Page 11 of Declan (Gold Team #5)

I had no idea how long Declan had been holding me.

I didn’t even remember getting out of the shower or him putting us in bed. But there we were. He was on his back, my head was resting on his chest, and his arm was around me. He was also holding me tight, anchoring me to him so I wouldn’t drift away.

I desperately wanted to lash out. I wanted to rail against the kindness he was showing me. I didn’t want it. I didn’t deserve it. I was a horrible, disgusting person. But I was too damn tired. I’d been fighting for years. Fighting to escape, to stay alive, then to escape more.

Escape from the pain and memories.

Nothing fucking worked.

Not a damn thing.

Until that kiss.

Now I felt broken in a new way. Old and new clashed together in a maelstrom of feelings .

Fuck Declan.

God, what was wrong with me ?

I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to block out the pain. The anger, regret, guilt. I’d made a mess of my life .

Declan’s hand captured mine and he pulled it across his torso and pressed my palm under his heart.

Over his tattoo.

Fresh tears leaked from the corner of my clenched eyelids. The battle was lost, I couldn’t hold it inside.

“Took something from you.” Declan’s rough voice hit my ears. The throaty timbre made me shiver. “And as I was taking, you were still giving me what I needed.”

I had ?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

God, was that my voice ? I sounded raspy and out of breath.

Declan cleared his throat. When he explained, I heard it, the torturous pain.

“You know me better than anyone. You know where you can touch me and how.”

I did know, not from trial and error. Not because I’d asked or gone on a discovery of his body but because I recognized the signs.

I knew because, like him, I couldn’t tolerate gentle explorations.

When we came together it was animalistic, wild, full of pent-up sexual need.

So I knew how to touch him roughly, scratch and claw.

Lick and bite. But never skim or rub. And in return, he didn’t pin me down, he didn’t press his chest against mine.

He fucked me on my hands and knees, bent over a piece of furniture, I was on top, or he’d keep himself on his knees with my legs wrapped around him and pound into me.

Never missionary. Never touching. Never kissing or cuddling.

So when he’d grabbed my face and kissed me, I’d kept my arms lamely at my sides and hadn’t reached for him.

But that had more to do with me not knowing what the hell to do.

I’d never kissed a man before. The first one who tried I’d nearly bit through his lip.

After that, it was spread far and wide—never attempt touching my mouth .

But right then, I was touching him, and he’d placed my hand where he’d wanted it.

What the hell ?

This was not us.

“Why am I touching you now?”

He didn’t answer, his hand over mine just pressed harder. His heart was thumping so violently I could feel the tremor vibrating across his chest all the way to where mine was against the right side of his body. Actually, now that I was paying attention, I felt him simply trembling all over.

He didn’t like my hand on him. I felt his pain turn into panic.

“Dec, honey, don’t do this.”

“It’s not for my sister,” he weirdly stated.

“What’s not?”

“My ink. My Violet. My daughter. It’s her, not my sister.”

Oh, shit.

Oh, hell .

I didn’t want this knowledge. I was already broken, I didn’t think I could take Declan’s pain, too. I wasn’t strong enough.

“There was a war going on. Two local drug lords fighting over territory. I knew it. I wanted us clear of the area, but Juliana had spent months putting together Violet’s birthday party.

Her family, friends, all invited. Everything set and ready.

Violet’s actual birthday fell on a Saturday and Juliana wanted to celebrate that day.

Local reports were light but all intel said that the fighting had slowed.

So I relented. Jesus fuck, I never should’ve given in.

I should’ve held firm. Never should’ve agreed to have the party at a park.

Sitting ducks, everyone milling about, laughing, no one paying a bit of fucking attention to anything other than my baby girl turning one.

Violet was barely walking. A coupla steps here and there.

Juliana and her parents were clapping and laughing with Violet walking between them.

I didn’t know why, what made me look, but I fucking felt it.

I knew before it happened that my life was over. ”

Declan paused, took a stuttering breath, and I couldn’t take anymore.

I couldn’t live with the knowledge of what came next.

I couldn’t. My heart was already shattered and whatever had happened to Declan that caused his life to be over would demolish me.

Whatever it was that made this big, strong, tough man tremble and shake violently—if it did that to him, it would kill me.

“Honey,” I whispered in an effort to make him stop.

I knew my voice wobbled, I knew it sounded weak, but I couldn’t let him continue to torture himself, to relive something so horrific that he was squeezing me to him like he wanted to absorb me yet at the same time fly out of his skin.

“Four cars rolled into the parking lot. I yelled for Juliana. She looked up, saw the cars, grabbed our girl, but it was too late, shots rang out. Fucking hell, bullets mowed down everyone in their path. Juliana’s family was dropping, people were running and screaming.

So goddamn loud. Never forgot the sound.

By the time I made it to my wife, it was too late.

I was too late. Violet was limp in her arms. Fucking blood pouring out of my baby.

So many holes. Fuck! I was too late. A living death.

I pulled Juliana into my arms. She was still clutching our girl even though she was gone, still trying to protect her.

Until her last breath and Violet rolled and I saw.

Every bullet that had hit my girl had passed through her into Juliana.

Both gone. Both dead in my arms. A living fucking death. ”

His voice hitched and I was frozen, suspended in time, gripped in grief and the worst sorrow I’d ever felt. Ever. Not even when my body was being abused had I ever felt heartache so deep. So complete that it covered me in a darkness I never knew existed. Had never felt.

Not once in my life .

And Declan lived with that, every day.

A living death.

Oh, God .

I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t know if it was because Declan’s arms were like two steel bands around me and my lungs had collapsed, or if it was from his heavy breathing. He was struggling to suck in air. I felt it. His anguish was stifling.

I tried to roll away and his arms got tighter.

“Honey, let me up.”

“Can’t.”

“Please, Dec, honey, let me up.”

I pushed again and his arm around me fell limp onto the mattress. As fast as I could, I scrambled so I was sitting astride him, my hands resting on his chest. I’d looked down at his handsome face from this perch many times, dozens and dozens. But never had I seen him so destroyed.

There were no words to describe the raw pain on his face.

No words to define the pain I felt when I saw tears in his eyes.

Oh, God.

“Declan, look at me.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Dec, honey, please look at me.”

His red-brown eyes came to mine. I inhaled at the sight. The Declan I knew wasn’t there. Not even the lethal warfighter I knew him to be.

Gone.

Every muscle trembled, a hard wall of agony.

“I’m so sorry you lost them.”

“Don’t!” His hands went to my hips, presumably to toss me to the side, but I tightened my thighs against his hips and refused to budge.

“There are no words, Dec, to tell you how much my heart hurts. It aches for you.” He made a strangled sound that gutted me. “For them.”

“Enough.”

“And while we were in the shower, you didn’t take anything from me. You gave me something. A tiny piece of my heart back. You stitched it back into place. Thank you for that.”

The pads of his fingers dug into my flesh and I knew he could take no more.

Hell, I could take no more.

I leaned forward slowly and gave him the only thing I could. I pressed my lips to his forehead. I lingered for as long as my emotional state would allow. Then I rolled off of him, rolled again to the edge of the bed, got to my feet, and went in search of my clothes.

Thankfully, I’d placed them on the small vanity when I’d undressed.

The floor was sopping wet, making me wonder if Declan had bothered to dry us off at all when he pulled us out of the shower.

By the looks of it, he hadn’t. Yet my hair was already drying which meant I’d been lying in bed next to him comatose for a good long while.

I quickly mopped up the floor with a towel, got dressed, and went back into the bedroom.

Declan was still on his back. His right hand rested on his tattoo, his left arm bent at a forty-five-degree angle with his forearm covering his eyes.

He was wrecked.

Emotionally devastated.

And he did that for me.

He’d thought he’d taken something from me when he kissed me.

So in return, he gave me something back.

His daughter. His Violet. He’d also given me Juliana.

The longer I watched his chest rise and fall the more I wondered about his wife.

She would’ve had to have been someone special.

Beautiful and strong to capture a man like Declan.

I’d bet she was everything I wasn’t.

I was sorry he’d lost them .

I made it to the side of the bed and didn’t know what to do. Declan and I didn’t have heart-to-hearts. We didn’t share our deepest, darkest secrets. Only now, we had.

He’d given me Juliana and Violet, so before I left, I’d give him one more thing.

“After I was rescued, I wanted to die.” Declan moved his arm to look at me and I wished he hadn’t.

It would be easier to tell him what I had to say without him looking at me.

“I wanted to die so bad but I was such a coward I couldn’t do it.

Then when I wasn’t recovering…whatever the hell that means, as quickly as Emerson and my parents wanted me to, I started to hate them.

But that wasn’t why I ran away. I heard Emmy crying.

She was in her room and I sat outside the door for a long time listening.

Pissed off at the world. Pissed off at her for feeling sorry for me.

When she finally sobbed herself to sleep, I went into her room.

She was asleep holding a picture frame. I took it from her and I knew I needed to free her.

She wasn’t crying over me, she was mourning the life she should’ve had.

I put the picture back on her bed and packed my shit. I left the next day.”

“Who was in the picture?”

“Her and Thad. I wanted to set her free. Give him back to her. Those ten years they were apart, I stole from them. And she never stopped loving him, not for a single day. I know Emerson, I know she loved Thad so deeply, that love would never die.”

I looked down at him. All of the pain still marred his features but there was understanding. So I changed my mind, I wanted him to know one more thing.

“I’ve never had that. Not ever has anyone loved me.

And I’ve tried to deny it, push it down, lock it away, pretend I never wanted it.

But the truth is, that’s all I want. All I’ve ever wanted was to be able to love someone so completely like Emmy loves Thad, and in return be loved the same way.

And it fucking kills me to know I’ll never have it.

That’s why I don’t want to see Emmy. Why I don’t want to know my niece or nephew.

Why I can’t be around Thad. They have everything I never will and the sight of them eats at me. ”

“Autumn—”

“No more sharing, Declan. I think we’ve both had enough for one day.”

Or a lifetime .

I turned and calmly walked out of his bedroom even though I wanted to run. Then I wanted to keep going until I was far, far away. Someplace safe where I could hide from everything Declan made me feel.