Page 37 of Wicked Ruin

I am safe. I'm with Declan.

The room is large and spacious, genuinely lovely, actually, with floor-to-ceiling windows and glass accents on every gleaming surface. It smells faintly of lemon. I cross to the window immediately, pressing my palm flat against the glass and looking out at the lights below. “Oh, it's gorgeous,” I say, mostly to myself. I turn around. “Have you seen the toilet? Can I look?”

I don't wait for an answer. The bathroom is all white marble and chrome fixtures and has one of those rainfall shower-heads I've only ever seen in magazines. There are tiny bottles of everything lined up in a little row—shampoo, conditioner, body lotion—and I pick one up, smell it, set it down, and pick up another. A fluffy white bathrobe hangs on the back of the door. I press my face into it.

Declan shrugs out of his jacket, drapes it over the back of a chair, then turns and looks at me the way he looked at me in the club… and in his car. The way I used to fantasize he'd look at me when I was alone in the hospital, grasping for something to give me hope. He looks at me now with nothing short of adoration.

“Are you going to smell every bottle in the bathroom,” he says from the doorway, “or are we doing this?”

“I'm appreciating the amenities,” I tell him primly, setting down the lotion. “I want to… savor.”

He watches me for a long moment, then pushes off the doorframe and crooks a finger at me. “We're on borrowed time, love,” he says. “Come here.”

When I reach him, he brushes his knuckles across my cheek, then holds my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You can still go home,” he reminds me. “I won't be upset with you. I'll take you home myself. I don't want you to feel like you have to do something you don't want.”

I tilt my head to one side. “What's possibly giving you the idea that I don't want this?”

“You’re trembling, love.”

“Don't misunderstand me, Declan,” I whisper. “I'm trembling with anticipation. Not fear. Because I can't quite believe we're here, alone together, and that you want me.”

“Want you?” he says, low and rough. Both hands frame my face, holding me in place. “I've never wanted anyone more in my entire life.”

Something in my chest cracks open at that, slow and irreversible.

“Then tell me what you want, Bridget,” he murmurs. “I want to hear you say it.”

I'm not used to anyone asking me this. I'm used to wanting things quietly, privately, and not saying so. I'm used to folding my hopes away so they take up as little room as possible, because everyone else's always seemed to matter more than mine. But Declan doesn't want that. He never has.

“I want tonight,” I whisper. “Just tonight.”

He doesn't rush. I don't know why I love that about him so much. My childhood was drawn in frantic measures—my mother trying to make us into people we weren't, my father running with a crowd that terrified me. I grew up on the edges of things that could kill you. But with Declan, I feel something I haven't felt in a long time.

It’s like… I'm allowed to be me. Like I'm safe enough to stop performing.

“Just tonight,” he whispers, like a promise. He tilts my chin up and studies me slowly. “I need you to tell me if anything I do is too much or not enough.”

Oh, Declan. As if anything from him could ever be too much?

Heat floods me, my pulse is racing, and I damn near squeeze my thighs together because I want him.

“Can you do that for me? Can you communicate with me? I don't want you to be afraid. You're safe with me.”

“Yes,” I breathe out. “I promise.”

His mouth curves. “Good girl, sweetheart.”

My whole body goes warm at that. Why do I love it when he praises me? It's like stepping into sunlight. Like the approval in his voice fills in something I didn't know was hollow.

“I saw that,” he says, then kisses my cheek.

“Saw what?” I whisper.

“The way you melted when I called you a good girl.” His voice drops, close to my ear. “Do you have a praise kink? Mo chuisle,” he says softly.

I’m still too caught up in praise kink to try to decipher the Gaelic. I’ll look it up when I’m alone. Instead, I shrug, shaking my head and nodding at the same time, awkwardly, making a complete mess of it.

“Don't know what that means,” I manage.