Her entire body feels warm now, that tingling feeling spreading all down her spine, through her stomach and chest. It’s so strong, this attraction and this want that she can hardly catch her breath with it.

Swallowing hard, she turns just enough to see Hannah’s face. Which alone sends that burst of butterflies through her stomach. She has the light set to dim, so it’s mostly the light from the TV reflecting off of Hannah’s face, her expression one of total relaxation.

Total relaxation that is completely and utterly blissfully unaware of the many, many chain reactions going off through Caroline’s body.

Until she turns her head and catches Caroline staring, her eyebrows drawing together as she whispers, “You okay? You feel super tense all of the sudden.”

“Do I?” A nervous laugh comes out of her throat, the sound unfamiliar to both of them. “I’m – fine. I’m just,” she has to pause to clear her throat. “I have a lot of stuff going on at work. Stressed. Just remembered it all.”

Hannah’s look of questioning melts into one of understanding and sympathy. “You want to talk about it?”

She tilts her head toward the kitchen, eyebrows lifted with the offer.

The last thing she wants to do while being slapped in the face with the recognition of her attraction is to be completely alone with Hannah and struggle to focus on something other than this feeling.

“No, it’s okay.” She manages to get out with a small smile.

Hannah accepts her words, even as she gives her a sympathetic grin.

The hand on Caroline’s thigh starts rubbing again, in soft circles that she is sure Hannah believes are soothing, while her other arm sneaks up around Caroline’s neck and her hand kneads at her neck.

Caroline has to remind herself to breathe for the rest of the movie.

***

She sits in the living room with the lights still dimmed for hours after they leave, running it all over in her mind.

Her attraction to Hannah isn’t new, she tells herself, forcefully. Hannah has always been the most physically beautiful woman she’s ever met.

It’s just now… she sees Hannah. She sees her strength, the sheer power and the iron will that is hidden under her soft veneer.

She knows all of the shades of those gray eyes that have always intrigued her. The way they melt when they look at Abbie, the way they turn hard as stone when she’s focused. The way they look at her, sometimes with the most intensity she thinks she’s ever had focused on her but most of the time – now – with an affection that gives away that she actually enjoys Caroline’s company.