The Morning After the Night Before: Love & Lust in the city that never sleeps! (16 page)

When he wanted the whole mile.

He'd always wanted more than people wanted to give.

But buying it…that was a different story.

Izzy had no problem letting him know loud and clear that she enjoyed his horizontal talents—very much. And her guileless appreciation had stirred his blood infinitely more than the practised acrobatics of some of the women in his past.

A man liked to see a hint of worship in his woman's eyes.

This one did, anyway.

He got busy generating some of that worship with his mouth and his hands, employing the shadows to their best effect.

Wait…
His woman?

Two minutes ago he was thinking they'd burn out within a week. When had he started thinking of Izzy as
his?
When he'd first buried himself deep inside her? When she'd sat across from the review panel and pitched so passionately and courageously for the otter people? Or tonight, when she'd let him between her thighs?

Did it matter? He sure had a healthy dose of the ‘mines', now.

For however long it lasted.

Her tongue in his mouth wasn't helping him keep a particularly clear head. Mirroring for him what he'd done to her earlier this evening. Dipping in and out. Teasing him with what might be ahead.

Christ.

‘Come on,' he rasped, pulling his lips free.

His place was just across the bridge but it might as well have been back in Melbourne for all the patience he had for the journey. He wanted to be deep inside Izzy again—right now—and up against a famous art gallery was probably not the most respectful way of accomplishing that. He'd done outdoor sex before but not this close to a whole bunch of intensely surveilled buildings.

‘Let's finish this at home.'

* * *

Harry threw a leg over hers and tugged Izzy back down to the comfortable covers, grinning. ‘Looks like you worked off all those noodles.'

Between the sprint back to his apartment and the mattress marathon… ‘I sure did.'

His lips started heading for hers.

She twisted away. ‘Nope. I've got to get home. Things to do in the morning.'

‘I thought you might stay.'

The moments the words were out, he went totally still. And his sudden tension was infectious.

‘That's very uncosmopolitan of you,' she joked lightly. To make it easier on both of them.

‘Practical necessity. The trains have finished for the night.'

Ah
—something deep inside her twisted into a tiny ball—
of course.

‘Just returning the favour,' she quipped. ‘You couldn't get out of my flat fast enough the first time we were together.'

Look at them even having a past to reminisce about.

‘Maybe you're just seeing that morning through your own filter,' he suggested.

‘What filter?'

‘The filter of inexperience. No, don't get all angry,' he urged as she sat bolt upright. ‘You told me it was your first one-night stand. I didn't want to stick around making you more uncomfortable.'

Was it healthy for her cheek capillaries to get quite this much of a workout? First flushed with
sex, now with humiliation. ‘Whereas you have them all the time, I suppose.'

Although she really didn't want the answer to that.

‘Enough to know how it goes, yeah.'

‘Should I be grateful that I get to practise the experience tonight?'

‘We're not a one-night stand anymore.'

‘Then what are we?'

Shards of uncertainty chased across the backs of his eyes as he stared. ‘We're…comfortable and exciting.'

Ordinarily ‘comfortable' would have to be the kiss of death for a relationship. It was up there with ‘nice'. Except Harry looked pretty relaxed about the idea. And he'd backed it up with ‘exciting'.

Bonus points for that.

She turned back to him. ‘How many women have you slept with, Harry?'

He almost jerked at the unexpectedness of her question but he didn't shy away from it.

‘Quite a few,' he hedged, and while it wasn't an actual number his answer was, at least, honest.

‘What were they like?'

‘What, all of them?'

‘If you could group them all together. Sum them up.'

Not because she wanted to hear but because she needed to.

He pulled a pile of pillows up behind him and leaned back into them and for a moment she thought he wasn't going to answer.

‘I'd have to split them into two groups,' he finally said. ‘Early experiences and later experiences.'

You couldn't keep a good systems man down.

She hugged her arms around herself and hoped it looked casual. ‘Okay.'

‘The early experiences were amazing. Because they were my first, so I was easy to please. But the ones after that, they were—' he frowned ‘—routine but slick. In all senses of the word.'

Eww…

‘So you'll forgive me for struggling to imagine how you could find me “exciting”, then.'

Like the slick brigade.

‘You're nothing like them. That's the point.'

‘So, I'm like the first lot?'

‘No.'

‘Then what am I?'

Other than killing this embryonic relationship dead with her needy questions.

But while he looked curious about her questions he didn't look horrified by them. In fact he looked as if he'd been asking himself the same thing.

He lifted his eyes from a moment's deep thought. ‘You're unique. You're something new for me.'

‘Beginning of phase three, maybe?'

She worked hard not to feel at all special about that.

‘You're not really my type.'

Oh. ‘Thanks very much.'

‘Which makes me wonder if I've had my type wrong all this time. Because, like I said, I'm also extremely comfortable around you. I can't explain it. Even at work, half the time I'd stir you up just to get you in my office.'

The intensity grew almost overwhelming and, for the first time with Harry, she felt like shrinking away from that blazing focus. But before she could, he changed the subject.

‘How are you getting home?'

Disappointment would have curdled the noodles if they weren't already half digested. That was the closest they'd come to personal revelation on his side.

Izzy sighed. ‘Inconveniently, my chauffeur knocks off at midnight. So the night bus it is.'

He ignored her sarcasm. ‘No. Take a taxi.'

‘A taxi will be twenty quid.'

‘I'll shout you.'

‘You already shouted me dinner.'

‘You had sex with me. I'm grateful.'

‘Yeah, because that was such a chore.'

Parts of her were still throbbing.

‘Seriously, Iz, I want you to be safe. Either take the taxi fare or stay until morning. Which, given the time, will be in a couple of hours.'

Stay over…

That hung out there all iridescent and unmissable. She'd have expected the ‘bundling her out through the door in a taxi, like some woman he'd picked up in a bar' part, but he'd asked her
to stay.

‘I'm not taking your money, Harry. And I'm not staying until morning,' she added as he opened his mouth for a third attempt. For reasons she didn't begin to understand it felt important to take a backwards step. Even if she didn't want to.

‘Then I'm coming with you,' he insisted. ‘And I'll spend the twenty quid anyway getting back
here. So either you're going to waste my time
and
my money or just my money. Your call.'

‘Harry!'

‘I couldn't look my sisters in the eye knowing I'd waved you off on the freaking night bus.'

She was lying too awkwardly to fist her hands on her hips so she hoped her pressed lips and glare would speak volumes. ‘Fine. I'll take a bloody taxi.'

‘Thank you.'

Yeah. The smug confidence of a man who was accustomed to getting his way. Or so he thought.

‘But I'm paying for it.'

‘Izzy, come on—'

His vanquished wince was almost worth the twenty pounds and whatever dress she'd have to flog online to free up a bit of cash. Though her satisfaction about such a small win was like a butterfly madly flapping away from a tornado.

Futile.

She lay immobile. ‘I pay for it or I take the night bus. Those are your choices.'

He released her legs from under his and flopped back onto his pillow.

‘Fine.'

Naww
… He was quite sweet when frustrated.
She pressed her lips to his. ‘Thank you for the concern.'

His grunt might have been resignation or disappointment or wry acknowledgement of a round well played.

Either way it made her smile.

If she couldn't have his trust, she'd take his respect.

‘I feel
like I should be congratulating you on still being able to walk,' Tori said, biting enthusiastically into her breakfast scroll.

‘Toz!'

‘Well, you were gone for most of the night. And you were only supposed to be dropping him a bottle of bubbly.'

‘I think you're spending too much time with Mark and his filthy imagination. We talked and walked and ate Thai food for most of it.'

A quiet voice chimed in from her left. ‘Are you forgetting what his appetiser was?'

‘Poppy!'

‘Well, why tell me if you don't want me to ever mention it again?'

‘Because I'd be in breach of the girlfriend code if I didn't share.'

‘It's just such a novelty, Iz.' She sighed. ‘I'm probably just envious. You're the only woman in the apartment getting any action.'

‘I feel confident your brother's dates are seeing as much action as he did in the military.'

‘I try not to think about that happening in the apartment, actually. At least he has the decency to keep the juicy details to himself.'

Something tiny inside her wilted. ‘You don't want to hear about it?'

Poppy relented. ‘Of course I want to hear about it. Repeatedly and in increasing detail. Ignore me, I'm just fractious.'

‘Why? You've got rent coming in on the big room now, courtesy of Isaac, who's barely ever in it, your shifts have been okay and your parents haven't been at you in weeks. Life should be good.'

‘Life is a barren wasteland. My best years are rushing past me.'

There was a particular poignancy that she recognised in her friend's voice. It was the tone that said, ‘I'm joking but I'm not.'

‘Lucky you have that seven-day-a-week study habit, then,' Izzy said.

Poppy's grunt was a pretty good imitation of Harry's. ‘Don't suppose you'd be interested
in lending me Harry? Just once? No strings attached?'

How curious, her body's immediate tension at the thought of Harry with someone else. But they hadn't talked about exclusivity. And why would they when they weren't even a
thing?

‘I didn't think you went for corporate types, Poppy,' she said instead.

‘I'm sure you didn't think I had a type at all.'

‘I could say the same about both of you,' Tori scoffed.

‘Izzy's had three sexual encounters on two occasions. Not a bad average.'

Was it wrong that she felt vaguely proud about it? ‘Four, actually.'

Tori's eyes widened, but before she could squeeze a sound out of her gaping mouth someone whistled down to Ignite's alfresco area. All three of them looked up.

‘See you all later,' Alex called down. ‘I'm heading to bed.'

‘Not alone, I'd wager,' Poppy murmured.

‘Smile and wave, Pop. Smile and wave.'

They did their best royal cavalcade, only letting their hands fall back to the table when Alex disappeared back into the apartment for the ‘evening'. His evening anyway.

‘Is he still all arse about?' Tori asked.

‘Roams around all night, sleeps all day. He's like a bat.'

‘Even so, we still see more of him than we do of you, Toz. What's going on with you?'

‘Ugh, I'm sorry,' she moaned. ‘I promise I'll be round more. Especially since your latest new flatmate appears to have a worrying paucity of shirts.'

And a great chest to go with it.

Izzy grinned. ‘Perhaps we should direct him to the nearest Oxfam bin.'

‘I don't much care what Isaac wears as long as he covers up,' Poppy murmured, grumpily.

Izzy popped her last bit of crust into her mouth, then spoke past the crunch. ‘It's a whole unexpected plus to having male flatmates. Who knew?'

‘No more of that, Iz,' Tori warned. ‘You're a taken woman now.'

‘I don't think I'd describe myself as taken. Occasionally occupied, perhaps.'

‘He asked you around again tonight,' Poppy pointed out.

‘That's hardly a proposal.'

‘But it's more than casual.'

‘Why would someone like him want more than casual? With someone like me?'