The heat had become bearable that night, but inside Clare's apartment there was something much more scorching than the Madrid summer. It was their bodies. Their breath. The charged silence they shared with Pedro, there on the sofa, where their eyes sought each other more than words.

He had touched her. Kissed her. Tasted her as if her desire were sustenance. But he had stopped at the edge of the abyss.

Now, there, she could think of nothing else. The thin sheet covering her naked skin felt ...