“She broke up with you again, didn't she?"He flopped back in his chair, lanky legs hooked at the ankles. "She also reserved a tuxedo for me with a cummerbund matched to her formal dress. I sense ambivalence.""Very perceptive.”

“It’s good she hooked up with me, she’s such a nut, she needs a badass to take her back.”

“Now look: Droplets of oil were dotted across the front of her best dress, over the mound of her stomach. She was clumsy and fat-stomached and she didn't even have the sense to wear an apron while she was cooking. Also she had paid way too much for this dress, sixty-four dollars at Hecht's, which would scandalize Ira if he knew. How could she have been so greedy? She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Took a deep breath. Well. Anyhow.”

“Her husband leaned forward on the bed, hands balled into fists. “There’s something you must understand, Brenna. I feel your emotions. I sense when you are upset. Don’t ask me why, I haven’t a clue. But your distress woke me. I’ve been sitting there,” he waved at the chair, “for more than three hours waiting for you to stir.Did she sense his emotions also? She thought maybe she did.”

“She looked up at him with a smile. The smile broke what was left of his resistance - shattered it. He had let the walls down when he'd thought she was gone, and there was no time to build them back up. Helplessly he pulled her against him. For a moment she clung to him tightly, warm and alive in his arms. Her hair brushed his cheek. The color had come back into the world; he could breathe again, and for that moment he breathed her in - she smelled of salt, blood, tears, and Tessa.”

“When he finally broke off the kiss and moved his lips to her neck, then her breast again, sucking her nipples back to hard peaks, Catherine broke from her trance.“No. I really must go. We haven’t time to do this again.” She pushed against hisrestraining hands and wiggled beneath his body. “Let me up now.”He pulled away from her neck and looked up, his eyes as poignant as a spoken plea.Her heart wrenched and she wished she could spend the rest of the day with him, making love in their secret nest in the loft.She sighed. “Don’t give me puppy dog eyes. I’ve got to go.”