Page 34 of Velvet Corruption

My hand moved faster, desperate. I bit down on my lip hard enough to draw blood, the metallic taste mingling with the salt of my sweat. Fuck. I was so close.

And then her silhouette appeared in the window again. My heart nearly exploded in my chest. She stood there, motionless, and for a brief, terrifying moment, I thought she could see me.

I froze, my grip still tight around myself, thumbing the tip where moisture had already started to bead. I was beyond stopping now; the sight of her standing there had pushed me over the brink. I just needed a few more seconds…

She moved away from the window. My body sagged with a mix of relief and disappointment, but the tension in me didn’t release. I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat, stroking again, harder this time, chasing the last bit of friction I needed.

My breath caught in my throat as the release tore through me, swift and violent. I stifled a groan, my whole body tensing as waves of pleasure mixed with a crushing weight of guilt. My hand was a mess, my chest heaving like I’d run a marathon.

For a moment, everything was still. The world outside the car was eerily quiet, the kind of silence that feels like it’s holding its breath. I sank into the seat, exhausted, my mind a blank slate of post-orgasmic clarity.

I thought I heard a car door.

The police? A concerned neighbor? Her fucking husband?

But then there was nothing but receding footsteps, and I was left there, wondering what the fuck I had just done.

When the rush faded, a wave of shame crashed down on me. I was a grown man sitting in a fucking car in the suburbs, jerking off like a horny teenager. Worse, I was doing it while spying on a woman who wasn’t mine—who’d never been mine, not really.

I fumbled for the glove compartment and pulled out a wad of napkins. The reality of what I’d done sank in as I wiped myself clean: the sticky evidence of my weakness, my betrayal. This wasn’t who I was supposed to be. This wasn’t who Ruby had fallen for all those years ago.

The thought of her knowing—of anyone knowing—made my stomach turn.

I needed to get the fuck away from her before this…before whatever this was got worse. Because I knew it would if I stayed around her, and I had no fucking idea what I was going to do if it did.

Chapter Eight: Ruby

It was supposed to be a day off from school. Not a day off work.

But Rosie had woken up warm and glassy-eyed, the kind of low fever that didn’t scream emergency but still meant no school, no backup plan, and no rest for anyone. So here we were.

She was curled up on the kitchen bench, sniffly and wrapped in one of my oversized sweatshirts, half-heartedly working through an assignment Julian had given her. I’d set up at the table to keep her company—not that she needed me hovering, but I wanted to be close.

Julian would’ve said this was me neglecting her again. That I was too distracted, too buried in work. But the truth was, I didn’t want her out of my sight today. Not when she didn’t feel good. Not when I knew the ache behind her eyes and the droop of her shoulders better than I knew half my donors.

I loved this kid so much it physically hurt sometimes.

Still, my laptop was a battlefield—emails piling up, meeting notes unfinished, the campaign looming like a tidal wave. Alek was supposed to come by and help, but his sister had just shown up from London without warning. He wasn’t thrilled, but I got it.

I glanced over at Rosie. She was chewing on the end of her pencil with that dramatic intensity that meant she was either deep in thought or completely over it. Probably both. Julian’s idea of “academic enrichment” usually involved way too much pressure for a seven-year-old.

He meant well. But sometimes I wondered if he actually saw how hard she was trying.

Balancing the laptop on one knee, I scrolled through my phone with the other hand, searching for a takeout place that delivered breakfast. My growling stomach was losing patience with the banana and coffee I’d tried to fend it off with.

“Mom,” Rosie said. “What’s an algorithm?”

“You’re seven,” I said. “Why do you have to know that?”

“Dad says we need to understand how machines think,” she said, rolling her eyes in a way that was far too practiced for someone her age. “I don’t even get how humans think yet.”

I suppressed a sigh. Julian was pushing her too hard, and I knew I needed to talk to him about it. But how did you tell your kid’s father, who was also your ex but not your ex, that he needed to back off?

“It’s like a recipe,” I said, closing my laptop. “A set of instructions that tell the computer what to do.”

I slid off the couch, walking over to peer at the printout. Sometimes I wondered if Julian’s ambitions for Rosie were more about him than about her. Not that I minded her learning useful skills, but she was in fourth grade. Couldn’t she just play with Legos and read Harry Potter?

“So it’s not math?”