‘I met you,’ he said, pulling away from her lips to stare into her eyes. ‘That’s what happened.’

Sliding his free arm beneath her neck, he pushed her onto her back, covering her with his body, every inch of his skin caressing hers, pressing, pulsating together.

Ava pushed back, taking her time lifting herself upwards, forcing him onto his back, sitting astride him, watching his face as she explored his body.

‘Sorry to break the moment,’ she said softly, ‘but given that it’s been – oh God – longer than I can even remember since I had sex, I’m not on the pill. Do you have anything?’

‘If it helps, it’s been even longer for me.’

‘Sorry, that was insensitive of me,’ she smiled.

‘No problem. And I do. Apparently, I never gave up hope. They’re on the very bottom shelf of my bathroom cupboard underneath the sink. Let me get them …’

‘You’ll stay right there,’ Ava said. ‘Exactly where I want you.’

‘Okay, but I’m only giving you sixty seconds. Any longer than that and I’m coming to get you.’

Ava leaned over and kissed him playfully before bounding into the bathroom, the smile on her face testament to the unforeseen joy of finally allowing herself to both accept and acknowledge how she felt about Callanach. The last time she’d used his en suite, she could still kid herself that what she’d felt was purely platonic. Natasha’s stirring had given her pause, though, and while before she’d always been able to laugh it off, she knew something had changed.

When Callanach had split up with Selina, Ava had felt something close to relief. When he’d saved her life and they’d spent the night together in his bed, it had been like coming home. Not just to his comfortable apartment, but to the warmth of him and the ease she felt around him. Largely ease. There had always been flashes of something else that she’d been careful to leave unexplored in her imagination. Moments when he’d put his arms around her and she hadn’t wanted him to let go. Times when they’d been thrown together in danger and yet it had never really occurred to her that anything bad would happen when Callanach was there.

Pausing, Ava looked at herself in his bathroom mirror, running a hand through her messy hair and trying to calm the grin that seemed utterly childlike. Hard for anyone else to realise in the middle of investigations, where every day brought new talk of death and violence, that you had to go home and live. Really live. When you were witness to so much loss, the only antidote was to fill every moment with value.

‘Do you need a map?’ Callanach shouted.

‘Hey, I’m worth waiting for!’ she laughed.

‘White cupboard, bottom shelf beneath the sink. If you’re much longer I’ll fall asleep.’