Page 104 of Velvet Chains

“You’re going to ruin everything.”

“I know.”

And then he kissed me.

I should’ve shoved him away. I meant to shove him away. But my hands clawed at his collar instead, yanking him close like I meant to tear him open. Like I meant to hurt him. He was soaked and freezing, his coat cold against my bare arms, his hair dripping onto my face as he kissed me like he was starving. Like he’d been dying of it. His mouth crashed against mine, all teeth and punishment, and I bit him back hard enough to taste blood.

He groaned, the sound guttural and raw, and his hands were suddenly under my cardigan, under my shirt, tearing them off like they’d personally offended him.

“You still hate me?” he asked, breath hot against my throat as he licked a line down the column of my neck.

“You’re still ruining my fucking life,” I spat. “So yes.”

“Good,” he growled.

He slammed me into the wall. Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to make my breath catch. Hard enough that I wanted more.

His hands found my breasts, rough and hungry, and I gasped.

“You’re not wearing a bra.”

“I’m home,” I hissed. “Why would I be wearing a bra?”

He grunted, fingers digging in like he was trying to brand me. “Fuck. You know what that does to me?”

“I don’t care,” I lied. My nails scraped down his spine as I pulled his coat off, then shoved his shirt up and over his head like I was skinning him.

There was a bruise blooming at the base of his throat—proof that someone else had gotten close, that someone else had tried to hurt him—and I wanted to bite it, wanted to leave something deeper.

He caught my wrists and slammed them above my head, his eyes wild, his mouth twisted in something halfway between a smirk and a snarl. “Tell me to leave,” he said. “Say it like you mean it.”

I didn’t. Couldn’t.

He didn’t wait.

His knee wedged between my thighs, grinding hard, making me gasp as my back arched off the wall. My pants were halfway down before I could think to stop him, and then his fingers were on me—inside me—without preamble, without mercy.

“Jesus, Ruby,” he rasped, burying his face against my throat, teeth scraping my skin. “You’re soaked.”

“I shouldn’t—” I started, a small, sharp sound escaping from my lips as he thumbed my clit.

“I know,” he said, his hand working in slow, devastating circles. “But you can’t help yourself. Can you?”

I started to say something—something about how this was madness, how it couldn’t keep happening—but his mouth was at my ear, tongue dipping just inside, teeth scraping the lobe, and then none of it mattered. My head hit the wall. I arched into him, breath locked and thighs trembling, every nerve ending stretched to breaking and begging for more.

“God,” I gasped, and he smiled against my skin.

“That’s right,” he said, barely audible. “Let go. You want to.”

I wanted to. More than anything.

His finger slipped inside me, crooking up and forward with perfect, practiced pressure. My body jerked, the sensation washing out everything that wasn’t him, wasn’t here, wasn’t now. I squeezed his arm, nails digging in, and realized, almost shamefully, that I was already so close.

I was about to pull him down, about to take him to the floor with me, when he slipped his fingers away and dropped to his knees.

I cried out, somewhere between exasperation and relief, not quite sure what I’d do with either. He had me against the wall, skin sweat-slicked and flushed, legs quaking beneath me, my body fighting the tension he kept me aloft by inflicting.

“This what you want?” he asked, voice raw. “You want me like this?”