the house, her in front with a few logs in her arms and him behind her, carrying the rest of the load, the cat following in their wake and treading carefully to avoid the patches of snow. Penny cursed herself a million times for the first words she’d said to him. She should have jumped on him, clasped him in her arms, kissed him from here to kingdom come.
They entered the house, and Tiger curled up on the couch in a beam of sunshine. Marcus and Penny put the logs in the basket, and then Penny stood with her back to him, struggling with her emotions, while he fumbled with matches and kindling, lighting the fire. And then she said another idiotic thing: ‘Are you visiting the area?’
What had happened to her brain? Was she in some kind of trance? Her mind was almost blank, filled only with tumbleweeds and a vague sense of panic. Her grandma and Thomas smiled down at her in encouragement from their photos on the shelf, two pieces of the puzzle that was Penny’s life. Penny couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, except to utter that one ridiculous question.
‘No,’ Marcus replied firmly. ‘I finally found your message and I came. Are you glad to see me? I want you to tell me: should I stay or should I go?’
His body was talking to her too, and as he spoke, he took a few steps closer to where she was standing, still and full of pent-up tears, with that one long braid on her breast, her cheeks flaming like the sun, and a tumult of love pounding in her chest. The fire was blazing now as he rose to stand behind her, his arms drawing her into his embrace.
‘I love you, body and soul,’ he whispered, and Penny’s legs went weak. Her grandma, from the photo, told her not to be afraid, reminding her once again that love is a miracle.
So she turned to look Marcus in the eye and said, ‘Not as much as I love you.’
He stared solemnly at her for a moment, running his eyes over every millimetre of her face, one hand on the nape of her neck, his other thumb running slowly along the line of her mouth, as if painting it with his fingertips. And then he pulled off the band fastening her braid so that it spilled out into a cascade of liquid copper, and finally he kissed her. Penny’s heart flew past the tops of the maple trees outside, thirsty for the spring. Marcus’s kisses were deep and sensual, sending shivers of longing throughout her body. Gentle, but with a bold promise of mischief to come, his hands began to wander and she grew desperate to feel his weight upon her.
They slipped down on to the patchwork rug, under Tiger’s lazy gaze. Marcus removed his jacket and sweater, the broadness of his chest thrilling Penny as much now as it had in the old days. She remembered his silken skin, his firm muscles, his bold tattoos, the leather cord around his neck with the silver crocodile, and was as enchanted by it all as she had been their very first time together. She touched him delicately, like he was a painting, feeling the soft roughness of the canvas beneath her fingers. The tribal tattoos, the stingray, that heart pierced by thorns . . .
‘What does that one symbolise?’ she asked.
‘That’s how I used to be,’ he replied, ‘once upon a time – back when I knew nothing, back when I didn’t know you. Enough talking now.’
He ripped off her chequered jacket, only to find her button-down shirt underneath. Hoarsely, he whispered, ‘Any more layers – maybe you got a wetsuit on under there? Shit, Penny, I’m gonna die if I don’t get to fuck you soon.’
‘Refined as ever, I see,’ she quipped.
Stripping off in front of him made her feel small and exposed, but only for an instant. Seeing his naked body in front of her lit a burning desire, pure and brutal, deep within her. An intense answering hunger gleamed in Marcus’s eyes, and yet she saw him stop and make a face, as if he’d suddenly remembered something essential, and he murmured in pain and frustration, ‘If I can’t be inside you I’m gonna have a heart attack, I swear, but I don’t have a condom on me.’
She pulled him to her, their bellies rubbing together. ‘Be inside me anyway.’
Grabbing her hair in his fist, Marcus shoved his