Vivian studied her face with terrifyingly clinical precision. A scientist running an experiment. Everything felt like the wrong move, so Bryn stopped. Froze.
“Is that what you want?” Vivian asked, her gaze dropping to Bryn’s lips before drifting slowly, agonizingly, back up to her eyes. “To be…cool?”
“Uh huh.” She gulped and would’ve loosened her tie if she’d had one. “Cool.”
Vivian rested her elbow on the back of the loveseat, her fingers dangling inches from Bryn’s shoulder. Just that proximity was intoxicating, but not knowing what the hell Vivian was going to do next was torture. Addictive torture.
When she released Bryn from her hypnotic gaze, Vivian dropped her attention to Bryn’s neck. Bryn imagined her watching the embarrassing flutter of her pulse beneath her skin. Watched it like she was counting the beats and concealing her amusement at her effect on Bryn.
Then, Vivian leaned in. Just an inch. Just enough for Bryn to smell the expensive dark sandalwood scent of her perfume. Vivian’s attention drifted to Bryn’s mouth and lingered there, heavy and alluring, before dragging back up with an unbearable lethargy that made Bryn want to run out of her skin.
Vivian held her gaze, waiting until the silence was stretched so tight it was ready to snap. Waiting until Bryn was on the verge of trembling.
“Okay,” Vivian whispered.
She hesitated and Bryn felt the microscopic shift toward her like a tidal wave. She braced for impact, her body already alive with anticipation. Already feeling the weight of Vivian’s lips on hers.
When Vivian inhaled, her eyes fluttered closed and Bryn was ready to present herself as a burnt offering. To kneel and revere and covet.
Vivian held her in her palm when she moistened her lips and breathed, “Glad we cleared that up.”
It wasn’t until Vivian stood that Bryn snapped back to her senses. “Yep, right.” She scrambled to her feet with a quarter of Vivian’s ease, but considering she couldn’t feel her legs, it was a miracle she was upright.
Vivian watched her for too many rushed heartbeats before she smirked. “Come on. Maybe they’ll have obtuse angles outside for you to admire.”
Bryn laughed, whiplash making her drunker than any booze.Cool. So cool.
Back on the patio, Bryn was a thousand feet tall with Vivian at her side. With her walking so close that their arms touched. Vivian could have been the bartender or the woman with the tickets, and Bryn would still have felt like a giant among mortals.
They reached one of the makeshift bars that had materialized in the twenty minutes they’d been gone. With fresh eyes, she looked around and realized that hundreds of people had clustered into a dozen large groups. Constellations orbiting a single person.
“What’s that about?” Bryn whispered.
Vivian didn’t look up before she responded. “Desperation.”
“What’ll you have?” the man behind the folding table asked.
Vivian looked at Bryn and waited for her to order first. Chuckling, Bryn raised her brows at her. With nothing but her grin, she asked,Vivian del Castillo, are you a closet gentleman?
“Two martinis,” Bryn said with unwavering confidence. She shot a cocky glance at Vivian and added, “Dirty.”
Vivian’s lips didn’t move but Bryn felt her amusement in the floating feeling in her stomach. “Taking notes on me?”
Bryn’s chest and throat and skin all tightened at once. Vivian’s attention was the unbearable heat of the spotlight and just as irresistible.
“Maybe only your vices,” she replied with an irrepressible grin because she was really here. Invited to the same event as Vivian and up for the same award. She took a deep breath and let her anxiety about all the unknowns go.
Vivian took a drink and handed it to Bryn first. Another point in the gentleman column. “A good martini is hardly a vice,” she said with city lights dancing in her dark eyes. “And it’s a necessity in a room full of people who think networking is a personality trait.”
Bryn laughed and led them toward a distant corner overlooking the street forty stories below. Leaning against the modern railing, she sipped her strong drink and watched Vivian.
“So why not skip this whole thing altogether?” She kept her attention on Vivian and strained to read everything she wasn’t saying, and Bryn was sure there was a universe of things Vivian wasn’t saying.
“Maybe I’m a masochist,” she muttered into her martini.
Something about Vivian’s dodge made Bryn’s heart do a soaring triple axel and blow the landing. “Avoiding a simple question?”
Vivian dropped her gaze to the neckline of Bryn’s vest before lazily traveling back up. “Maybe I was bored in my room and the scenery up here is…” She took a slow sip of her martini, holding Bryn’s gaze over the rim and turning Bryn’s knees to jello. “More interesting.”
