“There’s no fucking way,” he said, with an edge of bitterness. “You’re grateful to me, and you need me because you don’t have anyone else. And you want me,” he growled. “I’m going to keep you so well fucked that you’ll never stop wanting me. But you can’t possibly love me. Not after the way I’ve treated you. You don’t need to lie to me to make sure I take care of you, Blake. I will. No matter what.”
Of course. Of course he thought I was lying. My hand clenched on his forearm, fingers digging in so hard it had to be painful, but at least I kept my claws in check.
I didn’t want him to take care of me.
Okay, yes, I fucking wanted him to take care of me. But more than that…I wanted him to trust me the way I’d chosen to trust him.
And maybe that was more important than my pride.
“I do love you,” I choked out. “Whether or not you can love me, I do. Love you.” The shower hammered down, nearly drowning out the words if he hadn’t had a shifter’s enhanced hearing. I was so glad he was behind me and couldn’t see my face; if I’d had to meet his eyes to say this, I’d never have been able to get it out. I knew I was stumbling over my words anyway, repeating myself, unable to convey the clarity I felt inside. “Maybe I deserved what you did. And—I’ve seen you the way you really are. And I love you. So if you can’t love me, that’s all ri—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Blake!” He spoke so loudly it made me wince. “Fuck.” He wrapped his other arm around me and pulled me all the way against him, pressing his face into my neck. It muffled what he said next, but not enough; he wasn’t the only one with supernatural ears. “Of course I fucking love you.”
His sincerity, the truth of it, rang in every word. It echoed inside me, resonating, filling me, expanding me so much it felt like I might vibrate out of my own skin.
Telling him I loved him hadn’t felt nearly as momentous as repeating his words back to him, feeling the weight of them on my lips and in my soul.
“You love me,” I whispered.
Declan mouthed at the junction of my neck and shoulder, the place where he’d bitten me so many times. So many false starts, so many half-formed bonds, so many agonizing moments when that sense of connection had faded into nothingness and left me hollow and alone.
“Yeah, darlin’. I love you. I mean it. If you don’t mean it after all, don’t tell me. I don’t think I’ll survive it.”
I couldn’t help laughing. Declan, insecure? How could he possibly—but he’d stopped moving, his mouth still. “I’m sorry, you just—you really are stupid about this kind of thing, Declan.”
“Too stupid to deserve you.” He punctuated the words by kissing me right where a mating bite would go. A real mating bite.
“You know, the next time you bite me, I’m warning you. I’m going to bite you back.”
Declan sucked in a deep, hitching breath, his hips surging forward as if he couldn’t help himself, his hard cock riding the crease of my ass. Gods, I’d almost forgotten about my own, but it was just as hard.
“Let’s get you washed up,” he said, suddenly sounding like a man on a mission. “Because the things I want to do to you, I can’t do in a shower stall.”
I smiled and pushed off the wall, reaching for the soap.
I could get on board with that. And I’d make him tell me he loved me again and again, preferably while he knotted me, and claimed me, and owned me—and really forced me to believe, without the slightest shadow of a doubt, that he meant it.
Chapter 21
A Lucky Man
If I’d really tried, I might’ve been able to look at a calendar and count how many times Declan had laid me out on his bed, naked and waiting for him to take what he wanted.
But I didn’t need to count to know that it’d never been like this.
He settled me on my back, head carefully placed on a pillow, kneeling between my legs and leaning down to stroke a hand through my hair and down my cheek, coming to rest across my throat. Instead of a threat, it felt like safety.
All right, a little bit of a threat.
But that only had my cock perking up, getting harder every second that he pinned me down, glowing eyes fixed on my face with an intensity that would’ve had any sane man running away screaming.
Or spreading his legs.
I went with option two, letting my knees fall open to give him full access, my arms relaxed at my sides. Touching him—I wanted to, and I would. But right now I knew what he needed from me, and that was complete surrender, allowing him to re-stake his claim on me. I’d been taken from him. He needed to take me back. I was alpha enough to empathize.
I lay passive and still as he ghosted his other hand over my chest, made me let out two hitching gasps in a row with a soft tweak to each nipple, and trailed his fingers down my stomach and to my inner thigh, his eyes following the path of his hand. His fingers tightened slightly around my throat as he slid the other hand under my balls, two fingertips tracing my hole. I had to tip my head back to get a full breath, lengthening my throat and making myself as vulnerable as one alpha could to another.
Declan’s chest rose and fell faster as he gazed down between my legs.
