30. Chapter Thirty Kieran #2
I could’ve made a joke, but I couldn’t breathe.
I shoved them down—boxers too—and when we were skin to skin, it hit me like a goddamn freight train.
The heat of her. The feel of her against me, bare, real, finally.
My eyes fluttered shut for half a second.
I’d promised myself I’d make her beg. That I’d wait.
But the second I touched her, I knew—I was already the one on my knees.
I lifted her again, couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop.
She was weightless in my arms, laughing breathlessly, and I felt that sound all the way to my spine.
It was everything. Her legs locked around my waist, arms around my shoulders, and I pressed her back against the wall as the water pounded around us.
She looked up at me like she knew. Like she felt it too.
This wasn’t victory. It was surrender. And I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.
The shower beat down around us, rushing water the only sound. Maybe the only sound I’d ever remember. She didn’t push me away again; she didn’t tell me to stop.
“You miss me,” she said softly.
“Yes.”
“You miss fucking me.”
I groaned against her skin. “God, yes.”
Not just fucking you, I thought, but I didn’t want her to know that.
“You can fuck me now,” she rasped.
Her breath hitched as she whispered something I couldn’t catch—but I didn’t need to.
Everything I needed to know was in the way she moved against me, the way her fingers gripped my back like she was already bracing for the fall.
There was no space left for pretending. No control.
Just us, stripped down to nothing but heat and need and eight fucking years of waiting.
Any attempt at restraint burned off like steam.
She reached down between us, and the second she lined me up, I pushed in—slow at first, just enough to feel the resistance, the stretch.
Then I drove the rest of the way home in a single, brutal thrust. She cried out, the sound high and broken, and I felt it everywhere.
Felt her clench around me, slick and hot and so goddamn perfect I almost saw stars.
“Fuck,” I breathed, forehead pressed to hers, both of us shaking.
She was tight. So tight it was all I could do to hold still, to savor it—to feel her around me before the rest of me shattered.
I rocked into her again, deeper this time, and her nails bit into my shoulders like she didn’t know whether to pull me closer or push me away. I didn’t give her the choice.
She moved with me. Desperate. Wild. Every thrust was an answer to a question we’d never asked out loud. Every snap of my hips into hers was a punishment for the years we’d lost.
I couldn’t be slow. I didn’t want to be slow.
Not when I had her like this—open to me, clinging to me, giving me everything I’d been dreaming about in silence. We were all heat and noise, the slap of skin and the sound of her gasping my name. I fucked her like I meant it. Like I’d earned it. Like I’d fucking die if I didn’t.
The shower tiles offered no give; they forced us up against each other, made it impossible to be anything but frantic and fierce. Her body tensed and arched, lifting for more and more until her breath turned ragged and I was groaning loud enough to drown out the water.
“You feel so fucking good,” I said. “I love being inside of you.”
It sent a shiver through her—one I felt from the inside out. She tightened more on me, clutching desperately now, and buried her face against my neck. The breath of her next words was a series of stuttering gasps.
"Jesus… I’m gonna… Fuck!"
I couldn’t hold back; I didn’t want to hold back. I shifted, tilting my hips so I hit deeper, grinding once and then again as everything clenched impossibly tight around me.
She froze, teetering right at the edge, and then let out a sound that was half sob and half scream as she came hard, spasming over me in waves. Her nails dug into my shoulders like an anchor point—a way to hold on to herself or pull me in deeper.
“Ruby,” I breathed, feeling her shudder and crack open and break.
Every desperate inch of restraint disappeared. I was lost to it: the slippery friction, the hunger and heat and her body clinging to mine in fits of blinding pleasure.
“Fuck… fuck , Ruby, I’m not gonna last long—”
“Yes,” she said, her voice low, breathy. “ Yes . Come inside me.”
Everything crashed in hard surges, white and hot and unstoppable.
I thrust into her, reckless now, coming faster than I wanted but not fast enough to stop the explosion inside of me.
Her name tore out of my mouth, rough and raw, as I flooded into her, every inch of me lost in the dizzying haze of it.
We were a frantic mess of bodies and flowing water, barely keeping it together even as we both came completely apart. The tiles were cold beneath my hands, her skin so warm against mine that I thought I'd break with it. Everything felt fused between us: bones and blood and breath.
I held still when it was over, feeling the twitch of her muscles wrapped around me like my own pulse, the low thrum of aftershock tremble through us both. I stayed inside her, not willing to let go yet.
Thinking to myself…I wasn’t going to.
Not ever.
She kissed me again—soft this time, gentle—even though we both knew there might not be gentle left if we kept going.
I lowered her down carefully until she was standing on her own again, my arms still braced around her like she’d fall if I let up for even a second.
Her cheek rested against my chest, and she exhaled like she was letting go of something heavy. Like maybe it was me. The thought clenched in my gut.
“What would your father say?” she murmured after a moment.
“To which part?”
She laughed again, that same breathless sound. “Sex with the DA?”
“Don’t know. Glad he’s dead,” I replied. “But he’d probably start by shooting me.”
“Will your brother?”
I cocked my head, tucking another strand of wet hair behind her ear as I watched her face. “Are you worried about me, Ruby?”
"Maybe.”
“Don’t be.”
Her hand brushed my jaw, then traveled down my chest. She was silent as she lathered soap between her fingers and started on my abs, hot water sluicing over us both. It ached when she found the cut on my ribs, but she was gentle, careful.
She was the only person who had ever been gentle with me.
Fuck, I wanted to keep her.
Her touch stilled after a while, the shower running long and static around us. I opened one eye to find her looking at me with that same unreadable expression.
"Are you worried about you?" she whispered.
I kissed the corner of her mouth instead of answering—just enough to taste her, just enough to make her sigh against me.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“No,” I said, hoping it sounded convincing to her ears. “No. I can take care of myself.”