Page 34 of Velvet Betrayal (The Dark Prince of Boston #3)

Kieran

S he didn’t say anything at first. Neither did I. It felt like if I so much as breathed too hard, she’d disappear—vanish like smoke, like every other version of her I’d already lost. But then her hand rose, tentative but real, and pressed flat against my chest. Small. Warm. Steady.

And just like that, I knew: she was here. She was choosing to stay.

At least for now.

I didn’t move. I let her come to me—let her decide how it started, even though I already knew how it would end. Her mouth on my skin. Her name carved into every breath. Every jagged, shame-ridden inch of me cracked wide open, desperate for her to see it and still reach back.

“Ruby,” I said, and it sounded like prayer. Like surrender. Like the only true thing I’d said in years.

She kissed me.

It was a mess—her teeth scraped mine, our noses knocked—but I didn’t give a single fuck.

Her fingers gripped at my hair like she was testing if I was real, and that was it.

That was all it took. I came apart like I always had with her: hungry, half-ruined, already begging in the way I kissed her back.

Not just want.

Need.

Starved for her. Starved for this. Starved for the chance that maybe, maybe this time I wouldn’t lose her again.

She made a noise—half whimper, half warning—and then bit my lip hard enough to jolt me back into my body. Kitchen. Boston. I was supposed to be taking it easy, doctor’s orders, but my hands had already found her waist, the curve of her back, and I wasn’t about to let go.

She walked me backward, one awkward step at a time, until my ass hit the fridge and a hailstorm of magnets and takeout menus crashed to the floor.

We both laughed, the sound sharp and giddy, and then she grabbed my jaw with a kind of greedy certainty, like she had to check—again and again—that I was real, that I was the thing she wanted to fuck and not destroy.

She pressed in, chest to chest, just breathing, and for a moment we stood there, burning off all the adrenaline and leftover terror that should’ve killed us both hours, days, a lifetime ago.

I closed my eyes to memorize it—her fingers on my skin, her wild pulse, the way our mouths tasted of old citrus and unspoken hurt. It was so alive it almost hurt.

She was walking into danger tomorrow. She was doing her job despite the people who wanted her dead. She was fucking terrifying and gorgeous and deadly and the only thing I’d ever wanted.

When I opened my eyes, she was studying my face, tracing every old scar and new bruise. Her thumb brushed the swelling on my cheekbone. “Does it hurt?” she whispered.

I shook my head. She didn’t buy it.

I pushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her, long and slow, then let her take the lead—her hips grinding into mine, her heartbeat a drum under my hands.

She smelled like city sweat and cheap suit fabric and the stubbornness of women who never gave up.

She tasted like black tea and regret and the sugar-dust of sleepless nights.

“You never change,” she said, voice rough and raw from effort. “You come into my house and ruin everything.”

“Not everything,” I said.

I wanted to argue, but she’d already worked her hands under my shirt, nails raking down my ribs—she knew every old break, every place to press. I groaned, couldn’t help it. She found the bandage at my side and paused, slowing us down for just a second.

If she was going to run, it’d be now. If she was going to tell me to fuck off, it’d be with a slap, not a kiss.

But she didn’t. She pulled back just enough to keep her hand where it was, gentle as a bruise. “That’s going to tear if we keep going.”

“Don’t care,” I said. And I meant it.

“I do,” she said, voice shaking, which only made me want her more. She bent me backwards, careful but determined, and lifted my shirt to see the dressing, her knuckles ghosting over the spot like she could feel the wound through her skin.

“God, you’re a mess. You’re always a fucking mess.”

“But I’m your mess,” I said. Then, lower: “You want it.”

“Every stupid, self-destructive inch.” She locked onto my shoulders, using me for leverage as she kicked off her shoes—and the instant she was barefoot, she pressed in, her body lining up with mine like it was made to fit.

I could feel every twitch, every shiver, every calculation she failed to make.

I gripped her hips, just to make her gasp.

She did gasp—not soft, not staged—and that was the hinge moment, the tipping point into don’t stop.

I caught her by the hips, lifted her onto the kitchen counter—crap flying, a mug shattering on the tile with a sound that would haunt me for weeks—and she wrapped her legs around my waist like a vise.

I bit her neck, heard her moan, and she arched back, hair spilling across the marble like a halo.

She was already working my belt, one hand on the buckle, the other digging into my arm to anchor herself.

I fumbled to help, and then she pulled me in, tight enough that it felt like we were trying to fuse bone.

She moved like she was in pain, or maybe in the grip of something worse—a need that hurt to be real.

Her thighs locked around my hips. I think I whispered “don’t move” as soon as I got both her wrists in one hand, pinning her so the fight had to turn into something else.

She shivered, but it was with laughter, with the ridiculousness of being two adults fucking on a freezing counter when there was a bed ten feet away.

“Let go,” she said, but she didn’t mean it. Her fingers clawed at my wrist, not to break free, just to feel the pressure. Her knees left bruises on my ribs. I pushed her down harder.

“You want it?” I asked, teeth at her ear.

“What do you want, you want me to beg?”

“I don’t need you to beg,” I said. “I know how much you want me to fuck you. Bed?”

“No. Here,” she said, sharp and breathless, and I grinned because that was the point.

I let her wrists go and she grabbed my neck, not soft, not sweet, like she was wiring herself to the one thing that might kill her.

I slid inside her, and even though I was trying to take my time, she clenched and bucked and rolled her hips so hard I almost missed the sound she made, then the echo of it in my own throat.

“Slow down,” I said. “I want to enjoy you for as long as I can.”

Her face twisted, beautiful and brutal, but she didn’t slow—not at first. Her hands left my neck and flattened against my chest, nails biting in as I drove into her—not with the frantic energy of teenagers or the clumsy desperation of old lovers, but like an argument, every thrust proof that we’d keep doing this, over and over, until one of us left town or the city finished us.

After a while, the pace softened, but her grip never did.

She clung to me, every muscle straining at the edge, and when she came, it was like a breach—full-body, silent, her mouth open but no sound, her lashes shaking in the kitchen light.

She clawed me in, not to end it but to trap it, maybe to trap me.

She pulsed around me and I had to squeeze my eyes shut, go blank, just to keep from coming with her. When she finally collapsed against my chest, boneless and shaking with aftershocks, her hair still glowing at the edge of my vision, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in months.

“Are you going to come inside me?” she asked.

She was still catching her breath, laughter and tears all tangled up at her mouth, her hands up under my shirt, cold and electric. I bit her shoulder, drew another gasp as her hips locked around me.

“You know I want to,” I said, the words shaking out of me. “Fuck, you feel so good. I can’t hold it.”

She grinned, teeth bright with triumph, and rocked me in deeper. “Go for it,” she said, like it was a dare or a joke or both. Even now, in a kitchen that looked like a crime scene, she could make me want forever.

So I did. I came, hard, every pulse of it a tattoo of her name down my spine, every nerve raw and perfect. For a long, blinding moment, the world went white—my hands braced on the counter, my forehead in her hair, the only sound our ragged breathing filling the kitchen like a warning or a promise.

When it was over, we just stayed there, her legs around me, her arms locked up my back like she’d keep me there for another lifetime.

The kitchen was wrecked. A raw onion rolled along the backsplash; the mug had exploded, glaze spiderwebbing across the tile.

I slipped out, careful, then helped Ruby down, our hands still tangled even as her feet found the floor.

She wobbled, grinning, the kind of smile that meant she was already counting up the damage, and then she kissed me, slow and deliberate.

“I should fight you harder,” she whispered against my jaw. Her hair sparked with static, and I thought: she’ll run again, any second.

“That didn’t seem like fighting.”

She snorted, relaxed, curled her hand around my biceps, then slid it down to the waistband still loose at my hips. “Maybe I just didn’t want the mess all over the kitchen.” She cocked her head. “Or maybe I wanted you to remember who always wins the rematch.”

I grinned, felt the heat flicker up in her as she pressed against me, and for a second—just one—I let myself believe it. Maybe we couldn’t fix the old wounds, but maybe we could wear them together.

“You are on birth control, right?” I asked as I started picking up the pieces of the kitchen.

She shot me a look—equal parts murder and comedy. “Yes, oh my God,” she said, every syllable a punch. “I’m not deranged. I may be many things, but I’m not doing that to a kid twice.”

She bent to pick up a chunk of mug, then laughed as she realized her hands were still shaking.

I put on my best innocent face. “You could’ve just told me to pull out.”

She pointed a shard at me, deadly as a switchblade. “That’s how you get dishware in the walls. And don’t do the puppy dog thing. I saw you practice it in the mirror, remember?”

I remembered. For a second, I let the memory play out: Ruby, naked except for a sheet, sprawled across the pillow like a challenge to the universe, watching me shave until I made my fake sad-face and she nearly choked laughing.

She rinsed her hands under the tap, flicked the drops away, and checked the clock. “If we’re doing this again, you’re buying me a new mug.”

“Deal,” I said. “I’ll get you a whole set.” I found a mug with a dumb Fenway Park cartoon, held it out, and she took it—and didn’t let go.

She leaned back against the counter, breathing even, mug between us. For once, I let the quiet stretch. I watched her drink. She sipped slow, like she was testing for poison, for the aftertaste of regret.

I didn’t want to move. If I reached for her, she might bolt upstairs, hide in her kid’s empty bed until morning, and I’d spend the night watching shadows for threats I couldn’t see. But I knew she wouldn’t. Not this time. The air had shifted, and she knew who’d be here in the morning.

“Are you going to tell Tristan?” she asked. “About my plans.”

“Yeah. I have to. It’s the only way right now.”

“Why?” she said.

“Because,” I told her, “it’s the only way to keep you safe. You get that, right?”

She shrugged. Almost shook her head. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess.”

She didn’t sound convinced. But that didn’t matter.

As long as I kept her safe, I could live with her hating me for it.