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Libby glanced down at where their apron-covered legs pressed together before looking back at her.

Does she feel the same seismic activity at the slightest touch?

“What did you want?” Libby leaned forward, her wavy hair falling in her face.

Instinctively, Reagan brushed the wayward strand away, tucking it behind her ear. It was the last gasp of friendship.

An act of war. A declaration of freedom. Her palm lingered on Libby’s cheek as she fought the nerves causing a tremble in her normally steady hands. Reagan knew nothing would ever be the same.

“Kiss me,” Libby whispered as if trying to keep a white-knuckled grip on the confident woman who’d sauntered into the studio hellbent on getting what she wanted. It was a facade cracking just enough to reveal the unsure person beneath the cool exterior.

In a breath, Reagan closed the gap between them. With her fingers tangled in Libby’s hair as she held the back of her neck, she kissed her. As soon as she did, she was lost. Her head spun and her body shivered. It was jumping into a pool with no bottom. Leaping from a trapeze with no safety net.

With a soft groan that rumbled deep in Libby’s throat, she parted her lips and deepened their kiss. The light incursion of Libby’s tongue grazing the tip of hers had an immediate, dizzying e ect.

There was nothing but teeth and lips and urgency. They were wanderers crawling out of the desert desperate for water as they reached an oasis. With a familiarity she had no right to feel, Reagan reached forward and gripped Libby’s thighs, sliding her roughly onto her lap.

Instead of protesting, Libby moaned as she wrapped her legs around Reagan’s waist and grabbed fistfuls of her short hair.

Reagan released a breathy curse before deepening their kiss. Kissing her harder. It was the urgency of lovers reunited after being a world apart. This wasn’t the awkwardness of new lips finding each other for the first time, but like they’d kissed for lifetimes before finally being reunited.

Sliding her open palms up Libby’s back, she felt the long, lean muscles. She wanted nothing on Earth more than to tear the clothes from her body and carry her upstairs to her bed.

As Libby rolled her hips and moaned against the front of her jeans, Reagan was sure she wanted the same.

The tell-tale creak of an old metal door sent Libby flying out of her lap before Reagan’s brain processed the new information.

“I forgot my bag!” Freddie’s voice echoed from the rafters and brought Reagan’s dripping desire to a crippling halt.

Whipping around, Reagan jumped to her feet a few seconds after a horrified Libby. “The driver brought you back?” she shrieked, unable to think of anything else to say as Freddie jogged toward his usual station at the corner of the room and grabbed a backpack.

“Yeah,” he replied, barely sparing them a glance as he bolted for the door. “Sorry, I can’t stay and talk to you, but he’s gotta take me back before he goes to his second job. Bye Libby!”

Libby’s squeaked response was inaudible, but Freddie was already halfway out the door when she uttered it.

“I’m sorry,” Reagan started to apologize, but Libby was already looking down at her phone.

“It’s okay. I should, um, I have to go. Taylor reminded me I have clients waiting. I don’t know how I forgot,” she

explained, shoving her phone in Reagan’s face as if she required proof.

“I believe you. Don’t worry. I won’t feel like you wham-bammed me,” she joked, as she hid her trembling hands in her pockets.

Libby strapped her bag to her shoulder as she dropped the apron on the table and grabbed her jacket. “I’m really sorry,” she repeated as if she hadn’t heard a word Reagan said.

“Hey, no worries, okay?” Reagan said, gripping her upper arm lightly. “Call me later or whatever.”

Libby swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. Of course.”

Resting against the table, Reagan watched Libby bolt for the door like she was the one who’d convinced a bus driver to take her somewhere after his shift.

When she was alone, all the desire and promise that had blossomed in her body was gone. Cold dread took its place.

Refusing to let the doubt take hold, she took the clay she’d prepared for Libby and started throwing her feelings.

C H A P T E R 1 9

AS SOON AS Libby was a few blocks away from Reagan’s studio, she turned down a small street and parked her SUV in fron