Talia’s lips parted. Then she thought better of whatever she’d been on the verge of saying, and simply lifted my wrist back to her mouth. I could feel the warm rush of her exhale against my skin as she lingered over the kiss, and the banked heat inside me whipped up again, fanned by her breath.

Between sips of wine, she continued working her way up my arm; through the tattoos that marked my graduation, my decision to work at Enchantify instead of getting a master’s, the key to the first apartment I rented alone, a series of promotions. All the cornerstones I’d laid down for the foundations of Chicago Emmy, building over the ground that Emmeline Constance of the Thistle Grove Harlows had once occupied.

Talia sealed each confidence with a scorching kiss, my skin under her lips growing increasingly sensitive as she neared the elbow crease. I didn’t think I’d ever felt this particular mix before, this heady commingling of vulnerability and desire. I hadn’t close to felt it with Anders from a few months back, or even Chrissy before him, though she’d been promising before work got in the way.

But being around Talia felt so vivid, so radiant and jewel toned. It made everyone else I’d ever been with seem to pale, to fade into unremarkable pastels.

My breath came shorter and more ragged with each incrementally more lingering kiss, until I started to suspect we might not make it to the end of my little narrative.

“And this one?” she coaxed, rubbing her thumb over the prickly purple blossom tattooed right below my elbow. I’d lost all pretense of maintaining my distance and was halfway onto her lap, as if the space between us had been magnetized. Her face hovered invitingly close, all hypnotic eyes and citrus-stung lips. The little indent above her upper lip was chiseled into a perfect diamond shape I was dying to kiss. All I could smell was oranges and the sweetness of her perfume, like a scented beckoning.

“Come on, Harlow, a deal’s a deal. Tell me what this one means.”

“The thistle, um . . .” I closed my eyes, struggling to rein in the very insistent clamoring of my loins enough to think. “It’s recent. I got it end of August, when I decided to come home for the Gauntlet. I wasn’t going to, at first, it felt too close to backsliding. But then I thought, no—that was the wrong way to look at it. I owed it to my parents to make one last appearance, do right by them. And if I could make it back here and then back out again, then that would be proof.”

“Proof of what?” she asked, her voice so husky it was almost a rasp.

“Proof,” I tried, though my heart felt like it had ballooned against the hollow of my throat. She was right there, so fucking close. Her hand so hot, her thighs pressing up against my leg in the most maddeningly intimate way. “That this place was out of my system. Out of my blood for good.”