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“Noted,” he finally said with that familiar deep voice that seemed like it was in absolutely no hurry.
He went back to fixing dinner, leaving me shallow-breathed and restless. I watched the planes of his back move. Unfortunately, the shirt he wore covered his ass, so I couldn’t stare at that, too. When he turned, I was able to catch a glimpse of his tanned, muscular forearms. I’d never felt quite so light-headed from lusting after a man. What was it about him that turned me into a hormonal lust bucket?
Maybe I needed to steer my thoughts away from sex.
“Tessa said to ask you about mountain biking,” I began. “Is there a story there?”
Declan turned to smile at me. “Nah. It’s just a hobby of mine. One of the reasons I picked Colorado instead of another big city. There are some great trails around here.”
“How did you get into it if you’re from LA?”
He turned his back to me before answering. “I grew up in Encino. Topanga State Park was practically in my backyard.”
Encino. How the hell did he wind up as a cop if he’d grown up with that kind of money? “Oh,” I said stupidly. The old feelings of being the poor kid came rushing back. It had been a long time since I’d been that insecure schoolboy in thrift store clothes and the church charity backpack. Free lunch at my school was a choice between a peanut butter sandwich or a bologna one. I never wanted to see either kind again as long as I lived.
“What area did you grow up in?” he asked. It was the natural progression of this kind of conversation.
I considered lying. But I was a grown adult who’d made good. And my mother’s situation back then had been a result of her own desperation to leave her borderline abusive parents. Those years of free lunch had also brought our freedom from them. And I’d worked my ass off to make sure I’d never had another free lunch again.
“Watts.”
I watched carefully for his reaction. The muscles of his back stiffened, but he continued stirring the food in the pan. It smelled like a delicious veggie stir-fry, and the scent of it suddenly made me realize how hungry I was.
Declan didn’t say anything until he was finished with the dish and had plated two deep pasta bowls with rice and the stir fry. After setting the dishes on the kitchen table where he’d already set two place settings, he reached for my hand as if to lead me from the kitchen island to the table.
Only, instead of leading me, he pulled me into a tight hug. His voice was gruff when he finally spoke. “Fuck. How the fuck did you get out of Watts?”
I was beginning to notice his language deteriorated when he was experiencing strong feelings. Knowing he felt that way, that he was worried about me in a way instead of judging me, made my shoulders fall and my breathing steady. I held him just as tightly.
“My mom. She busted her ass to get us out of there.”
He pulled back and met my eyes. “It wasn’t the show, the acting job?”
I sighed. “Yeah. It was. But I never would have gotten that opportunity without her taking me to as many casting calls as she could find.”
Declan’s jaw tightened around words he wanted to say but didn’t. I could probably have guessed them, so I was relieved he held them back. I didn’t want to hear about how horrible my mom was for using her child that way. I’d heard it a million times before. Hell, I’d thought it a million times before. But it was an easy criticism to have now that I was richer than god and could barely remember the disgusting smell of that shared bedroom in the house in Watts.
“That explains some things,” he said at last, letting me go so we could begin eating.
His words got my hackles up. “Like what?”
Declan shrugged, reaching for the open wine bottle to refill our glasses. “Your loyalty to your mom. Your commitment to acting.”
I could tell there were more things he would have added had he not been parsing his words. I wondered at them.
“I owe her everything,” I said.
He pursed his lips and stared down into the steaming dish of savory vegetables. “I would imagine you’ve set her up for life financially.”
“Of course. The first thing we did was buy a house.” I thought of that first house and the look on her face when the real estate lady had handed my mom the keys. Looking back on it now was almost comical. The house in Mar Vista had been a little three-bedroom ranch house with a postage stamp yard. It had seemed like we’d won the lottery.
“You must have been proud,” Declan said gently.
