Page 30 of Velvet Chains

The orgasm wasn’t good. It didn’t really help.

I felt inflamed, like I was burning alive with no way to control it. I rolled onto my side and hoped for sleep.

When it finally came, it was thin and restless and full of memories that felt like dreams. The weight of him on my skin. The press of his mouth on mine. The morning light in the bathroom, steam rising.

I woke up sweating, gasping, cursing myself for being this person with these problems that no one had forced upon me, but here they were—a tangled mess of love and lust and lies—and somehow I let them happen.

I’d barely even slept, finding the digital clock on the bedside table at one in the morning. His phone was probably off. There was no way he was going to pick up if I did call. But his voice was so sexy, and that accent, it had always done things to me.

Even if all he said was “hey, leave a message at the beep.”

It was too late to think about it, so I didn’t. His voicemail had traumatized me at one point; the fact that he wouldn’t pick up when I wanted to tell him I was pregnant and he decided he didn't want to hear from me anymore. But it had been a long time. Maybe his ingoing message had changed.

But maybe he had never unblocked me.

I didn’t think about it. I just pressed down on his contact card, expecting his phone to send me to voicemail.

“Ruby.”

Goddamn that voice.

It was a question and an answer and a promise all in two syllables. I didn’t know what to say, only that I wanted him to keep saying it.

“Ruby?”

My instinct was to hang up. Pretend I had buttdialed him and this was some sort of mistake. But then I reminded myself I was an adult, not a nineteen-year-old girl, and I had to deal with the consequences of my own decisions. "

“Hi.” My throat was so dry. My chest too tight with the heat of it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”

“I’m surprised you still have my number,” he said after a minute.

“I think I know your number by heart,” I said before I could stop myself.

He processed that for a second. “Because you kept trying to get in touch.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t absolve me of my sins. I have a priest for that.”

I smirked, the idea of Kieran kneeling at a confessional almost absurd enough to make me laugh. “You still go to church?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Sometimes.”

I rolled over and sighed again. “I’m sorry. I should go. I shouldn’t have called.”

“You shouldn’t have,” he said. “Do you want me to come over?”

I froze. The question was so blatant, so simple, like we were still those people who could take each other for granted and not feel any guilt about it.

Yes, I thought

“I don’t know,” I said.

“You’re thinking about it,” he said. I imagined the corner of his lip curling, sly and knowing and entirely too tempting.

“No. You can't come here,” I said, my gaze darting toward the hallway. I didn’t want Kieran around Rosie…no matter how much I wanted him to fuck me.

A beat. “You got me all excited, Ruby,” he said. “I thought you wanted me to go over there and kiss your bruises better. But you are better, right? The doctors gave you something for the pain?”