“What, no sage?”

With a roll of her eyes, she made a noise of dissension. “Please, everybody knows you don’t use sage in love potions.”

A shot of emotion burst through me at the word love from her lips, and I kissed them to cover it. Fear, surprise, desire. Warning. Welcome.

Love. It meant so many things in so many contexts, a single word to span a hundred emotions. I loved my family. I loved my friends. I loved Wendy, though I never wanted to see her again. I loved Zhenya, my old neighbor, even though I wanted to see her again and probably never would.

The way I felt about Tess was a form of that word. I didn’t know what form, not yet. But I knew without knowing that this feeling wouldn’t leave. It wouldn’t go away. It would only grow.

I only hoped we grew together and not apart.

I packed the thought away, shifting to roll us over and apart. Tess broke the kiss, propping her little chin on her hand to look down at me, hair wild and loose. I smoothed it, tucking a mass of it behind her ear so I could see her face better.

“I always wondered what it was like to be Luke Bennet’s girlfriend,” she said with that lazy smile of hers.

“Is it as glamorous as you imagined?” I teased, flicking a glance at the hay around us.

“Trust me, it’s better,” she said, leaning in to press a fleeting kiss to my lips.

My hands bracketed her hips. “So how do you want to play this? Should we put up a sign in the window? Maybe take out a newspaper ad?”

“I was thinking a billboard, or at least a sandwich board.”

I chuckled. “Seriously though—we’ll have to tell my mom at some point, and she’s going to insert herself directly into everything we do. She’s going to ask you questions you don’t want to answer, like what kind of birth control you’re on and if there’s any history of heart disease in your family. Maybe your ring size and which cut diamond you prefer.”

When she laughed, the flush on her cheeks was almost as deep as her hair. “God, I didn’t even think about your mom. I didn’t think you’d ever want anyone to know about us.”

My smile faded. “Tess, if taking out a billboard wasn’t outrageous and inappropriate, I’d fucking do it. This has never been temporary for me.”

Her face softened. “I thought all you wanted was temporary.”

“And I thought you weren’t interested in temporary. I walked into it with the intent to date the hell out of you, Tess Monroe.”

She shook her head in wonder. “How do you do that?”

“What?”

“Make me feel like I’m the only woman in the world.”

My hand cupped her jaw, my eyes holding hers still. “Because you are.”

And I kissed her to prove it.

15

Things the Cat Drags In

TESS

“I told you he was your boyfriend,” Ivy said with smug certainty.