“Such as?”
“That Natalie would never forgive him if he murdered the love of your life.”
She closes one eye and wrinkles her nose, trying to work it out. “Why would Natalie think you’re the love of my life?”
“You’re going to tell her I am.”
Her face smooths out. She arches her eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I must’ve heard you incorrectly. Did you just suggest I tell my best friend that you”—she looks me up and down—“are the love of my life?”
“You heard me.”
“So you want me to lie to her.”
I tilt my head and gaze at her through half-lidded eyes.
“Sorry, gangster. Smolder all you want, but she’s the love of my life.”
I’m gone for three days, and she forgets who she’s dealing with. “I see. So you’d like Kazimir to cut off my balls and choke me to death with them?”
When she blanches, I smile. “That’s his specialty. Russians are so dramatic.”
“You’re blackmailing me. This is emotional blackmail!”
“It is. I’m not a good person. Whoops.”
She props her hands on her hips and looks at me down her nose, like I’m a peasant with oozing sores. “Well, too bad. I won’t do it. If you can’t survive on your own without my help, you’re not the gangster I thought you were.”
Oh, how I’d like to spank that fine arse of hers until she’s squealing.
She’d love it, though, so I don’t.
I shrug and leave the room.
She follows on my heels. “What does that shrug mean? Where are you going?”
“To bed.”
I head to the bedroom, her anger at my back like a toxic cloud. In the master bathroom, I kick off my boots, strip out of my clothes, and step into the shower.
I stand under the hot spray with my eyes closed for several moments, letting hot water slide over my skin. Sloane stands outside the door, seething at me through the glass.
“I won’t tell her you’re the love of my life.”
“I heard you.”
“And I know you don’t need me to, either. You just want me to. This is only you trying to get me to say how I feel about you again.”
“If that’s what you think.”
“It is what I think.”
“Right. That’s it, then.”
“It is.”
Ignoring her, I pick up the bar of soap and lather my chest. I take my time washing myself, soaping my arms, chest, and abs. Then I rinse, turn around, and tip my head back into the spray.
I can feel her greedy gaze on my body.
She mutters, “Show-off.”
“Get your arse in here, woman.”
“Pfft.”
“Now.”
“Pardon me, but I’m not a terrier. You don’t get to bark orders—”
Her snippy tirade ends as I open the door and drag her, fully clothed, into the shower.
I press her against the wall, pin her wrists above her head, and take her mouth. The kiss is hard and hungry.
She’s just as starving as I am. She kisses me back like it’s her last two minutes on earth.
Then it’s a frantic race to get her out of her clothes. They’re half wet and stick to her skin, but it doesn’t slow us down.
“Tampon?”
“No. Period’s done.”
I lift her up and press her back against the wall. She wraps her legs around my waist and reaches down between us to guide me in.
“Fuck, baby. Hurry.”
“Yes—oh—there—”
I shove inside with a chest-deep grunt that echoes off the tile walls. She arches back with a soft moan. Her fingernails dig into my shoulders.
I fuck her, holding her up against the shower wall, water spraying everywhere, until she cries out.
“God, I’m there. I’m there already, Declan—oh—”
Her pussy clenches convulsively around my cock. It feels like being milked by a fist.
I kiss her as I come, my tongue down her throat and my hands under her arse, my thighs burning and my heart on fire.
It doesn’t matter if she won’t say I’m the love of her life. It doesn’t matter if she never tells me how she feels at all.
No words can compete with this.
When we’re both breathing hard and twitching, coming down from the high, she drops her head and hides her face in my shoulder.
She whispers, “You might be a distant second to Nat. Very distant. Jerk.”
My chest expands. I start to laugh, just to have somewhere for the all the emotion to go.
Withdrawing from her body, I set her on her feet and take her face in my hands. My voice husky with pleasure, I say, “Good enough.”
Then I kiss her, holding her close, filled with joy when I feel how hard her heart beats against my chest.
It’s beating at the same pace as mine.
34
Declan
Later in bed, we lie together silently, watching the sun come up. We’re on our sides, her back to my front, my arm underneath her neck, her head resting on my pillow. My knees are drawn up behind hers.
I once paid three hundred thousand dollars for a wristwatch. I remember it now and smile at how I thought a hunk of metal was worth something.
But I had nothing of real value to compare it to.
Now I do.
Sloane says, “You always wear black because it hides blood the best.”
I wonder what’s behind that, the training-wheel-trust question she suggested from days ago, before I left. “Why don’t you tell me one secret, and we’ll go from there. Like why you always wear black.”
“Aye.”
“I used to do the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
She inhales slowly, lets the breath out. “I used to cut myself. I didn’t heal well. If I wore white, there would be little flecks of blood everywhere. I looked like an assault victim.”
That stuns me. “You? Cut yourself? Why?”
“Pain needs an outlet.”
I wait, knowing there will be more, not wanting to disrupt her thoughts before she puts them into words.
“I was this really chubby kid. My parents called me Chunky Monkey. Thought it was cute, my little belly roll, until I turned ten. Then my mother decided it was a bad reflection on her parenting. My dad thought it was a lack of willpower. A character flaw. They both hated it. And the bigger I got, the more disappointed they were in me, as if my flesh equaled my value. I took up too much space. Even without saying a word, I was too loud. Too obvious. Too overpowering. I had to be gotten under control.”
I listen, riveted, trying to imagine this lion I know as a cub.
“The summer between fifth and sixth grades, they made me go to fat camp.”
“Fat camp?”
“It’s exactly as bad as it sounds. Six weeks of body shaming disguised as education. That’s where I learned I wasn’t okay as I was. I was defective. In order to be okay, in order to be acceptable to society, I had to change. I had to shrink. I couldn’t be allowed to go on in my sad state, thinking my body was fine. Man, what that shit does to a little kid’s brain.”
“I don’t like your parents.”