Page 113

“Our time?” she questions, lips stretching into a wide smile against my own.
“Right person, wrong time. Wrong time, wrong time, wrong fucking time, but Declan, this is it. This is our time. Right here, right fucking now. You and me. This is it.”
Tears well behind her eyelids, spilling free. “This is it.” Her words are breathless yet full of life.
“This is it,” I say again.
And then I kiss the absolute fuck out of her.
______
We talk for hours, our conversation plunging deep into the early hours of the morning. Laid back into the soft cushion of my pillows, Declan wrapped in my hold, her words spill over my skin, tattooing themselves onto my already inked body.
Speaking of.
I shift in bed and lean back against the headboard, bringing her with me, keeping her cradled in my lap with her head resting against my chest.
“I’ve got something I need to show you, Little D.”
She tips her head back, and blue eyes meet mine. “Oh yeah?”
I nod, palms growing sweaty. I’m not nervous, per se.I’m just—well, fuck that. I am nervous. I’ve inked her name in one of the clouds resting over my heart, and I’m not sure how she’s going to take it. “Can I—here,” I say, lifting her out of my lap and placingher onto the bed beside me. A position I haven’t been willing to release her from for hours now, until now.
Hand at the nape of my neck, I tug on my shirt and pull it over my head.
“Interesting. I’m not entirely upset about where this is going.” Her eyes brighten playfully and her smile dips downward as she tries and fails to tamp it down. The sight makes my heart beat faster.
But then she sees the tattoo and falls utterly silent, in awe. Tears building in her eyes, she strokes her finger over the curved letters of her name inked onto my skin. “You didn’t,” she says, eyes glued to her name on my chest. But of course I did. Declan is it for me. Always has been, always will be. Since our first fucking summer together.
The sheen in her eyes gives away how much she loves it—that I’ve etched her name permanently on my body.
I clear my throat. I might as well go all in and show her the others. Because I didn’t only tattoo her name on me once, or even twice, but three fucking times. And if I’m being honest, it still doesn’t feel like enough. But it’ll have to do—for now.
I run my thumb along theLittle Dthat marks the inside of my left ring finger, back and forth in a soothing gesture to help calm my nerves, before inhaling a deep breath and showing her.
Her breaths catch in her throat, and a soft cry of surprise spills out of her.
“You can’t be serious.” Her words are filled with awe and disbelief. She bites down on her smile, before looking up at me, as if asking,Is this real? Did you really tattoo my name on you not just once, but twice?
I bite back my own smile and nod. “There’s one more, actually.” I crook my finger into the band of my sweats and tug them low. An intricateDwritten beside my hipbone, in the crease where my lower stomach meets my uppermost thigh.
Her cheeks flush, and her eyes spark.
Her breaths still on her inhale and then gust out of her at once.
“What in the actual fuck, Jude?” she says the soft words through her smile, eyes brimming with tears before they spill over.
Lifting herself onto her knees, she straddles me, full attention on the letters of her name on my chest. “I cannot believe you did this,” she says, finger stroking back and forth over it rhythmically. When her blue eyes meet mine, more tears slip free. “This means so much to me.Everything.I love them,” she says, the words so quiet I feel them move through her more than I hear them.
Her finger continues moving in a soft path over her name, before she leans down and presses a kiss to it. Long, lingering, and warm.
Despite myself, my cock immediately springs to attention. But I keep my dick in my pants because right now isn’t the time for fucking around.
She brings my tattooed finger to her lips next, kisses her nickname, and sets my hand back down at my side. And then, she slides lower, pushing herself down my body, and replaces my index finger with hers in the band of my sweats. With a final, earth-shattering glance at me that rocks my entire world to its core, she presses a warm, open-mouthed kiss to the third and final tattoo.
And yeah, my dick jerks beneath my sweats once more.
She smirks—a wholly mischievous smirk—and wastes no time rubbing a palm over the hardness beneath my pants, before tugging them lower and forcing my cock free. It stands thick and proud, jerking at her attention. The way she licks her lips and bites down on them while eyeing my dick has it jumping again before she wraps her pink-tipped fingers around me.