Without Doubt (28 page)

“
I know this is tough for
you, Sunshine, so you can close your eyes if you need to. But it’s
my face you see behind those eyelids or they stay open.
Understand?” he says in a low, harsh whisper.

I nod my acceptance, because really, who the
hell else would I see right now? I open my eyes to see Declan right
in front of me; I knew he was there, I could feel his warm breath
across my face. When my eyes focus, he leans in and kisses me
thoroughly. Still keeping to the rules, my hands stay clenched
tightly into fists by my sides but my mouth has free rein and I
allow myself to indulge.

Declan breaks the kiss too soon for my
liking. “Get on the bed, Ava,” he demands in a gruff tone.

I didn’t have a problem
with his demand or even how he said it, it actually turned me on
even more than I already was, but I can’t have him
not
calling me Sunshine
tonight. “Please don’t call me Ava tonight,” I say quietly, my eyes
pleading earnestly for him to comply.

He seems to consider my request with
confusion across his beautiful face before it clears up and a small
smile appears for the first time since we entered the bedroom. “All
right, Sunshine, now please, get on the bed,” he tells me in a
stern but friendly voice.

I climb onto the bed and just before I lie
down Declan speaks up again.

“
On your stomach,
Sunshine.”

Um, okay. On my stomach. I
settle down on my stomach and I can feel him moving along the top
of the bed, then he’s straddling me, his thick, muscled thighs on
either side of my hips.
It’s about
time.
He grabs my wrists and brings them
up above my head then trails his fingers lightly down to my
shoulders. He lies down along my back, his hard length pressing
into my lower back just as his mouth reaches my ear.

“
You will never leave us
again, Sunshine, no matter what crosses our path. We are a team; we
figure shit out together, not in separate houses.” He moves his
mouth to the back of my neck and my eyes flutter closed. I can’t
respond to that right now. He reaches between my shoulder blades
before he continues while his fingers trace the swell of the sides
of my breasts. “You say you don’t need a contract or a judge
but
I
need
something, Sunshine,” he whispers softly before his tongue traces
my spine halfway down my back. “I need assurance that you’re in
this as much as I am.”

After rewetting his tongue, he drags it over
to my side just above my hip, where he gently bites me, shooting a
bolt of pleasure straight to my aching core. I grip the pillow
that’s beneath my head tightly and bite the inside of my bottom lip
until it’s painful. My breathing is erratic and I’m not sure how
much longer I can take this.

“
We don’t have to do it
legally. I understand your views on it, but you have to give me
something here, baby,” he says even quieter as he continues down my
body, his hard muscles sliding over my smooth bare skin. His hand
reaches between my thighs as he slides off and lies next to
me.

I can feel him there, staring at me. My
breathing is out of control, I feel like I might lose complete
restraint and cave to the impending orgasm that’s threatening to
let loose at any moment.

“
Sunshine?” His voice,
deep and low, is vibrating across the bed and reaching all the way
to my quivering core.

My eyes pop open and I gaze into the eyes of
the man that is the love of my life. I trust him completely, with
everything and every part of me. If I didn’t, we would be going
back to court, not to bed. If I can sign away my rights to Harper I
can give him what he needs to feel secure in this relationship. But
this is something that can definitely be talked about tomorrow. Not
right at this very highly anticipated moment.

“
Please, Dec,” I whimper
on the crest of my orgasm, “I’m yours, right now I need you,” I say
in way of answering him without having to explain too
much.

Declan flips me over and climbs on top of
me. He brushes my hair slowly and gently out of my face with both
of his hands while kissing me slowly. “You’re mine,” he whispers
harshly, in between devastatingly teasing kisses.

“
I’m yours,” I answer
without hesitation.

Without notice, Declan thrusts into me and
the rush is unbearable. I let out a breathy gasp as my back arches
and my breasts press into Declan’s firm chest. His face is hard as
he enters me again and again, unapologetically, driving home his
point of who we are, who I am to him, and who’s controlling this
relationship tonight. He is, of course.

It doesn’t take either of us long to reach
our breaking points and when we do, we’re in the moment together.
Declan has my face in his hands again, holding me as still as he
can so our eyes can meet and our gazes won’t break from one
another.

* * * * * *

It’s somewhere around midnight and we just
got out of the shower. The food we ordered earlier sits cold and
discarded on the coffee table in the sitting area. Declan’s wearing
pajama bottoms that hang loosely on his hips and I watch him set
the food out along with the plasticwear while I slip on a nightie
that was left here all those months ago.

Declan straightens and turns around when he
hears me enter the room. He stops and his eyes flicker from my wet
hair down to my bare toes before making a low, guttural noise deep
in his throat. I laugh and shake my head as I make my way to
him.

“
No way, my sweet man, I
need food, and sleep.” I kiss him softly when he wraps his arms low
around my waist.

“
Give me a minute and I’ll
go heat up your pasta for you,” he says with a smile on his face, a
smile that melts my heart every time he gives it to me.

“
That’s okay, I’ll just
eat it cold. I know you don’t care, and I’m so hungry it’s not
going to make any difference to me tonight,” I say to him as I sit
down on the sofa and pull the takeout container onto my
lap.

Declan sits down right next to me, our
thighs touching, and drapes my favorite blanket across the back of
my shoulders before grabbing his container. “This is really
happening then, right?” Declan asks softly before taking a bite of
his food. Gone is my domineering Declan. In his place is my loving
man.

I fork in a mouthful of pasta as he speaks
and I scrunch my eyebrows in confusion, not really sure what he’s
asking.

“
We’re a family again,
right? There’s no more your house/my house, it’s just this
house—our house. When Harper gets here in about,” he looks over at
the clock ticking away on the wall to the left of us, “eight hours,
we can tell her that Mommy is home from helping Aunt Marla and
isn’t leaving again.” He looks at me earnestly. “Right?”

We sit in silence and eat our cold dinner
while Declan continues to stare at me with his inquisitive eyes. I
try to find the right words to explain to him exactly where I’m at
and what I’m feeling. I need to think of way to make him see that
we are in all ways that matter, married. To me anyway. After I fill
up with enough cold pasta, I place my takeout tray on the coffee
table and wipe my lips and hands before tucking away the napkin.
Dec does the same thing, then sits back into the sofa. I crawl up
his body slowly, swinging one leg over his lap to rest next to his
hip so I’m straddling him. My fingers find each other and lace up
at the nape of his neck.

“
Declan James, we never
stopped being a family if you ask me. Or Harper,
apparently.”

Dec lets a small, guilty smile appear at the
corner of his lips

“
Have you ever fully
grasped my argument? My reason for fighting for her?” I stare down
into his unique eyes and I can see them searching mine, searching
down deep for something, for what I’m not quite sure
yet.

“
I get it, baby, I really
do, and I couldn’t prouder of you for it. You don’t know how
thankful I am that although I didn’t get to raise Harper her first
couple years, I’m so happy you did,” he says before kissing
me.

If I don’t stop him now, I’m going to get
lost again. I pull back and place my hands on his face and stroke
my thumbs along his cheekbones. “Dec, I have been so lost these
last few months without you. It was like I finally got the family
of my dreams, the family that I had dreamed of my whole life—not
just you and Harper, but the whole lot,” I drag in a shaky breath
and push on, “and then it was taken from me in the blink of an eye.
I lost your parents and Macie, the guys, I lost my home and Mr.
Olson, the cranky bastard that always grumbles instead of saying
hello when I take Harper out for a walk. I lost everyone, Declan.
That hurt so badly. But you wouldn’t believe the amount of pain
losing you alone caused me. I felt like…” I trail off, looking away
while trying to trap in the tears. I’m so tired of crying.

“
Like you couldn’t
breathe?” Declan finishes for me as he dabs the corners of my eyes
with the pads of his thumbs.

I chew on my bottom lip and nod without
looking at him. He turns my head to him and sucks my lip into his
mouth, effectively stopping me from chewing on it.

“
Me either, Sunshine, me
either” he says remotely with his face resting next to
mine.

“
This is it for me, Dec. I
honestly don’t think I’ll survive another heartbreak regarding you.
Consider yourself married, babe,” I tell him with a smile, trying
with all my might to replace the tears that still want to
fall.

“
Yeah?” Declan asks in a
whisper, disbelief written all over his face.

I nod my answer and he kisses me slowly and
softly while his fingers trace a languid trail up and down my arms,
eliciting a small, pleasurable moan to escape into his mouth. We
kiss, just kiss, sensually for a few minutes until he releases me
and turns my body so we’re both lying down on the sofa, my back to
his front. His fingers trail through my now almost dry hair and
he’s almost put me to sleep when he begins speaking lowly.

“
Tell me about work,” he
says.

A smile spreads across my face instantly,
because if there is any light to be shown though the darkest hell
of the last few months, it’s my job. “My work. Dec, my work is
unbelievable. If I had any idea that I could have been doing this
instead of working at the bar… it would have been this, hands down.
I never thought I could enjoy it this much. I mean, I knew why I
wanted to go into psychology, but I had no idea the satisfaction I
would get out of it every day.” I can’t contain my excitement. I
haven’t been able to gush about my new career to him. He’s never
asked like this. I would get the occasional “how’s work?”, but that
didn’t invite all the over the top emotions that I desperately
wanted to share with him.

Declan tightened his arms around me. “That’s
great. What’s your favorite part about it?”

I wonder if he knows how much him asking me
this means to me—I bet he does.

“
Well, I have three,
actually. One, I love when my teenagers come in and they’re too
cool to talk but it turns around quickly and soon they realize they
can talk to me like their friend and I ‘get’ them. When that
realization dawns on them, it’s priceless; it’s like I can see the
world rising off of their little shoulders. Then with the real
little ones, like four, five and six year olds, they usually won’t
talk to me the first few sessions, but when they do finally talk,
it’s like the world is finally lifting off of
my
shoulders and we just
communicate. It’s amazing.” The last words come out on a whisper as
I reflect on my career choice and all that I get out of it. When I
decided on what I wanted to do with my life when I was a freshmen
in high school, I was expecting to help all of these kids, which I
pray that I am, but they are doing so much more for me than I
expected.

Declan’s hands find mine and he holds them
both, kisses the top of my head and then whispers in a sleepy voice
into my hair, “What’s the third thing?”

“
I have my own coffee pot
in my own office,” I say excitedly. I remember rushing home after
my first day, picking up Marla, and heading to Target to buy the
cheapest coffee pot I could find since my boss told me it would be
a good idea if I was coffee drinker, which I am.

Declan laughs his loud, chest-rumbling laugh
and tells me he loves me. We talk a little more about the things we
missed while we were apart, a lot about the conversations we
remembered having with Harper that we both wanted to share but
didn’t at the time. We both missed so much and it’s terribly sad,
but right now, lying in his arms in our room, in our home, and
defining ourselves as a married/committed couple, I am flying high
as I fall asleep.

Declan

Macie texted a little bit ago and said she
was on her way over with Harper. I thought it would be fun for
Harper to wake Ava up so I haven’t moved. We’re still on the sofa
in the bedroom, Ava curled up on her side with her face pressed
into my chest. I’ve been awake for nearly two hours, just thinking
and holding her in my arms. I can’t even begin to allow myself to
get up and extract her softness, she feels too good pressed up
against me… it’s not happening until she or Harper force me to.

I’ve been going through the images of the
things we did last night, of the things we will be doing tonight,
and then I have to switch tracks to calm the little guy down. I
think about how I’m going to convince her to at least wear a damn
ring so the douches out there don’t get any wise ideas. Maybe I
should throw a ring on too so I can ease her fears about the
cheating, or have Bailey come up with some massive PR about our
family to ward off the groupies. They’ve been coming tenfold since
Ava’s been out of the house. It was just coincidence that the fame
started rising about the same time, but she really doesn’t know
half of it yet and that shit’s gonna suck.