Tara kisses me. Not the slow, careful kiss from before, but a hungry, desperate one, all teeth and tongue and hot, wet need. Her hands tangle in my hair, tugging until I groan. I grip her hips, greedy, pulling her closer, wanting to sink inside her and never let her go.
The windows start to fog, a cliché that makes me laugh into her mouth. She bites my lower lip, hard, and I gasp.
“Someone might see,” I groan, but I don’t slow down.
She grinds against me, the heat of her skin searing through my pants. “Let them.”
I slide a hand up her thigh, fingers digging into the meat of it, and she whimpers—just once, a soft, animal sound. My other hand finds the back of her neck, holding her there as I kiss her deeper, drinking her in. She tastes like wine and adrenaline and no trace of regret at all.
After a minute, she pulls back, panting, forehead pressed to mine. “I love you, Hunter,” she says, voice small but unbreakable.
“I love you, too, sweetheart.”
We sit like that, tangled, our breaths coming in tandem, until the air is thick with want and something close to peace. For the first time all night, there are no eyes on us, no expectations, no threat of exposure. Just us, raw and real.
I run my hand up her back, under the fabric, and feel the goosebumps bloom on her skin. The beautiful blonde sighs and melts into me, her curves a perfect fit against my hardness.
When we finally break apart, she climbs back to her seat, smoothing her dress. Her hair is a mess and her lips are bruised, but she’s never looked more alive.
I start the sports car, the engine thrumming. She puts her hand on my thigh, higher than polite, and I glance over at her. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, satisfied.
“I want you the second we get inside,” she mewls.
I squeeze her hand, not trusting myself to speak.
The drive home is silent, except for the sound of her nails on my skin, the scent of her perfume in the air, the constant, electric promise of what comes next.
When we get to the penthouse, she immediately clasps my big form to hers, before seizing me in a passionate kiss, and I know—really know—that nothing will ever come between us again.
Not family. Not the past.
Nothing.
Tara and I are finally free.
18
CHAPTER 18 – BUILDING A NEW LIFE
Tara
The morning light in Minneapolis is blue, always blue, pooling on the marble floors of Hunter’s penthouse like melted ice. It wakes me before my alarm, every day, same as the espresso machine’s hissing, same as warm glow of contentment that suffuses my form. I turn my head and see the skyline burnished in glass, the river turned to silver far below, and in that split second of waking, I know I’m a woman who chooses her destiny as Tara, Daisy, or both, simultaneously.
Plus, I’m here. In Hunter’s bed. Our bed, now, for six months running.
There’s a comfort to it, the sameness: the sheets, the clean heat of his body, the echo of his breath on my neck. He’s not in the bed right now, so there’s no need to be careful. I slip out of the covers, throw on a t-shirt, and float barefoot through the hush. The city hums at the windows. Somewhere in the penthouse, the heat kicks on with a click and a rush, stirring the dust in pale golden beams.
It’s Monday. That means coffee, Psych 201, and a late-afternoon seminar on dissociative identity disorder. I am, as the syllabi would have it, “the girl most likely to diagnose herself.” My professor has no idea that I once suffered a psychiatric crisis myself, and maybe I’ll reveal it to him one day - or maybe not.
I pad into the kitchen. Hunter’s already there, hair mussed, gym shorts clinging to his thighs, reading the news on his phone with the frown of a man who could solve the world’s problems if only someone would let him. He grunts when he sees me, but I catch the flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Can’t sleep?” he says.
“I did. I just got up early.” I slide into a stool at the counter and watch him. He’s always beautiful like this: tanned, lean, with that CEO intensity that never really shuts off, even at 6 a.m. Sometimes I catch myself counting the hours until I can crawl back into his arms, life with him is that good.
He pours two cups, cream for me, black for him. “You finish your reading?”
“I did,” I say, and it’s almost true. I’m about halfway through an endless case study about a woman with seven personalities, all of whom seem to have incredible sex lives. How she manages it, I have no idea.