Page 21 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 2

FINN

Declan looked different when he came back into the bedroom. Determined.

“You asked me why I left LA,” he said, reaching out to run a hot cloth over my body with gentle strokes. “And I kind of… avoided answering.”

“You shut down tighter than a stiff screen door.”

I watched him return the cloth to the bathroom before joining me in bed again. My body still felt languid and easy from the orgasm, but his words woke me up.

“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said, as if that hadn’t been obvious. “And part of me assumed you probably already knew why.”

“Why would I know why you’d moved to Aster Valley? I’ve known you less than a week.” It didn’t make any sense. “And every time I’ve asked you, you’ve bolted.”

He sighed. For some reason the implication I should have already known about it made me feel jittery and nervous, like I’d somehow been involved in a situation I was completely unfamiliar with.

“I thought maybe you’d googled it. People do,” he said wryly. “I was a witness in the department bribery scandal. I’m sure you heard about it. My ex-partner was involved.”

I lifted my head up to look at him. “Partner as in…”

He shook his head. “Partner on the force. Not lover. Nick turned out to be one of the officers who’d accepted bribes from high-profile… people… in exchange for not charging them for crimes.”

I sat up. “You’re kidding? He let people bribe him out of charges? What kind of cop does that?”

Declan’s forehead crinkled in confusion.

He sat up, too, and pulled the bedcovers over him as if he didn’t want to be naked for this conversation.

“The corrupt kind. The kind who think justice only applies to poor people. The kind who cater to…” He met my eyes and clamped his lips together before saying, people like you .

I felt my heart rate tick up. “I didn’t hear about it.” And that was the truth. “When did it happen?”

He looked like he didn’t believe me. “New Year’s. Several house parties were busted for drugs. When no charges came from all the police activity, Internal Affairs did an investigation. Now does it ring a bell?”

Now his tone was straight-up disbelieving, and I felt like I was being accused of something. “No, why… why would I know about something that happened while I was out of the country? I don’t understand. You’re acting like I had something to do with you losing your job.”

“You weren’t out of the country on New Year’s. Yours was one of the house parties busted.”

I stared at him. Now it was my turn to look incredulous. “Are you fucking kidding me? I was in England. For six weeks working on… working on my graduate degree.”

He was the first person I’d told outside of Franklin and the students and professors in Stratford. It was my secret indulgence, something I feared being judged for if the world discovered silly Chip Clover fancied himself a student of something serious .

Declan still looked suspicious. “Why do you sound like you’re making that up?”

“Because no one knows about it, dammit! Because it’s my little secret. The treasure of my fucking heart. So go ahead and make fun of me, okay? I snuck off to Stratford-on-Avon to study the bard and told everyone I was vacationing on a private island.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Why wouldn’t you tell anyone you were taking Shakespeare classes? Wouldn’t that be seen as a boost to your resume or whatever an actor calls it?”

I let out an ugly laugh. “No. Not me. People would think I was a joke.”

Now Declan’s face was as stormy as the weather outside. “You’re not a fucking joke. But at least that explains your alibi was legit.”

“Alibi for what? What are you talking about?”

“One of the New Year’s parties we busted was at your house in Santa Monica.

There was extensive drug use, property damage to a neighbor’s house, and one instance of a guest driving drunk.

No charges were made, and it was discovered that responding officers had accepted a large cash payment from someone claiming to be your representative. ”

I wanted to laugh. This story was ludicrous.

I had left a set of house keys and my alarm code with Kix because he’d been worried about a fan who’d gotten a little too close, and he could confirm there’d been no party.

But how was it possible that no one had ever breathed a word of these accusations to me?

Not Iris, not my publicist, not Kix himself?

Declan wouldn’t invent something like this, though, and I could tell that my ignorance made me sound guilty.

Heat flooded my face, and I began to panic. “It wasn’t me, Declan. You need to believe me. I have my travel receipts if you need to see them, and you can contact the head of the program?—”

He reached out and took my hands in his. “Shh. Okay. Okay. Slow your breathing down, sweetheart.”

I couldn’t calm down. This didn’t make any sense. “Why didn’t anyone say anything to me? Why didn’t someone contact me when I got home? I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“The department probably didn’t reach out because they were too busy dealing with the internal shit to realize they’d never spoken to the actual homeowner in your case. If someone had posed as your representative, that would have been enough. But if you weren’t there… was the house burgled?”

“No. I… gave the keys to a friend.” I swallowed and looked at him. “I need to find out what happened.”

I could tell he wanted to ask the name of my friend, but he kept the question back. Instead, he went on to tell me about some of the bigger busts that night that happened at much higher-profile residences.

“They had plenty of evidence of the corruption from those busts and the history of bribes that came out of woodwork afterward to worry about the smaller busts like yours. Believe me, a few people doing coke and ecstasy at a house party paled in comparison to the house full of heroin and prostitutes. And one of them had surveillance footage of actual police officers participating. So, no. Yours wasn’t the one anyone gave a shit about in the end. ”

“Except you,” I pointed out.

Declan sighed. “Yeah. But only after I met you.”

“No wonder you thought I was an entitled dick.”

His eyebrows lifted, and his eyes danced. “No, that was because of the valet thing. And you telling me you’d ‘look out for’ me.”

Realization dawned. “You already thought Finn Heller was someone who bribed cops, and here I was offering you money to do my bidding.”

He nodded. “That’s about the long and short of it, yeah.”

I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. I laughed so hard I almost pissed myself.

At one point, Declan started laughing, too, and we fell against each other in a pile of ridiculousness.

One thing led to another, and our lips and hands found each other again.

The laughing turned quickly to a kind of desperate sexual grappling.

We fought for domination and flipped each other over and over until we damned near fell off the bed.

“Let me have you,” he said against my mouth. We were sweating and panting, leaving trails of beard burn all over each other’s skin. “Please. Please let me inside you.”

I groaned and nodded, hoping like hell I had a condom somewhere in my toiletry kit. I hadn’t come to Aster Valley expecting to have sex, but I usually… My wallet! I usually kept one in my wallet in case someone offered me a blow job and I found myself in a position to accept.

I pulled myself away from him long enough to scramble out to the living room and find my wallet in my backpack. Once I returned with the condom, I grabbed the lube from the bedside drawer where I’d used it to jack off countless times already to thoughts of the sheriff’s stern looks and strong body.

After handing the condom to Declan, I snapped open the lube and began to prep myself.

Declan’s eyes glazed over as he watched.

“Fuck, that’s hot,” he said, reaching for the lube so he could help.

As soon as his fingers were involved, I lay back and lost myself to the feel of him.

The thick press of his fingers stretching me was enough to make me hard and dripping again despite my massive orgasm earlier.

I couldn’t believe Declan Stone was going to fuck me. I’d fantasized about it but never thought it would actually happen.

When he finally leaned over me and pressed his covered cock to my hole, I sucked in a breath.

“You’re shaking,” he said.

“Please don’t change your mind,” I blurted. “I don’t think I’d survive it.” I tried to give him a cheeky smile to soften the echoing sound of desperation in my voice, but he stopped it with a hard kiss.

“Not a chance.”

When he stretched me open with his thick cock, I arched back and squeezed my eyes closed.

His arms were propped under my knees, holding them back and keeping my legs wide open for him.

I normally would have felt exposed, but with Declan I didn’t.

I trusted him. He seemed like the kind of man who would take care of the people he had sex with.

“Look at me,” he said through clenched teeth. “Sweetheart, open your eyes so I can see you’re okay.”

When I opened them, they were embarrassingly wet. I clenched my jaw in defiance, but I didn’t see any judgment or pity on his face.

“You’re fucking gorgeous,” he said softly. “Sexy and sweet, hot and responsive. So fucking tight. Christ.” He hissed the last part and squeezed his own eyes closed for a beat. “You’re gonna make me shoot off too fast.”

I reached out and cupped his cheeks, pulling his face in for more kissing.

With every stroke in and out of my body, I felt more and more overwhelmed.

This wasn’t like any of the hookups I’d had before.

My heart felt like it was some kind of emotional expanding foam and it was going to grow right out of my chest and ruin everything.

When his dick hit at just the right angle, I cried out against his lips and arched back again. “Just like that, fuck . Dec, just… just like that.”