Page 18 of Velvet Chains (The Dark Prince of Boston #2)

Chapter Sixteen: Kieran

I shouldn’t fucking care this much.

I told myself that as I paced the length of my kitchen, jaw tight, fingers twitching. I told myself that as I poured a whiskey I didn’t want and let it sit untouched. I told myself that as I scrolled through that stupid text thread one more time and stared at the last thing she sent.

Don’t come back to my house. Don’t you dare come near my daughter.

Bullshit.

She could lie to herself all day. Pretend that the only thing between us was a bad decision. Pretend that what happened in her foyer—her back pressed to the wall, my mouth on her, her fingers in my hair while she bit down on her own wrist to keep from screaming—meant nothing.

But I knew better. I tasted better.

And it wasn’t just about her. It was about them. Her and my daughter. My fucking family.

That kid wasn’t just hers. That kid had my eyes. And Ruby could pretend I was some ghost from a mistake she made in her twenties, but she couldn’t scrub me out of her life. Not anymore.

I wasn’t just a secret she could shove back out into the night when things got too complicated.

I belonged there.

In her house. At her kitchen table. In her fucking bed.

I was supposed to be the one helping Rosie with her math homework while Ruby cooked dinner in one of those sweaters that clung to her hips.

I was supposed to be the one pouring her coffee in the morning, watching her sit barefoot at the counter with sleep in her eyes and my shirt on her back.

I was supposed to fuck her slow on the nights she couldn’t sleep and kiss her neck while she made lists on her phone.

I was supposed to be her husband.

And Jesus Christ, it turned me on. That normalcy. That softness. The idea of waking up with her tangled around me and Rosie yelling from down the hall for breakfast. The fantasy of it all hit me hard, like a drug I hadn’t realized I needed until it was already in my system.

It made me feel fucking unhinged.

Because I didn’t want a girlfriend.

I wanted a wife. I wanted her. And if she thought she could push me out and pretend this wasn’t real—pretend I wasn’t real—I was going to burn down every lie she told herself until she begged me to come home.

I walked into the living room and sat on the edge of the couch, my hands braced on my thighs, knuckles white.

The throw pillow she’d slept on the one night she was here was in the chair across from me, and I leaned forward to grab it.

It had only been that one time, but God, just the faint scent of her…

I didn’t know if it was my imagination or if it still lingered there, but I couldn’t get enough of it.

I would take anything as long as it came from her, I realized. Even just the ghost of an aroma. I thought it smelled faintly like her shampoo—something soft and coconuty—and just beneath it, the warmer scent of skin and sweat. Her.

I brought it to my face and inhaled deep, holding it there like it was oxygen.

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 to enjoy that, 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.

If she thought this was over, she didn’t know a damn thing about me.

I’d be back.

And next time, she wouldn’t be able to push me out so easily.

I sat there, staring at the ceiling, chiding myself for acting like a teenage boy. What the fuck had gotten into me? Couldn’t I just masturbate in my bed like a normal human?

But I had wanted her so much, I’d been almost surprised I hadn’t done it in the car. If I just…if I got to taste her again, maybe that would scratch this itch. Yeah, that would definitely do it. Once that happened, everything would go back to normal and I would stay away from her…

My phone buzzed. Once. Then again.

I ignored it at first. Still breathing like I’d run a mile, skin hot, mind wrecked.

Then I saw the name flash across the screen.

Liam.

I scrubbed a hand down my face, still sticky with sweat, and answered.

“I’m busy,” I said.

“Doing what?” Liam asked. “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

“What do you need?”

“Rude. I call you, on the day of my daughter’s wedding—”

I rolled my eyes. “Liam. I’m serious. Cut the shit. What do you need? Shouldn’t you be off driving a vacuum truck somewhere?”

“Funny. Hope you enjoy prison,” Liam said.

“I’m going to hang up now,” I told him, but I didn’t.

He sighed heavily. “The quarterly drop,” he said. “It’s delayed.”

I groaned. “Why am I hearing this from you and not from one of my guys?” I asked.

Liam also groaned. “Okay, don’t get angry.”

I tensed. "Liam."

“There was an incident,” he said quickly, like if he just spat it out fast enough I wouldn’t yell. “At the port.”

I sat forward, pulling my pants back up one-handed, heart rate spiking for the second time in ten minutes—this time for entirely different reasons.

I could hear traffic in the background, which meant he was in his car.

I wondered what he was doing. Where he was going. What kind of mess he was cleaning up.

“What kind of incident?”

“Look, there’s a reason they didn’t call you. They called me. They thought it was federal.”

I blinked. “What?”

“One of the couriers spooked. Ran before the exchange. Left the container sitting. Whole thing’s sitting in secondary inspection now.”

“That’s not possible. It was, uh, automobile parts.”

“I know what it was,” Liam said, sharp. We really should talk in code more often, I thought. And then Liam kept speaking. “That’s why it’s a problem. They’re not flagging containers like that unless someone tipped them.”

No. Fuck. “Who?”

“Could be a mole. Could be wiretap. Could be someone at the port looking to cut a deal.”

“Jesus.”

“They’ve got the dogs circling. If it stays in customs, we’ve got a day. If it goes to Homeland?” Liam paused. “You’re exposed, Kieran.”

I stood up, pacing now. “We scrubbed the manifests. There’s no reason for it to be flagged.”

“Unless someone told them where to look. When to look.”

My mind jumped to Ruby, then shoved the thought away before it could take shape. “You think this is about her?”

Liam thought for a few seconds. I didn’t know what he was thinking. “I think this is about you not keeping your head.”

I gritted my teeth. “Are you going to call Tristan?”

“Yes,” he replied. “He’s my call right after you. And Kieran, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I have to tell him everything.”

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “Don’t tell him about my daughter.”

I heard Liam swear under his breath, quiet and annoyed. “Fuck! Fine. But you know that doesn’t make my life any easier, and it just complicates things for you?”

“They’re after the Callahans, one way or the other. And this clearly isn’t just an overzealous DA trying to make a mark,” Liam said. “This is big ops shit.”

“So you don’t think the feds will use her?”

“Jesus Christ, lad, focus. This is huge. Way bigger than your crush,” Liam said. “You start slipping, you don’t just fall. You take all of us with you.”

I looked down at my hand. Still twitching.

“Get ahead of this,” he said. “Now.”

Then he hung up.

And just like that, the high was gone. All that was left was her name in my mouth, the scent of her still clinging to the pillow, and the tightening snare of something closing in.

I was going to fix it. All of it.

Starting with her.