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He believed Saht they threatened him That should be his role It was his role, but he couldn’t deny he liked the ie of her as his warrior queen

He’d told her part of the truth, but not all of it It wasn’t only her illustrations that inspired him

How had he not realised Leila was a portrait of her? Loyal and iht out the best and worst in Gabriel, who plodded along trying to do as right, sometimes in the worst possible way

This was a perfect exaht years, he’d written about her, and it wasn’t until she’d forced his hand that he’d realised it

Like Gabriel, the only time he shone hen he was focused on Leila—the real and the fictional

He cah and snuggle, her fingers sliding under his pilloith a hiss that travelled over his skin Even in sleep she refused to stay on her side, she had to keep invading, testing, pushing and prodding And giving

He breathed in and out, trying to will his body into quiescence, but it was useless He wanted her with an ache that had nothing to do with sexual gratification He wanted to be inside her not so he could climax but so he could be as close as life and physics permitted

So they could be parts of the same story

He should have looked for her eons ago He should have been a o when he returned to London and realised he had proposed to her for all the wrong reasonsexcept then he would not have had those years with Jacob and nohiht never had had hiift

He sat on the side of the bed and her eyelids fluttered, her fingers withdrawing froainst it Foolish things like this This hat he wanted Little raindrops of joy, one by one, gathering into a hty ocean

I will never let you go, Sam Ever

He could al and shredding as they went until they pierced so deep inside a viscous heat began spilling from his core

‘You’re ain, an echo without sound, but she didn’t wake He slipped under the cover, her legs and hips warainst his chilled skin That woke her, the rerey

‘Why are you so cold?’

‘I was thinking,’ he answered and her mouth curved

‘Night’s for drea closed again She wrapped her arainst him

It felt so good So right So utterly foreign and right