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Abel yanked her so roughly that she thought her shoulder might come out of its socket. ‘Oh – wait!’ He turned on the spot.

‘If there’s some Bath-based curse you’ve fallen under where you turn into loofah at midnight, I can’t help you anymore.’

‘No: your present. Here.’ He snatched up the well-used briefcase from the ground and laid it gently on the bench.

‘Do you need me to witness some documents or something?! This doesn’t really feel like the time,’ she teased.

Abel pushed back the two brass lock plates and opened the lid.

It wasn’t what Temperance was expecting from a 1960s-looking briefcase: Doritos, homemade sandwiches and cartons of Ribena. ‘I thought we could pick up where we left off – a picnic, like old times?’ He smiled cheesily.

‘Oh.’ She pressed her hands over her thumping heart. ‘But why a . . .’ Her eyes lit up with realisation. ‘It’s not the same briefcase, is it?’ She was equally horrified and impressed.

The tips of Abel’s ears turned red. ‘When we had to return it to your mum after that drinking session, I’d done my best to clean it out but it was . . . permanently damaged.’

‘So was my stomach chemistry.’

He laughed. ‘She suggested I could help her change the lining over, as a sort of life lesson, I think. I actually really enjoyed it. It was, um,’ he swallowed, ‘supposed to be your seventeenth birthday present. Stashed it in Gran’s attic when I left, not sure why.

I put your initials there.‘ He pointed at the edging of leather than ran in a thin strip around the inside, and the letters TEM that had been branded in place. ‘Seeing as the gift was the same, I thought I’d keep the snacks from back in the day. But if you don’t eat these anymore .

. .’ He picked up the crisps and Temperance snatched them back like a wild puma.

‘You will not part me from my Doritos.’

‘I got that right, at least. Sorry it’s twelve years overdue.’

Temperance ran her hands over the Liberty lawn that Abel had replaced the original with.

It was Betsy, her favourite print – Lee must have steered him towards it.

She could see where his stitches were – he’d picked a pretty obvious red thread colour and it ran haywire all over the place. But it was perfect.

‘Thank you. Abel, it’s . . . it’s the best present, ever. I love it. It’s so . . . me . A bit of our past. I mean, it’s such a good present that you’ve now unlocked a whole new area of certificate-18 Temperance content. Get your arse to the shop. Right now.’

The ‘undressing each other like it was the last ten seconds of life on Earth’ was not difficult.

Abel pressing Temperance up against the cool office wall in just her bra and knickers was not difficult: it was incredibly hot.

She had no idea how her legs were keeping her upright when her entire body was now made of molten lava, and especially when he grabbed one thigh and pulled it up around his hip.

The tricky bit came when they went to lie down.

Very few vintage stores come with a bed.

‘Wait,’ he gasped, his breath jagged, ‘I’ve got an idea. And if we ruin it, I’ll just give you all my money. I don’t care.’ He dashed to the front door, in just his boxers, and for one heart-lurching moment Temperance thought he was going again, out the door and out of her life.

But he stopped just shy of the door and used both hands to lift out the huge orange fake fur.

‘This thing’s so thick it’s like a camp bed.’ His smile was filthy and infectious.

‘OK,’ Temperance breathed.

He came back to her in the office, laying the jacket down and then shutting the door firmly behind him.

They knelt down together, then lay down, on their sides, face to face.

The inner lining of the coat was purple satin and it was like an iceberg butting up against a volcano: Temperance felt sure the heat of her body would melt it into nothing.

Abel ran his hand from the back of her neck, over her shoulders, down to her hip, and let it rest behind her knees.

His eyes stayed locked on hers, as if wanting to read the tiniest indications of where she liked to be touched.

Temperance felt like she was caught in the headlights of his gaze and all of a sudden it was almost too intense, too much.

She followed the line of his tattoo with her index finger, three neat peaks of waves in the sea.

‘It must have been hard, leaving the beach behind when you left. I know how much you love it.’

His grey eyes were still looking deep down into hers.

‘That wasn’t the hard bit, Temperance. And the tattoo – it’s not just about the sea.

’ He put his fingers over hers, pressing her touch into his skin.

‘Three waves. You, me and Suse. How I feel about the village, my home, is all wrapped up in you guys. I had to pretend that I didn’t care, Tee, but a part of me never left.

You and Suse were my world. Are my world. ’

She blinked. ‘You’re not planning on doing this with her, are you? Because Doritos will get you a lot but they won’t get you that.’

‘Temperance Molland, you’re talking way too much,’ he murmured, closing the few inches between them.

His kisses changed tempo from inviting to exploring to owning, and he held her head with both hands, as if to fix her in place – now underneath him – forever.

Every joint, every muscle in Temperance melted away and then snapped back into life.

She was used to reading a multitude of emotions with her powers and sifting carefully through each one but never had she been hit with a hundred intense bursts of feeling like this, all at once: the hardness of his knee as it pushed between her thighs, the scratch of his stubble against her collarbone, how his hands were soft but urgent, how ready she was for him, how hungry for this moment so many years in the making.

‘God, Temperance,’ he muttered against the skin at the top of her breasts. ‘Can I?’ He slid the bra straps from each of her shoulders and reached for the clasp around her back.

The noise she made didn’t quite form a word but her frantic nodding got the message across.

As she leant up, she reached her arms around him, behind his back, pulling him in and keeping the contact between them complete and unbroken.

Her head was spinning and her pulse was racing but all she knew was that she had to put her skin on his skin, there was no other feeling like this. She kissed his shoulders, his neck.

‘Fuck,’ Abel whispered. Now her bra had been flung onto Susie’s desk, his hands were free to skim over her tits, cupping the weight of them, his thumbs grazing her nipples, making her shiver with delight. ‘I’ve thought about this for so long,’ he breathed, as his head moved lower.

Temperance could only gasp in response when his tongue ran over her most sensitive skin, her back arching up to meet him. ‘ Yes .’

‘What have you thought about?’ he whispered, his mouth moving to her other breast.

Temperance could feel a rich curl of pleasure unfurl between her legs. ‘Your . . . ugh . . . hands, and your arms. Your mouth. What you could do to me. Oh god.’ His teeth held her nipple for one ecstatic moment.

Abel’s breath was suddenly hot against her stomach as he slid his hands under her knickers and pulled them down and off. His hands took hold of the top of her thighs, moving them apart gently. ‘There’s so much I want to do to you, Temperance.’

She felt his tongue moving slowly, pushing deep into her, setting her on fire. Temperance’s fingers wove themselves into his hair as her hips started to sway and stir. His hands snaked back up her body while his mouth was busy, and he found her tits again, squeezing and kneading them relentlessly.

‘Abel, Abel. Please .’

She couldn’t bear any distance between them: she needed to see him over her, now.

Abel was up on his arms, his biceps working, coming back to her, stopping only to tug off his boxers.

Temperance could feel how hard and hot he was, against her stomach.

The surge of almost egotistical pleasure rang through her whole being, as if at last she could truly believe that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

His voice was only just there, broken and gravelly. ‘I’m not sure I can wait any longer.’

‘I can’t either.’ And somehow she knew he didn’t just mean today: he meant all the lonely years that were behind them now, put to rest .

As Abel pushed inside her, in one certain, easy movement, Temperance felt herself open up like never before.

A burst of warmth began in her hips but quickly filled her entire body, pulsing right down into her tingling fingertips and behind her eyes, her vision filled with a wash of royal blue that changed into bright white, like the very centre of a flame.

‘Holy shit,’ she gasped. She could feel him everywhere .

Abel didn’t move for a moment, his weight on his elbows, his thumb along her cheekbone, his voice in her ear. ‘Is that . . . Tee? What – I’ve never felt – fuck.’

‘Me too,’ she whispered back.

And if she didn’t know better – if she didn’t know she’d given up her powers in a trade off with a much bigger force – she would have said the feeling was pure magic.