Despite the late hour Deklan and I finally fell asleep, I wake at the crack of dawn.  For a brief moment, I don’t know where I am, but there is a tiny sliver of light from the edge of the blackout curtains over the bedroom window, and I can see the outline of Deklan on the bed beside me.

I remember falling asleep on top of him, but now I’m on my side, up close to Deklan’s warm body.  I’ve got an arm and a leg wrapped around him, and one of his arms is under my shoulders.  His other arm is stretched out across the bed with his hand hanging over the edge.  His head is turned slightly away from me, and there’s dark stubble on his cheek and chin.

He looks peaceful, and I take a few minutes just to stare at him.

He has dark brows, and his long eyelashes nearly touch his cheek when his eyes are closed and flutter slightly as he sleeps.

I lick my lips as I think back to the night before, my memories focused on the image of Deklan’s face as he came inside of me; head tilted back, eyes clenched shut, and his mouth open slightly as he groaned.  A shiver runs through my body, and my nipples contract.

Deklan lets out a long breath as he turns toward me in his sleep, tossing his formerly outstretched arm over my body.  My leg is still wrapped around his waist, and I can feel his cock lying between my thighs.  He mumbles and tilts his hips, pushing against my core.

Abruptly, I understand the phrase “morning wood.”

I look up at Deklan’s face, but his eyes are still closed.  His lips part, and he breathes heavily again as his arms tighten around me.  His hips flex, pressing his hardening cock against my leg.  A moment later, he opens his eyes and meets my gaze.  He looks confused for a second, then smiles gently.  He reaches for my cheek and strokes his thumb over my skin.

“How sore are you?” he asks.

I stare into his eyes for a moment before I realize what he means.

“Just a little.”

“Not too much?”

“No.”

“Good.”

A second later, he’s on top of me.  I gasp as he guides his fingers between my legs and works one of them inside of me.  He thumbs my clit until I moan, then quickly replaces his finger with the head of his cock.

“Hold on.”  I barely have enough time to hear his words before he braces himself, one hand against the mattress and the other on my hip, and slams into me.

“Ah!”  I cry out and arch my back as I wrap my arms around his shoulders.  All I can do is hold on as he moves in and out slowly, pulling almost all the way out before thrusting back home, grunting with each penetration.

My eyes go wide as I realize something very, very important.  I realize I shouldn’t have worried about waking him up.  I should have extracted myself from his arms just long enough to go to the bathroom, but it’s too late now.  I don’t think I could have stopped him even if I would have wanted him to.

With each thrust, Deklan puts pressure against my bladder as well as my clit.  It’s slightly painful but also amplifies the sensations between my legs and inside my body as he moves.  It’s all I can do to use every muscle in the general vicinity to keep from losing control.

As I flex, Deklan moans loudly.

“Oh, Jesus…that’s so good.  Keep doing that.”

I can’t answer him.  I clench my teeth, squeeze my eyes shut, and keep holding on.  The full feeling of my bladder, combined with flexing my internal muscles and Deklan’s increasing movements, intensifies every sensation.  I’m already close to orgasm, but I’m terrified I’ll pee on him if I do and can’t speak coherently enough to tell him to stop.

Instead, I wrap my legs around him as tightly as I can, brace myself, and pray I don’t lose control of my bladder as waves cascade through my body.  The sound that comes from my throat is a high-pitched squeak as Deklan fills me with a scream of his own.

He collapses on top of me, and I shove at his hips, trying to get his heavy body off of my stomach.

“Please!  Please get off!” I cry out.

“Kera, what’s wrong?”  Deklan looks horrified as he pushes himself off to the side, allowing me to jump up from the bed.

“I have to pee!” I yell as I run to the bathroom with Deklan’s laughter following behind me.  I barely make it to the toilet in time and sit there with my head in my hands.

When I return, embarrassed and barely able to look Deklan in the face, he’s reclining against the pillows with his arms behind his head and a big grin on his face.  The smile lights up his eyes and gives him a completely different appearance than his usual, forbidding demeanor.

“Sorry,” I say softly.

“No reason to be.”  He shakes his head as he tosses his legs over the side of the bed and kisses me briefly on the forehead before making his own way to the bathroom.

I climb back into the bed and pull the sheet up around me.  I can hear him peeing, and I can see into the hallway well enough to know he didn’t even bother to shut the bathroom door.  When he returns, I still can’t look at him when he gets into the bed beside me.

“Stop looking so embarrassed,” he says.  “Besides, it’s best for women to go to the bathroom after sex.  Avoids UTIs.”

“UTIs?”

“Urinary tract infections.”

“Oh.”  I make a mental note to look that up later.

He stretches out beside me on his side with one arm under his head.  He uses the other arm to grab my hand and pull it to his lips.  He kisses my knuckles before holding my hand to his chest, rubbing my wrist.

I relax with my head close to his on the pillow, suddenly quite sleepy again.  I watch Deklan’s face as he looks down at our hands on his chest.

“I’m surprised there aren’t any permanent marks.”

“From what?”  I tilt my head and look at him quizzically.

 “The rope.”

I freeze, overcome by a sudden, sinking feeling in my chest.  I pull my hand away from his and tuck it between our bodies.

“Sorry,” Deklan says quietly.  “I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories.”

“I don’t really remember any of it.”  I lick my lips and try to keep my breathing steady.  I stare at a shadow on the wall to keep my mind focused outside of my head.  I try to find a discernible shape in the shadow, but it’s nothing more than a blob.

“What do you mean?” Deklan asks, and I have to take a moment before I can answer him.

“I assume you mean when I was kidnapped.  I don’t remember much of it.”

“What do you remember?”

I tense again as memories of therapy sessions rattle through my head.  I steel myself against any actual memory, and when I speak, my voice is monotone—rehearsed.

“I remember getting off the bus and starting to walk home.  I remember someone grabbing me and throwing me in a van.  There weren’t any windows in the back.  All I remember after that is waking up in the hospital.”

Deklan also goes still and doesn’t say anything else for a couple of minutes.

“You lost four days?”

“I guess so.”  I shrug.  This is not a topic I care to discuss with anyone, and questions make it difficult not to trigger the few memories I have.  “That’s what they tell me anyway.”

“You don’t remember anything at all?”

I don’t know why he’s harping on this, but it’s very uncomfortable.  I squirm a little, trying to put some distance between us, but he’s holding me tightly.  I fall back on more rehearsed lines.

“I get a few flashes every once in a while, sometimes dreams, but I never remember the details when I wake up.  I remember being kidnapped.  I remember being scared and thinking I was going to die.”

“What about…what about when you were found?  Do you remember anything about that?”

“Not really.”  I shake my head.  “A vague recollection of being picked up off the ground, but that’s it.”

Deklan leans his head back against the pillow and stares at the ceiling.  He looks frustrated, and I feel guilty for not being able to tell him more.

“I don’t like thinking about it.”  Admitting this doesn’t appear to alleviate his frustration, but he does hug me close to him for a moment.

“It’s all right,” he says.  He looks closely at my eyes, and I think he’s going to say something else, but he stays quiet.  Shuffling a little, he lays flat on his back, and I place my head on his shoulder.

He’s warm, and I’m still sleepy.  At some point, I doze off again.  When I wake, I’m on my back with Deklan still beside me, his arm under my shoulders and one leg tossed over mine.  I stare at his peaceful, sleeping face for a moment before carefully pulling my legs out from under him and heading to the bathroom.

I’m fully awake now, and I’m not sure if I should go back to bed and wait for him to get up or just go ahead and find myself some breakfast.  The rumbling in my stomach makes the decision easier.  Trying to stay as silent as possible to keep from waking Deklan, I pull on a pair of the panties he bought me, grab his white T-shirt off the floor, and pull it on over my head.  It hangs almost to my knees, which is actually quite perfect.

It smells like him.

I find very little in the refrigerator that counts as either fresh or breakfast food.  There’s a box of cereal in the pantry but no milk.  I see bread and cold cuts, so I place the bread in the toaster to make it at least feel breakfast-like.

I feel strange.  Not bad, just different.  I silently ponder the possible reasons: I’m married now.  I’m no longer a virgin.  I’m in a completely different kitchen and no longer live in my parents’ house.  Deklan really isn’t planning on taking my life and throwing my body into a ditch.  In fact, he seems rather…nice.

I think about how it felt to have his hands on me, and I realize I’m smiling.

Most importantly, I did not marry Sean Foley.

After seeing his behavior the last couple of days, I find myself relieved.  I don’t know Deklan, but he is at least trying to make the best of all this.  What he said last night made sense: he wasn’t any more prepared for this marriage than I was, and it puts us on similar ground.

Though the act of poking around in someone else’s kitchen is a little nerve-racking, I look through the cabinets until I find a plate for my toast.  I also locate a coffee pot and get it going.  The coffee mugs are on the very top shelf, and even on my tiptoes, I can barely reach.  I glance around for a stepladder and almost laugh out loud.

Of course there isn’t a stepladder around.  When would Deklan ever need one?

There are two barstools pushed up against the kitchen island.  Without another viable option, I pull one of the stools next to the counter.  The top spins slightly as I try to steady it so I can stand and reach the top cabinet.  It still swivels, and I have to grab the cabinet door to keep my balance.

I should have realized how stupid my actions were before I ever started.

Just as I get my fingers wrapped around a mug, the top of the barstool spins to the left, and I lose my balance completely.  In a fraction of a second, I’m horrified that I might drop the coffee cup or pull the cabinet door off its hinges, breaking the first things I’ve touched in Deklan’s apartment.  It doesn’t occur to me at first that I’m about to hit the floor.

I scream.  At least, I think I scream.  I wave my hands around in the air, trying to keep a hold of the cup, but I lose track of it completely as my legs fly out from under me, and the cold linoleum floor is abruptly next to my face.

Blue and white sparks dance around in my vision, and my head throbs painfully.  I reach back to touch the spot on my head, and there’s already a good-sized goose-egg forming.  I moan—partially from pain, partially from my own stupidity—and roll to my side.  I get up on my knees, and everything swims as I fall back to the floor.