I move toward the dresser without speaking, reaching automatically for the decanter sitting beside the crystal glasses.Whiskey.Neat.Always.The amber liquid catches the light as I pour two fingers into each glass before crossing back toward her.
She takes the glass from my hand slowly, fingertips brushing mine.Electricity flares between us.Everything with her still feels electric.For a long moment neither of us speaks.She takes a sip first watching me over the rim of the glass while heat and tension and ten years of unfinished history settle heavily between us.
“Did you end it?”My voice comes out lower than intended, controlled only with a force I’m not quite sure how I’m maintaining.
Vanessa doesn’t look away.“Before you walked in.”
Something sharp twists low in my chest at the quiet certainty in her voice.It’s not defensive, and definitely not apologetic.But it’s with complete certainty.She chose me.The realization lands harder this time.Angry at myself because I didn’t trust that she would.And I should have.
I set my glass down carefully on the edge of the bar before I do something reckless like crush it in my hand.Vanessa watches the movement.Watches me.And somehow that’s worse.
“I know what you thought when you saw us.”
My jaw tightens.“Do you?”
“You thought I was coming down here with him.”
The directness of it leaves no room to hide behind anything.I exhale once through my nose, my gaze dragging toward the floor before finding her again.“Yes.”
No point lying to her.Not Vanessa.She’d see right through it anyway.She steps closer then.Slow and deliberate.And God, she still knows exactly what that does to me.
“You still rush in before asking questions.”
The words should feel like criticism.Instead, they feel like truth.Which is infinitely worse.
“He was touching you.”I grate out, releasing a slow breath to try slow my thudding pulse.
“And you panicked.”
Her response isn’t angry, or mocking.Just quietly observant.That somehow dismantles me faster than fury ever could.
“I didn’t like it.”
“No.”A faint, almost sad smile touches her mouth.“You never did.”
Silence settles again.It’s heavier now, weighted with an intimacy that wasn’t there before.I look at her standing in her black dress, auburn hair spilling over her shoulders, whiskey cradled in one hand, and all I can think about is how a decade hasn’t changed a damn thing where she’s concerned.Maybe it’s only made it worse.
“Tell me what you want, Vanessa.”
The words leave me rougher this time.And for maybe the first time in my life, I mean them without trying to shape the answer first.Vanessa’s eyes hold mine for one endless second before she sets her glass down with slow and careful precision and walks toward me with no hesitation.The certainty in her gait a quiet confidence that hits somewhere dangerously deep in my chest.
She reaches me, one hand sliding against my sternum before pushing me backward.It’s not hard or forceful.But I fall back, and suddenly I’m sitting in the leather chair behind me while she remains standing between my knees.
Jesus Fucking Christ.My hands flex once against the armrests as she reaches for the zipper at the side of her dress to lower it.She doesn’t break eye contact as he slides the fabric down her body inch by inch until it pools silently around her feet.
And all coherent thought leaves my body.Black lace.Bare skin.Long pale legs I remember wrapped around my waist in shitty college apartments and against practice room walls and in the backseat of my car because we were twenty and obsessed and incapable of keeping our hands off each other.
But this, this feels different.It’s slow and intentional and seductive in a way you could never be at twenty.Vanessa steps closer until her thighs brush against mine before she settles onto my lap, one knee on either side of me, fingers sliding into my hair as her mouth finally meets mine.
Fuck.Me.
The sound I make against her lips barely sounds human.I grip her hips hard enough to feel the heat of her skin beneath my palms as the kiss deepens into something devastatingly familiar.She tastes like whiskey and every decadent sin I’ve ever wanted.She kisses me like she knows how to pull me apart one slow inch at a time.
Her tongue brushes mine and every ounce of control I walked in here clinging to fractures violently, my fingertips digging into her skin hard enough to cause divots.But Vanessa, Vanessa stays calm.She kisses me slowly.Deeply.Like she’s reclaiming something too.
My forehead presses briefly against hers when we break apart for air, both of us breathing harder now.
“You’re shaking.”
