Page 17 of The Endless Want

Declan pulls back and fixes me with that steady, patient look I’d never seen in daylight.

“Why are you fighting so hard?” Dream Declan asks, voice low and impossibly gentle, as if speaking across a confession booth.

I don’t answer, but instead, force my body to relax.

His hand maps the knobs and tension of my body. Thumb brushing the sensitive angle beneath my ear. I can smell the musk of his sweat and the too-smooth glide of his aftershave, so close, almost choking.

The electric charge between us like tripwires; something deep and reckless in me, each nerve ending pinging with the knowledge of how wrong this is, how little I should want it.

I can't move. The blanket holds me down, the mattress warm beneath me, and some dream-deep part of me doesn't want to try.

Declan’s hand moves up, cupping behind my head, drawing me in. His lips find mine—hesitant, rehearsed, as if demonstrating how a kiss should be performed for a police lineup. I shudder, the cold ache of my muscles threaded through with a sharp, searing need.

I give in, my hands finding him, my lips exploring every inch of his mouth. Wanderlust sparks on my tongue as I wish to let it taste the rest of him.

A heavy feeling burns my lungs, and I wake, tangled and shivering from what could never be real.

CHAPTER 5

Declan

There’s a report open in front of me—financials, route adjustments, requests from the Italians—but I’m not reading a single word.

I’m thinking of her.

And I hate that I’m still that man, months later.

My fingers drum once against the desk before I stop myself. Uncontrolled movements are a weakness. Ailish has always been the exception. She chips at the walls I build without realizing she’s doing it. Maybe she would’ve back in the Spring, if I’d said the thing I nearly said.

The thought pulls me back—so far back I can smell the paper toner and the faint citrus of her perfume.

Five Months Ago

It was the week after everything settled, when the house was still full of people who’d decided to stay, and the whole place had the strange tender quiet of a family that had almost lost something and knew it. Liam had given Conor the thing that used to be mine. Nobody said it out loud. Ailish knew anyway, the way she has known things about me since she was ten years old and decided that not being invited somewhere was our error rather than hers.

She sat on the edge of my desk that night, sorting vendor contracts spread between us. Her hair was pulled back, but pieces had escaped and were curling near her jaw. Every so often she bit the inside of her lip while reading. I have known about that habit for twenty years and I still couldn’t watch it without looking too long.

I shouldn’t have been staring.

“You’re missing two pages,” she said, without looking up. “Liquor shipments by supplier.”

“The supplier sent the wrong packet twice. I’ll deal with it.”

“You’ll deal with it.” She turned a page. “You’ve dealt with everything alone since the wedding.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“You’ve been demoted.” She said it the way she says the weather. “There’s a difference, and you’re the only one in this house pretending there isn’t.”

With anyone else I’d have made them bleed for that. “Say what you came to say.”

“I came to sort contracts.” She set the packet down. “And to sit in a room with you, because you stopped coming to dinner and I stopped pretending I hadn’t noticed.”

The quiet went on a beat too long.

“Get me the missing sheets,” she said, “and I’ll redo the inventory logs. They’re a disgrace.”

“You don’t have to offer.”