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Yardley took the key, untied the ribbon, and retied it around her neck. “Yes. I will confess that I took the throw pillows on purpose. And I bought the worst mattress I could find for my apartment. In case you needed a push in this direction.”

“You bought it on the internet.” KC took a hold of the ring and gently pulled her closer. “You made me hike it up four flights of stairs.”

This kiss was soft. It felt like saying I love you , over and over.

“Now,” KC said, with enough authority to make Yardley’s thighs clench. “Let’s go home now.”

“You don’t want to celebrate at the party?”

“The northwest corner of Atlas’s fence, just a few yards from here, has a gate. We can run along the side of the house with the hedges and make it to my car. At this time of night, we’ll be home in fifteen minutes, tops.”

“All my things are here.”

“You won’t need anything.” The promise in KC’s eyes lit Yardley’s inner thighs on fire all over again.

She looked at her ring. “Everything else I own does seem a little shabby right now.”

They ran out the gate, laughing in a very non-spy-like manner, and fell into the car, kissing before they could get their seatbelts fastened. “We’re engaged,” Yardley said against KC’s mouth. “My mama is going to be a menace.”

“Your mama already set up a Zoom meeting between me and her and the events manager at the country club. Nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, you’ll have to cancel that.” Yardley kissed along KC’s collarbone. “You can’t let her get the upper hand.”

“She has a whole vision.” KC had managed to wiggle her hand beneath Yardley’s dress, and now it was stroking hot up and over the top of her thigh.

“ No ,” Yardley breathed. “Absolutely not.” She set her hand on top of KC’s. “You are going to have to take me home. I’m an engaged lady. I can’t be compromised in a vehicle.”

KC shook her head. “So many rules.”

She started the car, and they drove home in the hushed dark, holding hands over the console.

When they turned onto their street, Yardley watched the garage door lumber up.

Light spilled through the cracks and out from beneath it, and even though she knew every corner of this house and had been here dozens of times since she moved out—had even spent the night at the end of more than one date with KC—it was transformed.

Probably it was silly for her to feel this way about a shift in the status of their relationship, she thought, caressing the ring on her finger.

This engagement didn’t change that Yardley was already and always going to spend the rest of her life with KC if she could manage to.

Being engaged, being married, wouldn’t make their relationship any better than one that didn’t include a ceremony or a piece of paper filed with the courthouse.

But KC was right, Yardley had rules. Her own rules. Her rule when it came to Katherine Corrine Nolan was to put a ring on it, forever and ever.

She looked down at her ring in the bright light of the garage, where it came into full sparkle, and what she saw was a symbol of her choice to give her whole self fully to who she was, and to her partner.

She was glad it was big, then. And not just because that made it pretty.

When the car shut off, Yardley didn’t even unbuckle before she kissed KC again, her fingers in her soft hair, heart in her throat. “Now I have to buy you a ring,” she said. “So everyone knows you’re taken.”

“I want a watch,” KC said against her mouth. “I liked Julia’s mention of an engagement watch.”

“You’ll have your watch, then.”

She thought they would float into the house in a pink haze, but KC unbuckled Yardley’s seat belt to pull her closer, and that was unbearably, could-not-be-stood-for hot, so they tripped into the house kissing and shedding the small bits of clothing they wore.

By the time they got to the bedroom, Yardley was fully naked when KC pushed her down to the mattress, banded her wrists over her head with her forearm, and kissed her, making Yardley’s insides swoop like she was in the first car of a roller coaster.

She didn’t know how they ended up on their sides, her leg between KC’s thighs and KC’s thigh over her hip, her palm against KC’s clit, everything hot, but it meant KC was inside her, and it felt so full that even her bones were throbbing, and every inch of her skin was sensitized to every place KC’s body touched hers—points of slick contact that felt like buzzing confetti settling over her body.

“Kiss me,” she begged, and KC did, open-mouthed and filthy, her tongue sliding against Yardley’s in time with the motion of her fingers, making Yardley dissolve into a gloss of sweat and taut, tightening thrusts of her hips.

With a broken moan, KC shifted until she was over Yardley, her muscled thighs on either side of Yardley’s hips. She eased her fingers away. Yardley arched her back, protesting, reaching for KC.

KC leaned over and pulled open the nightstand drawer. Yardley stopped protesting and smiled at KC and her messy hair, red as the love bites Yardley had left on her neck.

“I love you,” she said.

“Take this.” KC handed her the smooth, pink vibrator known to be Yardley’s favorite. “And let me hear you.” She leaned down to give the order with a kiss, one that pulled Yardley’s upper lip into KC’s mouth and made the vibrator almost unnecessary.

Yardley had only just pressed it over her clit and turned it on, closing her eyes at how good it felt, when KC shifted, grabbing the headboard, settling her shins alongside Yardley’s head, and then reaching down to trace Yardley’s mouth with her finger, “I love you. Okay?”

Yardley reached up with the arm she had available and curled it around KC’s ass, bringing her down to her mouth while pressing, pressing the vibrator against herself.

She let KC hear her, humming against her, overfocused on stroking her tongue alongside the rough point of KC’s clit the way she liked best until Yardley’s hips hitched up, right on the edge, and then surprised her with the sudden whiteout of the orgasm.

Yardley came—forever, it felt like—and she was so glad KC was coming, too, because she was too replete, too full of love, and couldn’t be coordinated anymore.

They didn’t talk for a long time, until they had to crawl under the covers because they were getting cold.

“One thousand, three hundred and thirty-five days.” KC yawned. “I don’t want a long engagement.”

Yardley moved into her arms. “No. I don’t, either.”

KC fell asleep, breathing soft into Yardley’s hair, and Yardley let her. They’d both have to wake up early if KC was going to cut Yardley’s mama off at the pass. They needed time to prepare a plan A, plan B, maybe a plan C, lest things get uncomfortable.

Though it wasn’t comfort, really, that got Yardley out of bed in the morning. It wasn’t faith, either, that the world needed her particular combination of talents and grit to keep good people safe.

It was that she had never stopped feeling like the world slowed down just a little bit when Katherine Corrine Nolan walked into a room.

She hadn’t chosen to fall in love. Some benevolent force in the universe had pulled them together, a decision as far outside Yardley’s control as her own heartbeat.

But she’d chosen to date her, knowing she shouldn’t.

She’d chosen to take her home to North Carolina to meet her family.

She’d chosen to say yes when KC asked her to move in, yes when they found themselves in the toughest possible spot and had to work together to discover a way out, and yes to starting over without lies or compromises.

When the stakes were highest, they had made all the right choices.

It was always, always yes .