“He saw with pleasure he’d been wrong. The nervous tension and vulnerability she radiated were real, but so too was the core of strength to her. She was simply too smart and too determined to let him get to her, despite the cost evident in her stiff back and tense mouth.He was beginning to quite like his new librarian.”

“He entered her in a single hard thrust, opening her, stretching her and forcing a moan of surprise from her. She was ready, so ready, and yet totally unprepared. She’d been wrong. She was still virgin to this, to his strength and her need, to the pleasure and the pain and the sheer triumph of having him. He drove into her and she rose to him, clutched him tighter, harder. Her nails raked and dug into his back, her teeth into his neck.”

“I’m,” he swallowed thickly, unsure of why he wanted-no needed to explain hisbehavior to her. “I am not comfortable amongst the ton. I’m a solitary person, I keep my own counsel, and prefer to do so.”“You’re lonely.”He stopped then, shocked by her words, by her perception of him. He’d madehimself vulnerable, let himself weaken as her soft body melded with his. She saw too much, knew too much.“This,” he said, his voice cracking with desire, with the pain of what he knew he must do. “I can’t….”“Just let me in,” she whispered.“I’m afraid you would not like what you see.”“Trust me,” she said, her tempting mouth only inches away from his.-Blaine and Madeline.”

“She let him finish her sentences for her for so long that now he starts them too.”

“He clasped her fingers, not so she could pull him up but clearly because he wanted to touch them. She wanted it too, way too much, and then he stood there right in front of her, the abyss beside them, and she could smell his skin and his hair, and let go of his hand, even though she secretly wanted something quite different.”

“Sebastian closed his eyes, his chin sinking toward his chest. How long he’d been trapped by those words, afraid to scare her away. How long he’d hoped that after she dealt with Ian’s ghost she would one day turn to him. Her confession of her relationship with Ian while they sat in the tree had been one step, her willingness to let him pleasure her another, and yet still it wasn’t enough. He wanted everything: her trust, her joy, her heart, her vulnerability.”