out…and then Declan was there, pressed against my back and even hotter than the shower. His cock pushed between the cheeks of my ass, so hard and thick, the head nudging my hole. I moaned and tried to arch my back to take him in. He could fuck me raw, I wanted it, I wanted…
“I’d have done it ten years ago.” He pulled his hips back. “Slammed you up against the wall. Spread your legs and fucking reamed you.” He thrust again, pulling my cheeks apart and rubbing his cockhead over my clenching hole. “You’d have taken it, Blake.”
“I would, I’d have taken it then, I’ll take it now, please—”
“No,” he said, and pulled back again, arm looping around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Not now. Ten years ago, yeah. But—not tonight. I want to,” he went on, voice dipping low and hoarse. “Believe me. But I almost lost you. I almost—” He broke off in a groan, kissing my shoulder, arm tightening around me. “I almost lost you,” he said quietly, and I felt a minute tremor go through him, as if he’d only in that moment taken the time to think about it.
I put my hand on his forearm, petting him, soothing him, torn between horror that he’d been put through that much fear and worry and a totally, shamefully delighted exultation that he’d cared enough.
Fuck, I could be forgiven for it tonight. I’d be the better man tomorrow when I hadn’t been kidnapped.
Tonight, I could savor it.
“You have me,” I said. Declan leaned against me, still rigid with tension, fingers digging into my waist. He drew a deep, shuddering breath. Gods. There was only one thing I could say that’d reassure him, that’d make me as vulnerable as he was to me right then. One thing I’d been hoping not to say until he said it first—if he ever did, which I wasn’t counting on. I squeezed my eyes shut and gathered all the courage that’d let me dive through the window of a car earlier that night, plus a little, since that hadn’t been nearly as scary as this. “I love you.”
I thought Declan had been tense before. As soon as the words left my lips, he turned into granite.
“You love me.” His flat tone gave nothing away.
My heart twisted into a miserable, hard little ball.
I shouldn’t have said anything. So stupid, and now he’d change his mind—
