Page 11 of Velvet Betrayal
“In your dreams,” she said, but her cunt was already pulsing, her voice going ragged. I wanted her to see stars. To know that every other man was a pale imitation.
“You never could hold out long,” I said, biting her earlobe, and she almost screamed.
I reached around, thumbed her clit, and felt her knees go soft. She tried to curse at me, but it came out as a gasp. She came hard—shaking, clenched tight around me—and for a second I thought she might take me with her. I was right there, holding on by a thread. Her body gripped me like she never wanted to let me go, milking me, draining me like she could extract all the fight and keep it for herself.
The last thought to pass through my skull before I finished was that if it came to it—if the choice was between Ruby and myself—I’d die in her place every time.
And maybe that was what scared me most.
We slumped together in the scalding rain of the shower, neither one speaking until my hands stilled and her breathing dropped down to a livable level.
“Feel better?” I asked, voice fuzzier than I wanted.
She pressed her face to the tile, then turned to me, cheeks flushed. “No. Fuck you.”
But then she smiled. Not kind. Not sweet. A jagged little thing, full of exhaustion and grit and defiance.
And I loved her so much I could barely breathe.
Ruby
Icouldn’t stay here. I knew that. I knew it from the moment I got into the car, but I particularly knew it when I woke up in a tangle of limbs in a small twin bed. Kieran was holding me so close I could hardly breathe.
It was still pitch-black outside. “What time is it?” I whispered.
He mumbled into my hair.
“What?”
“It’s still dark. Go back to sleep.”
“I’m going to check on Rosie,” I said.
At first, I thought he would keep me here—-my desires be damned. But he slowly disentangled from me, then flung his arm over his eyes and went right back to sleep.
I peeled myself out of bed, shivering as my feet hit the tile. The house was cold, the kind of cold that seeps into your bones. I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and padded down the hall, the only sounds the ancient furnace groaning and the hush of snow piling up against the windows. Rosie’s door was cracked, a slice of lamplight spilling out.
She was asleep, one foot dangling off the bed. Her little face was mashed into the pillow, hair flung all over. I stood inthe doorway and watched her—the slow rise of her chest, the armload of blankets on top of her. I crept in and tucked her foot back in the covers.
I lingered at the door, hand pressed to the cheap wood, and whispered a prayer in Spanish—a habit from when I was little and scared. It helped, a little. If Kieran was right, if the threat was real and not just some recycled trauma, then this—these hours where she was untouched by the world—was all that mattered.
I walked away, making my way downstairs, leaving her door cracked open so I could come and stare at her whenever I wanted.
I started coffee, found the process almost restful. The kitchen was completely unknown to me, every drawer a Russian roulette of hotel-grade utensils and forgotten cutlery. I butterflied a filter, tamped down the grounds, and didn’t realize I was shaking until I set the glass carafe and heard the tap-tap of nerves echo up my arms.
Kieran appeared then, or his silhouette did. He wore sweatpants and a t-shirt.
“Do you want some clothes?” he asked. “You’re still only wearing a blanket.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t exactly pack a bag.”
“There are clothes here,” he said. “Check the closet in the master bedroom. Many of them won’t, you know, fit. But we keep them here just in case.”
“Whose clothes are they?”
He shrugged. “Mostly Ade’s.”
“Adriana Callahan? You want me to wear Tristan Callahan’s wife’s clothes?”
