"You let go of me and you're dead."

"You're not being helpful at all," he complained. "I'm trying to learn the nuances. A man is supposed to be subtle, not just go at it like a bull at a gate. The manual promised that this would make you appreciate me more."

"I could hardly appreciate you more than I already do," she said, fingering the part of him she appreciated most at that moment and trying to guide it toward her. "Luke," she pleaded, "couldn't you skip the subtleties and just charge the gate?''

"Woman, where is your heart of romance?"

"Let's be romantic another time. Tonight I'm feeling very, very basic."

"In that case," he said, settling swiftly between her thighs, "let's charge the gate together."

And they did, taking it fast and furious, so that they ended up breathless and full of glory.

"I think," Pippa said between gasps, "that we demolished the gate that time."

Which made them both laugh so hard that they lost their sense of decorum for the second time that night and clasped each other in a state of fierce delight in which subtlety played no part. Even so, there was still tenderness. Luke entered her in the way she loved the most, slowly but strongly, pro-longing the moment to the full so that she felt the hardness of him filling her up, completing her. And when she met his eyes she found a smile there. Not the laughter of before, when he'd been clowning, but a glow that told her they were at one. She smiled back, full of a joy that went beyond physical pleasure, and knowing that there was only him in all the world.

Pippa always remembered that night, because at some point sex became lovemaking. At least, that's what happened for her. How or when it changed, or why it happened just then, was a mystery. But what had been a joyous game with a prize every time, became deeper, more poignant. The prize was still there, as sweet as ever, but suddenly there was a price to be paid. This wasn't just the man who brought her sexual delight. He was the man who laid his head against her breast and fell asleep, as though he trusted her totally, so that she melted with tenderness and a mysterious pleasurable ache.