‘Leo, don’t go. We have to talk about this.’
He shook his head.
She got to her feet, took his hand. ‘You will get all angsty if you leave now, because it happened so fast and we weren’t expecting it to go like that. We can’t have angst; we have too much to do. Come on, sit with me—let’s make sure we can get back to normal before you go.’
How did you talk yourself back to normal after that?
How did a kiss turn into rip-your-heart-out sex in one blinding flash of a moment? And that complete loss of control... It had never happened to him before. No condom. Not even a thought of one! He was shaken. Badly.
And—God!—she was still holding his hand, and he was rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, and he hadn’t even noticed he was doing it. He didn’t do that touchy-feely stuff.
He dropped her hand and stepped back. ‘You’re dangerous, Sunshine,’ he said.
She looked startled. ‘It’s not like I’m a black widow spider or a praying mantis.’
‘What the—? All right, I think I get the black widow spider. But what’s so dangerous about a praying mantis?’
Her eyes lit. ‘Oh, it’s really interesting! Praying mantises can only have sex once the female rips off the male’s head. Imagine! At least you still have your head.’
Leo felt his lips twitch. But he was not going to laugh. It was not a funny situation. It was an angsty one. Angsty? God.
‘On that note, I’m going,’ he said.
‘But we have to talk.’
‘Not now. Meet me... I don’t know... Tomorrow. At the Rump & Chop Grill. Five o’clock. It’s only a few blocks from here. I’ll send someone for my kitchen gear in the morning.’
‘All right, tomorrow,’ she agreed, and walked with him to the door, where she stopped him. ‘Leo, just so you can think about it before then...I want to have sex with you again. We have up to three more opportunities, and there doesn’t seem to be a reason not to use them. We just need to schedule them so we don’t get distracted from the wedding preparations.’
He was staring again. Couldn’t help it.
‘Far be it from me to distract you, Sunshine,’ he said.
* * *
So!
Yowzer!
As Sunshine wallowed in her bubble bath, lathering herself with her favourite jonquil-scented soap, she pondered what had happened.
It sure hadn’t been a cheesy-love-song experience. More like heavy metal—hard and loud and banging. But maybe with a clash of cymbal thrown in. She smiled, stretched, almost purred.
She knew she would be reliving the sex for an hour or so—that was par for the course. The sexual post-mortem...a normal female ritual. Remembering exactly what had happened, what had been murmured, who’d put what where.
But at four o’clock in the morning she was still trying to piece it together and parcel it off. She wondered if the difficulty was that she didn’t have a precise anatomical memory of the experience. She couldn’t recall everything that had been said, every touch, every kiss. She just had an...awareness. That it had been so gloriously right, somehow.
Which was strange. Because technically it shouldn’t have been that memorable. They hadn’t taken off their clothes; Leo hadn’t touched her breasts—which she’d always counted as her best assets—and he hadn’t even bothered to look at the goods before plunging in—which was a waste of her painfully acquired Brazilian!
But none of that seemed to matter because the can’t wait roughness of it had been more seductive than an hour of foreplay. She hadn’t needed foreplay. Hadn’t wanted finesse. Hadn’t thought about condoms. Hadn’t thought about anything. She’d been so hot, so ready for him.
She wondered—if that rough-and-ready first time was any indication—just how magnificent the next time would be.
Because there would be a next time. She was going to make sure of it.
* * *
TO: Jonathan Jones
FROM: Sunshine Smart
SUBJECT: Party news
Isn’t the menu great? Leo=food genius.
Just the wedding cake to go. I’d tell you the options, but if you chose one I wouldn’t get my cake-tasting, which you know I’ve always wanted to do.
Leo cooked the most amazing meal last night. He is so different from the men I usually meet. More mature, steadier. Kind of conservative—I like that.
His hair is coming along too.
Sunny xxx
TO: Sunshine Smart
FROM: Jonathan Jones
SUBJECT: Do not sleep with Leo Quartermaine
DO NOT!!!!! That would be all kinds of hideous.
Jon
TO: Jonathan Jones
FROM: Sunshine Smart
SUBJECT: Re: Do not sleep with Leo Quartermaine
Oops! Too late!
But how did you know? And why hideous?
Sunny
TO: Sunshine Smart
FROM: Jonathan Jones
SUBJECT: Re:Re: Do not sleep with Leo Quartermaine
OH, MY FREAKING GOD, SUNNY!!!!!!!!
How do I know? For starters because every second word you’re writing is ‘Leo’!
He’s not the type to enjoy the ride then buddy up at the end. You know his parents were drug addicts, right? You know he basically dragged Caleb through that hell and into a proper life?
He’s a tough hombre, not a poncy investment banker, soulful embalmer or saucy hairdresser. This is not a man for you to play with.
Let’s talk tonight—10 p.m. your time. With video. No arguments.
Jon
Sunshine got to the Rump & Chop Grill fifteen minutes early. Although it was part of a pub, it had a separate entrance on a side road—which was locked.
She decided against knocking and inveigling her way inside to wait. That would have been her usual approach. But Leo already had one bunny-boiler on his tail, as well as being in a state about last night, so it was probably best not to look too enthusiastic.
Fortunately there was a café across the road, where she could wait and watch for him. Which would give her time to think.
Because Jon’s email had thrown her.
The thing with Leo was a simple sexual arrangement. No need for concern on anyone’s part.
So he’d had drug addict parents? And, no, of course she hadn’t known that! How could she have, unless someone had told her? And why did it make a difference anyway? Unless Leo was a drug addict himself—and given his obvious disgust over his ex-girlfriend’s coke habit that seemed unlikely.
Did Jon think the fact that Leo and Caleb had navigated a hellish childhood would put her off him? It clearly hadn’t put Jon off Caleb, so why the double standard? And Caleb had come through unscathed. He was a terrific guy—very different from his brother, of course—at least from what she’d seen during their internet chats. Funny and charming and out there. Not that Leo wasn’t also terrific, but he certainly didn’t have Caleb’s lightness of spirit.
But it was to Leo’s credit, wasn’t it, if he was the one who’d dragged them both out of the gutter? She admired him more, not less, because of it. Liked him more.
Okay—that could be a problem. She didn’t actually want to admire or like him more, because admiration and liking could lead to other things. And what she wanted was to keep things just as they were.
Hot man, in her bed, up to three more times. Finish.
As she would tell Jon, very firmly, tonight.
So! For now she would stop thinking about Leo’s horrible childhood and concentrate on the wedding reception. Not that Jon deserved to have her fussing over it after that email, but...well, she loved Jon. And she was going to make the bastard’s wedding reception perfect if it killed her.
While s
he sat in the café, disgruntled, sipping a coffee she didn’t even want, she scanned the checklist. Having the function at South was brilliant, but it did add an extra task: finding accommodation for people who wouldn’t want to drive back to Sydney. She figured they would need two options—cheap and cheerful, and sumptuous luxury. If she could get it sorted quickly, hotel booking details could be sent out with the invitations. She was sure Leo wouldn’t want to traipse through hotels with her, so she would shoot down the coast herself and just keep him in the loop via email.
Right. The next urgent thing on the list was what Leo was wearing.
At least it was urgent from her perspective, because his shoe design hinged on it. And so did her outfit.
She was dying to wear her new 1930s-style dress in platinum charmeuse. It looked almost molten. Hugging her curves—all right, a little dieting might be required—in an elegantly simple torso wrap before tumbling in an understated swirl to the ground. It even had a divine little train. And she could wear her adorable gunmetal satin peep-toes with the retro crystal buckles.
But there was no good glamming to the hilt if Leo was going to play it down. And so far, aside from his pristine chef’s whites, she hadn’t seen an inclination for dressing up. Just jeans, T-shirts, sweaters. Good shoes, but well-worn and casual.
She heard a roar, and a second later a motorbike—it had to be his—pulled up outside the restaurant. One economical swing of his leg and he was off, reefing his helmet from his head.
Her heart jumped into her throat and her stomach whooshed.
Nope.
This was not going to work.
She couldn’t think about clothes or shoes or hotels when he was still riding that damned bike. She was going to have talk to him about it. Again. And again and again. Until he got rid of it.
She straightened her spine and set her jaw. She was not to going to spend the next seven weeks dreading his death on the road! She stashed the wedding folder into her briefcase, threw some money on the table and exited the café.
* * *
Leo saw Sunshine the moment she stepped onto the footpath, his eyes snap-locking on to her from across the road. She looked good, as usual, wearing a winter green skirt suit that fitted her as snugly as the skin on a peach, and high-heeled chocolate-brown pumps.
‘Leo, I have to talk to you,’ she said.
He waited for that smacking kiss to land on his cheek.
But his cheek remained unsullied. She was clearly agitated—too agitated to bother with the kiss.
Well, good, he thought savagely. She should be agitated after last night. He certainly was.
‘Yep, that was the plan,’ Leo said, and unlocked the door.
Sunshine was practically humming with impatience as he relocked the door and escorted her to a table in the middle of the restaurant.
‘I’ll just check the kitchen and I’ll be back,’ he said, and almost smiled at the way her face pinched. Yeah, cool your jets, Sunshine Smart-Ass, because you are not in control here.
Not that that he was necessarily in control himself, but she didn’t have to know that he hadn’t been able to think straight since last night—let alone make a decision on her offer of three more pulse-ricocheting bouts of sex.
He was a man—ergo, it was an attractive proposition. But sex just for the sake of sex? Well, not to be arrogant, but he had his pick of scores of women if that was all he wanted. All right, the sex last night had been fairly spectacular, although hardly his most selfless performance, but it was still a commodity in abundant supply.
So, did he want more than sex from Sunshine?
Even as the question darted into his head he rejected it with a big hell no.
He didn’t like perky and he didn’t like breezy. Perky and breezy—AKA Sunshine Smart—were synonyms for negligent in his book. Choosing the shallows over the depths, wallowing in the past instead of confronting life head-on, the whole sex-only mantra. That kind of devil-may-care irresponsibility described his deadbeat parents, who’d not only offered up their bodies and any scrap of dignity for a quick score, but had been so hopeless they’d dropped dead of overdoses within days of each other, orphaning two sons.
Okay, the ‘poor little orphans’ bit was overcooked, because he and Caleb had stopped relying on them years before their deaths—but the principle remained.
So, no—he did not want more than sex from Sunshine.
And he didn’t need just sex from her either.
All he needed from cheery, perky, breezy, ditzy Sunshine Smart was a hassle-free seven weeks of wedding preparations, after which he would set his compass and sail on.
Pretty clear, then.
Decision made.
Sex was off the table.
And the couch. And the bed. And wherever else she’d been planning on frying his gonads.
And he would enjoy telling her. Quickly—because he’d made this decision several times throughout the day, then gone back to re-mulling the options, and enough was enough.
But when he sat down across from Sunshine, all primed to give her the news, she forestalled him by saying urgently, ‘Leo, you need to get rid of that motorbike. It’s too dangerous.’
He took a moment to switch gears because he hadn’t been expecting that. Sex, yes. Clothes, yes. Shoes, fine. But not the motorbike again.
‘Yes, well, as it’s my body on it, you can safely leave the decision about my transportation to me.’
‘There’s no “safely” about it.’
He looked at her closely, saw that there was nothing cheery-perky-breezy-ditzy in her face.
‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘Let’s take a step back. What’s really behind this?’
‘I want you to be alive for the wedding—that’s all.’
‘That’s not all, Sunshine. Tell me, or this discussion is over.’
She dashed a hand across her fringe, pushing it aside impatiently. Looked at him, hard and bright and on edge, and then, ‘My sister,’ exploded from her mouth.
Leo waited. His hands had clenched into fists. Because he wanted to touch her again. He felt a little trickle of something suspiciously like fear shiver down his spine.
‘You may think it’s none of my business—and it’s not, strictly speaking,’ she said. ‘But it’s not my way to stand aside and not say or do something when death is staring someone in the face. How could I live with myself if I didn’t interfere and then something happened to you?’
‘And you go around giving this lecture to everyone on a motorbike?’
‘No, of course not—only to people I...’ She faltered there. ‘People I...know,’ she finished lamely, putting up her chin.
Leo considered her for a long moment. Not buying it. ‘Your sister. I want the whole story. I assumed...an illness. Wrong, obviously. I should have asked.’
‘I didn’t want you to ask. I didn’t let you ask. Because to talk about that...to you, with your bike...it would have been a link. And I couldn’t... But now...’ Pause...deep breath while she gathered herself together. ‘Sorry. I’m not making sense. I’ll be clearer. Moonbeam had a motorbike. She crashed and she died. I was on the back and I survived. We were the cliché identical twins—inseparable. And then suddenly, just like...like...’ She clicked her fingers. ‘I was...’
The words just petered out. He saw her swallow, as if she had a sharp rock in her throat.
‘Alone?’ he finished for her.
‘Yes. Alone.’
He waited a heartbeat. Two. Three.
She kept her eyes on his face, but apparently she wasn’t intending to add anything.
‘Sunshine,’ he said softly, ‘death is not staring me in the face. I’m not a teenage hothead burning up the road. I’m thirty. And I’m careful.’
‘What if someone not so careful
knocks you off?’
‘Is that what happened? Did someone run your sister down?’
She shook her head, looking as if she would burst from frustration. ‘No. She was going too fast. Missed the corner.’
Leo ran a hand over his head. Tried to find something to say. He was scared to open his mouth in case he promised her that, yes, he would give up the one carefree thing he allowed himself. They’d known each other for one week: she couldn’t really care—had said she wouldn’t care. And he would not be seduced into sacrificing his bike by the thought that she did.
‘Look,’ he started, and then stopped, ran a hand over his head again. ‘It’s not your job, Sunshine, to worry about me.’
‘But I do worry about you. Please, Leo.’
There was a loud crashing sound from the kitchen. ‘I have to check that.’ Leo got to his feet, but then he paused, looking down at her. ‘I shouldn’t have started this. Not here, where there are too many distractions. Go home, and we’ll pick it up another time.’
‘I’m eating here tonight,’ Sunshine said. ‘And, no, I am not turning into a stalker. I have a date. Iain.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘The hairdresser? The ex, who’s now just a friend?’
‘That’s right.’
‘As long as it is ex. Because while you and I are sleeping together—even if it is only four times—there isn’t going to be anyone else in the picture. Got it? I’m not into sharing.’ He heard the words come out of his mouth but couldn’t quite believe they had. Okay, so he’d changed his mind and sex was back on, apparently.
‘Well, of course!’ Sunshine said. ‘Actually, the main reason I asked him to come tonight was to check your head.’
‘Check my head?’ Leo repeated, not getting it.
‘To make sure it’s going to be long enough—not your head, because obviously that’s not growing any more, but your hair.’
‘He is not checking my head, Sunshine.’
That damned nose-wrinkle. ‘But I think—’
‘No,’ Leo said, and strode into the kitchen.
Where he burst out laughing and stopped half the staff in their tracks.
Harlequin KISS August 2014 Bundle Page 48