‘I know. I know that in here.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘But I can’t make the message get through somehow.’
‘You gave up on love?’
‘Yeah. I thought I’d just have a series of sex partners instead. Keep it light. Play at it without stepping over the line.’
‘It’s about control,’ I said.
‘You think?’ He stuck his tongue out at me. Yeah, I know it was obvious, but it was worth saying.
‘Well, it is. You lost control when you fell for Ava. You don’t want to lose it again. I can understand that. Loss of control is very frightening. When it isn’t negotiated, that is. It’s quite fun when you give it away.’
I quirked my lips at him.
‘See, I don’t like this,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You know too much. And I might like you too much. It’s not what I envisaged when I decided to seduce you.’
‘You thought, a few weeks of fun ordering me about and then I’d move on when the cataloguing job was done?’
‘A summer of submission,’ he said. ‘I know I sound heartless.’
I put my hand on his arm.
‘I don’t think you’re heartless,’ I said. ‘But you have to accept that other people have hearts too. And they sometimes give them to you.’
‘Keep them,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do with them.’
I looked up at the stars.
‘It’ll be September soon.’
‘And you’ll fly away with the harvest moon.’
He put his arm around me.
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it?’ I whispered.
‘It was.’
I leaned into his shoulder.
‘What do you want now?’
‘I want you to stay here. I want to keep you here, locked up in my attic, where you can’t escape me.’
My heart was skipping beats all over the place, like a smudged CD. But I had to keep my head.
‘I don’t think that would go down very well at the South Coast Heritage Park.’
‘The where? Is that where you’re going when you finish here?’
‘They’ve offered me a job, yes. In the Victorian House museum. It starts at the end of next month.’
He was silent for a moment, picking up my forearm and frowning at the bruises. He kissed each one, gently as a whisper.
‘Bloody real people,’ he muttered. ‘Bloody real people with their real lives and real jobs and real feelings. Why can’t you be one of my characters? Throw it all aside and give yourself to me?’
‘You don’t really want me to.’
‘Yes, I do.’