Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Leo
T hat teeny little swell of a bump she’s rocking is so fucking cute, I can hardly stand it.
I kiss it every morning, sometimes before Sadie even wakes. Sometimes it leads to kisses lower down, sleepy fingers stroking my hair, clutching it at the roots as the feeling builds… Increasingly urgent caresses, her legs tangling in my arms as I hold them open… And other times I just end up holding her while she finds her way out of sleep and into the land of the living. I live for the day when the baby starts kicking against my palm, letting me know they’re there.
I love them both so much. More than I ever thought possible.
This morning I saw her come out of the shower, all rude beauty dialled up to a thousand with the signs of her pregnancy. Her nipples are just a couple of shades darker. Her abdomen, obviously, is rounder in a way that makes me want to howl at the moon. She grinned and flipped me off as I openly stared at her, wishing I could trade places with the rivulets of water running down her body because I’m the most ridiculous lovesick fool, and I honestly don’t know how much more my heart can expand. But each and every day it proves it can grow just a little more, just for her and our little bean.
Her pregnancy hormones have kicked in like Lionel Messi, and I secretly love how emotional she’s been lately. It’s like she’s my old firebrand Sadie with an adorably weepy edge. Her mood swings have veered more towards happy tears than grumpiness, and, coupled with her increased need to nap during the day, she’s become my fuzzy, soft little snuggleduck, either sleeping or crying on my shoulder. And I’m the happiest sap in the world.
Take the past couple of days, for example. Her mother has been staying in Sadie’s soon-to-be former flat while Sadie sleeps at mine, but the three of us have spent the last two nights all together since Mrs Stewart left her dipshit husband. The two of them are reconnecting so wonderfully well, but it’s turned Sadie into even more of a watering pot. Mrs S hugs Sadie: tears. The two of them cook a family favourite casserole together: tears, both during cooking and eating. Mrs S and I chat companionably about happier things than the end of her marriage, making friends and getting on like a house on fire: more tears from our girl. And the flood of sobbing while we watched DVDs of some of her mother’s favourite Gordon McRae musicals was truly epic to behold. I never imagined I’d see Sadie cry over Oh What A Beautiful Morning , but she’ll never do anything except surprise me, it seems.
Apparently, Mrs Stewart was just as enslaved to her tear ducts when she was pregnant with Sadie and Tim.
Speaking of Tim, he and Jacob regularly check in, both by phone and in person, and have reassured their mother that they’re there for her anytime. They seem just as relieved as Sadie that their parents’ marriage is over, and I can’t imagine George Stewart is receiving the same visits from the children he bullied for so long. But it seems to be understood, though unsaid, that this is a time for Sadie to reconnect with her mother, first and foremost. They need each other right now. Her brothers seem happy to wait their turn.
I’m just a third wheel, a prop, a place for Sadie to rest her snotted up face, but I’m perfectly happy to serve that purpose, as long as I keep seeing the joy and relief shimmering behind the tears in Sadie’s eyes. I know she’s been worried about her mother, felt hurt that she didn’t stand up for her when her dad gave her both barrels, and concerned about what would come next. But it’s all made easier by their bonding over the process of this pregnancy. Something positive for them both to concentrate on while the dust of their lives settles down again. As tough and bulletproof as Sadie tries to be, she’s marshmallow inside. I’ve always loved that about her, and both her mother and our baby have really brought that side of her out.
I even love her stubbornness, though it’s driving me bugnuts crazy right now as she tries to take part in loading her boxes into mine and Liaden’s cars. “Will you stop fucking heavy lifting, preggo,” I explode, pulling yet another plastic case out of her grasp. It’s moving day, and she’s giving me grey hairs with everything she’s trying to pitch in with.
“But I’m fine - ”
“Agreed, you’re seriously damn fine, but if you think I’m gonna let you haul these boxes around, you’re cuckoo bananas.”
She glares at me angrily. “I’m not going to just sit around while the rest of you - ”
“That’s precisely what you’re going to do,” Liaden says in her scolding lecturer voice. With her playful sunflower print Run initially it was because it was out of his comfort zone, but eventually it was just yet another thing that made him sneer at me. “Trust you to want something so out-there and perverted,” he’d tut. Fair enough if it wasn’t his thing, but no need to yuck my yum.
I’ve always enjoyed a little walk on the wild side, a sprinkling of kink to liven things up in the bedroom. Rope, floggers, violet wands, clamps, you name it. That little bite of ouch really cranks things up a notch, makes me more aware of the pleasure by contrast.
And, given the scorching look on his face, I can’t wait to get down and dirty with Leo and these candles. Something tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing with them.
I got naked in record time while he was fetching matches. I’ve been feeling a little unsure of how my body looks when nude in its new shape, like maybe the bump had changed how I looked in a less appealing way, and I was racing to regain my rhythm. I’m only human, after all. But the way Leo starts briefly before making a low, caveman rumble deep in his chest and lunging for me makes it clear that I’ve still got it. It’s heady to be desired this much. Especially by the man who’s actually, as it turns out, the epitome of everything I find sexy in another person, from his inked up, toned arms to his deep, fearless laugh and wicked smile.
He guides me closer to him, one hand on the back of my head, the other on my butt, and kisses me like he’s ravenous. “Christ, woman, you are just…” Words seem to fail him, and he replaces them with more lip on lip, his tongue swiping over mine in a way that has me wet and trembling in anticipation as tingles zap in my core. His hands run over me, greedy to swipe over every inch of my skin without missing any of it. Everything Leo does, every move he makes, always taps into some key part of me that wants to be unleashed, like I’m a werewolf and Leo’s the full moon.
Speaking of the full moon, he’s wearing entirely too many clothes, and I wanna squeeze that arse of his.
So I yank on his fly, the zip ripping apart, and pull both his jeans and his boxers down together so I can do exactly that. I purr happily; when I say Leo’s butt is fine, I mean it’s damn fine. Tight and muscular and smooth as a marble statue. “I’m gonna bite this,” I warn him with a glittering grin.
His cock twitches against me. “Ouch,” he murmurs, teasing me, but it’s clear from the flash in his eyes that he likes that idea.
Wow. Maybe I’m not the only one who likes a little hurt with my horny. As an experiment, I dig my nails into his flesh a little harder, and his sharp intake of breath and the way he closes his eyes blissfully tells me everything I need to know.
I feel a rush of affection. He really is my ideal playmate, and he’s been within arm’s reach this entire time.
He grabs my chin and pulls my face close to his, stopping when we’re at kissing distance. Our breath mingles together for a moment, before he leans in and bites my lower lip, hard enough to have me gasping at the sting of his teeth.
Oh, yeah. It is ON.
“Get on your knees,” he whispers, running his thumb over where he bit me.
I catch it with my teeth and bite down hard just under the nail until he grunts. “Sure about that?” I taunt him.
He narrows his eyes, but in seconds the corners of his mouth quirk up. “You don’t scare me, woman.” Very, very gently but insistently, he pushes down on my shoulders, an invitation and an order. “Let me feel that tongue.”
I sink to my knees, slow enough to tease and to make it clear that I’m doing this because I want to, not because he ordered it. I shift my gaze to his cock jutting out mere millimetres from my face, long and girthy and pulsing in the most mouth watering way. I brush my lips over the head, and his abs jump. “This tongue?” I ask, and give the place under the helmet, where his skin is tightest and most sensitive, a quick, flickering lick.
“Oh my god,” he groans, his whole body held rigid as he watches me. When I take him fully in my mouth, he starts panting, and when I start softly scraping my teeth along his shaft, his legs start to shake, and he shouts some nonsense I can’t hear clearly because he’s clutching my hair, blocking my ears. He sounds like he’s having fun, though.
He backs up abruptly, pulling out of my mouth, and I grumble softly in protest. “Stay right there,” he commands, and although it’s on the tip of my tongue to do my usual bratty remark, I obey and stay braced on all fours where he left me. His shaft continues to throb in time with his racing heartbeat, and goosebumps spread over his thighs as he fumbles with the matchbox, strikes a match, and lights the purple candle.
“Want to get some towels first?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Are you sure? It could make a hell of a mess - ”
“Let it. I don’t give a fuck.” His dark, firm tone leaves no room for argument. Giving me a look that sends a quiver directly to my aching core, he comes back to me, the lit candle in one hand, his erection in the other. “Open,” he orders me, guiding the tip of his cock to my mouth and easing back inside.
I’m trying to stay one hundred percent focused on tormenting him, and pushing him far too close to the edge for his comfort, but it’s hard to concentrate when you know there’s a candle burning above you, and you could feel the wonderful, sensuous burn of the wax drizzling on you any…second…
Now .
I sense his arm moving above me, and then the intense, focused heat of the melted wax running over my back, burning and then starting to cool in mere seconds. The anticipation is the hard part; the burn is delicious. I gasp around him, relishing the contrasting sensations, and he lets out a rumble of approval. “My girl likes that.”
Before I can reply, he tugs on my wrist and guides me to my feet. I feel a slow trickle down my spine that stops in the blink of an eye as the wax dries. “Get into the bedroom.” I lift an eyebrow. “We have two other colours to play with, and I have an idea,” he says.
By the time I get there, he has all three candles lit, all in his grasp. “Lie down on the bed. Hold onto the headboard. And point your feet towards the bottom corners, one each.”
The silky tone of his voice promises a world of pleasure if I agree, and a delay if I don’t. So I smile and, like a good girl, do exactly what I’m told without challenging him.
His eyes run appreciatively over my body, stretched and on display for him. It feels different to have a shallow slope of a belly where normally I’d be concave when stretched in this position, but I still can’t help feeling like the most wanton sex goddess on the planet under his gaze. I see no disappointment or tolerance in his eyes, no distaste. Just pure lust.
“Don’t let go,” he says, nodding towards where my hands grip the ornate metal posts, “or everything stops.”
I blink, enjoying Bossy Leo, and he grins.
“Are we clear?”
I lift one side of my mouth. “We are.”
“Perfect.” Almost casually, he tips the blue candle, and I gasp and sigh with enjoyment at the soft burn on my stomach. He turns it this way and that, and I realise what he’s doing.
He’s drawing a heart.
First in blue, then in pink, then in purple, over and over, where our baby is growing.
I’d get choked up, but I’m too turned on right now to do anything but gasp and squirm happily.
“Can I take some photos?” he whispers, admiring his handiwork. “For our eyes only, I swear.”
“I know,” I reply, because I trust him implicitly. “Go right ahead.”
I expect him to go fetch his phone. Instead, he puts the candles carefully upright on his bedside table, reaches on top of his oak wardrobe, and produces a digital camera that even I can tell isn’t just a cheap point-and-snap. He poses me a little, arranging my limbs and moving my hair over the pillow the way he wants it, and my smile is playful when he clicks the button over and over.
“Good woman,” he murmurs. Then, without any warning, he picks up the pink candle and spills some onto my already tight nipples, first one, then the other. I yelp, the skin even more sensitive because it’s so thin and delicate, but I love it. It’s intense and yet harmless, moreish .
“More,” I plead, and he picks up the blue and the purple, spilling one on each breast simultaneously.
“So fucking beautiful.” He places all three flames close to my lips. “Blow.”
He knows me so well, knows just how far to push it and when to quit while we’re ahead. I blow each candle out, and he places them on the bedside table again before straddling my chest, inching his cock to my lips once more. “And…blow,” he quips.
With a giggle made husky from all my gasping, I open my mouth and have at it, still holding on tightly to the head of the bed frame. He grins down at me, his breath coming faster as he fucks my mouth, his movements getting a little jerky and off beat as he gets closer to letting go.
“That’s it,” he hisses between his teeth. “Oh, fucking god damnit, woman, my kinky little… Christ on a fuckin’ bike , you look so hot with my cock in your pretty mouth… Woman of my… dreams …” He tries to say a few more words after that, but his climax catches up with him, and he pulls free of my mouth and jerks himself until his release is scattered all over my stomach, white among the splatters of blue and purple and pink, mingling perfectly.
He damn near collapses next to me, still trying to catch his breath, and then pulls me towards him. I still don’t let go of the posts, and he lifts his head to frown-laugh at me. “Hold your man,” he grumbles, squeezing me tighter.
“Uh-uh. I haven’t been told I can let go of - ” I start laughing as he tugs on my wrists and rolls me on top of him. “I’m too heavy,” I protest, wriggling, but he swats me on the butt.
“You’re just right,” he insists, and spends the rest of the night proving his point.