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liquid. And then, she knew. Or at least she could admit why she’d been

holding a nasty grudge towards Christina. Why she tried to push her away.

Why she was prickly and combative. It wasn’t because she blamed

Christina for rejecting her proposal. It wasn’t even that she didn’t like her. It

was the exact opposite.

It was because Taylor was attracted to her. How could she not be?

From the very first time she’d seen Christina, Taylor thought that the other

woman was breathtaking. She’d never been able to stop thinking about her.

When she wasn’t at work, she was thinking about her. Taylor had been

lying to herself, excusing those thoughts and keeping them at bay with

bitterness and annoyance, passing them off as related to the business only,

but when she allowed herself to truly think about it, she had to admit to

herself that it was so much more than that.

Taylor realized that she’d been fighting the fact that her body

wanted Christina long before her mind was even willing to go there. She’d

burned and ached and yearned for Christina even before she realized that

she was available. Once Taylor found out that Christina was a lesbian, she’d

so very carefully shut down her emotions that she could almost deny they

were there at all. It was just little twinges, little aches, her body betraying

her subtly even though she’d gone for full on denial.

There was nothing subtle about how Taylor’s head cranked up.

There was no subtlety whatsoever in how Christina was looking at her.

“Are you alright?” Christina asked. She set her glass down on the

coffee table and studied Taylor with concern.

Was she alright? No. Taylor knew that she wasn’t. She wasn’t even

close. She’d been lonely for so long. The kind of lonely that shreds a person

in half. She’d dreamed for so long about finding someone, but then, when

she first felt a spark of anything at all piercing through the haze, she’d

stamped it out. She’d ignored it. She told herself it wasn’t real. She invented

ways, excuses, anything— to protect herself from the facts. What she felt