She was returning his kiss, her lips moving slowly but with determination, teasing and testing him, asking a question which he answered readily. Lightning seemed to streak through her. It was so long since she’d known the physical yearning for release that now it had the delight of the unexpected, as well as the pleasure of anticipation.

Now she knew that the flash of desire-so briefly sensed, so swiftly controlled, that she’d felt on the day months ago when he’d carried her home and their mouths had almost touched-had been no illusion. It had been both a promise and a warning: think carefully before going beyond this point.

She’d had months to think carefully, becoming more confused all the time. But suddenly everything was clear, and from now on there would be no more thinking.

Drago felt her reaching towards him, not just with her mouth but her whole being. He lacked the words to tell her how the hope of this moment had lured and tantalised him through the weary time apart, but movements, tender and urgent together, were saying everything for him.

Then he was laying her gently back against the thick carpet, opening her buttons, pulling her clothes away, dumbstruck as he discovered that she was already naked underneath. His astonishment delighted her, and she gave a slow smile that told him everything, relishing the dawning look of complicity in his eyes.

‘You’re a wicked woman,’ he whispered.

‘Have you only just learned that?’

‘I never know what to think with you.’

‘I could help you find out.’

After that nothing could have held him back. He touched her face with reverent fingers, then let them trail down her neck and onwards between her breasts while she lay trembling with the sensation, so sweet and so long-forgotten.

No, not forgotten: never known. James’s love-making hadn’t been like this. He’d known that she adored him and had accepted it as a right, never looking at her with the feeling bordering on awe that she saw now in Drago’s eyes.

Her nights with James had been physically thrilling, but always with some element missing, because the emotion had been largely on her side. But Drago’s heart was open to her own, filling her with joy, so that she lay back, her arms above her head, luxuriously spreading herself for his delight.

He moved his hands outwards, cupping her breasts in a gesture of tender possessiveness, then lay down so that his face was between them, his lips continuing the work of his fingers while she clasped her hands behind his head and arched up against him.

When he raised his head she began to open his shirt, and he helped her, moving feverishly, as though responding to a signal for which he’d been waiting too long.

When he too was naked, she had one moment of doubt. This was the first man for a year and a half. But, looking into his face, she saw the understanding that had never yet failed her.

‘Me too,’ he said softly. There was no need to say more.

His movements became more urgent. Request became demand. Plea shaded into insistence. His hands explored further, tracing a path on the inside of her thighs, until he reached the heart of her sensation and felt her tremble. In a moment he was over her, seeking, finding. Then he was inside, inviting her to enclose him.

She received him happily, knowing now that this was right in every way, feeling their bodies move together as though they had been made for each other. They were both so eager that their moment came quickly, almost taking them by surprise, before they had time to enjoy the pleasure to the full.

His skill and urgency were driving her on until she arched against him with a cry, and pulled him hard against her while his own release took hold of him. In the last seconds her movements were almost as wild as his own.

Afterwards she held him tightly, feeling him tremble, then grow calmer as the storm passed. He lay against her for a long time before raising himself to look down on her. He looked shaken.

‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.

‘Mmm,’ she murmured contentedly.

‘I didn’t mean to be so-so-’

He fell silent, so clearly embarrassed that she wanted to hug him. He was saying that he hadn’t meant to be so fierce and nearly out of control. But that was what had pleased her most.

‘It’s just fine,’ she assured him. ‘I liked it that you were so-so-’

‘You’re on the floor, and it must be a bit hard.’

‘Not with this lovely thick rug. Still, there are other places-more comfortable.’

He rose, drawing her with him, and they made their way to his room, almost running in their eagerness to throw themselves onto the bed and revel in each other.

It was only a few minutes ago that they had made love, yet the desire was there again, eager and vibrant, so that they laughed with triumph and the joy of being alive and together. This time he cast aside restraint from the first moment, and she gave him a response that was almost violent in its lack of inhibition.

‘What happened to the light?’ she asked as they lay together afterwards. ‘I don’t remember it getting dark.’

‘We were thinking of something else,’ he said.

‘I guess we were. Something much more important.’

‘I wanted you so badly,’ he murmured. ‘But I was afraid in case I spoilt things.’

‘I know,’ she said lazily. ‘We had something so good, I didn’t want to risk it either. But I guess we couldn’t stand still. Maybe this was always waiting for us.’

‘How wise you are!’

He buried his face against her neck, relishing the scent of her.

‘Sweetness and spice,’ he murmured. ‘Adventure and peace. How do you manage to be everything at once?’

‘You’re a poet!’

‘Good grief, no!’ he said, shocked. ‘Oh, I see, you’re laughing at me again.’

‘Just a little,’ she said tenderly. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I don’t, not any more.’

They lay for a while, half-waking, half-dozing, until he said, ‘Do you remember what I said when we parted at the airport, about being glad we hadn’t met earlier?’

‘Yes, I thought about it a lot, and in the end I knew you were right.’

‘In the end?’

‘I wasn’t quite ready at first. I think I began to see it when you had that accident, and I was so afraid that you might be dead.’

‘I was a bit ahead of you. I felt so close to you that it scared me. The first time I came back to this place, I left at once; it was so empty without you. I meant never to return, but then I found I had to write to you, just to keep some sort of contact. When you replied I came up here again. And you were here too. You’ve been here ever since.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I always knew I was in this place with you.’

‘Did you suffer much when you returned home?’

‘At first, yes. I cried a lot, but even then I knew that it was good to cry. Everything had been trapped inside me for a year, and it was destroying me. Very soon it would have been too late. When I stopped crying I knew that I’d come through it, and since then I’ve got stronger. The world doesn’t frighten me any more.’

‘I don’t believe the world ever frightened you,’ he said wryly. ‘More like the other way around.’

‘That was just the surface. I kept my armour in place to hide my fear. I don’t have to do that any more. What about you? Has anything been better?’

‘I haven’t your courage. I still feel easier wearing the armour, except with you. But, like I told you, I sleep better. Tina is happier.’

In the poor light she could just make out the scar on his forehead, and she reached up to touch it.

‘Is that where you got hit?’

‘Yes, it’s fading now.’

‘I thought you were dead. Everything went dark. The thought of you not being there any more-even if I didn’t see you, I knew you were there, and if suddenly you weren’t-I didn’t know how I’d manage without you.’

‘I can remember lying in the hospital and thinking about you, wishing you were with me. And then you called. I think that was when I began plotting to get you out here again. I had to see you, to reassure myself that it hadn’t been a dream.’

‘Well, I’m here now, but it does feel like dreaming. I don’t know what’s real any more. Was this always going to happen?’

‘Don’t you know the answer to that?’ he asked seriously.

The question pulled her up short. Hadn’t she always known that they would end up embracing, exploring each other on the only level they hadn’t yet discovered?

‘I guess, if you’d just let me go home, I wouldn’t have liked it. I wouldn’t have liked it at all. It would have meant that something had gone wrong.’

‘Me too. And I wasn’t going to let it go wrong.’

‘So you had this planned from the first moment?’

‘Not planned. Hoped. I didn’t know how it was going to work out until the other night at the villa, when I looked up and saw you standing there-so beautiful, so changed in the way I’d been hoping for. And then I knew.’

‘Yes,’ she said, remembering the moment when she’d seen him again, the king in his own domain. ‘That was when I knew too.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, leaning his head on her.

‘Hey, you’re nearly asleep.’

‘No, not really.’

‘Just the same,’ she said with a little chuckle, ‘you are. So I may as well join you. Goodnight.’


At breakfast he said, ‘I thought today we’d go out, and I’ll show you how lovely this place can be. Then we’ll eat in a tiny restaurant in the village.’

‘Wouldn’t it be nicer to eat here? Just the two of us?’

‘You’re right. We’ll come straight back.’

The walk up the mountain was magic. As they climbed the gentle slope the sun glinted through the trees, so that they passed from shadow to sunlight to shadow again. Now and then he would take her into his arms and they would stand locked together in silence.

It seemed that there was nobody else for miles, as though they were alone in all the world, with nothing to think of but each other. When there was a gap in the trees they stood looking up at the birds flying overhead, transfixed by the beauty.

‘I love you,’ he said.

Alysa turned her head slowly, wondering if she’d imagined it. He looked back at her, answering her thought.

‘Yes, I love you. Why do you look surprised? You shouldn’t be.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said, dazed.

‘You said you could see where we were heading,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes, but-I guess I only saw a little way ahead.’

As she said it she couldn’t help smiling as she thought of their time in bed.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘There was a time when I too only saw that much. But it’s not enough. Without love it’s nothing.’

‘But you’re going too fast for me. I think I’ve lost faith.’

‘In me?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, in me. Love costs so much, and I can’t pay that price any more. I guess that makes me a coward.’

‘You? Not in a million years.’

‘Yes, me. When I think of how I loved before, throwing myself into it heedlessly, I know I can’t be like that again.’

‘Of course not. No two loves are the same any more than people are the same. I love you differently from Carlotta, but not less. Or is this your way of saying that I’m fooling myself and you don’t love me?’

She took so long answering that his brow darkened. ‘Is it that?’

‘I don’t know. How can I tell? You’re dearer to me than anyone else on earth, but-How can I explain? Part of me doesn’t want you to be.’

‘So you’re going to fight me until you’ve driven me out? I’m stubborn, Alysa. I won’t go easily. I’ll haunt your mind and heart until you turn to face me. Night and day I’ll be with you every moment.’

‘Yes-yes,’ she whispered.

‘Stay with me. Marry me. Love me.’

‘You make it sound so easy,’ she said with a touch of anger. ‘It isn’t. Love’s more dangerous than you know.’

‘You really believe I haven’t learned that?’

‘You think you have, but you don’t know-’

She stopped, horrified at what she’d nearly revealed. She’d been on the verge of telling him about the letter, the one thing she must never do. Too late she saw the trap she’d laid for herself.

‘What don’t I know?’ he asked, looking at her keenly.

‘You don’t know anything,’ she improvised hastily. ‘We think we know, but we never really do.’

‘What don’t I know, Alysa?’

‘Stop pressurising me,’ she flashed. ‘I only meant that nothing is how we think it is, and that’s why nobody ever learns from experience. They never recognise the experience when it comes around the second time.’

He was giving her a curious look.

‘I wonder what you really meant to say,’ he mused. ‘You’re doing what my daughter calls talking “itty-bitty”. It means floundering for words just to change the subject.’