“I don’t know,” he said. “It felt like…” He hesitated. “That word I’m not going to say because I never want to jinx this. It felt like I knew you from the inside out, more intensely than I thought possible.” He rolled onto his side and drew her in, wrapping one leg over hers, arms around her, just as they had been in Paris before he’d had to leave, so close that even a feather couldn’t have slipped between them, both having given themselves to the other entirely in a way Jess had never experienced or thought she was capable of. What was the use in holding back when they knew how short and how precarious life could be?

“I still can’t believe I’m lying here next to you, naked, having just done that,” he murmured, kissing her softly, tongue still exploring her mouth as if he couldn’t possibly ever have enough of her, as if he still wasn’t sated.

“Remember when I first met you in Italy?” she said, smiling at him. “And you yelled at me. Then when you came to London, Martha thought you were gorgeous and I said that I wasn’t ever going to think of you like that because you’d just proved yourself a friend.”

“And now?” he teased. “What do you think now?”

“That you’re the most incredible man I’ve ever met,” she answered honestly. “That I can’t bear the thought of stepping outside this house, away from you. That I would rather die myself than know you had.”

* * *

Not long after, they both fell asleep, the fatigue of the long years of war finally dragging them down into a slumber so absolute that there was no space even to dream. Every time she woke, there was Dan, gathering her into his arms, cradling her back to sleep.

Once they’d had a few restful hours, more tranquil than any other night either of them had spent in Europe, their lips touched once more and again their lovemaking was slow and gloriously prolonged, their hands speaking the promises that their mouths were too frightened to say. They made love as though they had all the time in the world and Jess even started to believe it. When they had finished and they lay drowsily spent, Dan stopped kissing her for just long enough to say, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about being…” He stopped.

“Walter Hallworth’s son?” she asked. “I guess it doesn’t really matter, except I feel like an idiot for carrying on about my photos and my stories all the time when you probably know more about it than anyone.”

“I didn’t want to be another man telling you that he was better or more experienced than you,” Dan said. “Because I’m not. Definitely not at taking pictures like you do or at reporting a war. I worked at the New York Courier every summer since I was twelve, going out with the reporters on police beats, sitting in on news meetings, and finally writing my own stuff when I was at college. I’m supposed to take over the business when I get back but, over here, it’s nice not to be thought of as the boss’s son for once.”