Page 58 of Velvet Chains

I was hard. Painfully hard.

There was no point pretending otherwise.

I shoved my pants down in one rough motion, my cock springing free, thick and flushed and already leaking at the tip. Just one touch made me groan, the sound guttural and low and not okay.

I gripped the base and stayed there, unmoving, until my vision blurred. Until I could feel the blood pulsing in it, my body demanding more like it would burn through me if I didn’t give it what it wanted.

Her.

Always her.

I closed my eyes and licked my lips, tasting her again. I thought of the way her fingers felt as she knotted them in my hair, the way her hips writhed against me as I brought her to the peak of her pleasure.

I started slow. My palm dragged tight from base to tip, wetting the head and teasing the spot just under the crown until I twitched.

"Fuck," I muttered, my voice wrecked already. My head fell back against the couch, but I didn’t close my eyes. I wanted to see her.

I pictured her like she was right here—naked from the waist down, sweater bunched under her arms, back arched as I licked her against the wall.

I saw her mouth open in a gasp when I touched her. The way she grabbed at me like she was scared to fall and more scared to stay standing. Her thighs trembling around my shoulders as she broke apart for me. The high, breathless “Kieran!” she moaned when she came.

God. That sound. I’d been hearing it for years. In memory. In dreams. In every fucking room I was ever alone in.

My hand moved faster now, squeezing, twisting slightly on the upstroke. I pressed the pillow to my face again, breathing her in—balls tight and aching, the pressure building faster than I wanted.

No. Not yet.

I forced myself to slow down, teasing the head with just my fingertips, dragging precum over it with maddening precision.

She might not have missed me yet. But she would. I would make sure of it.

I licked my palm and wrapped around myself again, the slick noise vulgar in the stillness of the room. My hips started to thrust without thinking, chasing a rhythm like I was already inside her.

It wasn’t enough.

Would never be enough.

I pictured her bent over the kitchen table in one of those cozy sweaters or one of my shirts…imagined how it would feel to clutch her hair in my hand, feel her clench around me. I was so fucking angry that I hadn’t gotten the chance to see her pregnant…that I’d never gotten toenjoythat, when the idea of knocking her up now turned me the fuck on.

I should be her husband.

I should be giving her another baby, if she wanted one.

"Say my name," I rasped, imagining her under me again, nails dragging down my back. "Beg for it."

I was so close. Too close. The edge was right there, but I held it, letting the ache build until my whole body was shaking with restraint.

One more stroke. Slow and hard and deliberate.

And then I came.

With a growl punched out between my teeth, I spilled across my hand, my stomach, my thighs. Hot and wet and endless. My hips jerked once, twice, and I kept stroking through it, drawing every last spasm out until I was raw and gasping.

I slumped back on the couch, chest heaving, the pillow still crushed to my face.

It smelled like her. Still. Like sweat and shampoo and guilt.

I wiped my hand on the inside of my shirt and sat there for a long time, still half-hard, still furious.