Don't Want You Like a Best Friend (Mischief & Matchmaking, #1)

by Emma R. Alban

Her perfume is lovely.

Gwen’s touch is calming and lovely, and she lets her shoulders come down.

It’s not the full truth, but any day she and Beth get to spend together is a good one.

“I can take care of myself.” “I pray that you never have to,”

She looks a bit like a pastry.

Nothing’s felt as good as sitting here with Beth, soft and close and thrumming.

This is what it’s supposed to be. This is what it’s supposed to feel like. Swoony and bright and everything.

She’d let the whole world watch for another minute pressed against these aging barrels with Gwen’s lips on hers.

reliving the kisses, wondering what happens now. Wondering how to do it again. Wondering what kind of life she could lead that would give her Gwen.

There’s no going back from that moment. What she feels for Gwen she will never feel for anyone else. It is singular, and beautiful, and she wants more of it. More of Gwen’s hands and her lips and her time and her affection and—

The day doesn’t seem as bright without Beth in it.

“To the health and safety of women everywhere, and the good health, happiness, and cheer of the three beautiful women I have with me tonight,”

This is Gwen, beautiful, funny, kind Gwen.

She’s like a goddess, and she’s there, in Gwen’s lap, staring back at her. What on earth does she do with her hands?

She wouldn’t give up last night for anything. To know that joy—even if this is the heartache she feels forever as a result—it’s worth having known it even once.

She can live through anything if it will give her nights and days and sunrises with Gwen.

At least she had this, that’s what she’ll have to tell herself for the rest of her life. At least she had one brief moment of love and joy and affection before a life without.

Condemned to a quarter life of happiness, but they’ll wring every bit they can from it. They’ll savor every moment.

It’s devastatingly beautiful. She is devastatingly beautiful.

“I’m keeping you.” Beth presses closer, squeezing her waist. “Forever and always?” “Forever and always and eternity and infinity,”

Her beautiful, brave, smart, funny Beth. No one deserves her. Not even Gwen. But she’s got her anyway, and she’ll never let her go to some man purely for society’s sake.