With the lights on, Jo could see the puddle that just the walk from the car had soaked into Harry's clothes and then onto the linoleum of her floor. The increasing spread of the water was moving from her front vision into her periphery. That's when her eyes fell closed. Jo neglected to count the moments that she absented herself from the pleasure of his mouth.

It had been weeks.

17 days she reckoned since she had left his place after their heartbreaking talk.

In her office, he held her, not so long ago. But that was also tinged blue by the sad talk they shared. It was odd, the small amount of time that had collapsed between when she was elated to see him, but had to let him down easy, had swallowed her heart back down from where Harry had brought it between her teeth, where it had fluttered in her throat when Victoria confronted her, and now. She felt so different after time away from him and his embrace.

Now her heart was back where it belonged. In the palm of his hand, beating wildly away. His kisses did something to her.

Harry had the most luscious lips. When she fell for him, lusted for him against her better judgement, that was what she knew would stick with her. The sense memory she would retain, dream of, long to recreate with any man thereafter, was the feel of his beestung lips on hers.

That first kiss in his studio, when she discovered herself in his painting, in his imagination and creation, Jo thought of it daily, at first on the hour, when she made herself wait to be with him, then it was a daily occurrence, though first times play in the mind like favorite movies.

There was a curl to the edge of his lips, a give the thick ribbons of pink from which that voice came out of. It nearly created a bounce. His words bobbed up and down through his smacking lips. But it had nothing on the effect the plumping brought to kissing. When Harry pressed his mouth to hers, it was satisfying, like popping bubble wrap. The reissirence of his fleshy pout against her own was a surprise, because his lips looked so soft, but felt so strong.

Unless you had spent a lot of time looking at the way they moved when he talked. Which Jo had done for the last several years, and paid a lot of attention to in the last six months. There the over fill of them that made them firm and ideal for kissing was more obvious. If the boundaries of his anatomy could barely contain them, she stood no chance.

"I love your lips." Her breath wrapped around her thoughts and snuck out. How it found space to exist when his whole self was against all of her, was unknown. The millimeters she found to fill with her adoration would usually be next rich with his chuckle. He knew she got a little overwhelmed by him, and things came out of her mouth she didn't expect. He would laugh sweetly at her. He enjoyed the stuttered syllables of his names, but also boozy utterances about whatever part of him captivated her.

There was no chuckle this time. Harry stopped kissing her, so she filled the air with a whine, and he continued to be silent. He pulled his face back enough to look at her.

Jo thought he must have seen what he was looking for, because the hold he had on her chin between his thumb and pointer finger opened up and he cradled her jaw, like one holds an egg, and guided her mouth back to his. The kiss gave her all of those amazing qualities about the bounce of his lips. He played between her own, switching focus until she panted, then slotted his face to the side and slid his tongue in. He tasted, he tasted like he always did, like the coffee he preferred and tonight, she assumed he had eaten roasted veg for dinner, she could taste the crisp, and then the bite of mint. Gum at some point then. He tasted like the end of a long day. And she walked through the door and kicked off her shoes and made herself at home in his kiss.

As comfortable as one could feel when being played like a flute. The swirl of his wet tongue turned her stomach and the strength of her knees had to be questioned. Harry sensed it, or needed her, because his arm came round her waist and clutched her hip to remove the whiff of space he'd created when he pulled back to stare at her.

He slipped from her and caught her bottom lip between his teeth and tugged. She followed like the little red wagon she'd yanked to the park and back many times. Jo followed him down.

"Har-harry!" She moaned. Jo had been waiting on him. To decide what he wanted, to not give her anymore choices, to accept their boundaries.

She'd forgotten he always redefined them.

The lights popped again and she heard one of the bulbs go with the surge. All of her candles were still lit, and the warm glow matched the fire stoked in her belly. A few more nips to her top lip and slip slides of his tongue and she was more than glowing. She was aflame.

Harry hoisted her onto his hips and carried her to the bedroom she had abdicated while he was thinking. 17 days, since they alloyed. Her jeans slipped off her hips easily because she now needed a belt, and Harry made a noise of disapproval when he got his hands beneath her bum, filled his hands with the lessened flesh. He gave her a sad look and she thought to shrug until he lost three feet by going to his knees to fill his mouth with her.

As her neck went soft and rolled around her down comforter, her hands found the wet snakes of his hair and clutched. He was not warming her up down there, he was intent on getting her off, and quickly. No reading licks or nips or shallow dips into her well to be had. He'd found her swelling center, licked it full and sealed his tongue upon it. The suction like a koi.

"I love your lips!" Jo yelled as she came on his tongue and he played her with his flat of it until she used her hold on his hair to yank him away, past the jerky moves and yelps.

He still hadn't spoken. It was weird. Harry was a chatty lover, vocal. Jo loved it. But, occasionally, when things were heavy, significant or disturbed, he was quiet.

He'd barely moaned. It was not settling well in Jo's pulsating tummy. Now that he had tied and untied the knot below her belly button, she needed him to speak, or scream. Explain his curious words. She knew it was her for him, as he was it for her, but she wasn't sure that was what he'd meant in this instance. The words were true enough, but she needed context.

Jo pulled him up to her mouth, and the lips that sent her tasted like brine and lemon and she licked them clean until he exhaled shakily at her mouth. She unclicked the button on his jeans and pushed them down until he had to help. His briefs going down with them. When she got him, firm velvet, into her hand, she stopped long enough to catch his eye and lick her palm rudely.

The wet flat of her hand went to the top of his dick and she hitched her hips where she was still wet and ready, not yet sticky, to run along the ridge on the lower surface where he was getting harder. She rocked her palm and hips in unison and stared him down, compelling him to drown in her eyes, they went chocolate in this light. Richer than a mars bar. When she flicked her thumb over the damp slit, "Jo!" Fell out of his parted mouth.

Jo nodded and angled him down to marry them together.

17 days.

He slotted in, as he always had, the key to her. She opened and then bloomed.

Her eyes had fallen closed, and Jo decided that wouldn't do, and forced them open. If she had not had the pleasure of his morning creased face, or his grinning silly face, she certainly had not seen him blown open and undone in the last near on three weeks.

He was looking at her, his eyes seemed to be at her brow, and she knew that look, the memorization face.

"Harry, I'm not going anywhere." She got out, stilted between the deep rocking of their boat on the waves of moon tide he pulled from her.

"I know." He nodded with his words, and reached beneath her ass to angle her hips onto that camber he had found sure to set her off. His brow was sweaty and his teeth grit, but his eye contact was awed, stronger than his neck.

The repeated pressure and his intent serpentine gaze brought her to bear and she knew she was squeezing the life out of him, and got confirmation when his head reeled back and he roared.

Jo's hand found his cheek to guide his gaze back down. She missed his gaze, like a target she needed to hit, but had been on the wrong course from until today. She cupped his cheekbone and watched as his hair fell in a curtain around him. This was the part of his atmosphere she could breath in.

His hands left her hips and cupped her face and he remained inside her, slowly softening.

"Did you know that I always paint you?" His voice was airy, like he was looking down from a high view, and the awe had struck him nearly dumb.

Jo closed her heavy eyes, and opened them with a Mona Lisa smile. "Yes, I did know that." She stretched her neck up into the umbrella of his hair and spake against his mouth, "But I love that you know it now too."

Later, after she had coaxed him out of dwindling with pelvic contractions, he'd been slower and more vocal with her, they were both starved.

The feast of flesh was well laid and bountiful.

Harry kept his mouth closed more than normal, but his eyes were constant in their communication. He tracked her movements. Through their orgasms and on the way to the kitchen.

"I thought you were hungry?" Jo laughed. "You haven't touched your stew." She'd cooked it for Zoe last night who'd had barely touched it. There was enough for two and they both looked like they had been skipping meals. Even so, Harry looked heavy, a weight of thoughts swimming around his beautiful crown of curls.

17 days.

She'd missed him, madly.

"I just can't stop thinking about how they are all a shade of you, baby." He lifted a bite to his mouth and then stopped. "When did you notice?"

Jo sat down the dish she was cleaning. The distance between the table and her feet was a scant 15 feet, but it was too much after so long.

17 days.

"Did you really never notice?" His cheek was warm in her palm. His kitten like flex into her touch was warm and made her purr.

He shook his head.

"How did you notice then?" Jo ran her hand over his jaw blade.

"Well, I had decided on a painting. To turn in for my culminating project." She could tell from his blush that it was probably the one she wanted, of the life giving center of her borne from lush vegetation greener than his eyes.

"Which one?" She asked and snicked her cheeks up at him.

His head fell back and he laughed. When he leveled his chin at her, looked at her with his woodland eyes, she smiled at him and rolled her lips in. There was so much to resolve, but to be with him, unencumbered for any minutes felt too good to dismiss. Her cells danced and her smile showed it.

Harry kissed her. "By your cheeky mouth, I think you know what I chose?"

"My pussy?" She said and covered her mouth like she had a secret.

"It was the best one!" He protested but looked like the sun came out.

"It's the one I think is best too." She agreed and kissed the tip of his nose. "It's also the one that is the least recognizable as me."

"Not to me!" Harry laughed and grasped her hips to pull her onto his chair. He fed her a bit of stew out of his bowl and kissed her temple. "But I know you differently than most people."

Jo chewed her bite, then looked sideways at him. "Biblically? You mean?"

He kissed her cheek and caught the tip of her mouth where they tipped up in his presence constantly. "I was gonna say better, but if you want to be basic about it, cheeky." And he pinched her ass.

Jo pouted her lips out, then turned to face him. "If you know me better, how'd it take you so long to recognize me in all of your work?" She'd missed teasing him.

He was often quiet while he thought things out too. So they shared his bowl while Harry pondered.

"I think I just have to tell you how I noticed it. Then you can confess how long you've known. I can tell there is a story there, baby." He ate a bite and stood holding her hip to grab her bowl to share that one too. "So, I was staring at the jungle one—"

"My vulva!" She supplied.

He knocked his forehead into her temple. "Fine, your vulva, and all of a sudden I was mixing reds on a pallet and pulling out a canvas. You know usually I start with the landscape and she forms?" He waited until Jo nodded. "This time, it started with her, and she was head on and had a real face, not blurry like the amber lady or side on like the siren." He fed them both a bite. "And when I had her sketched out and she was coming out of fire, like a massive blaze, I was trying to do her eyes and the color looked just like your hazel, but when you are yelling your head off." He brushed a finger from the corner of her eye out. "So I just stopped and looked at her face, and saw you." His head went down in embarrassment. "Your eyes and nose, and then I tore all my canvases from where I had been looking through them and found your profile." He traced it. "And your breast."
He gave a cheeky nip twist, "and your tum." He caressed her belly. "And I got overwhelmed and then focused and finished Kali-Jo. Its the best thing I've ever done- here look!" He pulled it up and showed her. "It's what I have to turn in."

Jo's eyes widened. "Harry! You can't!"

"What, why?" He looked surprised.

She bugged her eyes at him-"Babe, it looks just like me!"

"They all look just like you!" He shrugged and chucked."

"Yeah, but body parts only you see and know-" she pointed at the picture- "that looks like my face, and I never told you, but Victoria definitely thinks she knows we are together!"

"What?" His face dropped and he got agitated. "What do we do?"

"Nothing. She has no proof. And I'm not sure she'd use it if she did." Jo shook her head and recounted the conversational cat and mouse she had played with her colleague. "It was like she wanted me to get caught, ruined, because it would make me like her, but also, wants me to like her, be in league, so she isn't trying to tell on us. Just to make me feel."

"Wait, her and Ewan?" Harry's hair should be on end to emphasize his shock.

Jo laughed, it was a relief to talk to him and be together. She felt like they were out of the woods, or near the edge, light on the horizon beyond the trees."No! Her and Richard!"

"Richard who?" Harry pulled his head back."

"Richard my boss!" Jo felt like she was gossiping? But it was relevant to him, so she kept talking and even allowed herself the guilty pleasure of it.

"Really?" He looked like a confused puppy with the head cock. "Now? Why does that matter?"

So Jo filled him in on the background, with Harry giving her wide eyes and even laughing. Her too. It felt like a relief to share the burden, and he was so optimistic, it was catching. She thought they had made it to a clearing there, it was a relief to be free of one fetter.

"But she said there were murmurings, maybe she started them, I dunno." She sipped his water. "But, If you turn in a painting with my face on, it's not gonna go well for us. It will be obvious, or close to it. So," she stood between his legs and leaned down into his face. "You're going to have to chose another one of your incredible pieces to turn in for your first." She sealed the praise with her mouth on his, just the way that ignited his kindling, then walked away.

"Ugh, Jo! Come back here! Can't kiss me like that and skate away!" He made grabby hands and she turned to him just outta reach while grabbing a bottle of wine.

"Wanna paint? Talk?" Jo hoisted the red wine up because it was part of their ritual.

His eyes clouded with most and he shook his head at his knees and then her with a grin. "Yeah. Love to actually." He got up and made after her like he was shaking off the chains of their missed weeks. "Gonna paint you!" And he chased her into the studio.

The lights were unreliable, and they both seemed to be into the vibe of the candles all over the house. Jo had collected the candles when Harry mentioned it might create a new effect in their shadow, but Jo suspected the aesthete in him just liked the idea of painting naked by candlelight with her. So she went along and enjoyed every minute.

When she'd come back in he was setting up canvases and the flex of his ass was a gorgeous thing when he lifted canvas onto easel.

She was still staring when he caught her. "What?" He asked with a smile made in Cheshire worn by more than carolian cats.

"You know what!" Jo stuck a tongue at him and got moving.

"Yeah," he sat at his usual easel, "But I like when you say it." He smirked her way

"You're really beautiful, H." She cocked her head at him. "And you know it!"

"Do you know?" He  picked up her hand and twisted like he was a lead in a waltz and she found herself skimming his naked back and the sensation prickled her nipples and she watched gooseflesh rise over his skin where they'd grazed each other. He sat her on her stool and kissed her knuckles, then released her hand to caress her cheek and chuck her chin. She was charmed until he tweaked her nipple.

Jo'd have smacked his head, except his eyes looked like candy floss, sweet and soft.

"I hope you know you are beautiful too, baby." Hos brow clouded for a second and he followed his thought trail. "You still haven't told me when you first realized I painted you and didn't tell me." He got up to grab palletes, and slid one into her waiting hand and Jo swigged the bottle and handed it over and changed the subject.

"Who is receiving your final submissions?" She pulled out the colors and started working on liquid greens, ranging from lime to emerald. She looked at the love light in his eyes and hoped she might get it right. They were vibrant tonight, so she needed a shine.

"Roberts, I think." He looked at her. "Look at your canvas baby."

"Are you really gonna paint me? On purpose?" She laughed, but gave him her profile.

"I really am. I've done it before." They shared a conspiratorial smile. "And apparently I do it always, so," he shrugged then snicked a little beige over her chin.

"Hey! What's that for?"

"You're really tan." He looked sad. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing. Just the weather meant Zoe and I were at the park a lot." She felt his eyes on her.

"You were wearing tank tops" he put more paint on her shoulder.

"You're supposed to be painting your canvas- painting 101." She leaned laughing until she saw his fallen face. "Lover?"

"I'd have like to see you in your tops in the sun." He looked at his palette. "I missed you Jo. So much."

She closed her eyes, and wanted to say it back, but she didn't want to be sad. "You just like when I show a little skin."

He grinned at her tone despite himself.  And made an obvious ogle over her. "There's an awful lot of it."

"An awful lot!" She dropped her mouth in mock offense.

"Oi, you know I just mean all of it's on display. There's less than I'd like. Gonna feed you tomorrow to work on that."

"During shag break?" She laughed and looked at him knowingly. "I know how you are."

"Guess we will just order a Chinese and eat in bed then. Remember when you didn't feel comfortable naked?" He traced the tip of his mostly dry brush over the lines on her hips.

"I do." Jo checked his eyes and her palette, but they'd changed on her, to many hues to capture. She'd have to keep trying. Hopefully always. "You know, it was you that made me feel ok like this, in my skin?" She knew he suspected it.

"I wasn't sure, but I hoped." He traced another stretch mark.

"I didn't want you to see my flaws, figured you were plenty distracted when you were inside of me." He groaned. She shook her head and felt the tips of her mouth turn up. "But, like this, you'd see everything, my stretch marks, and c section scar, and that I've breastfed for years. How much older I really am."

He finished a line and leaned down to punctuate his living art with a kiss to her hip. "I don't see them as flaws. Their the marks of your life, that make you. And I was made for loving you, so those pieces of you were made for me. I actually like them," He kissed her elbow, then nipple, collarbone, chin. "A lot! And I love them too."

"I believe you." Jo smiled at his face where it stopped at her eyes. His were more alcoholic than she thought. She was battered looking at his sincerity.

"That was easier than I thought." He laughed, "I figured I'd have to spend time convincing you that the life upon your skin was attractive."

"No, I'm very sure of how you feel about me. That you like the look of me and more." She but her lip and decided to divulge. "But I think you're never sure how I feel about you. That nod shit you do." She frowned at him.

"What?" He looked puzzled.

"When we are unsettled, you nod when I tell you I love you. I hate it." She confessed.

"I do?" He tipped his nose to her. Then made a face and looked up and right. "I do. I think, when you shut me down or I'm mad, I dunno, it's not ok, but I withhold from you, I hate when you run away, and I don't like being a secret. Usually I can," he sighed, "usually I can accept it, but when we are fighting, I take it out on you. I think I know you don't like it." He half smiled. "Can I work on it?"

"Yeah?" She nodded.

"Speaking of things we need to address- we haven't talked about the b word." He sat down on his stool like the air was pregnant because she wouldn't be.

"We haven't. And we should, but I don't want to have to kick you out naked, so I need you to hear me, and I don't want anymore options." She was trying to joke, but it was a heavy subject hard to make light.

"But Jo, I just want you to consider.." she cut him off.

"I know, I know. And I will. I have. Some of the stuff you brought up, not even on my radar. I'll admit. I'm going to the doctor, couple days after graduation. To see if the surrogacy thing is even possible, but we need to compromise." She turned on her still and stared at him.

He was grinning like he'd already won when he turned to her too. "Ok!! What do we have to compromise on?"

"Slow down, you look like a puppy whose mum has just filled its bowl." She couldn't help but catch his infectious mood, even with the subject matter. Jo smiled all through her next speech. "We have way more to handle, lover. And I haven't said yes. We have get you through graduation."

"Well that's done in a week's time, so!" He shrugged jauntily.

"Then we have to talk to your mum," she sucked in a breath, "and Ethan, and if we can stand that, after we get you to graduation, if the doctor says my eggs aren't hard boiled, we can see what the harvesting process is like." She put out a hand to cat his. "That's my compromise."

"Deal!" He was almost bouncing, and he licked up some paint and started an oval shape on his canvas, with his free hand.

"What deal! You haven't compromised anything, I am talking about a surgery over here, Harold!"

"Not my name!" He grumbled.

"I know!" She laughed then turned serious. "I want you to consider one of the fellowships, go away for the six months." She put her hand on him and saw him flinch a little.

"But." He stoped painting. "I don't want to be away from you. And if we decide to have a baby—"

"No baby, not for years, if!" She shook her head at him. "And not before the fellowship at least, or time for you to grow in your life. You don't have to go. And I don't want to be away from you either, and I've, well Harry, I've thought about forever now." She leaned over and grabbed the yellow and started to make a sunny color to add to his beige base. "And I want it. Think I always did. But- I just, please don't mortgage your future for me." She gave him a pleading look.

"What if you are my future?" He added some orange to the yolk shape.

"Ok, then we're the future." She couldn't help her upturned lips. "But to do that, we bring out the best in each other, push each other to be adventurous and grow. and I'm not the reason you give up opportunities, but why you chase them."

"Which fellowhisp Do you want me to do?" He looked as young as he was, and she realized he's probably not left England for more than holiday.

"That's not for me to decide." She shook her head. Then leaned into him, "which one excites you most." She knew he had gotten letters to.

"Montreal, or Venice." He admitted then furrowed his brow, "But I don't speak the languages."

"So we download an app, or get a book, or we could even take a class together. Think of the fun we could have with another language in bed!" She loves the spark his eye got then. It added some blue. "And I can visit you!"

"Deal!" He put out his pinky for her to seal and they made a pact sealed with a thumb kiss, like they had months ago and added one on the lips.

"Oh, and I knew you painted me the first time I kissed you. It's why I kissed you." She finally laid out her secret for him.

"Really?" He looked shocked for a minute. Then his lips pressed against her and he dropped his pallet and stood. He pulled her up and kept talking while he walked her backwards out of the studio towards her bedroom. "Then maybe Amber Jo can get me my first, since she already won me your heart."

"Oh, that just got me to drop my knickers." She danced backwards from him. "It was Liverpool when I knew you'd were my real first."

"That the grade you'd give me professor?" He laid her out on her bed. It was so convenient to be naked.

"Don't think the muse is allowed to judge. I'm biased- but there should be something better than first!" She left off the following kiss with a smack to gasp. "Last, you get to be my last."

"Yeah, that's definitely better than first." He pushed inside her and forever began.