She grins at me, and I grin right back. “I’ve fucked you, and now I’m going to feed you.” And then talk to you, I promise. It seems that if I wait for her love confession, I’ll be waiting a long fucking time.

I leave her in the bedroom with instructions to wear lace and meet me in the kitchen, before heading downstairs. I open the fridge. “Well, that didn’t go exactly as I planned,” I say to the peanut butter.

“I can’t find my stuff.”

I look back at the door. She’s in a towel.

“I’ll take naked.” I grab my jar and wander casually on over, my greedy eyes starting at her feet and dragging all the way to her face. “Cathy’s off and the fridge is empty. I’ll order in. What do you fancy?”

“You,” she quips around a cheeky smirk.

I pull the towel from her body and pout at the naked flesh before me. “Your god needs to feed his temptress. The rest of your stuff is in that dirty, great big wooden trunk that you had dumped in my bedroom. What do you want to eat?”

“I’m easy.”

“I know, but what do you want to eat?”

“I’m only easy with you.”

“You fucking better be,” I say, almost laughing. “Now, tell me, what do you want to eat?”

“I like anything. You choose. What time is it, anyway?”

“Seven. Go and take a shower before I abandon dinner and take you again.” I send her on her way with a slap on her arse, and she jumps a little as she goes. The sight is too good to give up, so I follow her, unscrewing the cap of my peanut butter, resting my shoulder on the doorframe as she takes the stairs slowly. I should be pissed off with myself for diverting so spectacularly from my plan. But . . .

She’s still here.

She looks over her shoulder when she reaches the top. Smiles. Blows me a kiss. And I fall harder.

They say it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I call bullshit. To love and lose is hell. I wouldn’t know what it’s like to love and keep forever.

But I pray I’m about to find out.

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