“I’m sorry. You really should go back to sleep.”

“Who made you feel like your feelings weren’t valid?”

Morgan’s blunt question knocked the wind out of her. She fixated on a particularly bright star. Venus, perhaps. Not a star then. A world.

“I don’t know.”

She did know, though. Hannah. Thao. All the women who had mistaken her softness for weakness and exploited it or smothered her with misguided protections.

“Whoever it was, they were wrong.” Morgan tucked Emilia’s hair behind her ear. “This is your life, Emilia.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I have doubts about almost everything else besides my career if that makes you feel better.”

She looked at Morgan. Her eyes were nearly black in the darkness, and her mouth was no more than a soft shadow. “What about this?”

Morgan resumed stroking Emilia’s skin. “Are we talking about us now?”

“We don’t have to,” said Emilia.

Morgan lapsed into silence for a few moments. “I like you a lot.”

Warmth trickled into every part of her body at Morgan’s words.

“But you’ve got a lot going on,” Morgan continued before Emilia could speak, “and I don’t want to complicate that.”

“You’re not.”

“Are you sure?”

She didn’t answer. If she said yes, she’d not only be lying, but she’d be discrediting both of their feelings. If she said no, though, Morgan might feel obligated to call things off. She settled for a different truth.

“It’s too late.” She touched Morgan’s lips with the tips of her fingers and traced the bow of the upper, then the full sweep of the lower.

“We could—”

“Morgan.” She cut her off. “You don’t need to protect me.”

“But—”

“Shut up, Dr. Donovan.” Morgan’s lips parted beneath her fingers and Emilia pressed them closed. “I want this.”

A small, nearly inaudible sound vibrated against her fingers. Emilia shifted beneath the sheets to lay flush against Morgan’s body, half rolled on top of her, half tangled in her arms.

“I want this,” she repeated in a voice that broke against itself as she framed the words, and Morgan’s hands gripped her hips with a fierceness that mirrored her own.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

The first few weeks of July passed in a blur of heat, appointments, and moments spent with Emilia. Morgan took her out on her boat and melted at the sight of her in a bikini, cursing the number of other boaters on the water who prevented her from fucking her on the deck again. Stevie spent every spare minute with Olive, who had recovered from surgery without complication and who now lived at Morgan’s parents while Morgan and Stevie built a paddock in the orchard. She saw Stormy in snatches behind her bar, usually while grabbing a cup of coffee on a midday break with Emilia, as she was now.

“This must be Ray’s daughter.”