case I come in three seconds.’
‘I want you to come.’
‘No—don’t move your arms,’ Leo ordered, and his hands settled on her breasts, squeezed gently, massaged. ‘God. God, God, God...’ he said, and it really did sound like a prayer.
He lowered his head and closed his lips over one nipple, sucked it sharply so that she moaned.
He stopped instantly. ‘Sorry—but you’re driving me crazy. Did I hurt you?’
‘No,’ she said, her legs moving restlessly. ‘I just want you so much. So much,’ she wailed as his mouth sucked hard again.
He commenced a steady rhythm, tugging, tonguing, pulling back to lick.
When he shifted to the other breast she couldn’t help herself—her arms came down to circle him, to pull him closer, closer.
‘Come inside me,’ she whispered. ‘Please, Leo.’
He shook his head and started moving lower. He stopped again as his mouth touched the scar. He pulled back to see it, then touched it gently with his fingers, running them over the length of it, then across the dissecting scar that ran perpendicular to it, across her ribs towards her back.
Sunshine held her breath, waiting for...what? She didn’t know. Didn’t want to believe that it mattered, what he thought of her imperfections. All that mattered—all that could matter—was the promise of the orgasm flickering low in her belly.
And yet she didn’t release her breath until he moved again, kissing his way to her mound. He stopped again. Shuddered out a breath against her. Then he was kissing her there, over and over again.
‘Beautiful. Delicious,’ he murmured in between licking kisses, his tongue dipping just low enough to make her squirm. ‘Open wider for me.’
She shifted her legs, hips rising off the bed, soundlessly urging him to shift, to slide that clever mouth right between her spread legs. When, finally, he did, using the very tip of his tongue to separate the lips of her sex, breathing deeply as he slid the flat of his tongue along the seam, she screamed his name and climaxed almost violently.
He kept his mouth there, his tongue on that fizzing knot of nerves, until the waves receded.
And then, with a groan, he slid back up her body and thrust inside her. ‘Ah, thank you, God,’ he groaned, and any semblance of control snapped.
He pounded into her, teeth gritted, gripping her hips as though his life depended on leveraging himself off them so he could go harder, deeper.
Sunshine could feel his orgasm building and tightened her inner muscles, holding, wanting... ‘Come, come,’ she said, and then the explosion ripped through him.
Long moments later he rolled onto his back, bringing Sunshine with him so that she was lying on top, her thighs falling either side of him. ‘Forgot the condom again,’ he said.
Sunshine frowned. ‘I’ve never forgotten before.’
‘Do we need to talk about it?’
‘Only if you have a disease.’
‘Then we don’t need to talk.’ He secured her more tightly against his chest. One hand was in her hair, smoothing through the strands.
Silence. Minutes dragged on.
Then, ‘The Heimlich thing... Why?’ he asked.
She shrugged, self-conscious. ‘I saw a story on the internet about a woman who choked to death. If someone had known what to do she wouldn’t have died. So I...I learned. Just in case. Typical that the first time I had to use it was on Natalie’s boyfriend!’
‘He’s not her boyfriend. He’s her bitch.’
‘Ouch.’
‘I wish I could say that was me being malicious, but it’s just the truth.’
‘I certainly don’t understand what you saw in her.’
‘Me neither. I guess we get what we deserve.’
She looked up at him, perplexed. ‘Why would you think you deserved her? Deserved...that?’
Leo shook his head, shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. ‘Just history. Perpetuating the crappiness of my life. Because she wasn’t my first mistake—just the most persistent.’
Mistake. Something about the word made Sunshine shiver. Mistake...
‘You’re cold,’ Leo said. ‘And I have a brilliant idea—let’s actually get in the bed.’
Sunshine latched onto being cold as a viable excuse for the sudden chill prickling along her skin. She slid under the covers, busied herself positioning cushions so that she was propped up against the bedhead, half turned to him.
She toyed with her chain, rubbing the sun and moon charms between her fingers.
‘Sun and moon,’ Leo said, watching her. ‘For Sunshine and Moonbeam?’
‘Yes. The business is called Sun & Moon too. Not sure what we were going to do when we changed our names.’
‘You were going to change your names? Don’t tell me: Sue and Jenny?’
‘Do I look like a Sue?’
‘Actually, you look like a Sunshine.’
‘Harsh! Well, Moonbeam was definitely not a Jenny! She was going to be Amaya—it means Night Rain. She figured it was a close enough association with the night, if not with the moon specifically.’
‘Nice. And yours?’
‘Allyn. Do I look like an Allyn?’
‘I told you—you look like a Sunshine.’
‘Oh, dear. Daunting. Well, Moon said Allyn meant Bright and Shining One. Close enough to sunshine, in her opinion. And she said it suited me.’ She frowned, thinking. ‘I’ve thought a lot over the past two years about making the change. Wondered if doing the thing we planned to do together on my own would help me accept...move on. My parents aren’t so sure.’
‘Tell me about them,’ Leo said.
‘My parents? Oh, they’re very zen! Quite mad. And completely wonderful. Always there. Supportive, but never smothering. They let Moon and me leave the commune when we were fifteen, so we could see a different way and make informed decisions about how we wanted to live. They made sure we had a safe place to stay, a good school to go to, money for whatever we needed, while we worked it out. And they seemed to understand even before we did that Moon was the true hippie and I was...well, something in between a hippie and an urbanite. Moon would have raced straight back to the commune if not for me being anchored in the city.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘We started our business with money our father inherited but didn’t need. It was given to us simply, with love, on our eighteenth birthday.’
‘Lucky.’
