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“I won’t lie to you, Quinn: I’m curious. I want to know everything about our pasts together. But I don’t want to risk losing you in this lifetime because I put the past first.” She cleared her throat, her heart racing inside her chest, and added, “We could have a future.”

Quinn smiled up at her and said, “Yeah, we could.”

“I mean, you could leave this town again, now that we’ve met,” she joked off.

Quinn just laughed a little and pressed her face between Abby’s breasts. Abby held her by the back of the neck, keeping her there, keeping Quinn close, and loved the feel of Quinn’s hands still moving around on her back.

“If I do, are you coming with me?” Quinn mumbled, but Abby understood her.

She didn’t answer, so Quinn looked up.

“Abs?”

“I’d like to,” she finally said. “As much as all this stresses me out,youcalm me down, Quinn Jordan.” She leaned down and kissed Quinn on the forehead. “I feel less worried about everything when I’m with you.”

“Maybe I’ll take you home to meet my parents one dayto get my mom off my back.”

Abby chuckled and said, “Mom, Dad, this is Abby. She’s my girlfriend today, but she’s also been my wife on and off for the past several centuries. We may or may not have raised several dozen children together, and our descendants could be roaming the earth right now. That could be an interesting introduction.”

“I was thinking about just going with, ‘This is Abby,’ and probably leaving it there.”

“Probably a good idea,” Abby teased.

“Kiss me on the forehead again.”

Abby kissed her and smiled down at her.

“A little lower,” Quinn requested.

Abby shook her head and kissed her on the nose.

“Lower?” Quinn asked softly this time.

Abby leaned down and grazed Quinn’s nose with her own.

“You know once we do this, there’s really no going back.”

“I don’t want to go back. Do you?”

Abby shook her head again, but this time, she didn’t have a playful smile on her face. She was very serious. She didnotwant to go back to her life before Quinn; before finding out something so important about herself that it helped explain so much of her life to her; before she’d kissed the woman sitting on a stool in front of her.

When Abby leaned in and gently pressed her lips to Quinn’s, that was when she saw it: every first kiss of every couple they’d ever been. All of them rushed into her mind, milliseconds at a time. Centuries of history and love flashed behind her eyes, and it was from her perspective. She was kissing the other woman, who wasQuinnbut alsonotQuinn, and every first kiss between them had started the same way, with the exception of one. The first one. The first two women they’d been. Abby only got a tiny glimpse of them, though, because every other couple who had shared a first kiss had moved through her mind just as quickly. Most of them, shedidn’t recognize, but some of them, she did. When the flashes were over, she quickly pulled back and stared down at Quinn.

“I saw it, too,” Quinn said. “Kiss me again.”

Abby leaned back in and reconnected their lips. This time, there was no one else, though. No more visions of other women kissing each other for the first time. It was only her and Quinn. She moaned when she realized that they weren’t going to be interrupted again and held Quinn’s face in her hands, deepening the kiss. Quinn moaned in response before she quickly stood, forcing Abby back as she moved them to the counter. Quinn’s hands went to it, locking Abby in place, but that was fine with her because Abby didn’t want to go anywhere anyway.

Everything they’d ever been and could ever be was held in this kiss. Quinn’s tongue moved into her mouth, and Abby met it with her own, letting them dance together as her hands roamed down Quinn’s front, over breasts, but not landing there. Then, she wrapped Quinn up in her arms, pulling the woman into her by the waist and spreading her legs to allow Quinn to be as close to her as possible. When Quinn’s mouth moved to her neck, Abby used that as the opportunity to catch her breath.

“I’m not ready for anything else tonight,” she managed out. “I want to. I really, really want to, but–”

“It’s okay. This is enough. It’s more than enough.” Quinn was holdingherface then, bringing Abby’s lips back to her own. “God, Abs… This is what I’ve been missing my whole life.”

Abby moved her own lips to Quinn’s neck and began kissing the soft skin she found there.

“You smell like honeysuckle,” she noted with a smile. “And it feels that way for me, too.”

CHAPTER 35