“Is he my competition?” I asked.“Everyone is your competition.” Peter lifted his hand to hiseyes and began lowering it incrementally. “It goes normal humanbeings, crazies, republicans, my hand, imaginary characters,corpses and then, in a moment of lustful psychosis, you.” By thetime he was done, his hand was below the table.Ouch.”

“He reached for my hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed my fingertips. "I love you.”

“You just couldn’t wait to get me naked, could you, Princess?” Loki asked tiredly. I started to pull my hand back, but he put his own hand over it, keeping it in place.“No, I—I was checking for wounds,” I stumbled. I wouldn’t meet his gaze.“I’m sure.” He moved his thumb, almost caressing my hand, until it hit my ring. “What’s that?” He tried to sit up to see it, so I lifted my hand, showing him the emerald-encrusted oval on my finger. “Is that a wedding ring?”“No, engagement.” I lowered my hand, resting it on the bed next to him. “I’m not married yet.”“I’m not too late, then.” He smiled and settled back in the bed.“Too late for what?” I asked.“To stop you, of course.” Still smiling, he closed his eyes.”

“It's only his thumb brushing slowly across the lower edge of my lip, but it's as if time slows and the sweep of that thumb below my mouth takes forever. It is no spell that I know of, but it holds such magic, I can scarcely breath. He pulls his hand away fast, aware of what he's done. But his touch lingers.”

“don’t make me walk back without being beside you, holding your hand.” He lowered one arm from my waist to draw my hand to his lips. “I’ve lived for two hundred years with only the imagination of what it would be like to touch this,”—he moved my hand over his mouth, kissing each knuckle—“to hold this . . .” When my breath became weak, he lowered it from his lips, but kept it firmly in his hand. “Please allow me to escort you back to the house?”

“I felt a warm hand on the skin of my lower back.”I twisted my neck, looked up and there he was.I held my breath and he asked, “You comin’ or what?”That was it. That was his pickup line. “You comin’ or what?”I went.”