Page 68 of Velvet Betrayal
“That’s what all the girls say.”
“Stop talking about other girls right now.”
I laughed.
She didn’t stop me. She pressed her heel into my thigh, locking my hips between her knees, and let me take her right there, cold wood and all. I had to hold the back of her neck or I would have lost my balance; she had to keep a palm braced to the edge of the table or she would have gone with me. The way she met every thrust told me everything: she wasn’t looking for bliss or comfort or a ghost of romance, just proof she was alive, that there was more blood in her than in anyone who’d ever triedto drain her dry. And I loved her for that—all drive, all fire, all stubborn will to keep going.
It didn’t last long.
She tensed, a glittering resistance before the break, and then she squeezed so hard I almost came with her. Her mouth went slack, then shut, then slack again as I worked her through, and when I finished she just shuddered and dropped back onto her elbows, legs still locked around me. She didn’t speak for thirty seconds, and I counted every one.
“I told you,” I said, after I’d eased out, still hard but not in a hurry. “Five minutes.”
“I should probably make you come too. It’s only polite.”
“You are very polite,” I said.
She was. She dropped to her knees, bare and unbothered by the cold tile, and sucked me in with a kind of practiced ferocity that made all the blood loss from yesterday seem like a warm-up. She didn’t blink. She kept her eyes on mine, making it impossible not to feel every humiliation and every hope. When I came, it was messy and unchoreographed, and she swallowed it all, then smirked up at me as I held the back of her head.
She stood, found a paper towel, wiped her mouth. “Now I really do have to go to work,” she breathed. “I need to check in with my chief. I’ve still got three memos to sign and a press team begging for soundbites.”
“I thought you were off until the swearing-in.”
“I’m never off, Kieran. Not when I’m taking the oath tomorrow with half the city watching—and definitely not when someone’s trying to kill me.”
She disappeared into the bathroom, and I heard the shower come on—quick, efficient, all business. Five minutes later, she emerged in a towel, hair slicked back, eyes sharp again. She didn’t say anything when she passed me, just grabbed her clothes from the chair and dressed fast: black slacks, a charcoalturtleneck, the kind of coat that looked expensive even when it wasn’t trying to. Lipstick, but no eye makeup. War paint.
She clipped on her watch, shoved her phone in her bag, and paused. “You don’t want to come with me, do you?”
“Not inside. But I’ll do the blocks, the perimeter, everything you won’t see or don’t want to.” I was half-joking, half-serious, but when I turned, she was looking at me weird, almost tender, like she’d missed a joke and was worried it was actually a compliment.
“Fine. Just don’t let anyone see you loitering outside the courthouse or I’ll have to come up with a story for the TV cameras.”
“Does it ever get old, saving face?” I asked.
She looked at her own reflection in the microwave door, the faint scar at her hairline catching the sunrise. “No,” she said. “If it ever did, I’d be dead.” She grabbed her purse and came right up into my space. “You gonna try and stop me?”
“No. But if you die, I’m crashing your funeral. Cheap suit, loud tie, ruined mascara. I’ll make a scene.”
She smirked, then reached up and thumbed the sweat off my jaw. “That’s the plan,” she whispered, and left.
She didn’t slam the door.
The second she was gone, the house felt hollow. I grabbed the mug off the table, rinsed it, and found myself staring out the window, like if I glared at the street hard enough, it might keep the world from burning down for ten more minutes. I dialed Tristan—one ring. No answer, but he called back within a minute.
“She’s walking into it,” I said.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’ve got four of my best on her, plus two plainclothes inside the courthouse. She’s not going to get touched.”
“And if someone tries?”
“That’s the point, innit? Once we see the face that tries it, we cut off the hand that sent them.”
I made a noise, guttural. Tristan always loved the logic of violence, even when it made him sound like a monster.
“You need anything?” he asked.
“Yeah. I want my family safe. Ruby and Rosie. Can you do that?”
