I barely breathed.
“I love you,” he said. “It doesn’t make this clean. It doesn’t erase what we did. But it’s true.”
The words went through me hard and quiet.
I wanted to answer immediately. The reply was already there, pressing up behind my teeth. But I was afraid of making it automatic. Afraid of using it like a bandage. Afraid of turning the best thing I’d ever heard into a way to hide from the worst parts of the night.
So I reached up and touched his beard, thumb brushing the rough hair near his mouth.
“I love you too,” I said, because waiting would have been another kind of lie.
Declan closed his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them, I kissed him.
It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t hallway panic or locked-door hunger. It wasn’t punishment, reward, defiance, escape. His mouth met mine slowly, like we were both too aware of the wreckage around us to pretend a kiss could fix it, but needed it anyway.
His lips were warm and firm. I felt the first press of them through my whole body, not as a spark, but as relief so deep it almost hurt. His hand stayed in my hair. Mine slid to the side of his neck, fingers resting over his pulse. He angled his head, and I followed. The kiss opened by degrees.
I tasted coffee and mint. Felt his breath catch when my tongue touched his. Felt the low pull of want in my stomach and didn’t chase it into something bigger. Not tonight. Tonight it was enough to have his mouth on mine and his body solid under my hand and the truth between us finally spoken out loud.
Tiny groaned like we had personally betrayed him and shoved his head between our chests.
I broke the kiss against Declan’s mouth, laughing under my breath. “He’s homophobic.”
“He’s jealous.”
“Of me or you?”
“Both, probably.”
I sank back against him, Tiny crushing my lap, Declan’s arm steady around me. The house still felt changed. Olivia was gone.Rachel’s name sat in the room with us now, and Roman’s beside it, not as a danger, but as proof that secrets had weight even when nobody betrayed them. Vanessa was out there rebuilding herself without me. Tessa knew too much. The team didn’t know enough yet. Management knew nothing.
The fallout was coming.
But sitting there in Declan’s quiet living room with his hand resting on my shoulder, I understood something I hadn’t wanted to understand before.
Choosing him didn’t mean we got to outrun the consequences.
It meant we stopped pretending they weren’t ours.
I turned my face into his chest and let him hold part of the weight while I held the rest.
Chapter 31
Chapter 31
DECLAN
Tiny stayed offended for almost twenty minutes.
He forced his way between us like he had been appointed head of emotional security, one hundred and sixty pounds of wounded dignity sprawled across Jace’s lap and my thigh. Every time Jace tried to shift closer, Tiny made a sound like an old man being asked to move furniture.
“Your dog has attachment issues,” Jace said, scratching under his collar anyway.
“He’s selective.”
“He’s a furry roadblock.”
