Page 49 of Velvet Chains

He didn’t let me answer. Just dipped his fingers inside me, the stretch so perfect, so fucking right that I almost came. He sucked my clit with his mouth again, and I clawed the wall, both hands now braced above me as I shuddered through it. My pulse pounded, my breath broke, and he stayed there—mouth locked, fingers thrusting, not letting up for a second. He could’ve just kept going.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking wet,” he said, catching his breath for a second. “You taste so good.”

Then his tongue was back on my clit and he was lapping at me wildly. And it was too much, too violent and dizzying and overpowering. “Kieran, I can’t—”

But I could. I could and I did, and I came so hard I thought my lungs might cave in, my hands sinking to his shoulders as I cried into the dark. I forgot myself. Forgot anything except the shuddering, sinful pleasure of him.

For a second, I couldn’t even hear.

It was a long time before I realized I was back on the floor and he had kissed and licked his way back up to my neck and collarbone and mouth. A long time before I could wrap my arms around him, fingers digging into his back, pulse still pounding.

He kissed the soft dip of my throat, eyes dark and full of everything I wanted from him. Things I couldn’t have. Things I shouldn’t. His breath was still hard when he spoke. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said. I tried to push him off me, but he was heavy, and his weight felt too good.

“You don’t hate me,” he said, lips curving. “Admit it.”

I didn’t.

But he knew; he knew because he was Kieran and Kieran had always known. And he knew because I pulled his face back to mine, catching his mouth with the kind of desperation and need that only made him groan deeper.

“I was in shock,” I said, my lips still on his, “and I shouldn’t have—”

He cut me off with another kiss, twisting my hair into his fist, his breath and mouth and tongue making me forget how close I’d come to letting him go.

“Go ahead. Tell yourself you’re done. Tell yourself you don’t want this,” he said darkly, his voice a low scrape against my ear. “But we both know better. You can’t get rid of me, Ruby. I’m already in you. Well, except in one particular way…but all you have to do is ask, sweetheart.”

I stopped breathing. Literally. I stopped breathing.

“What?”

He bunched my shirt in his hand and pulled me closer, like he could swallow my heartbeat if he kissed me hard enough. “You heard me. Ruby, if you think you’re getting rid of me now—"

I heard rustling upstairs. The sound of my daughter moving, going to the bathroom, maybe. About to ask for me.

“No,” I said, getting to my feet despite my shaky legs. “No. Get out, Kieran. You have to leave.”

“I missed that taste,” he said simply.

I shoved at his chest. Hard. “Get out.”

“Ruby—”

“I’m serious. You can’t stay.”

He seemed to hear Rosie at that moment, too…and for a horrible second, I thought this was it: the night he would tell her he was her father, altering the course of her life forever–and mine. Idon’t know what stopped him, but something made him stop…and he just blew me a kiss like the cocky bastard he was. “You’re adorable when you pretend this is up to you.”

“Get the fuck out of my house, Callahan.”

“Okay. Call me,” he said, winking at me.

I ushered him out the door as quick as possible, somehow managing to get him over the threshold as I yanked my pants back on. He cooperated for the most part, even if he moved slower than I would have liked.

“You’re such an asshole,” I snarled.

“No,” he said. “This is me being polite.”

“Fuck off,” I started, ready to slam the door.