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I really couldn’t handle much more of this. She’d break me before long, talking like that. I looked out the window. “Plenty of other people out there you could hold.”
“Don’t be difficult. I said I loveyou, not that I love holding people.” She took my hand, turning me around to face her, and here in the low lights of the living room with the overhead light turned off, just lit by the soft glow of the table lamp behind Paisley and the moonlight coming in through the window, she looked so… enchanting. The way her eyes sparkled, the soft shape of her lips—suddenly she was the only thing that had ever existed.
It had always been me and her. Ever since the day she first moved into Bayview and I’d found her in the back, shopping for cakes among the unfinished ones there. Apparently she’d mistaken the back door for the entrance and had just thought that was what the bakery looked like.
For how much this girl had changed, she’d never really changed at all.
Paisley cocked her head, smiling. “What are you thinking about?”
“Hm. Wondering what witch cursed you so you could never enter a building through its front door.”
“Um, a witch calledpracticality,I guess. I use whatever entrance is closest. Don’t blame me if I’m smarter than the system.” She flicked her hair back.
“Pretty sure your entire identity is wrapped up in not being smarter than anything.”
She grinned. “There’s lots of kinds of intelligence. For example, I have excellent taste in cheese. Did you know Kay just eats gouda? Like, on everything? Is that disgusting, or what?”
“Appalling.”
“Tell me about it. I even chewed her out about it, saying if she wants a strong flavor she should at leasttrya gorgonzola or even just a mature cheddar, but what does she say?No, I like this one.”
“Surprised you’re still friends after a dealbreaker like that.”
“Let it be said that Paisley is ever the magnanimous one.”
I kissed her. It wasn’t really that I decided to do it—I just decided to stopnotdoing it, like this was the natural order of things and I stopped holding my foot in the door, stopped holding the system up, and let my lips find hers. Paisley let out a surprised noise, muffled against my lips, but she sank into me, slipping her hands to my back and grabbing my shirt, bunching it up in her hands, and she tilted her head back to meet me better, kissing me as the headlights of a passing car flared over the night-lit room. I closed my eyes, let everything else disappear, and I kissed Paisley, and we were Harper and Paisley, and it was right.
Paisley parted from the kiss with her eyes shimmering, and she smiled impossibly at me. “Are you that into cheese?”
“Honestly, Paisley? I really couldn’t care less what kind of cheese Kay prefers.”
She laughed, tangling her fingers in my hair. “Uncouth animals all around me…”
She kissed me again, and I never wanted anything but this—never wanted to be anywhere but here.
We made our way to the bedroom, tripping over each other’s feet barely parting from each other’s lips the whole way, and Paisley giggled wildly when she bumped into the bedroom door and nearly fell over. She interlaced her fingers with mine once we got into the bedroom, tugging me after her as she fell backwards onto the foot of the bed, looking up at me with those hazel eyes dark, staring up through her eyelashes.
“Harper,” she said, her voice soft, sweet, warm, everything I needed. “You’ll stay here tonight, right…?”
It wasn’t hard to figure out what she was referring to. And maybe I should have said no, but I ached for her in every way—I’d missed her, so much more than I could put into words, and I hadn’t even let myself acknowledge that until now.
I sank onto the bed with her, cupping a hand over her cheek, just taking in the way she looked in the moonlight like this. “Are you… sure you’re feeling okay tonight?” I said, and she smiled wider.
“Maybe I’m not. That would mean you have to stay here with me and make sure I’m okay, right?”
I looked away. “Paisley, I know what you’re getting at right now.”
“I haven’t felt sick or tired for one second today,” she said, slipping a hand down to my waist, just holding onto me. “I mean, I got what I really needed, so…”
I swallowed, dropping my gaze, suddenly shy. Paisley moved in and kissed tenderly at my jawline, lingering there, and then kissing an inch lower, prickling the sensitive skin on myneck as she kissed down. I arched into her, letting out a soft breath of need, and she moved with me and captured my lips against hers, a hot kiss that lingered against me as she lowered me onto my back.
“Spend the night,” she whispered against my lips.
“I mean, ostensibly this is where I’m staying anyway…”
“Spend it with me.” She whispered words in between kisses, impossibly sweet, just little pecks against my lips, over and over. She was hypnotic—the sensation of her on me, her soft voice wrapping me up in her—and I found I couldn’t resist.
“I will,” I murmured. She shifted closer to my side, kissing me, endless little kisses peppered over my face.
