He didn’t know what it was like, wanting something you could never have; how impossible it was to un-want it once you’d let the feeling in.

Her head was pressed against his chest and she could hear the erratic beat of his heart, its pulse matching her own. She felt it too—the exhilaration, and underneath it the thin electrifying undercurrent of fear, at the forbiddenness of what they were about to do.

She nodded, breaking every promise to herself, loving him.

Her body was reacting instinctively to his nearness, like a plant that had been too long in the dark and was finally exposed to sunlight.