Declan chuckled. “Damn, but that would ever piss me off.”
Seb was surprised to hear Declan’s reaction. Most people ended up asking him questions about helicopter rides and private resorts, but no one except Alexandria had understood immediately how difficult life under his father actually was. “Why would it piss you off?” he asked.
Ellie started to lick at Declan’s sock while they sat there, and Declan stretched his hand down to scratch behind her ear. “Back when I was a kid, my pops was in charge of the family business. It meant no one treated me like my damn self. Everyone was always trying to suck up to him by sucking up to me or lying to me because they were scared of him. I couldn’t even go to dinner at my grandpa’s house without someone trying to play me off my pops.” He shook his head quickly. “It’s the kind of thing that will drive you out of your mind. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if my father were a fucking billionaire, too.”
“He’s not a billionaire, not quite,” Seb objected, although his father’s wealth was staggering enough that the distinction didn’t truly matter. “But yes. I remember when I was twelve, one of the other boys in my school started inviting me to parties. I thought for a minute that I had made my first real friends, but soon enough, I realized his dad was making him do it in hopes my father would give him a promotion.”
As soon as he told the story, Seb felt a wave of embarrassment. It’s not like he’d given Declan the impression he was a social butterfly, but he hadn’t intended to share how much of a loser he had been growing up.
“Well shit,” Declan said. “Fuck that guy.”
Seb felt warmth pool at his core. “Yeah, he was a real asshole.”
Declan held Seb’s eye, sending a shiver down his spine. “You want to know how I got this?” he asked, touching the scar on his neck.
Seb nodded quickly. Being so ignorant of the conditions of Declan’s life had given him plenty of opportunity to imagine the worst.
“I was about your age,” Declan said. “Not much older. My pops and my uncle were fighting over the family business. Stupid me, I thought I could keep my head out of it. But then I’m out drinking one night, and my cousin Seth, my uncle’s kid, starts messing with me. He and his friends got to shoving me around, saying the fact that I was gay meant I was an embarrassment to the family. I could have just walked away, and I would have, but then they turned their attention to one of my friends, a scrawny guy not even mixed up in the business.”
Declan sucked on his teeth for a minute, staring off into space. Seb tried not to get caught up on the fact that he had just acknowledged he was gay. Sure, they’d had that moment in bed, but Seb knew there was a big difference between experimenting and actually living out of the closet.
“It went fast from there,” Declan continued. “I shoved one guy, and he shoved me back. We started yelling and throwing punches. I would have fought our way out of there, too, but they lunged at my friend, and I was blinded by my rage. When I came to, I had two black eyes and this.”
He laid his hand on his scar, his fingers tracing over the edge of it.
“That’s awful,” Seb said. “I’m so sorry it happened to you.” His heart ached. Seb had known that a man like Declan could be hurt, of course, the same as anyone else, but the tinge of pain in Declan’s eyes still caught him off guard.
“It’s nothing,” he answered, dismissing the story with a wave of his hand. “All I mean to say is, it’s a hell of a thing to be defined by your father.”
“A hell of a thing,” Seb agreed, tasting the man’s words on his lips.
He paused for a second and felt an urge to tell Declan his secret, the big one that he had only shared with Alexandria. He had a plan to come out from under his father’s shadow, a plan that he knew would succeed. But even though he felt intense, almost fierce trust for the man who had saved him, Seb still hesitated to share his most precious secret.
“I should probably get back to work,” he said instead, aware that he was in Declan’s wing of the house and that the bodyguard might have other things to do with his day.
“You think you’ll be able to concentrate, now that you’ve had a break?” Declan asked as they both rose to their feet.
Seb swallowed. He let his gaze linger on Declan’s biceps, thick with muscles, and then up to the square cut of his jaw. “Maybe…” he answered.
“Sometimes,” Declan answered, leaning back in his chair, “clearing your head is the most important part of getting anything done.”
Heat flushed Seb’s face as he thought about exactly how true that statement was and how desperate he was for another release like Declan had given him that morning. He never was much good at lying, however, and horrible at hiding his feelings when it came to things like sex, especially. And Declan, street smart and sharp, must have read Seb’s face like an open book.
“Oh,” Declan said with a half grin. “Is that why you were able to work this morning?”
Seb scratched the back of his head, flustered and shy. “It’s not like that…”
The laugh that came out of Declan was quick and easy, and Ellie twitched her head up in response. “Listen, Seb, it’s nothing to worry about. Probably not a smart idea for either of us, but we’re holed up in this house together. It’s a high-tension situation. Things like that tend to happen.”
“What?” Seb asked. “Are you saying that all the bank robbers and carjackers are doing…thattogether?”
Declan laughed even louder that time. “You’d be surprised.”
Seb shook his head again, tension itching down his spine even as he held onto a glimmer of hope that their brief connection that morning was more than just release. “I guess I haven’t been in too many high-tension situations before. Not like this, at least.”
They started to walk slowly to the door, Seb’s blood thumping in his ears. The urge to throw himself at Declan grew stronger and stronger, and when he spotted Declan glancing down, Seb’s knees went wobbly.
Declan paused by the door, then crossed his arms over his chest. “People change under pressure. They do all kinds of things you wouldn’t expect.”
