Page 32 of Velvet Chains (The Dark Prince of Boston #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six: Kieran

T he snow was still coming down when I opened my eyes.

For a second, I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. I just watched her.

Ruby was curled up in her bed—our bed, if I let myself think like that—with her face half-buried in the pillow, her hair a mess, my shirt swallowing her whole. The sheet was twisted around her waist, legs bare and knees drawn up like she didn’t trust the warmth to last.

I reached out. Let my fingers brush her calf, slow and quiet, like I was scared she’d vanish.

She didn’t.

Instead, she turned toward me. Not all the way—just enough to let me know she wasn’t asleep. I brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “I want you,” I said.

"You're insatiable," she said, voice low and unfamiliar, as if the snowstorm had delayed the rest of the world outside and left only the singular moment of this bed.

"I am," I said. "With you."

She closed her eyes. I studied the fan of her lashes, the faint lines that always lived at the corners of her mouth, the way forgiveness and warning hadn't yet decided how to resolve themselves behind her expression.

I wanted—for once—to take it slow. But when she opened her eyes again and fixed them on mine, I knew she didn't want that.

She reached for me and pulled me in. There was no softness to it, no apology.

Just the urgency that I recognized in myself: the knowledge that this wasn't a forever thing, just a now thing, and either one of us could be gone tomorrow.

She wrapped her legs around me, her thighs warm under my palms, and I pushed the loose hem of the shirt up, up, until she was exposed to me.

I kissed her, then kept kissing her; her jaw, her collarbone, the tiny crescent scar just above her heart. “What happened here?” I asked.

“Bumped into something rough,” she said, still riding the line between cautious and vulnerable.

“Yeah? Well I’m going to make it all better,” I said, grazing my lips down there, rubbing my fingers against her clit. “What about here?”

She snorted, arching into my hand. “Razor burn. So sexy, right?”

I ran my tongue along the raised line, then lower, then circled her clit with my thumb and slid another finger inside her. She clenched around me—tight, wet, impatient. “You’re perfect,” I said.

“You’re lying.”

“No. When am I ever gentle enough to lie?”

She laughed. The sound was ragged and a little sad. I wanted to memorize it, the exact way she let herself crack at the edge of pleasure and regret. I worked her higher, pressed in deeper with every stroke, until her whole body bowed toward me and she muffled a curse against my lips.

I loved the way she tasted. I wanted to keep her like this forever—flushed and breathless, legs still twitching from release, fingers tangled in my hair like she didn’t want me to leave her body for even a second.

When I finally came up for air, she was all crooked smiles and labored breath.

I grinned against her stomach, then kissed lower just to tease her, just to hear that little gasp again—the one that always went straight to my cock.

She tried to push me away, but she didn’t mean it, not really.

I let her anyway, because I liked the way her body shifted when she did.

I kissed my way back up slowly, deliberately, tracing the sharp line of her ribs with my tongue, the dip of her collarbone with my lips, and finally her mouth—the way I always did. Delicate at the edges, devouring at the core.

“Sweet talker,” she panted, like I hadn’t just unraveled her.

I let out a quiet groan, then rolled to my back with her in my arms–making her straddle me, get closer.

She was still in my shirt—just the shirt—thin cotton clinging to her damp skin, barely covering the parts of her that always undid me.

Her hips rolled, grinding against my thigh like she knew exactly what it would do to me.

“So perfect,” I said, voice catching as she rocked against me, using my body like it belonged to her. Like she could take what she needed. “Are you gonna get yourself off just by humping me?”

“No,” she said, smirking. “I need you to fuck me.”

Jesus.

I clenched my jaw, rolled my hip up to meet hers, and drove my thigh hard against her center.

She moaned—sharp, breathless—and that was it.

I lost whatever control I had left. I grabbed her ass, rough and greedy, shifting her higher.

She braced her hands on my shoulders, legs spread over mine, already slick and desperate.

I held her there for a second, just looking at her.

“You’re so fucking wet,” I murmured, voice ragged. “You want a taste, sweetheart?”

She let out a breathy laugh. “You’re such a freak.”

“You like it.” I shifted under her, slid one hand between her thighs and traced through the heat, then brought my fingers to her mouth.

She sucked them clean without blinking.

I could’ve come just from that.

Which meant I really needed to fuck her.

I gripped her hips and aligned myself, pushing in slow. Deep. All the way. She gasped, her eyes fluttering shut, her nails raking down my chest and over my ribs like she was trying to brand me.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “You feel so good.”

“So do you,” I said.

I didn’t move at first. I just held her there, buried inside her, feeling her tighten around me like her body was trying to keep me.

And then she rocked.

Just once.

That slow, perfect grind that made my vision go dark around the edges. She did it again. Again. Until I met her thrust for thrust, slow at first, then harder. Deeper. I grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her hard, teeth and tongues and heat and need.

“Harder,” she said, breathless.

“If you insist,” I growled.

I held her tight and rolled her again so I was on top.

Her thighs locked around me and I hammered her into the mattress, holding nothing back.

The slick rhythm of it, the heat—she was already close again, and the thought of it nearly undid me.

I leaned down, biting her shoulder, then kissed the mark to distract from the sting. “You hate me, right?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and for an instant I saw how hard she was trying to keep it together. Or maybe how little she was trying at all.

“I hate you,” she gasped, and the way her breath hitched made it a prayer, not a curse.

“Good girl,” I whispered, and let myself fall apart.

My vision went blurry, then black. For a long moment, I was just light and weightlessness, every sensory nerve fused into a singular wild pulse.

When I came back, we were both trembling, me above her, her curled into me as I slowed, until there was no motion, only the residue of want and the sound of our breathing in sync.

I buried my face in her neck. She let me. Didn’t push away. Her arms folded behind my shoulders, tight as a vise, unwilling to let go. I felt her heartbeat through both of us.

“I hate you,” she repeated, spent and almost playful this time.

“I love you,” I said before I could stop myself.

It wasn’t a calculated confession; it wasn’t part of the game we played. It was just the truth…torn straight out of my raw, bleeding heart. Those words landed like a grenade between us, daring either of us to move.

She was so still .

I’d made a mistake.

But…then her palm shifted, moving slow and gentle. She traced the line of my spine with her fingertips, and I knew she’d heard me. She wasn’t running; maybe she was writing it in looping script down my back, even if she didn’t say the words.

I wanted to force her to say it.

Wanted to lick her pussy and demand she tell me she love me if she wanted an orgasm.

But instead, I rolled to the side, pulling her with me…urging my heartbeat to slow the fuck down. We fit together too well, hips aligned, legs tangled, her breath ghosting warm against my chest.

I loved her.

Even when she hated me.

Even when she didn’t say it back.

Even when she might never admit she was mine.

I loved her anyway…and there was nothing left to say.

***

It was two hours later when I woke. The storm had calmed outside, and the sky was that baby-blue of Boston after a snow, the cloud cover thin and almost earnest. Ruby was gone.

For a brief second it terrified me—had she left, was she safe, did she regret it already—but then I heard her downstairs, the soft thud of a cupboard, the hum of the microwave. I smiled.

I’d never been a man who thought he wanted domesticity, but this was different. This was proof of life.

I pulled on sweatpants and padded barefoot to the kitchen, rubbing a hand over my face. The scent hit me before I saw her—coffee, faint vanilla, something soft and familiar that made the walls feel less like someone else’s house and more like ours.

She was already there.

Hair twisted up in a loose bun, skin flushed and marked where my mouth had been, wrapped in one of my old shirts—oversized, worn thin, hanging halfway down her thighs. Her bare feet pressed flat to the cold tile. She didn’t seem to notice.

She was cradling a mug in both hands, shoulders relaxed, eyes distant.

And for a second—just one—I let myself pretend this was our life.

That she made coffee like this every morning.

That I’d wake up next to her every day. That Rosie would come sleepily down the stairs asking for pancakes and cartoons, and I’d kiss Ruby’s neck while she stood at the stove.

That none of the blood or secrets or years between us had ever happened.

She poured a second cup and slid it toward me without saying a word.

I drank.

We didn’t talk for a while. Not about the feds. Not about custody or court dates or who might be listening. Just silence, thick and warm, broken only by the sound of the heater kicking on and the clink of her ring against ceramic.

It felt like being human again. Like coming in from the cold.

“I used to think you’d ruin me,” she said eventually, voice quiet. “Not just in the obvious ways—career, reputation. I mean ruin me. Who I am. What I believe.”