“(Sam) “Wait a minute … there are others like you?”He offered her his best grin, the one the ladies loved. “Honey, there’s no one like me.”

“(Aiden) “Sam, honey, I can smell your scent when you’re at the other end of your house, on a different floor. I can feel your heartbeat in my head. Your blood … it’s in me, Sam, enriched from the meals I cook for you with my own hands. Believe me, baby, I’ll know you’re there. And I will never hurt you.”

“He caught her hand. “What do you want from me, Grace?”That was easy. “Everything.” She wanted to touch his chest, but since he held her hand prisoner, she insinuated one leg between his legs, delighting in what it did to his breathing. “I don’t want you to hold anything back. I don’t want you to be so careful with me all the time.”“Grace….”“I want you to give me as much as I can take, and then I want you to give me more.”“Like I did last night?”His voice was rough, laced with self-disgust. God help her, she’d never loved him more.”

“I want to marry you because you’re the one, Nita. Period.” He pinned her with his gaze, fierce and outrageously blue. “I’ve never felt like this before. I want to lie beside you and just listen to you breathe. When I’ve had a shitty day, I want to come home to you and lay my head in your lap and feel your hands on my face. And when you’ve had a shitty day and it feels like one more straw is gonna break your back, I want to be there to carry the load for you. I want you to tell me your darkest fears, and be able to tell you mine.”

“She turned away in dismissal, only to have him grab her hand and whirl her around again. Before her startled gasp died, his mouth was on hers, his fingers buried in her hair. [...]He tasted like nothing she’d ever tasted before. Like dark fantasy. Like the sweetest temptation imaginable. And his scent! He smelled of cool night air and warm leather jacket and heated male skin.”

“He gathered her carefully into his arms, tucking her head into his shoulder and aligning her frozen limbs with his. She felt stiff enough to shatter, but bit by bit, her muscles began to relax until she lay pliant against him. Pliant and sleeping. It didn’t take very long. Maybe fifteen minutes.Fifteen minutes for her to regain herself.Fifteen minutes for him to lose himself.”

“Why did you call me?” he said.The question took her aback. She touched her tongue to her upper lip in a gesture she hoped would distract him. “I should think that would be obvious by now.”He smiled. “Honey, that was obvious from the first time we locked horns in the court room.”