Fingers of Memory

Her brows knit together for an instant, confusion dancing in her eyes before relaxing into understanding.

She parted her mouth, but before she could respond, he moved quickly to sidestep, forcing a ruddy, uncomfortable smile. "I mean, not that it's important or anything. Just… asking," he continued, words spilling out with more truth than he meant.

Sasha blinked at him, her chest compressing in response. And then, incredibly, she laughed. The laugh was gentle, warm, and heart-crushingly familiar, like a memory stroking the skin on her arms. It threaded through the air between them, delicate and insistent, and for a second shattered the tension that had clung like an onlooker. Victor felt it ensnare him, and for a second he forgot how to breathe.

"Victor," she whispered, her voice just above nothing, low and close, and yet filled with a gravity that was crushing his chest. Her hand skipped against the space between them, hesitant, daring, as she shook her head and smiled softly, reassuring him. "Don't worry."

She edged a little closer, her heat touching him like a soft flame. Her eyes sparkled, warm and vital, tugging on something he had believed long buried within him. "I'm your fiancée," she stated, her voice soft but unyielding, "still that foolish girl who loves you too much." There was a quiver in the curve of her smile, a momentary openness that made his heart stumble. "Even if you left me all those years… my heart never wavered. Never."

The heaviness of her words struck him more deeply than he anticipated, pushing past walls he'd constructed around himself. They weren't mere words—quite the opposite. They were raw, vulnerable, breathing. They nudged into the dark places of his soul, awakening a yearning he'd attempted to deny. Victor remained immovable, every breath trapped in his lungs, his eyes locked on hers as though the world beyond had disappeared altogether. The silence that surrounded them was heavy, almost palpable, but her voice still lingered, ringing in a manner that caused his chest to hurt.

Then her lips twisted into that tiny, wicked smile that had always left him breathless, the one that could cause his heart to stumble without speech. A spark flashed in her eyes, playful and knowing, challenging him to release. The way she stood, the angle of her chin, the raised brow—that was all a challenge veiled in gentleness. "And if you desire our relationship to be as it once was…" she said, the words slipping from her lips like silk, "then that's what it'll be."

The air that surrounded them pulsed, charged with something not said. It was not cold or warm, but it pushed against his skin like life itself, a whisper of years divided between them, of moments spent and feelings unseized. Each heartbeat seemed amplified, each breath drawn deeper, with the weight of need and recognition. He felt the force of her closeness like gravity, the unspoken demand to move closer, to finally allow himself to fall.

His fingers twitched, as if of their own will, hungry to fill the space that had become too long, too wide. She stood silently, exuding a confidence that made his mind ramble in a whirlpool of desire and uncertainty. When she had brought her hand up to conceal her laughter, shoulders twitching only minimally to the action, it was a small movement that tightened his chest and coiled his stomach in a manner that had him questioning his own control.

"Wait—what's that supposed to mean?" he snapped, voice harsh with incredulity and the slight edge of alarm.

Her grin widened, mischievous and warm at once, those glimmering eyes cutting straight through the layers of pretense he'd built around himself. "That's the answer to the question you were trying to ask."

His eyes locked, suspended between shock and passion. His cheeks burned as if lit by flame, and he automatically twisted his head, putting his palm over his mouth to conceal the flush that betrayed him. "You. you read me so quickly?"

"Certainly." Her tone gentled, a playful tease sheathed in love. "You're never that difficult to decipher, Victor."

He dropped his eyes, allowing a frustrated smile to pull at the edges of his mouth. Years of separation, of misunderstandings and unspoken moments, all came crashing down in this instant. She was still the same Sasha of his memory—the same who could tear him down with one glance—but perhaps he was the one who had altered.

The darkness seemed to wind closer around them, shadows blending with the faint sheen of the fountain in the distance. Its soft hum filled the air between them, constant, delicate, and genuine, a beat that was the same as the unsteady thrum of his heart. Each splash, each sigh of water against rock, seemed intimate, as if it was a secret they were privileged to share alone.

Then her voice came, low, uncertain, almost hesitant, carrying the tremor of someone standing on the edge of confession. "So, Victor…"

He lifted his eyes to hers, feeling the shift in the air, the way it trembled with anticipation.

Her smile remained, soft and distant, but in the background, her eyes spoke of a tale all their own. They sparkled with hope and fear knotted together, with a hunger so naked it cracked his chest open. It was the sort of vulnerability that sucked him in, the sort that could destroy a man with one look.

"Do you still want this?" she whispered, her voice barely brushing the space between them, trembling slightly yet deliberate. "Our relationship?"

The words hung suspended in the air, glass-like and fragile, ready to shatter the stillness that had descended on them. The night leaned in towards him, the shadows closing in around them as if waiting to hear his response, the breeze stroking her skin with a hesitant touch. She could feel her heartbeat as a steady thrum in her chest, the thrum of anticipation scurrying up her spine.

Victor did not respond at once. His gaze drank her in, holding on every minute movement—the nervous bite of her lower lip, the agitated manner in which her fingers drew imaginary shapes on her lap, the furtive glances she darted his way before darting away, cheeks flushed with color. There was a raw, vulnerable tenderness in her that brought him to aching with a hunger he had worked so hard to suppress.

At last, he exhaled slowly, almost like a sigh. His lips curled into a slow smile at the edge of them—softer, wiser, but infused with hurt and longing and the weight of unuttered secrets and nights apart. His eyes never broke from hers, his stare a magnetic attraction that quivered her on more than fear.

"You know," he started out, his voice low, even, but intimate, nearly a whisper reserved for her alone, "I never really stopped… caring." His sentences caressed her like the sweep of fingers over bare flesh, gentle, intentional, and imbued with something threatening and exhilarating. "Even when I tried to… convince myself otherwise."

She shivered as the words hit home. His integrity was a burden and a salve in one, pulling at recollections she believed she had interred, awakening a hunger she couldn't conceal. She edged slightly closer, the not-space between them crackling with tension, heat, and the unspoken insistence of something neither could acknowledge out loud.

Victor shifted enough to bridge some of the space, not quite touching her but the promise in his eyes was charged. His hand quivered, barely perceptibly, as though hungry to extend it, to span the distance he had maintained between them for so long. His voice rumbled even lower, a rich thread running through each word, "I… want this, if you do. I want us… if you can still—"

Her breath caught, heart pounding in her chest. She wished to speak, to reassure, to deny, and to surrender all at once. Every thought was enmeshed with every instinct, but her voice was stuck somewhere between hope and fear.

The darkness that surrounded them appeared to freeze, its breath caught. There were stars twinkling overhead like silent observers and the wafting scent of her skin, light and euphoric, that reached him in the stillness and drew him closer with an irresistible force.

He gazed at her, the heat of his eyes making her stomach twist, and the pain in his smile speaking of all the unspoken things, of all the nights they had spent apart. The air was thick with tension, almost too much to bear, and yet it was lovely in itself—raw, honest, and human.

And he said— "."

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