I don’t know how he got the door open, how we made it to the lift, but he pushed me into it and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist, fell back against the wall as he kissed my throat and bit my ear and kissed my mouth again, bit at my neck until it stung. My hair had come loose and it was everywhere and he kept touching it and I didn’t want him to stop, ever. My whole body and my whole mind were screaming for him, wanting him. I don’t know how we got out of the lift and down the hall to his apartment, how he got the door open with me pressing him against it, my hand already undoing his pants, but we only barely made the bed.

It was frantic, furious, ferocious. He scraped his chin against my skin, and I dug my fingernails into his scalp and his back and his legs. Desperate. Hungry. I needed him, wanted him, wanted this—I’d known that, somehow, for weeks, maybe from the very beginning, but the force of how much slammed into me so hard it hurt, tearing me in two. Weeks of delirium and madness and needing. He clutched at me like I was drowning, holding on, so tight, and when I came my whole body shuddered over and over, almost violently; painful and intense and insane. Utterly insane, utterly perfect, alive. So alive.

And then everything slowing, hearts and breath still racing but our bodies too heavy to move; the smallest, most gentle kisses, warm and tiny and beautiful, fingertips wiping away tears I hadn’t realised I’d cried, tears I didn’t understand, and his arms around me, holding me. His fingers in my hair, lips on my forehead, saying my name, over and over again, and my face buried in his shoulder and my mouth on his throat, kissing him and kissing him, my eyes closing and my breath softening and everything falling away.

17 THURSDAY, JUNE

17

THURSDAY, JUNE

‘Cait …’

I didn’t know where I was, what was happening. My eyes were stuck shut, lids so heavy.

‘Caitlin …’

Something touched my shoulder. Something warm. Someone. I rolled over, forcing my eyelids up a fraction. Clean, soft, warm bed. Bright. Everything was bright. Tom was sitting on the side of the bed, freshly shaven, his hair damp, wearing a dark green button-up shirt that brought out the warm, deep, rich brown of his eyes. Chocolate. Caramel.

‘Hey …’ His fingers brushed over my shoulder again, tracing their way down my arm, over my palm, sliding between mine. His touch sent something rumbling through me, warm and familiar and delicious and frightening.

‘Hi.’ My voice cracked. ‘Um … hi.’

He smiled. ‘You’re awake.’

‘Barely.’ My body felt heavy, bones soft. I could smell coffee.

‘You okay?’ His voice. That voice.

‘I think so.’ I found his eyes again. So warm. Okay. ‘You?’