‘It’s not funny. She really went for you. She could have seriously hurt you. Here, let me see.’ She ignores his protests and studies his face and hands.

‘See?’ He smiles at her. ‘Told you, I’m fine. She’s just jealous. She’s used to having you to herself. I shouldn’t have invaded her space.’

‘Her space? This is my house.’

‘She was only trying to protect you.’

Tilda reaches up and touches his face. ‘There are plenty of other people she can bite if she wants to. You, I can handle myself.’

‘You want to bite me?’ He laughs.

Tilda smiles. ‘You think you’re so clever,’ she says, planting the lightest of kisses on his lips.

‘I’m currently being kissed by the most desirable person in the room. I’d say that was pretty clever,’ he tells her. And then he slides his arms around her waist and holds her close, and he kisses her, and she kisses him back. And Tilda finds she is hungry for him. That she can still feel passion, longing, want … and it is Dylan she wants.

Yes. Dylan.

Suddenly all the long, lonely months that have gone before this moment melt away. There is nothing but here and now. This man. This connection. She pulls him closer, holds him more tightly, kisses him with increasing fervor. And he returns her passion, so that soon they are tearing at one another’s clothes, laughing as they tumble over the sofa, as they roll onto the rug in front of the fire, greedily snatching kisses, pulling at each other’s seemingly endless layers of garments. Tilda wonders fleetingly if she is reacting to the trauma of the day; a need to affirm life after a brush with death. She is too lost in her need for Dylan to want to analyze how she feels. Soon they are both naked, the firelight dancing on his mocha dark skin and flashing on her ghost pale flesh. Their burning desire blocking out the cold of winter that has already coated the windowpanes with ice.

*   *   *

It is Tilda’s concern for the kiln fire that eventually pulls her from their slumbering embrace. She sits up, gazing down at Dylan.

‘It will need more wood. I daren’t leave it any longer,’ she says.

He touches her shoulder and lets his fingers travel the length of her arm until he takes up her hand and holds it to his lips. ‘You taste as good as you look,’ he tells her. When she shrugs self-consciously he adds, ‘No more hiding, remember?’

‘Not everyone sees me the way you do.’

‘Their loss.’