It’s a long while before I come back to myself.
When I do, Declan is still on top of me, still inside me, and speaking in Gaelic, his voice a guttural rasp next to my ear.
We’re both panting. Shaking. Covered in sweat. My trembling legs are wrapped around his waist, his big rough hand around my throat.
It feels as if we’ve just survived a bombing.
He softly kisses both my cheeks. The corners of my mouth. My jaw, neck, and shoulders. Propping himself up on his elbows, he tangles both hands into my damp hair and holds my head as he looks into my eyes.
“Hullo.”
Feeling strangely shy, I murmur, “Hi.”
Has he always been this beautiful? Have those blue eyes always had that tender shine? I can’t remember. Time seems split into before this moment and after, like we’ve broken the laws of physics and arrived here in our own little bubble, shipwrecked on an island where nothing ever existed before.
Where no one ever existed but the two of us.
His voice thick, he says, “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”
My laugh is weak. “You could’ve fooled me.”
“I meant I planned on feeding you first.”
“It’s okay. You couldn’t help it. I know I’m irresistible.”
He starts to laugh this lovely, husky laugh that makes me feel warm all over. He withdraws and rolls onto his back, taking me with him, tucks my head into the space between his shoulder and neck, then winds his arms around me and holds me tight.
His sigh is deep and full of satisfaction.
I ask tentatively, “Is it okay if I talk now? Um…sir?”
He peppers sweet kisses all over my forehead. “You’re the most amazing woman who ever lived.”
“I’m so glad you’re finally getting caught up with the program, gangster.”
He reaches down and smartly swats my ass.
“Excuse me. Sir.”
“That’s better.”
He’s trying to be stern, but I hear the pleasure in his voice. I hear the warmth and softness underneath. It makes something hard in the middle of my chest feel squishy.
“Aye, you can talk now. Try not to slice me up with that razor-blade tongue.”
“I’ll do my best.” Hiding my face in his neck, I close my eyes. “Are we still doing the honesty thing? Because I might have something to put out there.”
Hearing the emotion in my voice, he stills beneath me. He waits patiently until I gather enough courage to say, “I’m no virgin. I’m sure that’s obvious. There have been a lot of men.”
“There’s no need to confess a number. I’d never ask.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
He exhales in relief. “Thank god.”
“May I continue?”
“Aye. I think.”
“Don’t be so worried. I’m about to give you a compliment.”
“Ah. In that case, please proceed.”
My arms are draped over his head, and I’m still bound at the wrists by the handcuffs, so instead of giving him a sharp thump on the chest, the best I can do is tug on a lock of his hair.
“As I was saying.” I clear my throat. “I, um…Jesus. Okay, here’s the thing: have you ever been to the Grand Canyon?”
There’s a baffled pause. “Are you about to compare my manhood to a mule’s?”
“What the hell?”
“I understand they use mules to take tourists down the trails into the Grand Canyon. And, as everyone knows, mules are very well endowed.”
“If you’d stop trying to pat yourself on the back over the size of your dick for a second, I’ll get to the point.”
He presses his lips to the top of my head and squeezes me. I know he’s trying not to laugh, the bastard.
“Again, as I was saying. The Grand Canyon. It’s vast. So big you can’t imagine it until you’re standing at the edge of one of the rocky red cliffs, looking down. It’s not only deep, though, it’s wide, so wide you can’t see the other side. And long, too, like three hundred miles or something. There’s a river that snakes through the bottom, and incredible rock formations everywhere, and in the canyon walls, individual sedimentary layers where nearly two billion years of Earth’s history are exposed. It’s been inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years, and many of the tribes consider it a holy site. Because it looks and feels holy. Sacred and awe-inspiring, like a natural temple cut right into the earth.
“And it sort of has its own atmosphere. Gusts of hot wind come up out of nowhere, blasting through your hair and blowing grit into your eyes. But there can also be fog, and crazy thunderstorms, and below-freezing temperatures and even snow, all depending on if you’re near the rim or the canyon floor and what time of year you visit. There are about a hundred different animal species, and all these different ecological zones, and it’s all just sitting out there, self-contained, smack in the middle of this vast expanse of nothingness. It’s unexpected. Wild and strange. And so beautiful, it makes your chest ache.”
When I don’t go on, Declan says, “I’m afraid you’ve lost me.”
I exhale a hard breath and muster my courage. “That’s what this feels like to me. Standing stunned and overwhelmed at the edge of the Grand Canyon, staring at all the impossible beauty with my eyes nearly blinded and my mouth hanging open in awe.”
Silence.
Long, stony silence, unbroken only by the sound of my own crashing heartbeat in my ears.
Just as I’m about to try to cover that horrible mistake with a laugh and an Only kidding! Declan rolls us back over, throws a heavy leg over both of mine, and kisses me so passionately, my mind goes blank for a moment.
He pulls away, breathing raggedly. “Why aren’t you kissing me back?”
“I’m trying to figure out what’s happening.”
“What’s happening is that you’re breaking my bloody heart. Now fucking kiss me.”
I do, mainly because I’m still in obedient mode and there’s no telling how much longer it will be before the sand in that hourglass will run out.
When we come up for air, Declan stares down at me with an expression like he’s in excruciating pain. It’s not exactly comforting.
“Maybe you could say something nice right now so I could stop feeling like such a gigantic idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot, lass. I’m the idiot.”
“That’s close to nice. Try again.”
He drops his head to my shoulder and hides his face in the crook of my neck.
“Oh my god. You can’t even come up with anything to say to me after I vomited my heart all over the place? Let me up. I’m leaving.”
Squirming with humiliation, I try to rise, but I’m flattened beneath his enormous weight.
He grasps my jaw and holds my head steady, then says gruffly into my ear, “What you just said is the best thing anyone has ever said to me. In my life. The bloody best thing. And I know I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my days, long after you’ve forgotten me. You’re young and beautiful, and you’ve got dozens of men in your future who’ll fall madly in love with you—”
“Hundreds. At least.”
“—and I’ll be nothing but a distant memory for you. But I’ll still be trying to scrub your face and your taste and your sweet voice from my mind fifty years from now, because I already know nothing else will ever be able to compare to you. Nothing and no one will ever come close.”
My heart swells. I inhale slowly, feeling his words sink down through my flesh and settle into the marrow of my bones. When I speak, my voice comes out shaky. “I’m not sure you have fifty years left, geezer.”
“Not if I spend much more time in your company, hellcat.”
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me deeply, letting me feel everything he’s feeling. Then he rolls over again so he’s lying on his back, and I’m cradled in his strong arms with my cheek pressed to his chest, listening to his pounding heart.
We lie like that for a long time, until the emotion expanding inside my body becomes too unbearable.
“One last nugget of honesty.”
He groans. “I don’t know if I can take it.”
“You’re stronger than you think. So here it is. I’ll never forget you. And I’ll never call any other man sir. Even if someone asks me to—which they won’t, I’m much too terrifying—that word will always be reserved for you and only you. You’re welcome.”
His exhalation is a big, sudden burst of air. “Holy fuck. I don’t know whether to laugh, kiss you, or jump out the nearest window.”
“You can decide later. For now, why don’t you just make me something to eat? I could really murder a salad.”
“No sane person craves salad.”
“Who said I was sane? Clearly, I’m not. I’m lying here with the elderly gangster who kidnapped me and whose idea of romance is calling me a camel.”
“How many times did you use the thesaurus to look up alternatives for the word ‘old’?”
“None. I just sat there looking at you when I woke up on your jet after you first kidnapped me and made a list in my head.”
“Very funny. Forty-two isn’t old.”
“Not if you’re a tortoise. Or a giant sequoia. Or one of those glass sponges in the East China Sea that can live to be like ten thousand. But in human years, you’re already more than half dead.”
He laughs. “We just made love, and you’re telling me I’m more than half dead? And you accuse me of not being romantic.”
Made love.
Not fucked or had sex or any of the other less charming options. Made love.
I won’t name this emotion. I doubt there’s a word for it, anyway.
Declan removes my handcuffs long enough to dress me in one of his white button-down shirts, then recuffs me and drags on a pair of black jeans. Barefoot and bare chested, he leads me into the kitchen. He sets me on a stool at the huge marble island and kisses my forehead.
Then he sets about rummaging through his huge refrigerator for something to feed me.
I watch him, marveling at the masterpiece of architecture that is his back. “How often do you work out?”
“Every day. Ham?” He holds up a plastic bag of deli meat.
“Is it salad flavored?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
He peers at me over his shoulder. “Are you a vegan?”
“What did that background check you ran on me tell you?”
“Many different things, none of which concerned your diet. Are you?”
“No. I just really love veggies. I used to eat a lot of junk, but I cleaned up my diet. I feel much better now. Didn’t you buy a bunch of green stuff for me when I first got here?”
Declan turns back to the fridge, replaces the ham in the drawer he removed it from, and opens another drawer. Staring down into it, he sighs. “Aye. I was hoping it somehow disappeared while you were in the hospital.”
“I could make you something, if you want. I promise you’ll think it’s good.”
When he looks at me over his shoulder again, his expression is doubtful.
“Okay, maybe not good. Edible, at least. I’ll sprinkle it with lots of M&Ms and Lay’s potato chips. That should make you happy.”
“I don’t eat that stuff. I keep it for Kieran. He has a sweet tooth. And a salty tooth. A fried tooth, too. Basically anything a doctor wouldn’t want you to eat, he loves it.”
“No wonder he looked at the tray he brought me like he was about to throw up.”
Declan chuckles. “Didn’t stop him from trying to convince me I should unleash you in the kitchen to cook up a batch of rabbit food for him and the boys.”
“Such is my power. Speaking of the boys, where is everyone?”
He turns from the fridge with a bunch of vegetables in baggies. He lets the door swing shut and sets everything down on the counter across from me. Removing a cutting board and a knife from a drawer, he says, “Downstairs.”
“What’s downstairs?”
He pauses with the knife in midair over a cucumber. “The entrance to the building.”
Right. Kieran’s a bodyguard. He’s on bodyguard duty. “Does he ever go home?”
“The men work in shifts. I don’t keep them chained to my side.” With a sly grin, he slices into a cucumber.
“Ah. I see what you did there. Clever gangster.”
“I am.” His grin fades, leaving a dissatisfied look in its place. His voice lowers. “Except when it comes to you.”
I say softly, “Yeah, I know the feeling.”
Our eyes meet. There’s something so raw in his gaze. Raw and unhappy.
“What are you thinking right now?”
“I’m thinking…” He pauses long enough to look down at the knife in his hand as if he doesn’t know how it got there. He resumes slicing the cucumber. “It’s nice having a woman in my home. Not that I’ve forgotten you’re really Dearg-due, but I’ll call you a woman for simplicity’s sake.”
“What’s a Dearg-due? Something super cute, I bet.”
“She’s an Irish female demon that seduces men and drains them of their blood.”
“Blood? Yuck. I’d rather drain them of their will to live.”
When he glances up at me, I’m grinning. “Go ahead. That’s a gimmie.”
When he fails to take the bait and insult me, I know something’s wrong. I mentally rewind to what he said a minute ago about having a woman in his home.
Does that mean he doesn’t usually have women here? Though I give him an awful lot of shit about being old, that’s baloney. The man is as hot as they come. Handsome, virile, and downright sexy. With a fatty in his pants, to boot. There’s no way he isn’t swimming in women.
What is that awful twisting in the pit of my stomach?
Don’t tell me it’s jealousy. I’ll never be able to look myself in the eye in a mirror again.
“Are we still doing the honesty thing?”
“You know we are. But if you’re about to lay another of your Grand Canyon speeches on me, let me know and I’ll set the knife down first. I don’t want to accidentally kill myself when I fall on it, sobbing.” He goes back to slicing.
“Ha. You’re not the sobbing kind. I bet if you tried to cry, it would just look like you were constipated. You know. Like usual.”
Now he’s trying not to laugh, which makes me feel better. I don’t like it when he’s unhappy.
Man, I’d like to kick myself in the face.
“Okay. All joking aside.” I take a breath and look down at my hands. “I know I keep saying I don’t like you. I don’t want to, and I shouldn’t, but I do. I mean, when you’re not being an asshole.”
He doesn’t say anything. I don’t dare look up. I just take another breath and continue.
“I’m telling you that because I never like men. That sounded wrong. I’m not a man-hater. I think men are pleasant distractions. If the rest of my life is the main course, men are desserts. Enjoyable, forgettable treats. That’s a deliberate choice, based on some bad stuff that happened to me, and it’s served me well for a long time. It’s protected me. Until you.”
When I glance up, he’s staring at me in total stillness, a look of intense concentration on his face. That muscle in his jaw flexes. He grips the knife like he’s about to plunge it into someone’s chest.
Holding his gaze, I say quietly, “I think you and I are the same. I think we both have secrets, and those secrets made us who we are. I think that’s why this feels different to me. And why it’s so dangerous. So I’m going to say this with the full knowledge that it might sound ridiculous, but I want you to promise me that you won’t keep me here too long.”
His voice gruff, Declan says, “Why not?”
“Because you feel like quicksand to me, and I’m already sinking.”
He slowly sets down the knife. “I thought I felt like the Grand Canyon.”
“You feel like both. Which is worse. You’re a Grand Canyon filled with quicksand.”
After a tense moment, he says, “So now you know how I feel. Except the quicksand in my Grand Canyon is laced with poison and swimming with man-eating sharks.”
My hands are trembling. There’s a good chance I’m about to fall off this stool. I moisten my lips and whisper, “Then maybe you should let me go right now. It’s probably best for both of us.”
Blue eyes glittering, he says in a throaty purr, “I’m not letting you go anywhere.”
The way he’s looking at me makes my heart pound and my stomach clench. I feel trapped. Panicked. Gripped by a sudden and overwhelming urge to bolt, like a mouse that knows there’s a hungry cat creeping up behind it.
So I do the only thing I can think of.
I jump off the stool and run.
