Page 9 of Velvet Betrayal
“There’s hot water.” I made a show of checking the fixtures. “Tristan is cheap, not a monster.”
“Thought this was your house too.”
“It is,” I replied. “I tend to have to get away less.”
Some untamed part of me wanted to pin her to the tile and fuck her until she begged, but the bigger part—the one that knew what it was to lose—waited. Ruby stepped into the glass, spun the lever to full, and shot me a look that said come in after me if you dare. I did. I never wanted her gently. I wanted her like oxygen.
The woman I’d stolen was already inside the glass, spinning the lever to full and then daring me with a look to come in after her. I wanted her, but I’d never wanted anything gently.
I had never wanted her gently. I wanted her desperately. I wanted her incessantly.
I wanted her more than I wanted air.
I peeled off my shirt and nudged the door open. Steam billowed out, thick and heavy, laced with the scent of her sweatand some Aldi rose body wash she’d found. The glass fogged over, blurring out every imperfection, every regret, every year we’d spent apart. None of that mattered now. I stepped in behind her, and her hands landed at my waist, hesitant for once.
For a second, there was nothing but sound—sheets of water ricocheting off synthetic stone, a hiss like static, the hammer of her pulse so close I could smell it, the citrusy ghost of her shampoo. Then, her breath, rabbit-quick, hitching as I pressed against her from behind.
She kept her head up, spine straight, like she was bracing for impact. I bunched her hair up in a fist, pulled her back so she would straighten her neck. “This is exactly how I want you,” I said. “Wet and exhausted and so fucking horny you can’t even fucking talk. Do you hate me now, Ruby?”
“Yes,” she said between gritted teeth.
I slid my fingers down toward her pussy, just skimming the line between slick and swollen. The sound she made was something on the edge of a sob, so it made me slow down, careful, testing for anything raw. She wasn’t going to break. She never broke.
It always made me weirdly proud of her.
I wedged her up against the wall until her cheek met the cold tile and her legs splayed obedient, opened like she wanted to be defeated and also to deny that she’d ever need it. The violence was all angle, all torque; I didn’t want to hurt her, only to fill the space left by people who’d tried.
Right now there was just Ruby, bent at the hips, water running down from her hair and following the ridges of her shoulder blades to the valley of her spine.
“Are you ready for me to fuck you, Rubes?”
She gave a defiant laugh, coughing as the mist choked it off. “What kind of question is that?”
“An honest one,” I said, guiding her open with my thigh, palm flat on her lower back.
She let me, and so I did—not rushed, not like the kids we used to be, but with the certainty of every mile we’d logged between hate and forgiveness.
I pressed in slow, feeling her clench around me before I was halfway there. God, she was so tight and wet and perfect.
She gasped, and I waited. “You’re not going to hurt me,” she spat over her shoulder. “Don’t act like this is the first time.”
“Sometimes I need to remember how not to break things,” I said, not a joke.
I kept my fist in her hair, now streaming in wet black ropes down her back. I moved slow, letting her adjust, letting her want it.
She angled her hips. “God, you’re so fucking cautious. Just—”
So I did.
I fucked her hard, held her until her knees buckled and her hands scrabbled for purchase between the tiles, until the sound of my name ricocheted off the shower walls. The noise was obscene—the showerhead rattling, water everywhere—but I didn’t care. I wanted her to remember this, to hate me for how much she liked it.
“Kieran, fuck—”
“Is that what you like?” I growled, leaning in so my mouth was at her ear. “You like it when I fuck you so hard you can’t think? When I fill you up?”
She couldn’t answer, not in words, but her body said everything—fingers clawing at the tile, half-choked moans bouncing around the stall. I slid my hand up to her jaw, biting the ridge behind her ear, then cupped her breast, pinching her nipple until she moaned and ground back against me, her ass flexing so hard I nearly lost it.
Somewhere in the mess of water and skin, the old grudge match came back—the game to see who could outlast, who could draw first blood. I twisted her, one hand at her sternum, arching her back to my chest, the other circling down to where we met. She bucked, grinding her clit against my palm, breathing in broken little bursts that sounded like “fuck you” and maybe also “don’t stop.” She was so close, and I was drunk on it.
