Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sadie
I checked Wishbone on the way in case he was staying over in the flat upstairs, but he wasn't there. I didn’t think he would be; he prefers to go home to his townhouse to sleep in the hot weather because it’s cooler, but I didn’t want to miss him on the off chance he’d changed his mind.
I wonder how many other tidbits of information I’ve taken in and retained about Leo and his preferences over the years without even noticing.
It’s good to see the truth at last: you couldn’t design a better man for me than Leo Mills. He’s the best fun to be around, but knows when to turn it off and be sensible. He backs me up one hundred percent in everything, from my art to my life choices, even if he disagrees with them. Even if they cause him pain. And he’s always there for me, every time, asking for nothing in return but my friendship, never pushing me for anything more.
However cautious I feel the need to be, how can I not take a chance on him? What on earth happened to my gumption? I’m known for it, after all. So it’s about time I started showing some.
The streets whizz past me without me paying them any mind as I drive to his place in my clapped out Renault. I’m on autopilot now, focused on getting there. I don’t know what I’ll say to him once we’re face to face, but I’ll worry about that when I’m there. Something will come to me.
Parallel park outside his place. Gears back in neutral. Windows up. Ignition off. Everything done carefully, one at a time, following the process.
The moment has come.
I turn my head to look up at his house. All the lights are out, so I guess he’s asleep. But, even though it’s selfish, I can’t bring myself to go home and come back later. I need to be with him now , and will shake him awake if I have to.
I don’t think he’d mind.
As though I’m in a dream, I get out of the car and lock it, and climb the steps up to his front door. Running my hands over the door frame, looking for his spare key, I swear under my breath when it’s not there, so I try my luck under the plant pots by his front door. Bingo , third one’s the charm. I keep telling him it’s a bad idea to keep his spare somewhere where people could find it and rob him, but tonight I’m glad for his carelessness. I’d hate to have to try to find an open window to climb through. Sliding the key into the lock as quietly as I can, I open the door and close it behind me.
To my right is the hallway, leading to the kitchen dead ahead, and the door to the lounge.
To my left are the stairs up to the first floor, and then the second. That’s where his bedroom is.
I climb them slowly, my heart rate picking up in a way that has nothing to do with the rush to get here. Past his work room and a spare bedroom on the first floor, and over to the next staircase. I stop in my tracks as I look at all the photos he has framed on the wall on the way up. Eli and Emily on their wedding day, just the two of them, and then a group shot of us all outside the registry office. Dean and Liaden, laughing together across the table from the picture taker at a restaurant. A candid shot of Eli looking over my shoulder and talking to me as I ink Leo. Me and Dean making a fuss of Click, the dog’s tongue licking my nose as I screw up my face. Me, smirking at the camera at a concert he and I went to, my hair up in two space buns, my jewellery plastic and neon. Me and Leo laughing as we eat lunch at the parlour. Me and Leo pulling faces on a night out, both looking tipsy.
Me and Leo. Me and Leo. Me and Leo. I’m not in every photo, but I’m certainly in most of them.
He loves us all so much, but it’s impossible not to see from this display that he loves one of us in a different way to all the others.
Silently, I tiptoe quickly up the rest of the stairs. His door is ajar, and I tentatively push it open with one finger, glad when it doesn’t creak.
He’s lying diagonally across his bed on his front, a white sheet covering just his arse and thighs. His hair is tied back loosely, and the moonlight through the window on the right makes his tanned skin glow. He’s hugging the white pillow, and when he’s fast asleep, he looks so pure and so free that I can’t help smiling. I wander over to him, taking in the way his hair is fluffed up at the sides having partially escaped his hair tie, and all his tattoos. I’m responsible for so many of them, and as I kneel next to the bed, I count the ones I can see. The walrus mandala on his shoulder, which he volunteered to have so I could work out the kinks in a design I couldn’t stop thinking about. Another mandala, because I do love doing them, this one in the shape of a fleur de lys on his neck; I did that one for his birthday, my gift to him. The Funnybones cartoon skeletons on his hip, because I started muttering the theme song once and he joined in, word perfect, and in the moment it was so funny that we commemorated it.
Without even realising it, I marked him as mine, over and over again. It awakens something inside me, something territorial and aroused. Leo is mine . He belongs to me in a way that can never be erased.
I’ve always been against the idea of belonging to anyone, as it’s basically the same thing as being someone’s property. I’m my own person and must remain so… But this is different. He’s mine, and I’m his, and I don’t feel stifled. If anything, I feel freer in a way I don’t understand and can’t explain, but it’s a wonderful relief that it exists.
One step at a time. I’m not going to get ahead of myself, and I’ll still take each day as it comes, but this feels right in a way nothing else has for a while, if ever.
His eyes slowly open, heavy with sleep, and it takes him a couple of seconds to register that I’m there. He frowns, surprised and puzzled. “Pumpkin?” he mumbles in confusion, sitting up and scratching his head. “What’s up? Is everything OK?”
I look and look at him, at the ripped body covered in more ink, and the beard in need of a trim, and his soft, wide mouth, and a ripple of pure lust passes through me from head to toe, finally free to just be.
He starts to look more awake, and with that, more concerned. “Are you - ”
I place my fingertips on his mouth to shut him up.
The time for talking has passed.
Leo
She smooths loose strands of hair out of my face, and I have no fucking idea what’s going on, but the look in her eyes is making me hard as granite, and there’s nothing but a thin white sheet to hide it. Shit, she’s going to notice, she’s going to -
There’s a fire in her eyes that’s never been directed at me before, and now I am wide bloody awake, holding my breath to see what she does next.
She doesn’t make me wait long at all. Her splayed fingertips run from my shoulders and down my chest, making my muscles jump with the longing burning through my veins at her touch. When she reaches the tops of my thighs, she pauses, and my throat goes dry. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding and pounding, and I must be dreaming.
At this rate, I’d happily spend the rest of time like this so it can never end. I’d spend decades in a coma for its sake.
Slowly and gently, she pulls the sheet sideways so it drags across my already sensitised cock. My breath hisses through my teeth, but I don’t stop her. I couldn’t if my life depended on it.
And then I’m naked. Just sat here, naked on my bed while Sadie Stewart bites her lip at the sight of my erection jutting between us as it starts jumping with my racing pulse.
I have never been laid bare like this before. There’s nothing I can hide; I’m painfully aroused, my unabashed adoration centre stage and hers for the taking, and no doubt shining out of my eyes as I look at her. She has her hair half up, which is one of my favourite ways she wears it, and her sundress is tiny and, from the way her nipples are showing through the material, she is not wearing a bra, and moreover, she’s just as turned on as me. I know she’s not cold.
Nothing happens for a few seconds…
…and then everything happens, all at once and with an intensity that even I’ve never experienced until now. Like my whole life has been leading to this one explosive moment.
We crash together as she pulls my neck towards her, our mouths devouring each other in long, deep, pulling kisses that make me light headed. Just like at the wedding, she tastes better than I ever dreamed she could, and as she straddles me, clawing at me to get closer and closer, I pull the straps of her dress down roughly until her breasts are uncovered.
Oh my god.
They’re the most perfect handful. Her nipples are pierced, the delicate silver rings surrounding the tips like stars, and I can’t stop touching them as we kiss, torn between keeping my eyes open so I don’t miss a second, and closing them in helpless bliss. I roll one of her nipples gently with my thumb and forefinger, and pinch the other between two fingers, tugging gently on the fine silver. The moan she lets out pulls an answering one from me, and my head is empty of any thoughts other than more, more, MINE…
And then she lifts up, yanks the gusset of her panties to one side, grabs my cock, lines me up, and…
FUCKING HELL .
In one swift glide I am sheathed to the root inside her, and my eyes close so tightly that all I can see is whiteness, like sparks behind my eyes. It feels so unimaginably good that I growl, capturing her mouth again in a kiss as brutal as the sensations that start gathering much too fast in my loins. Oh, Christ in heaven help me . I’ve got to hang on, or I’ll embarrass myself entirely.
She grinds against me mercilessly, her head thrown back in a way that leaves her throat bare and vulnerable to my biting kisses, and our moves become fitful and instinctive. There’s nothing neat and tidy about what we’re doing. This is as animalistic and primal as fucking ever gets, her chasing the orgasm I’m determined to give her, me hanging on for dear life to avoid mine until she’s satisfied.
I grab her ass. She pulls my hair. I bite her lip. She bites mine back. Our tongues tangle together, and the feel of her sliding wetly over my dick has it swelling to the point of madness. I move with her, matching her thrust to thrust and doing everything I can to hit the right spots inside her, because I want her to be as spellbound as I am.
And then, thank you holy fucking Jesus, I feel the first flutterings of her orgasm pulsing around me. And the second she starts making sexy, earthy cries against my mouth, I let go, groans being ripped from my throat as I pump a desperate release into her in the hardest orgasm of my life. The feel of her milking me through it has me growling again like a wild animal, to the point that I almost want to bite the back of her neck as a feral claiming. I’m seeing stars. I’m struggling to catch my breath. Aftershocks run over me and through me like electricity, wringing every drop of pleasure out of this moment, and as she climbs off me I’m hard pushed not to grab her and put her back where she was because she can’t slam onto me like that and then leave, not ever.
We lie next to each other on the bed, panting, and my head is spinning, incredulous and confused and delighted. “What…what the fuck just happened?” I ask, still gasping. I lift up on my elbow so I can look down at her, study her, figure out what on earth that was all about and how I can make it happen again. Would kisses be welcome, or was this all she needed?
She stares up at my ceiling and shakes her head a little. “I just…” I’m gratified to see that she’s still catching her breath. “I just really wanted to.” She smooths her hair out of her face with one hand and closes her eyes as she eases back down to earth from a high I gave her.
And I will never forget the way she looks right now. It’s a sight I never thought I’d see, one I pictured often. But the reality…my wildest dreams had no clue.
I think on her answer for a moment. “Oh. Well…fine, then. Anytime,” I reply lamely. And because words aren’t my friend at the moment, I lie back and pull her close, into the crook of my arm, and let the moment be, hoping like fuck it will last.