Page 24 of Velvet Thorns
He doesn’t back away. Instead, he stands his ground, his palm still pressed to the door, holding it closed and blocking any attempt I might make to open it. When his head turns toward me, a crooked smile creeps across his face, like the devil himself just whispered in his ear.
“Can’t do that, baby,” he says, pulling a folded envelope from his pocket. “Not until you write to me again.”
Chapter 6
PHOENIX
She’smagnificent when she thinks she’s holding all the cards, absolutely radiant in that sweet, poisonous delusion. I’ve let her wear the crown tonight. Let her believe the power was hers. Every calculated step, every cruel jab—I fed it.
That mask, that mouth, the pure conviction in her voice when she delivered what she thought was the final blow—it was almost adorable, like watching a kitten bare its teeth, convinced it was a lion.
Fierce.
Beautiful.
But so off the mark.
She ripped the mask away like it was the climax of a story she thought she was writing, as if she was revealing some devastating truth that would destroy me. And yeah, her voice was all pride and fire, but underneath that? I heard it. I fucking felt it. Her pain. That raw, hollow ache wrapped in false bravado. The kind of agony that cracks ribs from the inside.
I know that pain intimately.
I’ve been drowning in it for years.
“Happy fucking Halloween, Phoenix,” she said, thinking she was closing the door on me.
God, she has no idea.
I let the silence stretch between us like a second skin. I let her sit in it, squirm in it, and try to figure out why I’m not crumbling the way she expected. But why would I crumble? Why would I lash out or fall to pieces when I’ve been dreaming of this moment since the day I lost her?
Eventually, I reach for my jacket, letting her keep her little fantasy for a few seconds longer. When I take a step toward her, I swear my cock gets harder. Because this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Now I get to drop my own mask and peel away the golden-boy quarterback act, the one she left behind, and show her who’s really been waiting for her all these years.
I reach into my coat pocket, and the second she sees the envelope, I hear it. That tiny, involuntary hitch in her breath. That beautiful sound that tells me her world just tilted off its axis.
Realization washes over her slowly, starting in her eyes—those perfect golden eyes that used to look at me like I hung the stars. Her skin begins to bloom with that flush she gets when anger and confusion start slipping into fear, and maybe I shouldn’t love it, but I do.
She’s exquisite like this.
I’ve watched her from the shadows. I’ve seen the way her jaw tightens when she’s angry and the grief she tries to hide behind that fake smile. God, the way her fists clench when she’s seconds from tearing the whole world apart—it does something to me. It always has. It’s that fire… that fury.
But what I’ve never really seen is her happiness—the kind that sets her glowing from the inside out.
I’ve watched clueless fucks touch her like she was a thing to be used, not a force to be worshipped. Every time she kissed lips that didn’t belong to me or let hands that weren’t mine touch her delicate skin, I bled for it.
I let it happen, year after year, because that was the price I had to pay. It was my penance for destroying the only good thing I ever had.
I accepted the pain, and I never looked away. Even when it broke me, I kept watching.
But now she’s right here. She’s inches away, and I swear I’ll never let another man near her again. That version of her life is over, and she’s not walking out of this room the same girl who walked in.
Jesus, if I could bottle the look on her face right now and inject it directly into my veins, I would. I’d fucking overdose on it with a grin on my face and her name on my lips. Because watching her realize she never escaped me, that she’s still mine in every way that matters, is the only thing that’s kept me together for the last ten years.
“You remember this one, right?” I say, flipping the envelope toward her like it’s some fucked-up medal I’ve been waiting a decade to present her with. “This was year four. You were so wine-drunk that night, you misspelled my name twice and scratched it out until the ink tore the paper. But you still got it right in the end, didn’t you, baby?” She goes still, her breath stalling like I just cracked open a part of her she thought no one would ever see. “I’ve read them all, copied every single letter, and slept with them right beside my pillow. I traced your handwriting with my fingers until I didn’t need to see them anymore because I already knew them by heart.”
She says nothing, but the silence is louder than any scream.
This is good. It needs to sink in.
She needs to understand what she’s walking into.
