LISA

The water rains down on me, and I let it wash away the tension from my body. I wish it could wash away the worst of my sins, because isn't stealing your brother's wife the biggest one of all?

I'm over the moon to be here with Jennie, to have her waiting for me in the next room, but the ambivalence in my heart is killing me. Because I know two things for absolute certain: I want to be with Jennie and I don't want to lose my family. I can stand in this shower as long as I want, I can scrub my skin until it's raw, but it's not going to bring me the solution of how to accomplish my two mutually exclusive goals. To be with Jennie, I had to cause my brother pain. And the joy of being with Jennie is inextricably linked to the agony of telling my brother. One does not exist without the other.

Sometimes, we hurt the people we love the most and it's because we love them that it hurts so much, the sharpness of the pain a measure of our love. But I have no choice. I need to put Kai out of my head for now. Because Jennie is out there, the woman I love—the woman I chose over everything else. This isn't merely agony and it's time to focus on the flip side now, if only for tonight. Although, this time around, we have much more than one night together. We have all the time we want—and we already paid the price.

So I lather soap on my skin and wash the past off me—after today, I'll never be the same person again. Just like I was never the same after Mina dumped me, and after my father died. Some events change you forever, alter something to the chemical state in your body, make your neurons fire differently from then on.

I may not know what the future holds for Jennie and me, but I do know that I have made the ultimate sacrifice for her—for us. That should tell me all I need to know.

Suddenly, I can't get out of the shower fast enough. Every minute with Jennie is precious because we had to fight so damn hard for it, first between ourselves and then against my family and, in the end, the fight will return to us again. But at least we'll have each other. We won't be alone.

Skin still dripping, I hurry into the bedroom. My hair sticks to my cheeks in wet strands. Jennie is sitting on the bed and breaks into a smile at the sight of me. I reach for her, push myself onto her, throw my arms around her. Fully naked, I straddle Jennie, who is still dressed, my blood already thumping wildly for her. Because my body, my deepest self, knows I made the right decision, no matter the cost.

Her hands travel up my back, leaving my skin covered in goose bumps. She pulls me close, and I look down into her chocolate brown eyes. The tips of our noses touch and there's nothing left to say now, only the things our bodies can communicate, the emotions beyond the words that can only be expressed like this. This isn't mere lust shooting through my body—it never was, because with Jennie that was impossible from the start. We didn't just indulge in a one-time sin of the flesh, because for us, that doesn't exist. There were always so many emotions wrapped up in our actions, so many feelings rioting beneath our skin.

"Oh, Lisa," Jennie groans. One hand disappears into my hair while the other keeps pressing me close, as if she never wants to let go. I don't either. I'd like to stay in this perfect bubble in this hotel room forever, shut out the outside world and pretend it doesn't exist. Pretend it's just me and Jennie in the universe, and this warm, luscious, exhilarating sensation in our hearts.

This is also what it feels like when you choose each other. Unequivocally right despite the consequences. If this is how Mina felt when she first kissed Seulgi, I can no longer hold her cheating on me against her because I understand. But Mina has nothing to do with this. It's just me and Jennie now and we get to take our time. We get to do this properly. We get to make love to each other knowing that we choose each other fully for the first time.

Jennie loosens her grip on me and, slowly, her hand travels to the front of my body. Gently, she cups my breast on a sharp inhale of breath. Her thumb flicks along my nipple. She swallows hard but keeps staring into my eyes.

I trail the back of my fingers along her cheek, on the way to unbuttoning her blouse. I want her naked too. I want to see all of her after so much time apart. For a few seconds, my thumb rests on her neck and I feel how frantically her pulse races—for me.

Jennie's hold on my breast intensifies and so does the look in her eyes. Then we can't stand it any longer. We have to break eye contact because not another second can go by without our lips meeting, without us kissing. To feel her lips on mine is like coming home after a long, uphill trip. Like being reminded of where I belong. Her tongue slips into my mouth and a pinprick of tears stings behind my eyes. But these are not tears of sadness or frustration or guilt. They're the opposite. So I don't stop them. Just like the water rained down on me earlier in the shower, I let my tears rain down my face because these are the happiest tears I've ever shed. They're the kind of tears you cry when you're reunited with someone who makes your life complete. When you know you're about to embark on the most amazing journey and you can already taste the happiness that lurks just around the corner.

We kiss and kiss, and I somehow manage to open her blouse before I tumble onto her, before she's on her back beneath me and staring up at me with eyes so full of lust I can feel it between my legs.

She blinks once and it's as though that minute gesture flicks the switch between us again, brings us onto the next level of what we're doing—the total and complete expression of our love. I wasn't lying or grandstanding or exaggerating earlier when I told Jennie I loved her. If I didn't love her, I wouldn't have broken my brother's heart.

Jennie wrestles out of her blouse and bra while I tug at her jeans, leaving her dressed only in a flimsy pair of panties.

"Come here," she whispers, and I think she's drawing me in for another kiss but, instead, she pulls me all the way up, until I'm straddling her face.

My legs are wide for her and if that's a reflection of what's happening in my heart, then it makes perfect sense, because my heart's all the way open for her, my entire body an extension of how I feel. My muscles taut with lust, my flesh buzzing with desire.

Maybe Mina wasn't the love of my life, after all—how could she be when she fell in love with someone else? Maybe the great love of my life is Jennie and life had a funny way of bringing us together.

When Jennie's tongue touches my clit, I no longer consciously know anything, but I feel it all the more. Her fingertips dig into the flesh of my behind while she tastes me, all of me, while her tongue licks me straight into seventh heaven.

My body, my resolve, is no match for this lust between us, for how I feel when I'm with her, for when her tongue touches me like that. I happily surrender, my cheeks still wet with tears, my hair still moist from the shower, my sex dripping with lust for her. I come at Jennie's tongue and it's so much more than a quick orgasm in a hotel room. It's the conclusion of the choices we made and the beginning of our future together. It's so many things, I think, as my body slides down, limp and satisfied, onto hers.

"I missed you so, so much," Jennie says as she holds me near, as she buries her nose in my hair.

"I gathered." My body shakes against hers as I chuckle. When I kiss her, I can smell myself on her, all my desire for her—all my love for her.