My voice cracks slightly, and Declan promptly soothes, “You have nothing to be worried about. I’m here. I’m not leaving you. Wherever I go, you go with me.”
I don’t respond as he holds me close to him. I’m not sure what to say, because even though he says I shouldn’t be worried, I am.
“I really need you to talk to me,” he urges. “Don’t close yourself off again.”
There’s a desperation in his eyes, a neediness that reminds me of our time in Chicago. I played him well, deceiving him to believe I was locked in a violent marriage that I couldn’t escape. He held the same desperation then. He tried so hard to help me, to save me, but I was always careful to keep him at a measured distance. I wanted him to believe he had all of me but none of me at the same time.
The game is over though. No longer do I want to see that look in his eyes. It once gave me pleasure to know I had him fooled, but that absconded the moment he crept into my heart. But in order to keep my soul intact, I need to continue to move in calculated steps.
“I am worried,” I admit.
“About what?”
“About you. If there’s no you . . . there’s no me.”
“You’re scared of losing me?”
I nod.
“You’re not going to lose me, you hear? It’s not happening.”
“I lost you once though. It was my fault. Trust me, I know. But I still lost you. I still know that pain, and it scares me.”
“I know that pain too. It wasn’t just you who felt it.” His words drip with intensity. “I felt it in my marrow. That’s how deep you run through me.”
“So much has happened. I wanted you the second I lost you, and now that I have you, I feel so . . .”
“What do you feel?”
Reaching my hand up to his face, I run my fingers along his jawline and through his overgrown stubble, listening to it crackle against my palm. “Disconnected,” I reveal and then drop my hand along with my head.
“Look at me,” he demands, and I do. “It’s okay. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around everything that’s been thrown my way these past few weeks, so I understand. I’ll take it away, I promise, but it’s going to take time. One thing I need you to know is that I’m here. I’ll remind you of that every day if I have to. I’m here.”
I allow his words to attempt their quieting on my anxiety as I take my hand and cover the bullet wound on his pec, the one Pike inflicted on him with the intent of killing him. My thumb brushes over the raised flesh, and when I look up, his focus is on my hand. Guilt courses its way through my bloodstream. His eyes flick to meet mine, and I ask, “Did it hurt?”
“Not as much as losing you,” he responds, wrapping his hand around my wrist while I continue to run my fingers along my betrayal that’s now branded on him for eternity.
“I manipulated you. I lied.”
“You did. And I hate you for that. I hate you for what your lies turned me into.”
“But you missed me?”
“I couldn’t unlove you.”
Pressing my hand flat against his chest, I feel his heart pumping, and I decide to rip a piece of my own heart off to give to him, exposing a tiny part of what I know I must protect in the fortress of my soul. Declan has always had a way of cutting right through to the core of me. So, I hand over my offering in the form of truth, letting him know, “You scare me.”
His heartbeat grows in force, exposing his frustration to my words.
“What about me scares you?”
“The way you break my walls so easily.”
“Why do you want walls between us?”
“Because I’m afraid to feel right now. There’s so much inside me that I’m fighting off. I’m scared it’ll be too much.”
He lets go of a hard breath, upset with what I just admitted to him. He drops his head for a moment, and then, with controlled force, he grabs my other wrist and pushes me down onto the bed. I don’t resist him when he straddles my legs and sits on top of my thighs. Green eyes scream for obedience, and I give him just that when he rips my top open, tearing the fabric and breaking the buttons to expose my breasts.
The chill of the air hardens my nipples instantly, but it isn’t my tits he’s after. He quickly gathers both my wrists into his one hand, restraining me, and then takes his other and presses it firmly to the center of my chest.
“This is mine,” he professes. “You want me?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“You want to be with me?”
“Yes.”
“Then this little heart of yours is mine. It beats for me, and I’ll provide its protection. You hear me?”
I nod.
“You need to trust me enough to take care of you. I won’t ever let you break.”
The rise and fall of my chest hits hard as I take hold of his words, needing them to calm my fears.
“Do you trust me?”
I nod again.
“Tell me.”
“I trust you.”
Another lie.