Chapter 17: The Stolen Touch
The evening air in the Arc garden held the day’s warmth like a held breath. It smelled of damp earth, of green things, and the overpowering, cloying perfume of Cinder’s roses—blood-red blooms that seemed to pulse in the fading light.
Jaune snipped a dead leaf, the sharp snick of the shears satisfying. His shoulders didn’t ache. For the first time in years, the habitual hunch was gone, replaced by a strange, quiet straightness. He kept seeing flashes of Kali’s kitchen: the steam, her laughter, the way her hand had lingered on his arm not as a command, but an invitation.The memory was a coal in his stomach, radiating a dangerous warmth.“Wow! These are, like, aggressively beautiful!”
Ruby Rose appeared at the wrought-iron gate as if summoned by his thoughts, a streak of cheerful color against the deep greens and reds.Her silver eyes were wide. Paint speckled her forearms, a dot of cobalt blue on her cheek. She pushed the gate open and bounded down the cobblestone path without waiting for an invitation.“Ruby. Hi.” Jaune’s voice was rusty from disuse.He set the shears down.
“Cinder really goes for the whole… Gothic romance vibe, huh?” Ruby laughed, bending at the waist to inhale the scent of a massive, velvet-petalled rose. Her cut-off shorts, already short, rode up further, exposing the full, smooth curve of her backside.The fabric tightened.
Jaune stared.The coal in his stomach flared. The image of Kali blurred, superimposed by this: the youthful swell of flesh, the trusting, oblivious posture. A current, hot and reckless, shot through him. It was the same boldness that had made him meet Kali’s eyes, but sharper, less tempered.This wasn’t a shared secret.This was a theft.
His feet moved before his mind could protest.Two steps closed the distance. The scent of roses mixed with the chemical tang of turpentine and Ruby’s own sunshine smell.
His hand, dirt under the nails from gardening, reached out.It didn’t hover.It didn’t hesitate. It landed firmly on the exposed curve of her ass, his palm covering the swell, fingers curling possessively. The heat of her skin bled through the thin cotton.She was solid, real, yielding under his touch.
Ruby gasped.The sound was sharp, a startled puncture in the evening quiet. She spun, her motion knocking his hand away, but not before he’d felt the firmness, the incredible life of her.Her eyes were huge.A deep flush spread from her neck to her hairline. She stared at him, her lips parted, paint-smudged hands held up as if in surrender.
Jaune expected the slap.The scream.The inevitable consequence. He braced for it, almost welcomed the clean, familiar pain of punishment.It didn’t come.
Ruby’s shocked expression shifted, softened at the edges by something else.Curiosity.A flicker of intrigue. She bit her lower lip, a nervous habit, and her gaze dropped to his hand before darting back to his face.“Jaune…” Her voice was a whisper, hushed with disbelief. A small smile touched her lips. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
The words were an absolution.A grant of power.He didn’t let the moment break. He reached for her again, slower this time, giving her every chance to pull away. His thumb found the inner seam of her shorts, tracing the stitched line from the curve of her hip down towards the warmth between her legs. The pad of his thumb pressed against the fabric, feeling the shape of her.
Ruby didn’t move away.Her breath hitched, a soft, audible catch. She leaned into the touch, a minute shift of her hips that pressed her more firmly against his hand. Her bright eyes were clouded now, darker.“Does she…?” Ruby began, then swallowed. “Does Cinder know you’re like this?”
The mention of his wife’s name was a dash of cold water.But the warmth of Ruby under his hand was stronger.“No,” he said. The word felt good.A secret. “She doesn’t.”
“And you just… wanted to?” Ruby’s question was genuine, not accusatory.She was an artist dissecting a new subject.
Jaune’s thumb pressed a little harder. He thought of Kali’s smirk, of her whispered “you’re allowed to want things.” He nodded. “Yes.”
Ruby exhaled, a long, slow breath.She looked around the empty garden, then back at him. The curiosity in her eyes had ignited into something more deliberate.“Emerald’s working late. Sketching.My place smells like linseed oil and… well, me.” She tilted her head. “You want to come in?See my work?”
It wasn’t an invitation to see her paintings. They both knew it. The subtext hummed in the air between them, thicker than the scent of roses.Jaune looked down at his dirty hands, his simple work clothes. He was the mayor’s husband.He was obedient.He was nothing. But in this garden, with this girl’s heat still imprinted on his palm, he was someone else. Someone who took what he wanted.“Yes,” he said again.Ruby’s smile widened, turning wicked. She took his dirty hand in her paint-stained one, lacing their fingers together. She pulled him gently away from the roses, towards her bright door just across the cul-de-sac.
As they stepped onto the path, Jaune cast one last look back at the perfect, thorned garden. The shears lay forgotten on the grass.For the first time, he had left a task unfinished. The rebellion was so small, so quiet.It felt like the beginning of an avalanche.
Ruby’s door clicked shut behind them, sealing him in a world of color and chaos and unimaginable possibility.
Ruby’s door clicked shut behind them, sealing him in a world of color and chaos and unimaginable possibility. The air was thick with the sharp, nostalgic scent of oil paint and the musty, sweet odor of old records. Canvases leaned against every wall, vibrant splashes of color depicting the cul-de-sac’s houses twisted into surreal, dreamlike shapes.
“It’s a mess, I know,” Ruby said, not sounding sorry at all. She released his hand and danced further into the room, her energy making the confined space feel electric. “But mess is where the good stuff hides.”
Jaune stood frozen on the welcome mat, his gardening boots suddenly grotesquely out of place.He was trespassing in every conceivable way. The quiet here was different from Cinder’s house—it was a busy, creative silence, full of potential instead of dread.
Ruby turned to face him, her back to a large window where the last of the twilight glowed.She studied his face, her head cocked. “You look like you’re waiting for an alarm to sound.” She smiled softly.“It’s okay. You’re safe here.”
“Safe,” he echoed, the word foreign on his tongue. Safety was a locked door, a predictable schedule.This was the opposite of safe.This was free-fall. He took a hesitant step forward, the floorboard creaking under his weight.
“You’re not a piece in her collection over here,” Ruby said, her voice gentle but unwavering. She gestured to a canvas where Cinder’s rose garden was rendered as a cage of thorns. “You can just be Jaune. Whoever that is.”
The permission in her words undid something tight in his chest.He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. His gaze moved from the painting to her, to the faint dusting of freckles across her nose, to the quick pulse in her throat.He closed the distance between them. This time, there was no garden, no audience, no pretense. He cupped her face, his thumbs brushing the streaks of paint on her cheeks.Her skin was warm.Her silver eyes held his, wide and trusting.
He kissed her.It was nothing like the practiced, performative kisses he offered Cinder. It was clumsy, hungry, all damp breath and searching pressure. Ruby made a small, approving sound in the back of her throat. Her hands came up to grip his wrists, not to pull him away, but to hold him there.
She kissed him back with an artist’s passion, all curiosity and bold strokes.Her tongue touched his, and a jolt went through him. She tasted of spearmint gum and the metallic hint of turpentine.It was intoxicating.
When they broke apart, they were both breathing heavily.Ruby’s lips were slick and parted. “See?” she whispered, her voice rough. “Just Jaune.”
A fierce, desperate need rose in him, tempered by a lifetime of hesitation. “I don’t know how to do this,” he confessed, the admission shameful and raw.Ruby just smiled, a quick, bright thing. “There’s no ‘how.’ There’s just… yes.” Her fingers went to the hem of her paint-splattered t-shirt.“Is this yes?”
He couldn’t speak. He nodded, his throat too tight for words.She pulled the shirt over her head in one swift motion. It fell to the floor with a soft whisper. She stood before him in just her shorts, her chest small and pale, her nipples already peaked in the cool air of the room. She watched him watch her, her expression open and fearless.
His hands trembled as he reached for the button of his own shirt, the coarse work fabric suddenly unbearable against his skin. The buttons slipped under his fumbling fingers.Ruby stepped forward and gently brushed his hands aside. “Let me.”
She undid each button slowly, deliberately, her focus absolute. She pushed the shirt from his shoulders, letting it drop onto her t-shirt on the floor. Her fingertips traced the lines of his shoulders, the muscles tense from years of hunched obedience.“You’re so strong,” she murmured, almost to herself.
He wasn’t.He felt fractured. But under her touch, he felt the ghost of strength, a memory from a life before Cinder. He reached for the button of her cut-offs, the same seam his thumb had traced in the garden.The denim was warm from her skin.
The button popped open.The zipper rasped downwards. He hooked his fingers into the waistband and pushed, guiding the shorts and the thin cotton beneath them down her hips. They slid over the curve of her ass, down her thighs, to pool around her ankles.
She stepped out of them, kicking them aside.She stood completely bare now, bathed in the dusky blue light from the window. She was all smooth lines and gentle shadows, a living sculpture.She reached for his belt buckle next.
The leather slid free with a hiss.His trousers followed, heavy and coarse. His own underwear, simple and practical, went last.They joined the growing pile on the painted floorboards.
CLOTHES HIT FLOOR.
The air in the room, once cool, now felt charged and close. Jaune stood before her, exposed in every way, his body a map of tension and hesitant desire. Ruby’s eyes weren't judging; they were appreciating, tracing the lines of him as if committing them to canvas.She closed the small distance between them. Her hand came up, not to his chest, but to his jaw, her fingers light. Her other hand rested flat against his sternum, over the frantic drum of his heart.“See?” she whispered.“Just skin.”
Then she leaned in, pressing her body against his.SKIN AGAINST SKIN.
The shock of it was absolute.It wasn't just touch; it was a seismic surrender. The warmth of her was a shockwave, erasing the memory of every sterile, obligated contact. Her breasts flattened against his chest, a soft, yielding pressure. The fine hair on her arms brushed his, a thousand tiny points of awareness.He gasped, a ragged intake that sounded like pain. His own hands came up, clumsy, settling on the bare curve of her waist.The reality of her was overwhelming. She was all smoothness and heat, a living contrast to the cold, sculpted perfection of Cinder’s world.
“It’s okay,” Ruby murmured into the hollow of his shoulder.Her breath was hot.Her lips moved against his skin as she spoke.“You can feel it. It’s just a feeling.”
But it wasn't.It was a revolution. His thumbs stroked the dip of her waist, learning the terrain of her. He could feel every shift of her muscles, the quick flutter of her pulse near her navel. He was drowning in sensation, each one a nail in the coffin of the man he’d been.
She began to move, a slow, gentle rocking of her hips against his thigh.The friction was deliberate, instructional. A soft, wanting sound escaped her.It was permission.It was a guide.
His control, a rusted cage holding decades of silence, shattered. He pulled her tighter against him, one hand sliding up the knobs of her spine to tangle in the short, spiky hair at her nape. He kissed her again, deeper, claiming the mint and turpentine taste of her. His other hand slid down, over the swell of her ass, gripping the firm flesh, pulling her into the growing hardness pressed between them.She met his force with a breathy moan, her fingers digging into his shoulders. “Yeah,” she panted against his mouth.“Just like that. Don’t think.”
He didn't.He let the current take him. He walked her backwards, their bodies fused, until the backs of her thighs hit the wide, paint-stained arm of her sofa. He lowered her onto it, the worn velvet cool against her back. The world narrowed to the space between them, to the shadowed meeting of their bodies.
He knelt on the floor before her, his hands on her knees, pushing them apart. The intimate sight of her, open to him in the dim light, stole his breath.He leaned forward, burying his face against the soft skin of her inner thigh. He inhaled her scent—clean sweat, cotton, something uniquely, essentially Ruby.
Her hand found his hair, not guiding, just holding.“Jaune,” she sighed, her voice trembling.
He kissed her there, on the delicate skin.Then higher. His tongue found her, a slow, exploratory stroke.She cried out, a sharp, surprised sound that dissolved into a throaty hum. Her back arched off the velvet, her hips lifting towards his mouth.
He learned her rhythm by listening, by feeling the shuddering responses of her body. He tasted her salt and her pleasure, and each gasp from above was a fuel that burned away his last reservations.This was giving, not taking. This was worship, not duty.
When her thighs began to tremble around his head, when her breaths became frantic sobs, he pulled back. He looked up her body, seeing her face strained with ecstasy, her silver eyes blind to everything but the feeling.He wanted to be inside that feeling.
He rose over her, bracing himself on the arms of the sofa. She looked up at him, her expression dazed and utterly vulnerable.He guided himself into her, a slow, inexorable push. She was tight, impossibly hot, and she welcomed him with a low, drawn-out groan.
He was fully sheathed, motionless for a long moment, feeling her pulse around him. This was the center.This was the truth his life had hidden. A single, traitorous thought flickered: Cinder’s roses were just dead flowers.
Then Ruby moved beneath him, a shift of her hips, and thought was impossible. He began to move, setting a pace that was neither gentle nor brutal, but profoundly necessary. Skin slid against sweat-slicked skin, the sound obscene and perfect.The sofa creaked in a steady, protesting rhythm.
Her legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back.Her nails scored paths down his shoulders. “Don’t stop,” she chanted, her voice breaking.“Please, don’t stop.”
He wouldn't. He couldn't.This was the only thing that had ever been real. He drove into her, each thrust a hammer blow to the prison of his old self. The climax built not as a wave, but as a detonation, starting in his gut and roaring outwards until it consumed every nerve.
He cried out, a raw, cracked sound he didn't recognize as his own. He spilled into her, his body shuddering violently, his forehead collapsing against her shoulder. For several long seconds, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the faint hum of the refrigerator in the next room.
Slowly, the world seeped back in.The smell of paint. The gritty feel of dried soil still on his hands from the garden.The weight of what he had done.
He started to pull away, the old guilt rising like a tide.Ruby’s arms tightened around him, holding him close. “Shhh,” she soothed, her hand stroking his damp hair. “Stay right here. Just for a minute.”
They stayed like that, skin still joined, as the last of the twilight faded into full dark outside the window. In the quiet, he felt the terrifying, exhilarating emptiness of a erased rule.He also felt the first, cold trickle of fear. The garden shears were still lying in the grass.The roses would need tending. Cinder would be home soon.