They went to Marianne’s cottage. The tenants were gone, a lady had been in to clean. It was spotless, empty, locked and theirs. All theirs for the taking. All that magical afternoon they took and took. And took again.

He didn’t know.

“I’m so happy,” Astrid whispered, running a hand all over his chest. He caught it and kissed her fingers, then bent to kiss her mouth again. She tasted like him or maybe he tasted like her, but how was he to know lovemaking had a flavor, any more than he could knew how his name sounded when Astrid keened it against his shoulder. Or how her hair smelled when she was in a writhing, fevered sweat. Or how a lover’s eyes staring back into yours when you came into pieces made you feel you knew everything there was to know.

The cottage’s little Frigidaire was unplugged and empty, so they had brought along some sandwiches and a bottle of milk. And good thing, because Kennet discovered lovemaking made you ravenous. They ate in bed, gulping and munching, wiping mouths on forearms because they had no napkins, kissing around bites because they had no patience.

Kennet had never been so comfortable in his own skin. He went downstairs to get the radio, naked as a newborn. He brought it back up, walking starkers past Astrid, dragging a chair close to the bed, dealing with the plug, fiddling with the dial. Astrid never took her eyes off him and he never wanted her to.

“Come here, river rat,” she said.

He dove back into bed. He felt superb. Lying on his side, propped on an elbow while the other hand drew long, soft vertical lines between Astrid’s breasts. Her fingertips caressed his wrist. Dinah Shore was singing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” and the walls drew close and held them in soft arms.

Under stars chilled by the winter

Under an August moon burning above

You’d be so nice, you’d be paradise

To come home to and love

“All my life,” Astrid murmured. “I will never get tired of looking at you.”

She rolled on her side and kissed him. He ran his palm up her soft throat, his thumb under her chin. Then he slid it into her hair, winding it around his fingers and pulling her mouth deeper into his.