Page 54 of The Irish Arrangement

So many things had changed since I met Declan, and it was a challenge to keep up with the adjustments.

I learned this week how freeing it was to give up control. When he decided that he wanted to fuck me, I knew that I could rely on him to make it so good for me in his dark, twisted way that drove me wild.

I realized that having all my responsibilities taken from me didn’t produce the vacation that I thought it would be. By keeping me in this castle, under his control, Declan had taught me that I was not an idle person. That without a purpose, goal, or something to achieve, my life was nothing.

And that was why, as we returned to the house, I felt stuck in a spell of moody gloom. Of guilt.

He had given me the clear purpose of a lifetime. He wanted me to bear him a child, and that was impossible for me to do. That job would not be completed by me. I was incapable of pulling it off.

I’ve already failed you.

The more that he made me feel for him proved how much he wasn’t just a brutish asshole. And therefore, the worse I felt.

I shouldn’t have struck a deal with him to secure my exit in six months’ time when I knew I would fail him. He’d entered that deal with me thinking I could bear him a child.

I was nothing but a liar.

At the time, I didn’t think it was so bad. He was using me for something, and I was using him just the same. But that wasn’t the end of it. I was also using him to secure my father’s generosity to pay for my mom’s debt.

I was trapped in a layered web of lies, and I wondered how much longer I could take it.

If my husband continued to pleasure me, if he continued to show me how good it felt to be connected with him in the deepest way possible, I wasn’t sure I could separate my mind from my heart. My body was useless there. All he had to do was breathe and look at me, and I was aroused. The complication lay between my mind and my heart.

Even though it seemed so impossible, I was developing feelings for him. He was showing me that he cared, and I could be honest with myself and admit that I felt things for him in return.

It felt good to know that I pleased him. I trusted my ability to rock his world and make him come just like he did to me.

“There you are,” Ian called out when we walked inside.

“No.” Declan sighed. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“No, no.” Ian chuckled as he waited at the other side of the massive foyer. “I know. I just need to talk to you about a couple of things.” He tilted his head toward the study, indicating he wanted only his brother’s presence despite Declan grabbing my hand and holding it to show that he and I were together.

I stepped back and held my hands up. “I don’t even want to know.”

“What?” Declan huffed at me. “Ignorance is bliss?”

“Exactly.”

He paused, watching me closely. “By now, if Riley hasn’t run her mouth and gossiped, you do know what the Sullivan name represents, right?”

I nodded. I’d figured it out the day of our wedding. “Yeah. You’re a Mob man. Enough said there.”

He rolled his eyes, and I had a hunch he was trying to hide a smile. “And that doesn’t bother you? Being married to a killer?”

I arched a brow. “Should it bother me?”

I wasn’t heartless, but I had a jaded and scrappy moral compass. I wasn’t stupid either. I, like everyone else in the world, knew that organized crime Families existed. I never thought I would be married into such a powerful one, but what could I do about it now? Declan didn’t seem eager to kill me or my mother, so that was enough.

“I grew up knowing my father was affiliated with a crime Family.” I shrugged. “I knew that my father, half of me, came from a crime Family, and it never made me cry myself to sleep.”

Ignoring his brother as he cleared his throat, impatient to speak in the other room, Declan stepped closer to me and kissed me hard. “You don’t back down from anything life throws you, do you?”

“Only you.” I smiled. In a good way.

I wasn’t sure what he was looking for as he peered at me. Was he waiting for me to say that I felt uncomfortable to be married to a rough man? I doubted I could ever admit that. I now knew how good it felt to welcome a little pain and hardness, a little violence in my life, and I couldn’t imagine going back to what I lived like before.

I enjoyed being with him.

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