Page 77 of Shuttered Hearts

“Eyes on me,” he rasps, knowing my orgasm is right there. And sure enough, my thighs tremble, my entire body tensing as my orgasm hits with Declan’s name on my lips and my eyes locked on his.

He thrusts three more times before he follows me over the edge, a whispered “I love you” on his lips.

“Doyou want to talk about how the conversation with your mom went?” Declan asks a little later. The two of us curled together in his bed, my back to his front.

“There’s not much to tell.” I roll over to face him. “I needed to ask her why she chose drugs and alcohol over us and why she left us when she did.”

“Did she tell you?” he asks, gently running his hand up my spine.

“She didn’t want to live her life anymore.” I shrug one shoulder, my eyes falling to his chest. “She told me she never wanted kids, and essentially, she compromised her wants and dreams to make Dad happy. And she was done doing that.”

“Quinn.” He pulls me closer, his hand still rubbing my back.

“I don’t understand how she could leave us the way she did, but I understand her reasoning for the drugs, and that scares me most,” I tell him. “I understand wanting to escape the world you’re living in, especially when you’re unhappy,” I whisper.

“But you’re happy, right?”

“Right now, but what happens a year from now? Five years from now? We can’t know that we’ll always be happy.” I pull back, looking at his face.

“No, we can’t, but as long as we’re honest with each other, we’ll always be able to work together toward finding happiness again.”

“Yeah, that’s what Dad said.” I offer a small smile. “It comes down to what you asked for at the beginning of this. We have to talk to each other, every day, about whatever we need. If we can do that, then I think we’ll be okay.”

“I know we will. We both want this too much to let it fail.”

“Yeah, we do.” I press my lips to him in a tender kiss.

“I love you, Bug,” he says softly.

I press another kiss to his lips before pulling back. “Why ‘Bug’?” I ask.

“Took you long enough to ask.” He laughs. “In my head, it was short for shutterbug. For your love of photography, but now I feel like it could also be short for lovebug.” He nips at me.

“Lovebug?” I laugh. “That is so cheesy.”

“Maybe, but you love me, so you’re stuck with my cheesiness.” He nuzzles his face in the crook of my neck.

“Yeah, I do love you and your cheesiness.”

“Do you really not like the nickname?” he asks a few moments later.

“It’s grown on me. I can’t imagine you calling me anything else now.”

“Good.” He kisses me, and what starts as a soft kiss quickly turns heated. He rolls us, pinning me beneath him when we hear a knock at his door. “If we ignore it, they’ll go away,” he whispers, causing me to laugh.

“Not with the people we know.” I laugh. “Go see who it is.” I push him lightly.

He groans but rolls out of bed, pulling on a pair of sweatpants on his way out the door.

“Quinn!” Declan calls urgently a few moments later.

I jump out of bed, stumbling into my leggings, throwing on one of his shirts, and running down the stairs.

I stop in my tracks when I see Declan kneeling just inside the door, holding a broken and beaten Tyler in his arms. “What happened?” I rush toward them.

“I don’t know. He fell into me when I opened the door. Grab my phone and call an ambulance.”

“No, no hospitals,” Tyler groans.

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