Page 9 of Velvet Chains (The Dark Prince of Boston #2)

Chapter Nine: Ruby

T he house was too quiet.

Rosie was asleep, finally. She’d curled into me on the couch when we got home from the hospital, still in her pink coat, her little fingers curled into the hem of my shirt like she thought I’d vanish if she let go. I promised I wasn’t going anywhere. Lied through my teeth just so she’d go to bed.

Julian had only dropped her off after I had begged.

And I had begged, like I was a child and he was my father, and he finally said yes.

I put Rosie to bed and told her I would be more careful when she asked me what had happened to my neck.

I told her I’d fallen down the stairs, which of course couldn’t cause these injuries, but she was only seven.

She would question it later. When she was old enough to understand.

Alek stayed longer than I wanted him to—helped me get upstairs, made sure I took the meds, hovered like he thought I’d shatter if he blinked. And then, finally, he left.

Now it was just me.

Me, this dull ache on my neck, the dry throat, the pounding headache.

The meds were supposed to knock me out. They didn’t.

I rolled over in bed, the sheets too stiff, the air too sharp. Everything felt off. I was supposed to be grateful to be safe, to be home, to be in one piece.

But all I could think about was Kieran Callahan.

The way he looked at me in that hallway…the sound of his voice when he said my name. The heat in his eyes that didn’t belong to a man who’d just murdered someone for me—but it had been there all the same.

I missed his tongue, his mouth, his fingertips.

What had he said when we had first met?

"I can’t commit. But I’m really good in bed.”

He hadn’t been lying, had he?

He was exceptionally good in bed. And he had only gotten better over the years…and, despite myself, it pissed me off that he’d been practicing with women that weren’t me.

I sighed. Everything ached. The idea of seeing him again should’ve been scary, and in theory, it was. But all I could think about was the way he looked at me when he was inside me and, before I knew it, my hands were reaching for the waistband of my pajama pants.

I looked at my phone on the nightstand and wondered if I should call him.

I didn’t. I did something worse. I went on the scarce social media he had and hunted for pictures of him.

I found one of him looking right at the camera, green eyes shining with the sun in front of him.

He was young in the photo, but it couldn’t have been that old.

He’d gotten the tattoo on his forearm after Rosie had been born.

I had barely taken stock of it the second time we had slept together, when he had fucked me in the shower of the en-suite right next to my bedroom.

My hand inched lower, under my underwear as I stared at Kieran’s eyes in the picture.

I pressed harder, dragging slow, lazy circles over my clit as I pictured the way he had fucked me that morning. No pretense. No apologies. His hand braced against the tile, his other gripping my ass, his voice rough in my ear: You still take me like you missed me, Ruby.

I did. I missed him desperately.

I slipped two fingers lower, slick and desperate, and moaned into the dark.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his mouth had crushed against mine, like he was angry about how good it still felt.

The way he’d bitten my bottom lip before shoving back inside me.

The way I’d clawed at his back and begged him not to stop.

I fucked myself harder, chasing it now—hips rocking, breath catching, everything in me tuned to him. His mouth. His cock. The weight of his body and the heat of his skin and the way he always, always, looked at me like I was both his curse and his salvation.

It crested fast. Sharp. Shameful. Perfect.

I came with a shudder, one hand fisted in the sheets, the other buried deep, a broken gasp catching on my tongue. Kieran’s name almost slipped out.

Almost.

But it was already over.

The high faded. The ache didn’t.

And I was left with a cold bed, a throbbing neck, and a phone screen full of a man I should’ve stopped thinking about years ago.

But hadn't.

Not even close.

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?”

“Everywhere,” I admitted. “It hurts to swallow. To breathe.”

He sighed. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “If I were there, I could make you forget all about it.”

“You’re not here,” I said.

“But you’re thinking about me, right?” he asked.

“You’re thinking about me touching your throat, kissing down your chest, sucking on your nipples.

You’re thinking about all the ways I can make you feel good so you don’t have to feel like this.

That’s why you called me in the middle of the night, isn’t it? ”

My breath hitched, the ache between my legs getting worse, begging for relief.

“I should go.”

“You said it yourself. You missed me.”

There was nothing more dangerous than when he talked like this, when he used my words against me.

He’d always been good at that, hadn’t he?

Saying exactly the right thing to make me break and beg and let him back in.

My free hand curled into the sheets, doing anything other than touching myself to the sound of his voice.

“I shouldn’t,” I whispered.

“But you want to.”

I hesitated. “Yes. I do.”

I could hear the smile in his voice when he responded. “Do you want me to talk you through it?”

I felt a sudden, hot rush of blood to my cheeks—humiliation nearly undid me, but the way he asked made me ache more than it should have. Like he would take his time with me, make sure I hurt in all the best ways.

“Ruby,” he said when I didn’t respond.

“Yes,” I said before I could change my mind. Before I could remember all the reasons not to want this from him. This temporary pleasure that never quite seemed temporary enough. “Tell me what to do.”

He exhaled, slow and easy and so fucking sexy I could’ve come from the sound alone. Kieran was like that: effortless, infuriating, everything I wanted and everything I shouldn’t have wanted all wrapped up in one perfectly devastating package.

“You’re so sexy when you’re good for me,” he said. “Lie back. Close your eyes. Pretend it’s me.”

I listened, shutting out everything except his voice. His directions. His sounds. “Imagine how my fingers feel when I slide them inside you,” he said, and I gasped as I did just that—imagined—and slicked two fingers down between my legs.

“Fuck,” he said, breath heavier now, closer to the phone. “You’re already wet for me, aren’t you? You were wet for me all night.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good,” he said. “Now open your legs. Let me hear how wet you are.”

I spread my thighs and rubbed more insistently until the slick, obscene sound of it was loud enough for him to hear. Loud enough that he groaned deep and guttural into my ear. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “You’re making such a mess for me. I wish I could see it. You’re so beautiful like this.”

“You loved watching me.”

“Yes,” he said. “Makes me hard as fuck to think about. It has for years.”

“Are you—”

“What do you think?”

“Oh God.”

I could hear him unzipping his pants, moving his clothes aside…could practically see his cock, long, scarred fingers wrapped around it. Jesus, I wanted him here. “Pretend it’s my cock,” he said. “Fill yourself up. Go harder. You can do it.”

My fingers obeyed, desperate now, frenzied. I gasped, and the sound made him groan again—made me forget about everything except how he was making me feel right now, in this moment. “Make yourself come,” he said, rough and hungry. “Fuck yourself hard for me.”

The coil tightened and tightened, and it didn’t take long before I was right there, right on the edge. His voice pushed me back a second time: “Good girl. Are you going to come for me?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, yes. Oh God.”

I buried my head in the pillow to muffle the sounds that escaped this time, my legs trembling as I tightened around my fingers and came into the dark of the room. It was fast and fierce and not fucking enough. I wanted more. I wanted him.

I wanted him and I would always fucking want him, even though I knew it was wrong .

“Kieran,” I moaned, fucking myself through it again until I couldn’t take anymore.

“Jesus,” he said, his own voice catching slightly, like he was right there with me. Like he’d been there all along. It was messy and hot and everything I didn’t want to let go of, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be enough because this was a fucking crazy, terrible idea.

I kept telling myself to stay away from him, but here I was on the phone with him in the middle of the night, asking him to talk me through an orgasm.

Wishing he was here in my bed, his cock inside me.

“I should really go,” I said, my hand hovering over the end call button.

“No,” he said—but he wasn’t using his In Charge voice anymore. This was tender…pleading “Stay.”

“And what? We go again in twenty minutes?”

He laughed. Not a polite little chuckle, but a full-bellied laugh. “You have to warn me before you actually crack a good joke. I almost pulled something.”

“You’re so full of shit.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But don’t hang up. Just…just stay on the line. Let me listen to you breathe.”

A pause.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he added, too quickly. “Nothing’s changed.”

But he was wrong.

Everything had changed.

I curled into the sheets, phone warm against my ear, and felt that old ache bloom in my chest—an ache worse than the one between my legs, the one that begged for his love , not just his cock. Because he’d always been good in bed…but it was his love I’d missed most of all.

“Okay,” I whispered. “Good night, Kieran.”

He let out a low, rumbling sigh. “Good night, Ruby.”

And after that…I actually slept .