Chapter 24

What am I doing?

Sitting next to Claire in the Jeep earlier, stopped in the middle of the damn road, I felt the full extent of my stupidity. Who the fuck offers to teach someone a skill they don't possess themselves?

A pussy-whipped idiot, I can hear Seamus saying, shaking his head in a better-you-than-me way.

It's not like me to get tied up in knots over a woman—you could say I've made an art of avoiding it. But here I am, in the thick of it, and I brought her down here.

Other than a few things spaced out around my house, this is the only truly personal place I've allowed myself. The only spot where I can be who I am—Declan O'Malley, not Declan James. And I wanted to take her here. To fuck her down here, sure, but also to show her this place that's mine. To prove to her, and maybe to myself, that I may be a man who breaks things, but I can build them too.

As we walk inside, I can't stop casting glances at her, trying to see this place through her eyes. Her eyes don't hide the way she's feeling ever—in the Jeep, I felt her rage toward me, and it fed my own, directed at myself. And now…I see the understanding sparking in their golden depths. She knows this place is important to me; she understands why. And it's that ability in her to understand what's unsaid that makes her so special. It makes me want to disassemble all of the walls I've built to keep Declan O'Malley from view. That still scares me—it shakes me to my core—but it also fills me with wonder. With warmth. With need.

I lead her over to the hip height table on the far side of the greenhouse, where there's a big tub of rosemary. "You know, it took me a second to understand what Nicole and Damien were talking about the other day with the Chanel No. 5."

"Oh, please let's never talk about that again. I broke the travel bottle in my bedroom, and it's haunting me. It'll never go away."

I take her hand again and run it gently over the plant. "But this is what you smell like to me. Rosemary and apples. It reminds me of the house where we grew up. We had big rosemary bushes on either side of the door."

She beams up at me, bathing me in her light, and I'm struck again by how generous she is in sharing it. I pluck a piece of the rosemary off the plant and step into her space, lifting it to her lips. She opens them for me, soft and pink and so fucking delicious, and I feed her the piece of rosemary. My dick is so hard it hurts. The sight of Claire in this space is intoxicating. Exhilarating.

I lower my head and kiss her, and she tastes of rosemary. I need her in this place—I need her now. It feels like I've been waiting for years instead of only a couple of weeks.

I guide her down to sit on the table next to the pot of rosemary. Her knees splay open naturally, as if she knows what I need and has a mind to give it to me. Good. I get down on my knees beside the table and she gasps as I tug down her panties from beneath her skirt. It's hot as hell to see her like this, completely dressed other than her panties.

I should say something, but she gave me the green light, and right now all I can think about is burying my face in her and then burying my dick in her. It's been all I can think about for days.

Maybe I can finally exorcise her from my mind—or at least recapture a few of my brain cells so I can function again.

I spread her thighs wide and pull her to me, breathing in the scent of rosemary and flowers and Claire. Just Claire. I'm in trouble, and I know it, and I don't give a flying fuck, because I'm kissing her soft thighs. She's so wet for me. Wet because she's been fantasizing about fucking me, and that's the greatest gift I don't deserve. I'm selfish, because I'm going to take it anyway. And, if I'm very lucky, take it again and again. As much as I can have of her, for as long as I can have her. Because she won't stay. She may not see it right now—that Agnes bitch may have blinded her—but she's the kind of woman who's going places. I'm guessing that's why she never got the promotion she wanted, never got a boost. Because you don't terrorize people into wearing your favorite perfume every day if you're not secretly afraid of them. If you don't worry that if you fail to keep them in line, you'll walk into the office one day, and they'll be sitting in your chair.

She's going to have her dream job, dream life—and if there's one thing I know about myself, it's that I'm going nowhere at all. After what I took, I'm lucky to be alive, so the small existence I've carved out will have to be enough.

Right now, parked between Claire Rainey's thighs, it feels like enough. Because this is a big moment, the kind that will leave a mark on me—a scar, because even though she's going to move on, I'll still going be thinking about her. About her laugh, and her smile, and her smell, and the soft skin of her thighs as I kiss my way up to the place I've dreamed of tasting.

I have it bad, but I'll worry about that later, when I don't have my mouth on her. Her hand weaves in my hair as I make my way to her center, and a sigh escapes me as I tug her closer to me by the thighs. I suck and lick and savor her. And she still seems to taste like rosemary. Her hand flexes in my hair as I show her the attention she deserves, and she says, "Oh my God, Declan. You don't need to—"

I pull her closer by the thighs, burying my face where it wants to be, because she has to understand I want this as much as she does—and also that I don't intend to be one more lazy asshole who's going to let her down or pretend the female orgasm is a myth.

Her hand fists in my hair until it hurts, and one of her shoes falls off. I slip the other off as I stroke her with my tongue and then gently run my teeth over her clit. She rocks toward me, nearly falling off the table, but I hold her steady—almost shaking with the need for her to come around my tongue. I need to feel the change and know I was the one who brought it about. To know that I can do this one thing right. I need to see the look on her face when she tumbles over the edge, and I need to kiss it. To capture it so it can become part of me.

"Declan, I'm going to—"

She bucks against the table, and the rosemary pot crashes to the ground, breaking, and the scent of rosemary is everywhere—and she is coming, I can feel it. I feel her body moving with it, clenching around my tongue. I pull her even closer, until she's nearly sitting on my face, burying myself in her taste, in her scent, in her pretty pink center.

She's making a sound I want to bottle, and her hand is still tugging on my hair. Finally her body relaxes, and I pull back so I can see her face, so I can kiss her and let her know how fucking good she tastes.

She's looking at me with wonder in her eyes. "That was…I didn't know it could be like that."

"It's always going to be like that."

The words fall from me, because I want them to be true. I want her to be mine, and I want to keep her. Even if I know that I shouldn't let a woman like her, a bright, sparkling light, hitch her star to a man who has to hide in the shadows.

The expression on her face slips into worry much quicker than I'd like as she eyes the broken pot on the floor, the dirt. "I ruined your plant."

I run my fingers over the bottom of her tank top, then pull it off in one quick gesture, revealing the blue lace of her bra, blue like the Carolina sky. It's pretty, but not as pretty as what's beneath it, so I take that off too, my mouth dry again, my dick a constant ache.

"Fuck the plant," I say, kissing my way across her chest, pausing to suck in one perfect nipple and run my tongue over it. "Rosemary grows like a weed."

"So my hair smells like weeds?" she asks, her voice breathy.

I glance up as I release her nipple. "I happen to like weeds."

Her hand reaches out and grabs the bottom of my shirt, the way she did it earlier, as if she always wants to have her hands on my chest. "And I'd like it if I weren't the only one half naked."

"Do what you'd like with me," I say in a challenge. Because I need her to undress me, to touch me. To want me.

Her eyes light up, and she leans back slowly. Then she tugs my shirt off, getting it caught around my neck for a second, making us both laugh. Once it's off, she runs her palms over my chest, her touch seeming to shoot straight down to my cock but also sink in deep. Because it means something.

Then she steps off the table and reaches down to unbutton my jeans. Then she unzips them. And everything inside of me is attuned to her as she lowers them down with a whisper of fabric. She pushes down my boxer briefs next, and I toe off my shoes so I can step out of the clothes. She's in nothing but her skirt, a little slip of a thing, and I'm completely naked. So fucking ready for her. Needy and hard and lost.

"You're beautiful," she says softly, wrapping a hand around my dick.

I'd laugh if, again, she didn't currently have her hand around my dick. "I'm beautiful?" I ask, stepping forward, crowding her. "You're so fucking beautiful to me, it's hard to believe you exist. Maybe the last couple of weeks only happened in my head, and we're still on that plane."

Her lips part, her hand comes around my waist, settling on top of my ass, my hard dick caught between us. She may not even be conscious she's doing it, but her hand starts moving on my back, rising and falling, her touch radiating through me. "And I have a hard time believing you like me that much."

"Then I'll have to keep showing you," I say, although I feel an instant dislike toward all the people who've pulled her down.

I pull down her skirt and fist her hair, rosemary-scented sunshine, kissing her hard as I back her toward the glass wall. Her lips part for me, and they press back in a bid for more. A flowering vine waves through the air next to us as we reach the glass. She breaks the kiss and angles her head back to look at me. "You brought me here as a way of showing me, didn't you?" she says, her head tipped up to me. "This is your palace."

"And in this one place I am king," I say with a self-deprecating smile. The truth is, I could have been a different kind of king if I'd had a mind to. One with power. But instead I ran.

"Then fuck me where you're king," she says, and I'm so turned on I'm surprised my heart doesn't stop hammering in my chest. I turn back toward the heap of our clothes and claim a condom from my pants pocket. I roll it on, watching her, standing there against the wall of my greenhouse, in the middle of the plants that saved me.

I step toward her, drawn in. Not fully in control of myself.

She meets me halfway, and I pick her up again, needing the feel of her against me to remind me that we're both real.

I kiss her, and kiss her, and I pick her up and carry her back to that table. "Thank you for giving us space," I say with a smile that's probably as feral as my voice sounds. I lower her back down to the table, smiling at the sight of her spread out before me, her long blonde hair tumbling off the side of the table, her rose-tipped tits bared, the vee between her legs ending in short trimmed blonde curls. The table's just big enough for most of her body, her legs spread off to either side. I step in between them, looking down at her. Taking her in. She's beautiful, more beautiful than every flower in this greenhouse, or the view from my deck.

"I'm thoughtful like that," she says, the last word coming out with an "oh," as I reach down and rub her still-sensitive clit with my palm. Her hand reaches for my dick again, and she runs her hand over it.

"I'm going to need that back," I say, capturing her hand and pinning it next her head. From the look in her eyes, she likes that.

"I hope that means you're going to give me what I want," she says.

I run my hand over my length, line myself up. Find myself looking into her eyes as I sink into her, a couple of inches at a time. Wanting to let her adjust. Wanting it to last. Wanting to fuck her hard, without restraint, but holding back.

I feel her clenching around me already, her body pulsing. "Declan," she says. "Declan."

And for a minute, as I lower down to kiss her, my cock captured in her slick heat, I feel like a fucking king. I release her arm and stand back up, wrapping her thighs around my waist, tugging them for leverage as I pull out and thrust in again. It feels so good I'm having trouble pacing myself, already feeling the tingling sensation low in my back that my need for her is going to send me over the edge sooner than I'd like. Then again, almost anything would be sooner than I'd like, because I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be than here, inside of her. I bring one hand to her clit, needing her to come with me if I'm going to be pushed over the edge. I have to give her enough to make an impression.

"Oh my God," she says, reaching for me, and I pull her up so she's sitting and I'm standing, her legs still wrapped around my waist as she rocks against my cock—and I lower my head to nuzzle her tits, because I haven't given them enough attention, and they deserve it. They deserve a damn parade held in their honor. And then I kiss her again—a deep, searching kiss, like I might find the meaning of life inside of her mouth, and fuck, maybe I will. Because I feel closer to it than ever before. I feel meaning hovering around me and her, whereas before there was just being.

Leave it to me to become poetic over a woman after all these years of dicking around and avoiding anything that might matter.

"I'm going to come again," she whispers in my ear, as if it's a secret.

"Good," I say. "Because I'm not going to last much longer."

I give her another thrust, my hand working her in time with my dick, and I feel her fall her apart around me, and this time I get to watch all of it—her eyes wide, as if I've surprised her pleasantly, her pink lips parted, and her hair a beautiful mess.

I feel like one lucky bastard.

One lucky bastard who just opened a door he should have kept padlocked.

And the way she clenches around me and throws her head back, as if the pleasure coursing through her is too powerful for her to hold it up straight, is what throws me over the edge. I pump inside of her one more time, and I'm gone. I lower my head to her neck, breathing her in, and then she's kissing my hair. "So much for the myth of the female orgasm," she says.

And I do something I'm not sure I've ever done seconds after coming—I laugh with her.