“He should have known someone like Lucien de Malheur would offer no loyalty, no male solidarity.”

“They had known each other for many years. Young Jacob had found his way onto a ship borne for the tropics, indentured to a pair of wealthy male planters, and he’d run away, ending up at the decaying ruins of La Briere, the plantation house of the de Malheurs. Lucien had been living there alone, the only survivor of a virulent outbreak of cholera, and the two young men, barely more than boys, had bonded together, determined to escape.”

“He released her hand back in her own lap. "Sometimes you give up what you love to stay alive.""Have you ever had to do that?"He turned his head to look at her so long it should have been dangerous, but he seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to the road. "It's coming," he said.And he turned away, driving into the slowly dawning day.”

“Takashi had no choice, and he'd always known it. This was one reason he'd triedso hard not to care about anyone, one reason why he'd known immediately just how dangerous Summer Hawthorne could be. Because now she was the one he couldn't sacrifice, couldn't walk away from, no matter how high the stakes. He could die for what he believed in. He just couldn't let her die as well.”

“He tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her toward him in the darkness. He knew exactly how she’d respond, her other hand coming up to push him away, her hand touching the bare, hot skin of his chest so that she drew back in surprise, long enough for him to wrap her tightly against his chest, trapping her hand between them. He knew she’d try to jerk her head away when he slid his hand into her hair and tilted her face back for his kiss. And he knew she’d open her mouth for him.What he hadn’t guessed was what it would feel like. [...]He hadn’t known a mouth could feel like that. That a woman, an argumentative, reluctant woman could feel so hot in his arms, so incredibly right that his monumental self control could start to slip.”

“A moment later he was sent sprawling on a hard wood floor. The idiots left him alone – why they thought a simple bash on the head would keep him immobile for long was beyond him. They wouldn’t have much of a career if they made mistakes like this. There were times when the incompetence of the enemy was simply an insult.”

“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.”