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I swallow thickly, remembering the embarrassment. “I didn’t like being naked in front of him … like that.”
“It will never happen again.”
“I know I was before but—”
“You do not have to explain yourself. You don’t want to be naked in front of other men. Fine. I love your body, I love that you’re mine, but showing you off isn’t something I need. It won’t happen again.”
Blinking, I let each and every statement sink in. He loves that I’m his. He saidlove.
“What else? There was something before that. I know there was.” He waits, hunched over the plate, the fork tapping against the table. He stares back at me expectantly.
“Sometimes I go to a dark place and I have a problem getting out of it.”
“What took you there?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. He turns away for a moment, clearly frustrated and I don’t want to lose him so I offer what I know to be true and tell him, “I just wanted you to hold me.” My answer is tight as tears brim. I drop the fork and cover my face before I can cry, hiding from him.
He doesn’t let me, though, he pulls me into his lap in an instant.
“I can do that,” he whispers into my hair and it tickles down my neck and shoulders. He shushes me, rubs soothing circles down my back and it keeps the sobs away. It only takes a moment of him rocking me, holding me close, of breathing him in, to calm whatever it was that wrecked my composure.
After a moment I pull away. My hands press against his chest, just to put distance there. I part my lips to thank him or apologize or something, but he stops it all, every word, every thought with the way he looks down at me.
“If you need me to hold you, tell me. I can do that. I like holding you.”
Nodding, I climb out of his lap and retake my spot. It’s so overwhelming my hands tremble when I grab the fork.
“Is everything okay?” I ask him, feeling a vulnerability that threatens to dismantle me.
He nods and then clears his throat. “I think so. So long as you still want to be mine.”
Nodding, I tell him I do. It feels like I’m on the cusp of falling. Part of me instinctually craves whatever Declan will give me, while the other part wants to run because it’s obvious there’s no going back from this.
“Can we eat?” I suggest in a murmur, pushing the rice around with my fork.
“I need to know if that’s it, Braelynn.”
“I think that’s it.”
“Are you all right?” Nodding, I do what I can to stay upright and just breathe. “You’re intense, Declan.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
It’s silent for a long moment while we pick away at the food slowly, and I can hardly stand it. All the while I want to kiss him, to touch him. But I don’t.
“You have questions for me?” he asks, having barely eaten and sitting back on the sofa.
I swallow a bite of fried rice. “When was the last time you had a girlfriend?”
He huffs a laugh that breaks the tension and I peek over at him, his smile soothing something inside of me. A simper pulls at my lips.
“Never.” He watches me lift the fork to my lips again. “Is that what you think this is?”
I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know what to think of us at all. Maybe we’re just two broken pieces trying to fit together, but cutting each other instead.
“I think what this is and what we are … requires me to open that bottle of wine,” I suggest, taking a deep, steadying breath.
“I think we need something …” Declan agrees, his gaze roaming down my body. There’s an immediate warmth from the hungry look he gives me. His shoulders straighten when he tells me, “Take your clothes off, I don’t want to ruin them.”
