Page 29 of Vengefully Matched

Hart’s expression set back into its normal indolence, though, and she took a seat.

“Enough. We need a backstory. How did we start dating?”

“You helped me move out of Jonathan’s place when we broke up, and we started out just friends, but you kept coming up with excuses to drop by my new condo. To fix a shelf, to bring a plant. Finally, it got to the point where I realized it could not possibly be just to help out.”

“That sounds suspiciously nice of me,” said Hart dryly. “Are you sure it’s believable?”

“Yes,” Agatha insisted. “We need people to believe that you, in all your beautiful aloofness, fell hard enough for me to forgive the fact you and I threw so much shade at each other on the campaign trail, smeared each other entirely, and that I beat you.”

“You beat me by an extremely narrow margin, thank you very much. But more importantly, you think I’m beautiful?”

“That was your takeaway?” Agatha looked at her, but Hart said nothing, eyebrow raised, smirk written across her face in triumph. “Fine,” said Agatha. “Yes, you’re stunning and an ice queen. Show me how you’ll sell it. That you love me.”

“Stand up.” Priscilla’s voice was lower, and goddess, had Agatha ever felt like this at a command before? She got to her feet, anticipation prickling at her skin. Was she about to be horribly embarrassed? Agatha wasn’t sure if that would be better or worse than being unbearably horny.

“We need rules. No kissing,” Agatha blurted. She wanted to swallow the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. “No kissing, but touching is allowed.”

Priscilla Hart slunk toward her, all lithe limbs and catlike grace. “Where will you allow me to touch you, Agatha?” She raised an eyebrow. “Where do you want me to touch you?”

She tensed all over, shutting her eyes for a moment and trying to force herself to regret the low register of Hart’s words. She would not think about them; she would not replay them a thousand times starting now. She would not let her mind roll over the curves of that first name; she wouldn’t let herself even think of Hart as Priscilla, the way the consonants slid off her tongue and wrapped around her. She shivered. Goddess.

“I…” Agatha forgot what words were. Priscilla was close enough to smell—lemon and mint, the sweetness underneath almost unbearable. She wondered if her lips would taste like candy and tea, like that same sweetness. She ached to know the answer.

“Where?” said Priscilla, tracing the outline of Agatha’s face, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, so gently as to not touch her skin.

“Anywhere,” she bit out, and Priscilla’s eyebrows shot up. “Except, you know.”

“I really don’t,” said Priscilla, leaning in, and Agatha thought maybe she understood that it could be worth it to be left at an altar by this woman.

That thought, however, reminded her of the agony of Jonathan, and worse, the public shame. The ridicule. The painful reminder of her reality.

She straightened her posture. “Arms, hands, head only. Nothing below the neckline.”

Priscilla nodded, holding up a hand and waggling her fingers.

“Here?” She traced a line from Agatha’s collarbone up to her jaw.

Shivers ran through Agatha, and it was all she could do to pretend composure. She straightened her chin, staring up at Prissy. It was too hot already, that tiny touch.

Sure, she was a lot less experienced at, well, what her therapist called “being honest about her attraction to women.” But that didn’t mean Priscilla had to know about any of it.

Not the way those big brown eyes shook her to her core. Not the thrill of excitement in her veins that she couldn’t ignore, even though she’d trained herself so well to do just that.

Not the way her eyes traced Priscilla’s body anytime she was in Agatha’s line of sight, and not the way she knew, not just saw, but knew, where it was that Priscilla Hart was standing, how far out of her orbit and how tantalizingly, impossibly close all the same, without even looking.

She felt Priscilla Hart without having once touched her, and that was it—had they touched at some prior, unimportant date she’d let slip through her mind? Had they met before, in another lifetime, and now they recognized the gravitational pull of each other like old lovers unable to completely surrender the memories of their history? Surely they must have shaken hands, or brushed shoulders, and she’d forgotten to clock it, to log it in her bank of carefully curated memories of this woman.

She ought to have remembered it, but everything from her time with Jonathan was colored in by the all-consuming desperation of wanting someone, mind, body, and soul, knowing that person would never want her back in the very same way, and then clutching desperately, watching the whole thing unravel.

Until he had stood up, after Hart had unceremoniously abandoned her would-be bride and humiliated Agatha in public, worse than anyone ever had.

Her cheeks flushed. She hated Hart. Or, rather, she should hate Hart, for catalyzing a heartbreaking split with her own running. Instead, she felt—she felt intensity, that was it.

But the fact of the matter was that the split with Jonathan had been a long time coming. Her heart had been grieving, mourning, for months, if not years, of that relationship.

Winning president afterward had seemed fair, like the universe acknowledging she was worth something. And feuding with her opponent had felt slightly petty, but so good. Every slight against her stoked the fire; every shot she took at Hart coiled desire in her, tighter, more insistent.

Mainly because it meant spending time thinking about and being near Priscilla.