Chapter 4 In Daylight #2
I kept Vina's hand in mine as we crossed the alcove.
Luna stopped under the low hall light and held out the envelope. “Lakeview suite. Third floor. East side.”
“Luna,” I said. “Thank you.”
She waved that off and looked at Vina. “Rosewater is full tonight. Completely full. We keep one suite clear in case something goes wrong.” Her smile softened. “Nothing went wrong. So I figured the room could finally be useful.”
Vina took the envelope slowly. “What’s the catch, Sundance?”
“No catch.” Luna's gaze stayed on her. “You needed a door that closes. Not a shadow. Not a rumor. A real room. Kit knew. I could help. So I helped.”
Vina made a sound like a laugh that had lost its footing.
Luna stepped closer and touched her arm. Not dramatic. Not a ceremony. Just the kind of touch women used when they had already decided someone belonged.
“You’re part of this,” Luna said. “You don't owe us caution. You just owe yourself the truth.”
Vina pressed her lips together, eyes bright.
For once, she didn't fire back right away.
Then she lifted the envelope and recovered just enough Vina to survive the moment. “This better be the nice suite.”
“It is,” Luna said. “King bed, balcony, fresh towels, stocked mini-bar. Don’t trash the sheets unless you plan to tip housekeeping.”
Vina's grin flashed through the emotion. “No promises.”
Luna laughed, then looked at me. “Be with her, Nash. Don't overthink it.”
“I won’t.”
“You will,” she said. “But try not to make it her problem.”
Fair.
She hugged Vina quickly before either of them could make it too big.
Vina hugged her back, stiff for half a second, then tight.
When Luna pulled away, Vina ducked her head and studied the key envelope like it might explain how Kit and Luna had managed to make her feel safer and more exposed at the same time.
We walked into the guest wing.
The hall was quieter than the party, all polished floors, low lights, the faint smell of lemon cleaner and expensive flowers. Through the lobby glass, I could still see people moving across the terrace, but they were distant now. Witnesses, not audience.
Vina pressed the elevator button. Her shoulder brushed mine.
“So,” she said, voice rougher than usual. “Kit knows. Luna helped. You held my hand through Rosewater like you wanted the whole lake to see. This is starting to feel very boyfriend of you.”
“You complaining?”
“No.” She slid me a sideways look. “Just warning you that if you keep acting like I matter, I might start believing you.”
The elevator opened.
I stepped in beside her, still holding her hand. “Good.”
Vina's laugh was quiet, shaky, and real.
She pressed the button for the third floor and leaned into my side as the doors closed.
***
The suite door clicked shut behind us, and the quiet changed everything.
After hours of music, fireworks, lake noise, and people pretending not to stare, the silence landed hard.
It made the room feel larger and more private than any space had a right to feel.
One lamp glowed beside a king bed with white sheets turned down at the corner.
Glass doors opened onto a small balcony where the lake stretched black under the last haze of fireworks smoke.
Fresh towels sat folded in the bathroom.
The air smelled like clean cotton, lavender, and the faint citrus polish Rosewater used to make expensive rooms feel effortless.
Vina walked in first.
Her heels clicked on the floor, then stopped in the center of the room.
She looked around like she expected to find cameras behind the curtains.
Red hair loose. Makeup softened from the heat and the night.
Gloss gone from her mouth. Black dress still clinging to every curve, riding high on her thighs, making her look like the party had followed us inside and was waiting to see what she would do without applause.
“Well,” she said, turning slowly. “Fancy. Private. Huge bed. No phones. No dock. No Sam looking like he paid for a front-row seat to his own emotional damage.”
I set the key envelope on the entry table.
She put both hands on her hips and faced me. “You finally got me alone, Smoke Show. What are you going to do with me?”
The words were Vina. The smile was Vina. The angle of her hip, the tilt of her chin, the wicked shine in her eyes. All of it was familiar.
Underneath, she was vibrating.
Her breathing was too fast for a woman as casual as she sounded. Her fingers kept flexing against her thighs. She was ready for me to pounce because pouncing was easier to understand. Heat she knew. Hunger she trusted. Being wanted had never scared her.
Being taken seriously did.
I crossed the room slowly.
Vina's smile sharpened, but she didn't move. “Careful, Brew. If you walk any slower, I’m going to think you’re trying to make this romantic.”
“I am.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. “Oh, that is a dangerous answer.”
I stopped in front of her and touched her cheek with the backs of my fingers. Soft. Light. Nothing like the way I had grabbed her on the terrace. Her skin was warm from the party, and the smallest shiver moved through her.
“You’re beautiful,” I said.
She blinked.
Then the joke came back fast. “I know. Try not to sound so devastated about it.”
“I’ve wanted you all night.”
“That part was obvious.”
“All summer.”
Her eyes held mine.
“But tonight,” I said, letting my hand slide to the side of her neck, “I don't want the version everyone was watching. I want the woman who was watching me back to see if I’d flinch.”
Vina swallowed. “I don't flinch.”
“No. You make jokes.”
“That is a much hotter survival tactic.”
“It is.” I stepped close enough that her body brushed mine. “I want that too.”
Her fingers caught the front of my shirt. “You better. Because if you dragged me up here to gentle the party girl, I’m going to be pissed.”
“I don’t want to gentle you.” My thumb moved under her jaw, tilting her face up. “I want to see you.”
That got her.
The little breath she took wasn't performance. Neither was the tremor that moved through her hands where they gripped my shirt.
“You keep saying things like that,” she whispered, “and I’m going to do something stupid.”
“Like what?”
“Feelings.”
I leaned down and kissed her.
Slow first. Thorough. My mouth on hers without the sharp edge of the terrace, without the crowd feeding us heat.
Vina resisted the pace for half a second.
Then she made a sound against my lips, soft and frustrated, and kissed me back.
Her hands slid up to my shoulders, then into my hair, nails scraping my scalp as she pulled me closer.
I tasted the last of her drink, the sugar on her mouth, the deeper taste that was just her. Her body pressed into mine, tits against my chest through that black dress, hips fitting to my hips, the heat of her almost enough to wreck the whole careful thing I was trying to do.
Almost.
I broke the kiss and put my mouth against her throat.
She gasped.
“There,” I murmured against her skin.
“What?”
“That sound.”
“Don't get cocky.”
“Too late.”
Her laugh shook and faded when I kissed the side of her neck, then the spot behind her ear. She clutched my shirt tighter.
“You're taking your time,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“You want to pin me down and fuck me stupid.”
“Yeah.”
Her breath caught because I didn't hesitate.
“But I want this first.” I kissed along her jaw. “I want you trying not to fall apart before I even get your dress off.”
“Asshole,” she whispered, and there was no force behind it.
I backed her toward the bed slowly. She went with me, eyes locked on mine, her jokes getting farther apart with every step.
The backs of her thighs hit the mattress.
She sat, then looked up at me from under her lashes, red hair falling around her face, the dress riding up so high I could see the pale strip of skin where the sun had not reached.
“You really want all of me?” she asked.
The question was quiet enough to tell me she hated that she had asked it.
I knelt between her knees and put my hands on her thighs.
“Yes.”
Her throat worked.
Then she grabbed my shirt and pulled me down to her mouth, kissing me hard enough to split my control clean open.
“Then show me,” she whispered. “Show me what it looks like when you want all of me.”
***
I showed her slowly at first.
Vina hated that.
Loved it too. I could feel both in the way she kissed me, greedy and impatient, while her fingers clawed at my shirt. She got the buttons open by force, not patience, and shoved the fabric off my shoulders with a frustrated sound.
“Off,” she ordered. “I’ve been looking at this chest all night, and I’m done being polite about it.”
“You were being polite?”
“By my standards, extremely.”
I laughed, and she bit my lower lip for it.
Then my hands found the zipper of her dress.
Vina turned before I had to ask, giving me her back.
The black fabric had clung to her all night like sin, but the zipper came down with a quiet hiss, baring the long line of her spine, the red strings of her bikini top, and the gold skin between them.
I kissed the first inch I uncovered. Then another.
Her shoulders moved under my mouth, a shiver she tried to hide and failed.
“Finally,” she said, voice rough. “I’ve been wearing this thing since fucking noon.”
I pushed the dress down slowly. It slipped off her shoulders, over her waist, over the curve of her ass, and pooled at her feet like spilled ink.
Vina stepped out of it and turned around.
Red bikini. Tan lines. Red hair. Those blue eyes daring me to make it too sweet while her whole body begged me not to stop looking.
The bikini top barely contained her tits. The bottoms were skimpy enough that the red fabric between her thighs had gone darker where she was wet. Her skin was golden from the summer, marked by pale bikini lines at her hips and across her chest. The contrast made every inch feel discovered.
“See something you like?” she asked.
“Everything.”
That shut her mouth for half a breath.