Page 27 of The Ex Next Door (Charming, Texas #8)

T he first few minutes of the drive home were spent mostly in comfortable silence, Amy reliving her emotional swings. In one day, she’d experienced more happiness and despair than she had in possibly ten years.

Divorce with children? Not for the faint of heart. Take it from her.

“Do you think David was actually trying to get you and Rob back together tonight?” Declan finally spoke up. “Maybe he thought that if you were united in a common cause, old feelings might resurface.”

“I was worried about that for a minute, but David isn’t that calculating. It makes more sense he was just mad at Rob. He doesn’t spend time with him practicing. And, of course, my son is loyal. When he realized that daddy’s ‘friend’ was actually his girlfriend, reality hit him.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. I guess all kids wish their parents would get back together.”

It occurred to her that maybe Declan was sensing uncertainty in this situation.

“Maybe they do, but in my case it’s never going to happen. I hope you believe that, too.” She reached for his arm. “It’s too late.”

“Are you sure? I know the divorce is official, but… I mean, you hear about it all the time. Couples getting back together for round two. Reunions.”

“You mean…like us?” She smiled, hoping to change the subject back to them.

They’d had such a wonderful evening and Declan had given her a dream kind of date.

“I meant like parents who have children. They’re the primary reason couples stay together.”

“Take it from me, it can’t be the only reason.” She sat up straighter. “Declan, tell me that you don’t really think…”

He shrugged. “I don’t want to believe it.”

“Then don’t because it’s not happening. Here’s the thing.

I don’t love Rob anymore. I’m not sure exactly when I stopped, but I’m a little ashamed to say it was even before the divorce was finalized.

He failed me in so many ways. I failed him, too.

I would never make the same mistakes again in a marriage.

Marriage is work . Once you love someone, you’ve got to nurture that and never take it for granted.

I’ll always love him as the father of my children but I’m not in love. ”

“It’s enough to almost make me feel sorry for Rob.”

“Almost?”

Declan squeezed her hand. “I can’t feel too sorry for him. He blew it, so tough luck. Were it me, I’d have never let you go.”

Once, even a few short weeks ago, Amy might have bitterly brought up the fact that he had let her go.

But those two people were a different Amy and Declan.

This couple were grown-ups now and their attraction and need for each other were entirely different.

To borrow one of Declan’s sports analogies, it was like the same team playing on an entirely different field. Maybe even with new equipment.

She giggled at the thought of new “equipment.”

“Not that I’m unhappy because hearing you laugh is much better than watching you cry, but what’s funny?”

“Silly me, just having an off-color thought.”

“Well, you should share.” He grinned.

“Maybe later.” She cleared her throat and tried to act casual. “Just out of curiosity. What would you have done? When you say you would have never let me go, what would that look like?”

“Well, I wouldn’t stalk you.” He snorted. “I’d like to think I wouldn’t have let it ever get to the point where you fell out of love with me. But if I’d been that stupid, if I’d have allowed that to happen, I would have groveled .”

“You? Grovel?”

“You bet. And, of course, I would have gone to the couples counseling, or whatever you call it. Therapy. As you said, marriage is work. I imagine there are a lot of peaks and valleys, too. I’ve seen my parents go through it over the years.”

“I saw mine, too. Funny, we both had great examples of parents who set high standards. But it’s also a lot of pressure. I hated failing at my marriage when I’d had such a great example.”

“Yep.” Declan made a motion around his neck. “Finn and I both say it was like having a tourniquet around our neck. Finn didn’t make it the first time, but he learned a lot. And I’ve been sort of sitting on the sidelines waiting.”

Waiting for what? she wondered. The right one, maybe.

When they arrived, they both walked next door to his home without words.

Amy held Declan’s hand, her excitement comingling with fear.

It suddenly occurred to her, rather late, that she had a very different body from the one he’d previously seen naked.

After all, she’d been through childbirth now and had the Caesarean scar to prove it.

Because she had a daughter, Amy had always been keenly aware not to put an emphasis on her weight or inches.

She might be a little plumper than some moms, but she was also happy and healthy.

Unfortunately, at the moment she wished she hadn’t been quite so apathetic about her size.

“I’d say let’s watch TV, but I don’t want to get into another battle over the remote.” Declan laughed.

It had actually been an easy way to slide into touching each other but a repeat performance would seem boring. She had to think of some new and enticing way to attract Declan. After all, assuming he wanted to have sex tonight meant maybe she’d been flattering herself.

While she was overthinking these matters, apparently he’d left the room.

“Amy?”

She followed him into the kitchen. “Getting a beer?”

“Just a water. Want one?”

Oh, good. Maybe she wasn’t the only one nervous. Right now, she could guzzle the entire bottle down because her throat was parched and dry. Maybe the tears had dehydrated her. Either that or she was nervous to have sex for the first time in over a decade with a man who wasn’t her husband.

Chances are it was the second one.

Declan was eyeing her carefully after this first guzzle. “I have a confession to make.”

Amy swallowed hard. Maybe this is where he would tell her that after tonight he realized he was in over his head.

Maybe he was going to give it another try with Samantha.

He would try to bow out gracefully, since they would still have to live next door to each other and had started a friendship again.

“Oh. Really?”

“Yeah.” He set his empty water bottle down. “This was supposed to go differently.”

“H-how was it supposed to go?”

He took a step toward her and then another until he was close enough to tug on a lock of her hair.

“It was going to be a romantic evening—”

“And it was!”

“Yes, but we should have wound up here right after all that romance and instead we took a little detour. I lost your attention.”

“You didn’t.” She sighed. “Maybe you did for a few minutes, but you got it back.”

“Did I?”

“Declan, you’ve always had my attention. I hope I didn’t ruin your plans tonight.”

He took her hand and brought it up to his lips to kiss it. “First, it wasn’t you, and nothing was ruined. A little boy needed his mother. That’s all.”

“Listen. Romance with me is going to mean a lot of this. Interruptions. Sneaking around so we can be alone. Late nights, waiting until the kids are asleep. And very early mornings if morning sex is even a possibility.”

He quirked a brow. “Wow. You went there.”

“Where did I go?”

“Sex, Amy. You brought up sex. Not just sex, but morning sex.”

“Was I not supposed to?”

The smile stayed in his eyes, but his lips didn’t even quirk. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“But I want to have sex!”

Oh my, she might have blurted that out rather loudly.

“I heard you.” This time, Declan’s whole face smiled, his eyes crinkling.

She face-palmed. “I’m no good at this.”

“Hey,” he said, coming closer and taking each of her hands in his. “It’s me. No need to be nervous.”

“You remember me differently. I’m not a size six. I don’t have the body of a teenager anymore.”

“Neither do I.”

“No, yours is even better.” She laughed.

He pulled her close, so they were hip to hip.

“Do you think that’s what I care about? I care about you, not your body. But, as a matter of fact, I like the way you look. You still have the world’s best butt. It’s perfectly shaped. Like a heart.”

As if to emphasize his point, his wandering hands slid down her back to her behind and he was hard against her.

He trailed kisses down the column of her neck to her shoulder, and gently lowered the straps of her dress.

Her body buzzed and trembled under his touch.

She stopped her attempts to pull off his shirt and helped him remove her dress, unzipping and lowering it past her hips until it pooled on the floor.

The moment of truth. The jagged scar on her belly was not the ugliest she’d ever seen but it certainly wasn’t a thing of beauty.

Without realizing it, she self-consciously touched it, then lowered her hand, letting him see it, too.

He needed to see all of her, and everything he’d missed. All the landmarks.

She stood, nearly naked, vulnerable and unguarded, but still somehow safe.

There was also a quiet kind of strength in this moment. She was proud to be moving on, to enter a new stage, this time with a man she trusted with her life. No matter what happened, Declan would be good to her. And she longed for him more than she ever had any other man.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said quietly, his fingers sliding over her face.

He took her hand and led her to his bedroom.

She pulled off his shirt, her finger sliding down to the muscles she’d been lusting for, and her knees went absolutely liquid.

Under his shirt, she found those muscles were the sinewy strength she’d expected.

He was all hard angles and planes, and so utterly… male.

His hand slid from her butt down her thighs, where a quivering heat pulsed and ached.

She felt branded by his touch. Everything else in her loud and busy life faded to the background, and she understood this moment was one of no return.

After this, she would be his and he would be hers. There was no question.

With the slow, wicked smile she’d never been able to resist, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her onto his lap.

She straddled him and he kissed her shoulder, the beard stubble rough against her sensitive skin.

His fingers threaded in her hair, and he licked the shell of her ear, teasing her earlobe with his teeth.

Heat swept through her, fierce and uncontrolled.

She’d never wanted anyone like this. Not with this fire.

“I know you’re shy, but I need you to tell me what you want.”

“I want you.” She ran her fingers through his thick hair. “Inside me.”

He found a condom and quickly protected them both.

Braced above her, he met her eyes. “I never forgot you, Amy. Never.”

His words were sweet, but sweeter still was the way he made love to her. His thrusts tugged at something deep inside her, the friction and pressure mounting, the pleasure building quickly. She wrapped her legs around his back, urging him deeper, closer.

And not for the first time in her life, Amy found herself on the wild and powerful ride that was Declan Sheridan.

* * *

The cold air woke Declan up the next morning, which was unusual even if he ran the AC all night during the summer.

Then he realized he was naked, and memories of the night before quickly flooded his synapses.

Dayum. Amy had been fantastic. She was passionate and responsive.

Insatiable. There seemed to be no off switch once they got in bed.

They finally collapsed around midnight, but if he recalled, he’d gone to bed with covers and now had none . No wonder he was cold.

As he suspected, all he had to do was turn his head and see Amy wrapped up in the covers like a burrito. So, she hogged covers, the cover-hogger. This could be easily remedied. He rolled close to her, burrowing under the covers with her, becoming her second skin.

“Morning,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “Cover-hogger.”

“Hmm, I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I steal covers in my sleep. It’s a thing I do.”

“There are worse things.”

“I swear I don’t mean it. I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”

“It’s all right, babe.”

“Are you cold?” She tried to wrap more cover around him, to bring him into her cocoon.

That was Amy, always generous, last night being a prime example. He could definitely get used to this, waking up next to this gorgeous, amazing woman every day. For the first time in his life, he actually felt lucky. Blessed. He’d done nothing in his entire life to deserve this perfection.

He and Finn used to joke that family folklore was the Sheridan family lost their luck of the Irish in a poker game back in 1876.

No luck had fallen into the Sheridan family.

Hard work had permeated their lives and they’d earned everything.

Declan had always worked for everything he accomplished, having nothing handed to him, unless you wanted to count a God-given natural ability for the sport.

Luck had almost nothing to do with his life up until this moment.

But what good fortune of his to have Amy move in right next door, and to have her son become interested in baseball.

Okay, so maybe he’d done a little convincing on that end, noticing that David was unhappy with soccer.

It eventually turned into a way he might spend even more time with Amy.

Because something had stirred in him the moment he’d seen her again and it had been slowly building ever since.

“What do you want to do today?” he said.

“I just want to hang out with you.”

“Good. We’re on the same page. But do you want to go do something, or just play house?” He nibbled on her ear, indicating that to him this meant not actually getting out of bed except for sustenance.

She rolled on her back and blinked at him through sleepy eyes. “Playing house sounds like fun. I can study later.”

“I’ll help you.”

“I won’t be able to concentrate much with you, ahem, ‘helping’ me.” She circled her arms around his neck.

“Why don’t I cook dinner for you while you study?”

“You’re going to cook for me?”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t know you could. Are you any good? You make a mean Mojito, but you can cook, too? Where have you been hiding all my life?”

The words were said so sweetly he almost missed the cataclysmic effect they had.

There was a quiet pause when they both smiled at each other. The unspoken message was that, of course, he hadn’t been far almost the entire time she was married to someone else.

“I’ve been right next door.”