“And she didn’t want to escape. She wanted to be kissed in the sunlight by a gorgeous man. She just wanted some other man, not this complicated creature who had more secrets than she could even begin to imagine.But it didn’t matter what her brain wanted. Her body, her mouth, her soul wanted him, and she heard a quiet little sound of desire and knew that it had come from her.”

“He slid his arm under her waist, hauled her up, and entered her that way, sliding in deep, so deep, and her guttural cry was a heartbreaking pleasure.He couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t let him. She twisted her head around and kissed him, and he wanted to keep on and on, to fill her mouth, her body, her soul with him. To have her take everything and then want more.”

“She expected annoyance, tolerance, perhaps even a distant amusement. She hadn’t expected his reaction.His arms closed around her like a vice, pulling her tightly up against him. And she didn’t have time to kiss him—the touch of her mouth against his seemed to ignite a firestorm. She could feel him through every inch of her body, the lean, deceptively strong body beneath the suit, the heat and lure of muscle and sinew, the sheer intensity of him. She felt as if she were being absorbed into a maelstrom, and all she could do was hold onto him as he kissed her, he kissed her, using his tongue, kissing her with a thoroughness she’d never experienced.”

“He kissed the salty tears from her cheeks, her jaw, her neck. And then he kissed her mouth, slowly at first, tasting her pain and despair. Tasting her desire.He didn’t know whether he turned her in his arms, or whether she shifted herself. He only knew she was astride him, facing him, her long legs wrapped around his hips, and the kissing had gone long past comfort.”

“Without his shirt she could see just how bony he was, probably twenty or thirty pounds under his fighting weight from his years in captivity. He loomed over her, and she finally understood her ambivalence. He had protected her, killed for her, led her to safety. He was safety.But he was also big and raw and so elementally male that it made her teeth sweat. She’d spent most of her life blissfully above the calls of the flesh and the dark, desperate couplings that subsumed others. She didn’t like sex, didn’t want sex. Body parts were simply that. She looked at MacGowan and thought about sex.”

“Your holiness!" She raised her voice, forcing herself to sound tearful andsupplicatory. "If we are to die, would you let me kiss him one last time?"She half expected Taka to react to her uncharacteristic behavior, but he didn'tmove, didn't look at her. He was kneeling in the frozen dirt beside her, every inch of him alert, and she was probably the least of his concerns."You want to kiss the man who tried to kill you? You are a very foolish youngwoman," the Shirosama said. "Go ahead."Taka turned to her, his eyes dark and unreadable, waiting. She reached up, put her mouth against his and whispered, "I have a knife that's fallen down the front of my shirt, you son of a bitch. See if you can get it." The feel of his lips against hers was agony. The sickness deep inside her was that she wanted to kiss him anyway, no matter what he'd done.”

“She felt hot, strong, alive against him, and he found he had this crazy urge to move his mouth down to the side of her neck, to press it against her, to taste her skin. He wanted to feel her breasts, wanted to pull her T-shirt up and feel her hot skin against his. Damn, he wanted her.”