Page 23 of See You Maybe
After taking care of her most immediate needs, Olivia brushed her teeth, feeling a million times better than when she’d woken hours before.
Her stomach growled as she pulled the knee-length sundress over her head and crept quietly back to the side of the bed to watch Declan sleep.
He looked like some sort of fallen angel. The sheet covered his lower half, but his rounded shoulders and biceps strained at the fabric of his shirt. Dark lashes fanned out over tanned cheeks covered in thick stubble, the only thing softening a face that was pure masculine beauty.
Olivia sighed. Only she could come home wasted with a virtual sex god, share a bed, and still not get laid.
“Does that sound mean I need to get up?” Declan asked, his eyes still shut.
Olivia flushed, even though he couldn’t see her. “There was the promise of something called a fry-up, I believe.”
His lips lifted in a smile, and he rolled to his back, opening his eyes to blink sleepily at her.
“Fry-up. Yes.”
Ten minutes later, they were dressed and retracing their cobblestoned route from the night before, while Olivia tried to keep her anxiety at bay. “I can’t believe I lost my purse.”
“It’ll be at the pub,” he assured her. “If not, we’ll sort it out, Rose.”
Not for the first time, Olivia thought about correcting him, but at this point, it was just too embarrassing. What harm could come of it?
“It was nice of you to make sure I got home safe last night. Thank you.” She scrunched her nose. “I mean, if I didn’t say it before. I wish I could remember if I did.”
Declan flashed one of his brilliant smiles at her. “All part of the service.”
Olivia was so dazzled by how the smile took him from handsome to devastating, she stumbled on the uneven cobblestones, almost falling. His large hand locked on hers, his strength righting her. But as she regained her footing, he didn’t remove his hand. Instead, he interlaced their fingers, and the sense of rightness had her heart pounding.
When they reached the pub, Declan pulled the door open ushering her in front of him without relinquishing her hand.
Two people sat in a booth near the front, absorbed in a guidebook.
“Last time I leave a lazy Riordan to close up,” a man yelled from behind the bar where he was stacking glasses. “You left the garbage bags by the door, you fecking eejit!”
The bartender’s gaze shifted curiously to Olivia before dropping to where their hands were still connected.
“Rose thinks she left her purse here last night. Any chance it got turned in?” Declan lifted a black leather jacket off the hook by the door.
“If you’d bothered to clean up, you’d have found it and remembered your coat. But now I understand the rush to leave.”
“Colum,” Declan’s tone warned. “Ignore my cousin. Working in a pub, he tends to forget his manners.”
Some sort of unspoken communication passed between the men, and Colum broke into a smile.
“Ah, don’t mind me. Is this yours?” He dipped behind the bar and emerged with her cross-body bag.
“Thank god!”
He tossed it across the bar to Declan, who caught it with one hand before handing it to her.
“I found it in the hall outside the ladies.”
Olivia could feel her face heat. “Thanks.”
Declan’s hand was already pulling her to the door when his cousin called out again in a more serious tone, “Seamus has already been round this morning looking for you. Said you weren’t answering your phone.”
Declan’s fingers tightened on hers for a fraction of a second. It was a small movement, but her attention was suddenly on the tension in his shoulders and the muscle ticking in his jaw.
“It’s handled.”