The second she saw me looking, her whole face transformed.
That smile. God, that smile. Wide and unrestrained and so full of joy, it made my chest ache. She broke into a run, closing the distance between us like she couldn’t stand another second apart.
I barely had time to brace myself before she launched.
She jumped, and I caught her, her legs wrapping around my waist as her arms locked around my neck. Her chin tucked into my shoulder, and she held on like she was afraid I’d disappear if she let go.
“You got out,” she whispered against my neck. “You actually got out.”
I buried my face in her hair. Vanilla. Something floral.Harper.A scent I’d only caught in stolen moments in the infirmary, and now I could breathe it in without counting the seconds until a guard walked by.
My fingers threaded through her silky hair, feeling the strands slip between my knuckles. Soft. Everything about her was so goddamn soft.
“Don’t you have to work today?” I asked, pulling back enough to see her face.
She smirked. “Took a personal day.”
“For me?”
“No, for the other convicted murderer getting released today. There’s a two-for-one special. I’m very busy.”
I huffed. Still sarcastic. Still the woman who’d looked at me in that infirmary, seen every ugly truth I carried, and decided I was worth saving anyway.
She pulled back, studying my face like she was cataloging the differences. Like maybe I looked different outside these walls than I did inside them.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You just …” She traced a finger along my jaw, and I leaned into the touch before I could stop myself. “You look like you belong out here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Her voice softened. “You look like mine.”
And then she kissed me.
Not the careful, stolen kisses we’d shared before. Not the desperate, silent ones in the infirmary with our ears straining for footsteps. This kiss was different.
This kiss was free.
Her mouth moved against mine. Urgent and greedy and completely unrestrained. No guards to catch us. No threat of solitary hanging over my head if someone walked in. Just Harper, wrapped around me in the parking lot of a state penitentiary, kissing me like she’d been waiting her whole life for this moment.
I kissed her back with everything I had. Every fantasy I’d buried in that dark cell. Every night I’d stared at the ceiling and imagined exactly this. My tongue traced her lower lip, and she opened for me instantly, her own tongue meeting mine in a way that made my blood run hot.
Our hands couldn’t stay still. She tugged at my shirt. I gripped her hips hard enough to bruise.
Behind me, someone whistled.
Harper pulled back with a breathless laugh, her cheeks flushed. “We have an audience.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Some staff member heading to their car, grinning like they’d just witnessed the best entertainment of their week.
“Don’t care.” I turned back to her, but she was already unwrapping her legs, sliding down my body in a way that made me grit my teeth.
“Behave.” Her eyes sparkled. “At least until we get in the car.”
That’s when I noticed it. Parked about fifty feet away, gleaming black and so out of place in this prison parking lot that it might as well have landed from another planet.
I cocked my head. “A limo?”
