‘I wasn’t following you,’ he said, quieter still. And he looked at me and I looked back at him and something happened; I felt this surge from deep inside, a surge of something that I hardly recognised, that I had never really felt before, not in my whole life, and I was shaking now with fear but also something else. I tried to push it back down inside but he was too near and I stared at his mouth and then apparently he was speaking. I couldn’t think, couldn’t concentrate.

‘For God’s sake, Rose,’ he muttered, ‘you really don’t get it, do you?’

‘Don’t get what?’ I said, and suddenly I felt like crying, and thought, I’m probably just going crazy. That’s all this is: I’m finally going mad. And then I said, I whispered, ‘I do actually. I do get it. You’re warning me off.’

He spoke, but I couldn’t understand.

‘What?’

‘Don’t,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t cry.’

‘I’m not,’ I said, but my face was wet.

He laid one gentle hand down my left eye and cheek. ‘You just – you need to take care,’ I thought he whispered then, and he looked different suddenly and I turned my head so I could hear him better, but his hand was still on my skin.

‘Take care doing what?’ I stared at him and his hand slipped down my face and perhaps I was actually drowning in the sea of that blue. And so I shut my eyes.

And when I opened my eyes again and looked into the sky, the sea in him, he looked back and I disappeared into the blue and then he bent his head and kissed me.

I couldn’t suppress it, this feeling that had been growing in me since I first met him. It had grown bigger than me now and I didn’t want to have to fight it any more. I didn’t know until the second that he kissed me that he felt it too, the second he leaned towards me and I found myself kissing him back, and it was so natural, the most natural thing in the world like it was all I wanted to do.

We fell together. I didn’t think of anyone else apart from him and me. I didn’t feel guilt, I didn’t feel anything apart from this instant, the here and now.

The here and now, this moment, this dark moment, the slamming, the harsh coming together, tearing at each other’s clothes, his T-shirt off, the great dragon roaring on his shoulder, my shirt unbuttoned, my mouth on his, skin beneath my fingers, his hand tangled in my hair …

Oh God. We didn’t make it to the bedroom.

And afterwards …