Breathe

by Cari Hunter

  Steph slid the file into her bag. “It was, and it didn’t half snowball. My boss is pleased as Punch with the way everything has turned out, though, so at least someone’s happy.”

  “The Mansoors will be happy,” Rosie said. “Maybe this will make them realise there’s worse things than having a queer kid.”

  “Ava and Chloe are doing okay as well,” Jem added. “And we made it out the other side, so it could’ve been worse.”

  Rosie gave a shocked laugh, leaning back to appraise her. “Who the hell are you, and what have you done with Jemima Pardon?”

  “I’m turning over a new, optimistic leaf,” Jem said. “I think it’s about time.”

  Steph’s self-conscious cough broke the moment. At some point she had stood and put her coat on.

  “I should get going. I’m glad you’re both safe.” She paused by Rosie’s side and rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see you when you get back.”

  “Yep,” Rosie said, the prospect not as alarming as she might have expected. She waited until the door closed, blocking out the hum of noise from the corridor. “You all right?” she asked Jem.

  “Aye. Are you?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Rosie picked up the box of toffee and gave it a shake. “Do you want a piece, or are you saving yourself for your Cornish pasty?”

  Jem laughed. “What do you reckon? Get the bloody box open and stop being a berk.”

  Epilogue

  Jem’s breath puffed out in white bursts as she stopped on the doorstep to watch the moon gliding from behind a thin layer of cloud. There wasn’t much light pollution in Stanny Brook, and she could see countless pinpricks of stars in the clear patches of sky. Perhaps her next read would be a book on astronomy, so she might be able to name what she was looking at.

  “Ye gods and little fishes. Put wood in t’hole!” Rosie bellowed from the depths of the cottage. Not quite as enamoured of the night sky, she had already levered her boots off and disappeared into the kitchen to whack the thermostat up.

  A week after the last flood warning had been lifted, Greater Manchester was a solid block of ice, with plummeting temperatures freezing the waterlogged fields and parks and gardens. It made walking anywhere tricky, but Jem had befriended a neighbouring Jack Russell, and Rosie was full of beans following the removal of her stitches, so a picnic at the monument on the Pike had been the order of the day.

  Jem bolted the door and stacked her boots next to Rosie’s. Rubbing her chilled hands together, she wandered into the living room, where Fluffy blinked at her from his climate-controlled vivarium, showing no inclination to leave his branch and be sociable.

  “I don’t blame you,” she said, crouching to arrange kindling and paper on the log burner. The match flickered in the chimney’s draught, the paper catching quickly and the kindling as usual being a complete bugger.

  “Kettle’s on,” Rosie said. She knelt beside Jem and pinched a match from the box, lighting a piece of paper at random. “I wish I could tell you I had a knack for this, but mainly I just cross my fingers and hope for the best.”

  The embers flared en masse and then snuffed out just as rapidly. Jem sighed and pulled more kindling from the stack. “Back to the drawing board.”

  Rosie scrambled up again as the kettle whistled. “Back to the kitchen for me. Good luck with all that,” she said, and cackled when Jem lobbed a ball of newspaper at her.

  Jem smiled as she listened to her pottering about the kitchen, opening drawers, sliding the kettle off the burner, and playing a tune on the mugs with a teaspoon. She pictured where Rosie was as she moved: hopping with impatience by the hob as the tea steeped, or leaning on the counter that overlooked the garden. Jem had spent so long at the cottage since their discharge from the hospital that its layout was as familiar to her as the house she rented, and it was starting to feel like home in a way that the rental never had, although she suspected Rosie was a very large part of that.

  The kindling finally succumbed, and she shut the burner’s door as Rosie returned with steaming mugs.

  “You have a precious gift, Jemima,” Rosie said, placing the mugs on the coffee table. “I think that means you need to stay here forever.”

  “Does it now?” Jem plonked herself onto the sofa and hooked her arm through Rosie’s. It was still early days in their relationship, and even with her new tendency toward optimism, a tiny part of her was battening down the hatches for disaster and disappointment.

  Rosie regarded her in the glow of the fire. “No, there’s no rush,” she said. “And we could sit here like mature adults and discuss our potential future and promise each other the world. Or”—she reached into the pocket of her hoodie—“you can teach me how to suck this brew up through a Twix.”

  Jem laughed, raising Rosie’s hand and kissing her fingers before taking the bar of chocolate from her. “I’m not sure we’ll ever be mature adults.” She tore open the wrapper and handed Rosie one half of the Twix. “Right, here goes, and it’s very technical, so pay close attention.”

  Rosie nodded, her expression rapt. She was holding the Twix exactly as Jem was, as if that made a difference.

  “Step one,” Jem said. “Bite the top end off your Twix.” She demonstrated for good measure, chewing and swallowing as Rosie followed suit. “Step two: bite the bottom end off.”

  Rosie giggled around a chunk of shortbread. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”

  “You never know.” Jem positioned their mugs at the edge of the table. “There might be a shock twist.” She paused for dramatic effect. “And the final step: stick one end into your brew and suck the other end really hard.”

  “On three.” Rosie dunked her bar and readied herself. “Okay, three.” She lowered her head and took a prodigious slurp. She was grinning when she came back up. “Hey, it works!”

  “Did you doubt me?” Jem touched her thumb to the chocolate coating Rosie’s lips. “You missed a bit.”

  “Yeah?” Rosie flicked her tongue out, but she didn’t seem to be trying very hard. “Whereabouts?”

  “Everywhere,” Jem said, and did a far more thorough job with her tongue than Rosie had. She heard Rosie moan and felt her turn her head a fraction, and then they were kissing like teenagers: no finesse and little coordination, their teeth and tongues clashing and their hands roaming. A mess of sensations shot through Jem, giving her a head rush that almost tipped her onto the cushions.

  “Here or upstairs?” Rosie asked. Her hands skimmed over Jem’s bra as she kissed the faint scars below Jem’s eye.

  “Here.” Jem didn’t think she was capable of stairs, but she caught hold of Rosie’s wrists, trying to be practical. “What about your leg?” They had been patient, waiting for Rosie to heal, and they had never let things get this far.

  Rosie brushed her thumbs across Jem’s nipples. “Do you want me to stop?” she murmured against Jem’s cheek.

  “Oh God, no. Please don’t stop,” Jem said, and Rosie’s mouth closed on hers again.

  The house was still cold, and goose pimples covered Jem’s torso when Rosie began to tug at her shirt.

  “Shit, hang on. Give me a minute.” Rosie tucked Jem in again and dashed around the room, collecting throw rugs and blankets. She arranged them into a multicoloured nest on top of the hearth rug and beckoned Jem to join her in the middle of it. “Better?”

  Jem nodded, tongue-tied and nervous and more turned on than she could ever remember being. “Take your sweater off,” she told Rosie, and Rosie obeyed without question, pulling her hoodie and T-shirt off in one go and wriggling out of her bra. Her bare skin reflected the firelight, and Jem followed the patterns with her lips until Rosie was squirming beneath her. “Lie back,” Jem whispered, dispensing with her own shirt and bra as Rosie lay down and held out her arms. Jem straddled her and put her mouth to Rosie’s ear. “Tell me what you want.”

  Rosie swallowed and licked her lips. “You,” she said. “I just want you.”

>   Jem trailed her fingers across Rosie’s breasts. “That can be arranged.” She shifted lower, kissing Rosie’s navel and the heated skin just above the button on her jeans.

  “Off as well?” Rosie asked, clearly trying to be helpful but fumbling with the fastenings and getting everything wrong. Jem clasped her hands and moved them away.

  “Let me.” She popped the buttons one by one, widening the fly and then lying down beside Rosie and working her fingers beneath Rosie’s underwear.

  “Fucking hell,” Rosie whispered. Her legs fell open as Jem dipped her hand, parting the slick folds and then stroking upward. “Fucking hellfire.”

  It was easy to find a rhythm that Rosie liked. She wasn’t shy or quiet, and she moved in synch with Jem, gasping when Jem circled her clit and rising to meet Jem as she entered her.

  “God, yes, that, there,” Rosie chanted. Her body suddenly stiffened, her legs rigid but trembling as she came around Jem’s fingers. Jem rode the contractions out, kissing the warm swell of Rosie’s breast as Rosie began to relax.

  “Whoa,” Rosie said. She sounded dazed. “The bloody ceiling’s spinning.”

  Jem laughed and eased her hand to the top of Rosie’s knickers, teasing the curls of hair. “Fabulous. That’s the effect I was after.”

  It took Rosie a couple of attempts, but she managed to roll over and face Jem. “I thought you were all quiet and unassuming.” She took Jem’s hand and played her tongue across Jem’s damp fingers. “And really you’re quite naughty.”

  “Am I?” Jem bit her lip as Rosie sucked her index finger right down to the knuckle. She wriggled, shameless and desperate to be touched. “Please, Rosie. Please,” she whispered.

  Rosie didn’t muck about. She had Jem naked within seconds, kissing her fiercely and then spreading her legs and settling between them. “Remember to breathe,” she said an instant before she ran her tongue across Jem’s clit.

  “Shit, aw shit.” Jem closed her eyes, her head falling back as Rosie’s mouth covered her. Rosie kept the touch feather-light at first, sending Jem into a frenzy of pleading and writhing, before gradually increasing the pressure. Jem panted, twisting the blankets into knots, and then cried out when Rosie’s fingers thrust into her.

  “Don’t stop,” she begged, wondering vaguely if this would be her new favourite phrase. “Please don’t stop.”

  Rosie obliged with enthusiasm, her fingers working Jem as her tongue continued to glide over Jem’s clit. Jem opened her eyes, saw Rosie half naked and beautiful, framed by the firelight, and came so hard that Rosie eventually stopped everything she was doing and simply leaned back to watch her.

  “Bloody hell.” Jem’s hand flew out, clutching the top of the coffee table. She felt as if she was falling, though she had nowhere to go. “Rosie?”

  Rosie kissed her clit, sending more sparks dancing across her vision, and then curled up beside her. Jem stayed still for a long moment, her chest heaving and her legs quaking. Rosie was murmuring something to her, but she couldn’t distinguish actual words. She felt a tap on her hand and looked down to see Rosie proffering her inhaler.

  “I don’t need it,” she said.

  “No?”

  “No.” She kissed Rosie’s sticky lips. “This is the good sort of breathless.”

  “Excellent.” Rosie launched the inhaler over her shoulder and then winced as it clattered off something. “I’ll find it later, I promise.”

  “I’m sure it’s not gone far,” Jem said, yawning. Really good sex always made her sleepy, not to mention thirsty. She took Rosie’s hand, turned her wrist, and kissed the bee inked onto her skin. “Think those brews are still warm?”

  “Probably not.” Rosie said. “And mine was a write-off anyway. I dropped my bloody Twix into it. Do you want me to make you a fresh one?”

  Jem tightened her hold, keeping Rosie from moving while she tucked blankets over and around them. “No. I want you to stay right here with me.”

  Rosie rested her palm on Jem’s cheek. “You are lovely,” she said, and the gentle fondness in her voice brought tears to Jem’s eyes. “Shh, now, Jemima Pardon. No crying.”

  “I’m not crying, love,” Jem said, blinking the tears away. “I just never thought I’d find someone like you.”

  Rosie’s chuckle vibrated beneath Jem’s ear. “Were you hoping you’d end up with someone sensible?”

  “I didn’t dare hope I’d end up with anyone. I wouldn’t ever have dared hope I’d end up with you.”

  “Must’ve been fate,” Rosie said, “you and me in that puddle. Whatever will we do now it’s stopped raining?”

  Jem covered Rosie’s hand with her own, entwining their fingers. She felt Rosie kiss her forehead, and she took a deep, steadying breath that filled her lungs and made her smile. “I think we’ll manage just fine,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what we’ll get up to in the sunshine.”

  The End

  About the Author

  Cari Hunter lives in the northwest of England with her wife, their cat, and a field full of sheep. She works full-time as a paramedic and dreams up stories in her spare time.

  Cari enjoys long, windswept, muddy walks in her beloved Peak District. In the summer she can usually be found sitting in the garden with her feet up, scribbling in her writing pad. Although she doesn’t like to boast, she will admit that she makes a very fine Bakewell tart.

  Her first novel, Snowbound, received an Alice B. Lavender Certificate for outstanding debut. No Good Reason, the first in the Dark Peak series, won a 2015 Rainbow Award for Best Mystery and was a finalist in the 2016 Lambda and Goldie Awards. Its sequel, Cold to the Touch, won a Goldie and a Rainbow Award for Best Mystery. A Quiet Death, the final book in the series, was a finalist in the 2018 Lambda and Goldie Awards, and won the 2017 Rainbow Award for Best Mystery.

  Cari can be contacted at: carihunter@rocketmail.com

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