Page 62 of Velvet Corruption

My other hand found her thigh, fingers digging into soft skin, guiding her down harder against me. She gasped—sharp, involuntary—and rocked into it.

I was gone. My mind was already unraveling, chasing the image of her shirt peeled over her head, of her body bare beneath me. Of her crying out my name with her nails in my back and nothing between us but sweat and hunger.

My hands moved faster, needier, tugging her closer—

And then everything changed.

Ruby went stiff in my arms. Her mouth froze against mine. Her body locked up like a wire had snapped tight inside her.

It took me a beat too long to notice. One breath, two. I was still chasing her, still lost in her.

And then the air hit me. Cold. Wrong.

She’d stopped.

We had stopped.

I barely noticed at first, too consumed by the way we fit together, the fire I thought I saw in her eyes. My mouth was at her jaw, kissing her like I never wanted to stop, and maybe I didn’t.

But she did.

Her breath changed, a shaking inhale that said more than words could. It was a cold bucket of reality, dousing the fever that had almost taken us both.

“Kieran,” she said softly.

It might’ve been a warning. Maybe a plea. I hated the way it sounded like both.

I paused, leaned back just enough to look at her. My hands didn’t move. Didn’t let go. But hers did, releasing their grip, resting on my shoulders as she breathed out hard. Her eyes searched mine, all the intensity from a moment ago turning into something else. Something that made my chest feel hollow and full all at once.

The change was unmistakable now. The undoing. Everything falling apart even as we were both still trying to hold on.

My grip on her waist tightened just slightly. “You don’t have to stop,” I murmured, my voice low, coaxing. “You can let me take care of you, Ruby. Let me keep taking care of you.” I pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, slow and deliberate, hoping she’d chase it. “You want this. You want me. Just say it.”

She didn’t say anything.

So I kept going.

My mouth grazed her neck, reverent and hungry. “You think I haven’t been dreaming about this for eight fucking years?” I whispered. “About the way you sound when you come apart for me? The way you taste? The way you used to beg me not to stop?”

Her breath caught, her eyes fluttering shut—for just a second.

It was enough to make me bolder.

“I know you,” I said, my lips brushing her jaw. “I know what you need. I can make it better. Let me.”

But then her hand was on my chest, flat and firm.

Pushing.

Not rough. Not aggressive. But final.

“We can’t.”

Two words. They ripped through the room, through me, leaving a jagged silence in their wake.

My grip on her waist stayed firm. I didn’t want to let her go. Didn’t want this to stop when it felt like everything finally made sense again after eight long years without her, eightlong fucking yearsof drifting through life without a goddamn purpose.

This woman…making her happy, making her come, protecting her—that was what I wanted my purpose to be.