Page 25 of Velvet Thorns
“You’ve spent so much time trying to forget me, but you never could. Instead, you made a home for me inside your hell, and I moved in. You just never knew it.”
I can feel the heat pouring off her through that fucking dress, and it’s making me feral.
I don’t need to imagine what’s underneath. I’ve already seen her stripped bare and memorized her long before tonight. I know her body better than my own. I’ve studied it, obsessing over the curve of her spine, the line of her throat, and the perfect path I’d trace with my tongue from the base of her neck to the top of her ass.
One day.
“No,” she chokes out, her voice cracking. “This isn’t possible. No one knew. I never told anyone… I never—” Her hands shake, and she looks like she’s about ready to scream. “No one knew I wrote those.”
“Except me.”
“I don’t understand,” she says, her golden eyes wild. “How the hell did you—where did you even?—?”
“You’re asking the wrong questions,” I murmur, my gaze locked on hers. “That’s not what you want to know. You want thewhy.”
“You don’t know anything about me or what I want,” she bites out.
“Baby,” I say, dragging my thumb across her lips like I own the breath caught behind them, “I know everything about you.”
She jerks her face away, those amber eyes flaring with fire again, but I don’t chase the contact. I don’t need to because it’s already too late for her. She just needs time.
“Don’t fucking touch me, Phoenix.”
“Nine letters,” I say softly. “Nine years of bleeding for me onpaper. Thinking no one would ever read them. Thinking you were alone with your pain.” I shake my head, just once. “You were never alone, pretty girl.”
She squeezes her eyes shut like she’s trying to block it all out—me, the truth, the gravity of what she’s always felt but never wanted to admit out loud.
“The first year, you were fucking furious. It all poured out of you—rage, hate, every single thing you wanted to scream in my face. You said you wished I had never come into your life and that I ruined everything… that I never should’ve existed.” Her throat bobs like she’s trying to swallow the memory, trying to bury it somewhere deep, but I’m nowhere near done.
“You couldn’t even bring yourself to write my name the second year. Just five words: ‘Why did you destroy us?’ That’s all you gave me. Five words and then nothing. It was like you had nothing left to say, and it tore me apart because I needed more. I needed to know what you were thinking, what you were feeling, and whether you still thought about me at all. Those five words left everything open and unfinished.”
I drag my hand through my hair, remembering the obsession that consumed me after that. “And you think that would’ve been mercy, right? Like maybe if you kept it short, if you left it vague, I’d finally be able to let go and move on. But baby, that question wrecked me. I must’ve read it a thousand times.” She turns away, but I don’t miss the way her hands tremble, knotted together so tight her knuckles turn white. “I spent months wondering if that would be the last letter. If you’d found a way to cut me out completely. The thought of you moving on, of you healing without me—fuck, it was unbearable.” My voice drops to something raw and desperate, brutal in all of its honesty. “I needed your pain because it meant you still felt something. Even if it was hatred, itwas still something, and I’d rather be your monster than your ghost.”
I draw in a breath, forcing myself to get my shit together because I’ll be damned if I waste this moment by losing control now.
“Year three, you wrote mostly aboutthem.” I gesture toward the door—to the people laughing and drinking below, unaware of the storm above them. “You listed every vile, despicable thing they did to you in detail. You didn’t hold back, and at the end, you asked why I just stood there like a fucking statue while they destroyed you piece by piece. Why did I watch it happen and do nothing to stop it? You said watching me choose my reputation over protecting you was worse than anything they ever did, and that my silence caused you the most pain because you expected it from them but not from me.” The shame threatens to choke me, but I force the words out because I don’t get to hide from this. I deserve her wrath. “You said I was the only one who could’ve saved you, and instead, I was the one who broke you.”
Her shoulders are quivering now, and I can’t tell if she’s about to collapse into sobs or drive her stiletto straight through my throat.
“Year four, this one.” I wave the envelope in my hand.Yeah, this one.“This is where you wrote about the kiss. You got wasted just to do it, but you did it.” She stiffens, and her eyes scream at me not to go there, but fuck it, I’m going there. “You said you believed it was real, and for a second, you thought I’d come back to you. You said how your heart felt like it was going to explode and how you thought all the pain had been worth it if it led to me feeling for you what you felt for me. But then you saw the phones and heard the laughter, and you knew it was a lie.”
She won’t meet my eyes now. She just stares down at the envelope in my hand like she can burn a hole through it and make our past disappear.
“It was never a lie, Shannen. It was never a game to me. I missed you, and I fucking lost it. When I kissed you that day, it was the first thing that felt real since the moment I turned my back on us.”
“Stop. Just fucking stop,” she screams, rage and pain ripping through her voice. “I don’t want to do this with you—not like this. This was never supposed to happen.” She’s pacing now, shoving her hands through her hair like she can hold her mind together if she just grips hard enough.
Maybe I should feel guilty. Maybe I should back off, give her some space, and let her breathe. But I don’t because all I feel is this twisted, ravenous hunger. A sick, starved need to drag her under with me and make her see—make her finally understand—what I’ve always known.
That she’s mine.
“You weren’t supposed to know it was me. Not until I was ready. Not until I chose.”
“You thought you were in control of this?” I wave the envelope like evidence of her delusion. “You think this was ever your game to play?” My hands are trembling now, not from anything other than ten years of suppressed obsession finally breaking free. “You never stopped writing, and I never stopped reading. You think you held the power? You think any of this was your choice? You didn’t know it, but we’ve been feeding off each other for years, Shannen. Hate, love, guilt, whatever the fuck this is—it’s all the same thing now.” Her breath stutters, lips parting just enough for me to see everything she’s trying to hide. “You wanted me to hurt? I did. You wanted me to burn? Baby, I haven’t been anything but fucking ash since the moment you walked away from me.”
“I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you knew it was me and still went through with it.”
“Who the hell do you think sent you the invitation? You thinkthe universe just threw us back together for fun? You think it was fate? For someone as smart as you, I’m surprised it never crossed your mind that someone had to be watching you. Because Shannen Clarke doesn’t exist anymore, right? You erased her.” She doesn’t speak or move. She just stands there, frozen, as reality sinks in. “All those little games tonight—the fake seduction, the whole act, it was cute, really. But totally unnecessary. This game was never yours. It’s always been mine.”
