“Be so cute and so sexy at the same time,” he growled.

I didn’t have an answer but I wouldn’t have had time to give one anyway because he sprang at me, flattening me to the bed and kissing me: deep, hot, hungry kisses that made me flex and writhe against him. He rolled us sideways so that we were on our sides, his hands smoothing up and down my back. Then I was on top, my hair hanging down like a curtain around our faces. His hands stroked all the way down my back and I arched like a cat.

He pushed me gently back, breaking the kiss. I opened my eyes slowly, my head a little foggy: I was almost drunk on him. Then I blinked down at him. Why are you stopping? Is something wrong?

He gazed up at me. “I just had to look at you,” he told me.

I half-smiled, not quite getting the joke. Then I saw the way he was looking at me and realized he meant it, and my heart filled and soared, carrying me right up to the ceiling. It was the single nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

“I want to read the rest of those books with you,” he blurted. “And I want to go away somewhere with you.” He glanced at the snow outside the window. “Somewhere hot. Swim in the sea with you. And I want to show you Britain.”

I listened, delighted. But then I remembered what had just happened and my stomach knotted. “But we lost the bomb. We can’t go home—”

He shook his head and took hold of both my hands. “I don’t care.”

That stopped my worrying like a brick wall. I blinked down at him and he stared up at me, stubbornly defiant, as cocky as ever. “We’ll work it out,” he told me. “We’ll get out of this and go home. You know why? Because I have to be with you and no fucking German spook is going to stop me.”

His confidence made me melt, and wish I was like that. And then I realized that maybe I could be. Maybe I just needed something I believed in: and I believed in us.

“I want to go to the ballet again,” I said tentatively. “Or the opera. Somewhere you can wear a tux. Only actually stay for the show, this time.”

He nodded approvingly and I relaxed even more.

“And I want to make something for you. Bake something. I'm not very good at baking, but I’ll learn.” I’d never had someone to bake for, before. Then something occurred to me. “Oh my God, will you come to CEE with me?”

He frowned. What’s that?