Wedding Party Collection: Once A Bridesmaid.... Avril Tremayne

it. Just...not yet.’

      ‘I love you, Sunny,’ Jon said, looking so sad it tore at Sunshine’s heart. ‘But this isn’t fair. Not on Moon. Not on your parents. Not on you. You’ve got to let yourself get over her death.’

      ‘I...can’t. I can’t, Jon.’

      ‘You have to.’ Another sigh. ‘We’ll speak soon.’

      Sunshine signed off.

      Work. She would work for a while.

      But half an hour later she was still sitting there, staring at the urn that held Moonbeam’s ashes. The urn was centred very precisely on top of the bureau Sunshine had painted in her sister’s favourite colour—‘cobalt dazzle’, Moon had called it.

      Sunny tapped at the computer, found her list of Moonbeam’s favourite beaches. The options she’d chosen for scattering the ashes.

      But not one of the options felt right. Not one!

      She put her head on the desk and cried.

      * * *

      When Leo left the restaurant, a little after midnight, he intended to ride home, throw down a large brandy, think about life, and go to sleep.

      What a night. Sunshine. Natalie. And the Heimlich manoeuvre.

      The bloody Heimlich manoeuvre.

      Just when he needed so badly to think of Sunshine as frippery and irresponsible she had to go and save someone’s life—and then look surprised when people applauded her for it. The difference between Sunshine’s calm, embarrassed heroism and Natalie’s ineffectual hysterics had been an eye-opener of epic proportions.

      And it had come after the Moonbeam story, which had already had his heart lurching around in his chest like a drunk.

      So he needed home. Brandy. Thinking time. Bed.

      He wasn’t sure, then, why he left his motorbike where it was and walked to Sunshine’s apartment block.

      She would be asleep, he told himself as he reached the glass doors of the entrance. But his finger was on the apartment’s intercom anyway.

      ‘Hello?’

      Her voice was not sleepy. And he remembered, then, that she worked mostly at night.

      ‘It’s Leo.’

      Pause. Then buzz, click, open.

      She was waiting at her door. Barefoot. In a kimono. Seriously, did this woman not own a pair of jeans or some track pants? Who slummed around alone in their own home after midnight looking like an advertisement for Vogue magazine in a purple kimono complete with a bloody obi?

      Her hair was loose, her face pale, her eyes strained.

      He was going to thank her for saving Rob’s life.

      He was going to ask her why she knew how to do the Heimlich manoeuvre.

      He was going to tell her that he’d found out exactly what had happened and that he was an idiot for thinking, when he’d seen her near Natalie, that—

      She cleared her throat. ‘I didn’t talk to Natalie except to tell her to move out of the way.’

      ‘I don’t care about Natalie,’ he said—and realised that he really, really didn’t.

      ‘Then why are you here?’

      ‘I’m claiming assignation number two,’ he said, and kissed her.

       SIX

      Sunshine drew him backwards into the apartment. Kiss unbroken.

      Leo slammed the door with his heel. Kiss unbroken.

      Sex—just sex, Sunshine said to herself.

      Leo pulled back as though she’d voiced the thought, looking at her with eyes smouldering like a hungry lion’s.

      Sunshine grabbed his hand and dragged him to the bedroom. Kissed him again as she flipped the light switch and the fairy’s lair lights she’d had embedded in the ceiling winked to life.

      He angled her so he could kiss her harder, harder. He started to shake—she could feel it—and he broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. He rested his cheek on the top of her head as he held her in his arms, his freight train heartbeat beneath her ear.

      She heard him laugh softly and pulled back, watching as he took in the room.

      It was pink. Every shade of pink from pale petal, to vibrant sari, to raspberry. The walls were the colour of cherry blossoms, stencilled in white in a riot of floral shapes and curlicues—like an extended henna tattoo. There was a chaise-longue, footstools, a window seat curtained off with diaphanous drapes. At one end of the room was a half-wall that divided the bedroom from the dressing room, with its orderly arrangement of garments, shoes, and bags, which in turn led through to her bathroom.

      A scene was painted on the dividing wall: a woman donning a flowing deep rose robe. Sunshine had made it a 3D work of art, building an actual Louis XIV gilded dressing table and mirror into the scene.

      There was a lot to look at.

      Leo moved towards the bed, which was king-sized, shrouded by fuchsia hangings and piled high with cushions in macaroon pastels. He touched the gauzy curtains.

      ‘Seriously, Sunshine?’ he asked, a smile in his voice.

      Sunshine arched an eyebrow. ‘If you want to get laid tonight, I suggest you keep a civil tongue in your head.’

      ‘That’s not where my tongue wants to be.’

      Those words made her toes curl.

      ‘Come here, let me undress you, and we’ll find some place to put it,’ Leo said softly.

      Sunshine walked over to him, her heart jumping.

      His hands reached for the obi.

      ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘I need to warn you—I’m...scarred.’

      He waited, hands at her waist.

      ‘The accident. I have a...a scar. Two, actually. Not...small.’ She hunched a shoulder, suddenly self-conscious. ‘I don’t want you to be shocked.’

      His response was to slowly, slowly unwrap the obi from around her waist, then the under-sash. The kimono fell open and Leo sucked in an audible breath.

      ‘My God,’ he said, in a voice just above a raspy whisper.

      ‘I know—they’re awful.’

      Leo’s fingers reached, traced along the incision marks. He shook his head. ‘The My God wasn’t about the scars, Sunshine.’

      Sunshine was having trouble catching a thought, her breath. ‘Then...what?’

      ‘My God, you are so beautiful. And my God, I am itching to put my hands all over you.’

      ‘Then do it,’ she whispered. ‘I have no intention of stopping you.’

      His fingers tensed against her flesh. And then, with both hands, he reached for her shoulders, sliding his hands under the kimono, pushing it back until the heavy fabric dropped with a quiet whoosh to the floor. He stood gazing at her.

      Sunshine kept absolutely still, watching him as his nostrils flared, his hands fisted at his sides. It was both torture and delight to stand motionless as lust shimmered between them. Leo was still fully clothed, and that somehow made her feel more wanton, sexier. Her nipples were hardened points; she could feel them throbbing. Could feel a swelling between her legs as his gaze moved over her. Down, up, down. The suspense was almost unbearable. And yet she wanted the delay. Wanted to draw things out. Slow everything down so that she could wallow in this overwhelming need caused by nothing more than his eyes on her.