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Declan
My phone ringing wakes me from a light sleep. My body knew it was time to get up, but I wanted to lie there longer and dream of her more. The innocence that comes from every pore of her body. She bleeds it. She’s a natural sub, and that last time I saw her, she showed me she was trained. I almost took her up on the offer, but I knew as soon as I touched her pure skin, I would taint her.
I’m not meant for her. I’ve been married, divorced, and won’t go back to that again. I’m not a forever kind of man.
I’m fucking forty-one, and she’s still in her thirties.
My phone stops ringing and starts up again. I roll with a groan because my body aches a bit more now than it did when I was in my twenties. I glance at the screen and almost ignore it again when I see who it is, but I know she’ll just keep calling.
“Yeah.” I don’t give my name or say a hello because, for one, she knows who the fuck she called. And two, it’s habit to answer phones without identifying myself.
“I see you still answer phones rudely.” Her sour tone makes her sound like her nose is so far up in the air she’ll drown if it rains. I hold in a full body shiver. There was a time I found her beautiful. A time I thought I loved her, but she was only acting.
“I know who it is, and you know who you called, so I don’t have to be nice if I don’t want to.”
“It’s no wonder you’re still single. I called with good news.” Her voice changes with forced cheerfulness. She must have had a recent round of Botox and her lips done.
“The only good news you could give me is you’re finally getting married so I can stop paying alimony.”
I’ve been paying the bloodsucking bitch for ten years. Ten years of hell. I was barely married to her, but she caught me going to a club. Not to participate but to watch. That didn’t matter though. She told her attorney I cheated. I had to pay her. Yeah, I could have fought it, but then she would have revealed to my very conservative family that I was into BDSM. That I like to tie up women and fuck them hard. For which my wife called me a freak and a pervert. Callie didn’t call me those names, she had wanted to explore it. But she didn’t know I was a rigger. I wanted to see my ropes wrapped around her. I wanted to see the flush across her body when my knots hit her erogenous zones. I wanted to hold her against me as I untied her while she was in subspace. But mostly I wanted to be her Dom and couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to her.
“Are you even listening to me, Declan?” Gillian’s voice breaks through my thoughts.
“You are getting married.”
“Yes. Next week.”
I should be pissed. As soon as she got engaged, I should’ve been notified and able to stop paying her. I probably paid for her wedding dress. When Gillian and I got married, I thought she was in love with me. I thought she saw me as the Army CID officer I was. But I know now she’d done her homework. She knew exactly who I was. She knew the family I came from. She knew the exact amount of money I’d inherit and at what ages.
“Does this husband-to-be know what a bloodsucking bitch you are?” My remark causes her to fake gasp like she’s shocked I said that to her. “Well, I’ll be in touch with my attorney as soon as we end this call. Have a good life, Gillian.”
“Wait, Declan, I want to talk to you more.”
“No, you don’t. You want to manipulate me, but you forget I’m immune to you.” I hang up on her and immediately call my attorney in Montana. He puts in the request and I’m finally free, but I don’t feel better. If anything, I feel lost.
I miss Callie.
I dial a number I haven’t used and neither has she.
“D, is that you?” She doesn’t say my name.
“Yeah. How’s the husband and kid?”
“Good. Ivy is getting big. When are you coming back to see us?” Paige’s voice holds hope, but she knows I won’t visit unless I’m needed. I only went so much before because of Callie. Paige knows about her. She and I talked about her.
Paige called me a fool for walking away from Callie. She also said she knew Callie wasn’t into Luca and vice versa. I knew Callie wasn’t into Luca too. I knew they were using each other for covers. Plus, I saw the way Luca would look at Piper, and I knew he couldn’t give Callie what she craved.
I’m not that man either. If she is never exposed to my world, she can get on with her life and find a whole man to love her completely. Not a man whose heart has been destroyed by a previous marriage and by what he’s seen and done for the last twenty years.
“You know the answer to that.” I focus back on Paige’s question.
“Any luck?”
“Again, you know I’m not going to talk about that.”
“Well, can I say I told you so yet?”
