When I make love to you,’ he said in a low whisper right by my ear, ‘I want to be able to give you one hundred percent of my attention. Right now, with the Unit on our tail, I’m going to be giving you less than fifty percent. I’ve got one eye on the door and one on you, not to mention a gun under the pillow. Not exactly the accessory I imagined.

So we have twenty-four hours to keep out of trouble,’ he says to me.I slide a glance in his direction. Judging from the way he’s now grimacing at the sidewalk and the fact that I met him in a police station where he was being booked for stealing a car, I’m guessing that staying out of trouble is not his forte.

Trust me,’ he says with a touch of impatience.‘Stop asking me to do that,’ I say, equally as impatiently.

I need a favour.’I raise my eyebrows at him in disbelief. What makes him think I’m about to do him a favour? He’s a stranger. And he’s wearing handcuffs.

I nodded. I was ready. In fact I was so ready that if he didn’t do something soon, if he didn’t touch me in the next five seconds, it was very possible I might die. Right there on the bed. Still a virgin.

He kept his eyes on mine, his gaze unblinking, and I stared right back into the blue. He moved almost imperceptibly and in the space between a heartbeat his lips touched mine.

In his arms I’ve finally found the place I’ve been looking for, where fear can’t touch me, where memories can’t reach, where the past is forgotten and the present is enough. Where the present is, in fact, all that matters.