Page 88 of Entangled Vows

He didn’t wait for her reply, just let his fingers trail down her arm and laced them gently around hers. With a soft tug, he turned them away from the dance floor, the cheers of the crowd fading behind them like background music. She didn’t resist. She couldn’t.

∞∞∞

Vikram led her to the open-air lounge bar tucked in a quiet corner of the terrace, his hand still wrapped around hers. Mahika’s pulse hadn’t settled yet. Her lips still tingled and her body buzzed. The crowd whispered around them, their eyes following them, but she barely noticed. She was still reeling from their very public, very real kiss.

Her knees wobbled, and she sank onto a barstool, her breath still uneven. The terrace was nearly empty now. A cold gust of wind swept past, biting into her skin and making her shiver. Without a word, Vikram slipped off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It was still warm from his body, carrying his scent of spice, musk, and something darker, something unmistakably him.

She looked up at him. Good God. He was like a male model with an attractive, muscular physique, all hidden beneath his layers… all broad shoulders, lean waist, and a quiet strength that made her squirm in her seat.

“What will you have?” he asked, his voice just loud enough for her to hear.

“Whiskey. Neat,” Mahika replied.

He turned to the bartender and raised two fingers with quiet authority. “Two Yamazaki 18s. Neat,” he ordered.

“Coming right up.” The bartender nodded before reaching for the rare bottle on the top shelf.

He then slid their drinks across the counter. Vikram picked up her glass first and handed it to her. She took a sip, letting the smoky whiskey slide down her throat, hoping it would calm the chaos inside her. Then, without looking at him, she asked the question that had been circling in her head like a tornado.

“What are we doing, Vikram?”

The taste of his kiss still clung to her lips, and her skin still hummed with the aftershocks of it as she waited for him to speak. He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he leaned in, closer than he needed to.

“Do you really want to know,Momo?” His voice was dark, edged with something she couldn’t name.

She nodded, barely.

He let out a breath of laughter, the kind that made her chest clench. When she looked up, he was smiling. A genuine and unfiltered smile. The sharp angles of his face softened, and he looked heartbreakingly beautiful.

Goodness. It took restraint the size of an elephant not to take a picture of him right then and make it her wallpaper, frame it, and etch it into memory before the moment slipped away.

“We’ve been circling each other for years. Every fight, every taunt, every stare-down… Do you really think it was just angry hate?”

Her brows pulled together. “Wasn’t it?”

His gaze dipped to her mouth as his thumb brushed the corner of it in a sensual way. “No. It was always about this.”

She froze as his thumb hovered against her lower lip, lightly caressing it, and just like that, the air shifted.

“How can you say that? You used to ruin my day just by walking into a room,” she muttered, trying to ignore the dampness between her legs. “And you made it your life’s mission to piss me off.”

“You were so easy to rile up, my baby dragon,” he teased, his grin curling at the corner of his mouth in a lazy and unfairly sexy manner.

His hand slid to the back of her neck, his fingers tracing slow circles into her skin, and she nearly forgot how to breathe.

“I wasn’t going to let you win,” she said, crossing her legs. The subtle movement didn’t go unnoticed by him. His gaze flickered down briefly, heat flaring in his eyes.

“My baby dragon,” he murmured, “I don’t think either of us ever won. We just burned slower than we realised.”

“I didn’t think we’d end up here, Grizz,” she whispered, her voice barely holding. Instinctively, she swayed forward, their chest bare inches away.

He tilted his head, studying her like she was a puzzle he’d finally started to solve.

“I did,” he said, his voice dropping a shade lower. “Feels like everything led us here. Every insult, every dare, every time you slammed the door in my face.”

She rolled her eyes, though the gesture lacked its usual bite. “You earned every single one of those.”

“Probably,” he admitted with a faint smile, his thumb caressing her cheek. “But you never stopped it either. Never truly ignored me. That has to mean something.”