“I already live like you," Evan lifted his head and looked straight into Christian's eyes. "I'm living like you right now, without her. If she leaves me when I ask her to marry me, or at the altar, or tomorrow, I could still say I tried. I could still say I loved her, that I kissed her, I held her." Evan inhaled a deep breath, his chest swelling with the intensity of it. "Without her, I'll just rot into nothing.”

“Evan …” she murmured, wrapping her soft arms around his neck. Their position had her lips near his ear. She’d lost her headband somewhere. He could smell the strawberry of her shampoo, feel the tickle of her sluggish breath stirring his hair. “Evan.”“Kelsey. Move over here, lie down.”She pulled back slightly, her bleary eyes trying to focus on his. The weight of her head still seemed too much for her neck to support and her hair flowed over his arm. “Evan, I always liked you.”“I always liked you, too, honey.” The way she kept saying his name in that intoxicated purr, savoring the v between her teeth and her bottom lip, was unnerving. Unnerving, hell. It had his dick twitching in his pants. “Come on, girl, you need to sleep it off.”“I mean I like liked you.”[…] Her hands caught his face, surprising him. He should have moved away from her long ago, before she could get her hands on him. As it was, he felt like a fly caught in the sticky gossamer of a spider’s den. “Always wanted to fuck you, y’know that? Even when I was a virgin.”He drew in a breath, exhaled it shakily. So much for prudish.Note to self: Kelsey now gets unbelievably horny when drunk.”

“What did you say to the messanger mi'lady? Do you remember the exact words of your last proposal?" "I probably said, "Will you marry me?" Connor smiled. He pulled her toward him, lowered his head and kissed her just long enough to stun her. He lifted his head then, looked into her eyes, and finally spoke to her. "Yes Brenna. I will marry you.”

“I kissed her.  I kissed her so thatshe could feel my regret, my desire to do right, the way that she had a pieceof me now and I wasn’t letting go.  I kissed her because I had to and kissingher made me feel better.  When I lifted my head her mouth looked puffy and dampand her eyes were glassy with banked passion.I missed you too.”

“Then I looked right at Mama, for the first time in what seemed like forever, and she wasn't looking at me, but into me. She was pulling me to her with her eyes, like she used to do. All of a sudden I could see the light that was Mama's shining out of her eyes. I couldn't help smiling at it.'Be careful,' my heart warned me.But I was having a hard time remembering that there as anything to be careful about. Because if I just looked at Mama's eyes...I could tell that the part of her I thought had gone away forever was still there and glowing, only from deep down inside her.”

“Over and over I had to reassure her. “You hate me,” she would say. “Lori, I don’t hate you. I love you.” Finally it began to dawn on me. When she challenged me like that, she wasn’t making a statement. She was asking a question. And she needed to hear the answer. She needed to hear that I still accepted her. She needed to hear that I still cared for her. Over and over again she needed to hear me tell her that I loved her.”