Celeste suppressed a smile. “You're ridiculous. The detours through this trip so far, the antique store, the bird, all of it—it’s completely insane.”
“Good insane or bad insane?”
“I don't know yet.” She stopped walking, turning to face Ruby. The sunlight caught in her dark hair, turning the brown strands auburn. “I didn't expect any of this. I certainly didn't expect going to a veterinarian to be so exhilarating.”
She was looking at Ruby with something like wonder, her expression open in a way Ruby had never seen before. Unguarded and open. It was as though she'd forgotten to put her walls back up and was just... present.
Beautiful.
“Celeste—”
But before Ruby could finish, Celeste closed the distance between them and kissed her.
It wasn't a tentative or questioning kiss. It was firm and purposeful, Celeste's lips deft and sure against Ruby's. Her hand came up to cup Ruby's cheek, thumb brushing her jawline with a tenderness that made Ruby’s knees weak.
Her brain short-circuited. She barely had time to register what was happening—Celeste is kissing me, oh my goodness, she is kissing me—to feel the softness of Celeste's mouth and the simultaneous racing of her own heart threatening to break through her ribs.
She started to respond, melting into it further, her hands lifting to—
Celeste pulled back.
They stared at each other for a moment. Ruby could see panic flooding into Celeste's eyes and glimpsed the moment reality crashed back in.
“I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—”
She turned and practically ran toward the car, leaving Ruby standing on the sidewalk in a daze.
Ruby touched her lips, half-convinced she'd imagined it. But no. She could still feel the ghost of Celeste's mouth on hers and the pulsating sensation of her hand on her cheek.
Celeste Russo had just kissed her in the parking lot of a Tennessee veterinary clinic.
Ruby stood there, rooted to the spot, watching Celeste fumble with the car keys. Her heart was still racing and her lips still tingled.
She'd been kissed before and had kissed plenty of women. But nothing had ever felt like that. Like coming home and jumping off a cliff at the same time.
Ruby's legs finally remembered how to move. She walked toward the car in slow steps, everything around her slightly unreal. The sun was too bright, the air felt thick and time had gone strange and elastic.
She climbed into the passenger seat, and the silence was deafening.
Ruby wanted to say something, to reach over to take Celeste's hand and to ask her what that meant. Or just to kiss her again.
But Celeste looked like she might shatter if Ruby so much as breathed wrong.
Chapter Eleven
Celeste
Celeste's hands shook as she fastened her seatbelt. The click of the buckle seemed absurdly loud in the silent car.
Why did I do that?
She'd kissed Ruby without the thinking or planning that usually accompanied every decision she made. Ruby had been standing there in the sunlight, grinning about a sparrow named Sparkle, and Celeste's self-control had simply evaporated.
It made no sense. She'd spent so many years perfecting the art of restraint, of keeping her desires locked away where no one could see them. And then Ruby had smiled at her with that ridiculous, unguarded joy, and every wall she had built came crashing down.
She couldn't even blame it on the moment. Yes, they'd just saved a bird's life, or at least given it a fighting chance, and the relief had been overwhelming. But that didn't explain the want that had been building all day.
Ruby settled into the passenger seat, and Celeste waited for awkwardness or for her to demand an explanation or attempt to do something to break the terrible tension.
