LITMIR.BIZ

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was bad, he’d have been quicker walking or at least taking the Tube, but he was actually glad of the pause before he got home to Lizzie.

      Home to Lizzie.

      He was growing far too used to that and Leo wasn’t used to relying on anyone.

      How, in just a few weeks, had she come to be such a part of his life? Leo didn’t like it, loathed the thought that he might ever need another person.

      As he pulled up his phone rang and, seeing it was Lexi, Leo took the call.

      ‘I need a response for Saturday,’ Lexi said. ‘I’ve been putting it off.’

      So had Leo.

      ‘Yes, I’ll be attending.’

      ‘Who’s your guest?’ Lexi asked. ‘They need it for the table plan.’

      He sat and stared out of the window. The wipers were still going and he watched the light bouncing off the black roads and he paused for a long moment before answering.

      ‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know in the morning.’

      Lexi didn’t turn a hair. It was a regular response from Leo. He always left things like this till the last minute—his low attention span with women ensured that names could not be given weeks in advance.

      He’d asked Lizzie, but she’d said no.

      You could always go alone, a voice that sounded like his own told him.

      ‘Why?’ Leo said to the silence. ‘Why should I?’

      Because that’s what relationships are about, that small voice told him.

      Compromise.

      It wasn’t something he did well.

      As the door opened Lizzie’s back was towards him. He saw her putting roses in the vase, he could see her slender arms and the curve of her bottom in the fitted skirt, and he just wanted to go over, turn her around and just bury himself in her, yet he held back.

      ‘They’re for you.’

      ‘I know,’ Lizzie said, ‘but for all the time I’m at home …’ She halted, saw the brief look in his eyes and simply didn’t want go there just yet. Neither did Leo. ‘Let’s just enjoy them tonight.’

      She walked towards him, smiling, and he pulled her into his arms, inhaled the fragrance of her hair, held the woman he had come home to and hated it that he wasn’t capable of making their relationship last but he just did not believe in forever.

      He was hurting her. Every day that they were together would simply make the parting harder, and so instead of diving into a kiss he headed over to the dresser and, rarely for Leo, poured a drink. ‘Do you want one?’ he offered.

      ‘Not if I’m driving.’

      He hesitated but poured two.

      ‘It’s not working, is it?’ Lizzie was the one who broached the subject. ‘It hasn’t been since you visited the nursing home.’

      ‘It’s not that.’

      Lizzie didn’t believe him. ‘Leo, what my mum said about a husband and babies was a ten-year-old Lizzie she was remembering.’

      ‘So you don’t want that?’ Leo glanced over.

      ‘I do.’ Lizzie was honest enough to admit it. ‘But I know that’s not for you—I know what she said freaked you out.’

      He held his breath. It had freaked him out but not in the way Lizzie was thinking—it was more that she deserved someone who could give her all that she wanted when he honestly didn’t think he could. ‘Why would it freak me out?’ he asked. ‘I already told you it’s not for me.’

      They stood there and the usual response would have been, So where are we going, then? Except Lizzie had always known the answer.

      Nowhere.

      ‘I don’t want to fight,’ Leo said. He loathed arguments more than anything, loathed the sound of raised voices as people hurtled out of control.

      Leo was always in control—always a step ahead, always making sure that it never came to that.

      It had possibly saved Ethan’s life.

      It had certainly messed up his own.

      He looked at Lizzie, so loving and warm, so where he wanted to be, yet the gap between them was a chasm he could not breach.

      ‘We’re not fighting, Leo, we’re talking.’

      Ah, but about their relationship, he thought.

      ‘Can you come on Saturday?’ he asked. ‘I have to give Lexi the name of the person accompanying me by the morning.’

      She could do it, Lizzie knew that. She could head down to Brighton on Friday instead of Saturday, hit the worst of the traffic, and then race back Saturday afternoon, but they had birthday cake after dinner at the nursing home. Her father would be devastated if she wasn’t there—and for what?

      Another night in Leo’s bed, then perhaps another.

      For a glimpse of a future, she’d do it, but he denied them both that.

      ‘Leo …’

      As she went to answer he walked over to her. He didn’t want to hear that, no, she couldn’t come, neither did he want the question about where they were heading, because it was a path he’d always refused to take.

      So he kissed her.

      A kiss that offered more escape than the brandy he’d barely touched.

      ‘Leo …’ She pulled back a bit and then gave in, because she wanted him so much, wanted that mouth that was on hers, that was kissing her top lip, over and over. Lizzie wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her.

      They were frenzied as they set themselves free from an impossible conversation. He pushed her down so they were half leaning on the sofa, half kneeling on the floor, so their mouths barely need to part to undress each other. Frantic, deep kisses, till Lizzie was down to her bra and shoes and Leo was kissing her chest and up to her neck. He should rise, should get out of his trousers, but the taste of her skin and her hands pressing into his back were the only things Leo could think of.

      His lips trailed a path from her neck to a mouth that was waiting and then he moved back down, over and over, tasting her skin till her neck was arching. Just inhaling her and crushing her as she pulled at his zipper and freed him, and continuing to kiss her. Concentrating on the same areas over and over—the neck he would never again kiss, the breasts that would tease and the mouth that would, from tomorrow, forever taunt him.

      He didn’t do for ever, Leo reminded himself, except he wasn’t listening to himself now.

      Lizzie wrapped a leg around him and sobbed as Leo stabbed into her. She rose to him, tightened her leg around him, and she almost just wanted this done, because his mouth was driving her crazy. Dizzy and crazy, because how could he kiss her with such passion when soon he would want her gone?

      Lizzie curved into him, pressed herself to him, but then he slowed things down, thrusting slowly and deeply inside her, his mouth to her ear as her body urged him on.

      ‘Please …’ Lizzie said.

      She wanted this done.

      She lied.

      ‘Please …’ she begged to a groin that thrust slowly, to a mouth that was roaming her ear. She was coming and Leo refused to and she hated his control. Hated it that he could now look down and watch her come as he still moved deep inside her. Hated how his blue eyes could reproach her as they made love, as if it was she who was messing with his head, rather than the other way around.

      Then she saw him, felt him briefly still, and watched the moment when Leo gave in—the grimace and the pleasure and the bliss of

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