“She expected an easy kiss. Good, perhaps, but not intense. He seemed like a low-key, moderately passionate person. As she’d been, without the right stimulation.Without this.What she got was a glancing blow of lips that soon turned to a furious meshing of mouths and teeth. It wasn’t elegant. It was messy and rough and God help her, bordered on dirty.”

“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.”

“At first it was the complete antithesis of the kiss she’d shared with Matthew. That one had been crazy, emotional. Uncontrolled. This was a gentle mating of lips. Soft, sweet, and easy. He didn’t press for her to grant him access, but she gave it, opening for him with a low moan.”

“When his hard hand cupped her face, an involuntary shiver raced up her spine, but she made no objection Then his lips were on hers.It wasn’t what she expected. Instead of hot demand, there was testing, tasting. He shaped her lips with his, tilting his head this way and that, as though searching for the best angle. Her heart pounding, she conceded they were all good. But she wanted more. Without thought, she opened her mouth against his.She sensed him stiffen, but instead of deepening the kiss, he started to pull back. Abandoning any pretense that she didn’t want this, hadn’t thought about it since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, she caught his head and really kissed him.”

“An instant later, they were kissing. It was no light brush this time, no exploring touch. This was all tongues and teeth and wicked wetness as he kissed her like a man who had rough, sweaty, dirty sex on his mind and didn't care if she knew it.”

“She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. Her mouth was cold, her lips rough from the winter wind, and if the mystics are right and we are doomed to repeat our squalid lives ad infinitum, at least I will always return to that kiss.”