Chapter 3 Fireworks At Rosewater #5
"I know you don't think it." Her eyes searched mine. "But I need more than not thinking it. I need you to answer me when there's no crowd to make it easy. I don't want to be the hot redhead from the story replies. I don't want to be the party trick in everyone's version of your summer."
"You're not."
"Then tell me what I am."
The party thumped beyond the boathouse. Someone laughed too loudly nearby. A set of footsteps passed on the dock above us, close enough that both of us went still until they faded.
I could have made it smooth. I didn't.
"You're Vina," I said. "You're trouble, and heat, and the girl who can make a whole bar forget how to talk.
But you're also the woman who caught Sam's pride before I did.
The woman who stopped joking when it mattered.
The woman who looks at me like she wants all of me, not just whatever version the party can cheer for. "
Vina's grip softened, just a little.
I kept going because she deserved the answer without me hiding behind heat.
"I want you when everyone's watching. I want you when nobody is. And I know those aren't the same thing."
Her throat moved. "Good."
Then she kissed me.
It wasn't a full surrender. It was a claim with teeth. Her mouth pressed to mine, hot and serious, one hand sliding to the back of my neck while the other stayed fisted in my shirt. I kissed her back, and the restraint I'd been carrying all night flared so hard my hands flexed on her waist.
She felt it. Of course she did.
Vina pulled me closer until her body lined up with mine.
Her thigh slipped between my legs, not enough to become anything we couldn't walk back, enough to make my cock hard and my breath rough.
Her lips moved to my jaw, then the side of my neck.
She tasted my skin with a slow kiss that made my knees want to forget their job.
"Vina."
"That's me, baby." Her voice was low against my throat. "Not the rumor. Not the show. Me."
I cupped her face, making her look at me. "I know."
She searched my eyes for one second, then nodded like she'd decided to believe me because I had finally given her something solid.
Her mouth came close again, but she stopped before kissing me.
"I want you alone," she said. "Soon. Not in a corner. Not while people are posting stories ten yards away. I want a door, a bed, and enough time for you to answer everything you started tonight."
My hands tightened at her waist. "You'll get it."
"No." Her smile returned now, slow and dangerous. "I'll take it. But I'm telling you first because I want you walking around with the debt."
"Debt?"
"You heard me." She kissed the corner of my mouth, almost sweet. "The dance floor was public. This is private enough to make it worse. The rest waits."
"Does it have to?"
Footsteps crossed the dock above us again, then paused. Someone called for a missing cooler. Vina smiled against my mouth.
"Yes."
I groaned, and she laughed quietly, pleased but not cruel.
She slid her hand down my chest, stopping at my stomach, fingers pressing through the damp linen. Her gaze dropped once, taking in exactly what she'd done to me, then came back to my face.
"Good," she whispered. "Think about that when you try to sleep."
"You're vicious."
"I'm honest."
Kit had used the same word two mornings ago. On Vina, it sounded different. Not softer. No less true.
Vina stepped back before I could pull her in again. She smoothed the front of her dress, fixed one strap, then reached up and brushed her thumb along my lower lip like she was cleaning up evidence she wanted left behind.
"I'm going back to the bar," she said.
"Of course you are."
"If I stay here, you're going to forget we're being responsible."
"I'm already close."
Her smile flashed. "I know."
She turned toward the terrace, then stopped and looked over her shoulder. In the string-light haze, with fireworks smoke still dragging across the lake and the party calling her name, Vina looked less like a rumor than anyone I'd ever seen.
"Nash."
"Yeah?"
"Next time I get you alone, don't bring the crowd with you."
"I won't."
"Good."
She walked back toward the music, hips moving with that same careless heat she'd used all night, but now I knew better. There was nothing careless about Vina Ashby. Not really.
I stayed under the boathouse shadow for a minute, trying to get my body and pulse under control while the music rolled over me from the terrace.
The lake moved in the dark. Fireworks smoke thinned above the water.
The party was still alive behind me. The label was still out there, unstable and spreading.
Kit, Luna, Poppy, Lucy, Bristol, and Vina had all stood around me under fireworks and let Rosewater see the shape before we knew how to name it ourselves.
Then Vina had taken the public heat and turned it into something I owed her in private.
Somewhere up there, the crowd was still waiting for the next story.
They could wait.
Vina had just given me the one that mattered.
I went back toward the lights with her taste on my mouth, her warning in my blood, and no prayer of sleeping easy.