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With a whimper, she throws her head back.

I press my mouth to her, moaning as my tongue remembers her feel and taste. She rocks against me, her groans becoming louder as my tongue works faster. My body begins to throb again and I need more of her. I slide my hand between her legs and gently insert my finger.

‘Fuck, Holly,’ she pants and clutches my head. For several seconds her thighs squeeze my shoulders as she breathes my name, then her body deflates with a long, contented sigh.

I stay where I am, feel her throb against my tongue.

‘I lasted a few seconds, yeah?’ she says, breathless.

I shimmy up her body, pulling the doona over us. ‘You did.’

‘I feel amazing,’ Casey says, her eyelids beginning to droop. ‘My body is actually buzzing.’

‘Mine too.’ I prop my head in my palm and trace my fingertip around the outline of a tattoo. It’s a globe with only two countries, a crack between them, and what looks like two letters in an elaborate font at the top and bottom. ‘What’s this?’

Her eyes search my face. ‘That’s for you.’

My brows furrow. ‘What do you mean?’

‘It was my first tattoo. I got it in the new year after I came back from Berlin. When I’d missed the chance to see you again.’

My mouth drops open.

‘I couldn’t get you out of my head and I needed a way to process it all. So I got this.’

My gaze shifts back to her upper arm. I can make out the H near a tiny map of Australia and a C near the map of the UK. ‘Fuck, Casey. Seriously?’

She bites her lip and nods.

My eyes fill. ‘All this time, I’ve wondered why you ran off, whether it was me and what I said…’

She rolls onto her side and slips her arm across my waist. ‘It was never you. I got myself into a state and couldn’t deal with it. You were special to me, and this was my way of keeping that memory.’

A tear trickles down my cheek. ‘I love it.’

She brushes it away with her thumb. ‘Yeah?’

I nod.

She wraps her arms around me and draws me close, her eyelids closing. ‘Sorry, I’m falling asleep.’

‘Go to sleep. You’ve been at work all day.’

Casey covers her mouth as she yawns, then snuggles her head down into the pillow. ‘I can stay awake for a bit…’

My own eyelids feel heavy, but I’m not ready to close them yet, just in case she isn’t here when I wake up. I don’t want to be that needy person I was back then, but if she does disappear in the night, then I want to absorb every second of this moment. I press my lips to her tattoo – our tattoo.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ she says softly.

‘You’re supposed to be asleep.’

She opens one eye a fraction. ‘I can feel you staring at me.’

‘I just can’t believe you’re here, and I don’t want this night to end,’ I say.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she says with a sleepy smile.

Chapter 20