“Hey, Rhubarb, we may need to rethink our approach.”“No, we don’t.”“I’ve only got one hand here, kiddo. Maybe if I grab the middle-”“If you grab the middle, it’ll be the last thing that hand ever does!”He pondered that as if it explained something. “So I’m guessing then you don’t get a lot of company down here.”“Bobby, so help me, I will rip your arm off and beat you with it, do you hear me?”“Okay, geez. Let me just get a look—” He picked her skirt up and pulled it over his head.“Bobby!” She was actually too mortified to even scream so it came out like a squeak from a dying rat.“Dammit, there’s no light under here, can’t see a thing.”Thank God for small blessings. “Get out of there!”“Tell you what, how about you use your spare hand and I use mine on either side of your hips and we yank together.”

“Bobby’s eyes widened. Then he swallowed like there was an anvil in his throat.“You want me...”She waited for him to continue but he didn’t seem capable. So she shifted and the pain brought him back from wherever his glazed gaze had taken him.“You want me to rip your underwear off?”Given the need to clamp her thighs together, she didn’t care how he worded it. She nodded.“I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven,” he murmured.“You will if you don’t watch it, Wichowski. Just...reach under...”

“You know why I’ve always liked your mouth, Rhubarb?” he asked in that whispery voice again, but it was twice as intimate as before. He let go of his prizes and reached up his free hand to rub his thumb over the bottom edge of her lip. Those shivers started again. “Even when you’re calling me names, it’s the perfect shape for kissing.”“There’s no shape for kissing.” She wasn’t quite sure how the words came out. Her brain was completely disconnected and so her mouth had to be on auto-pilot. Which explained why it didn’t do anything when his eyes closed and his lips descended to hers.”

“He finally pulled away, not letting her get further than a few inches, their hips still pressed tight, her gaze held willing captive by his. “It’s me,” he murmured. “And I’m telling you right now, Delilah Anne McGavin, if I have my way, it’s going to stay me for the rest of our lives. You’re mine now and I’m going to do everything in my power to prove it to you.”

“I hate you. You are the reason fungus exists. You are the slime that grows in swamps that even acid can’t break down—”“How long do you plan to keep this up, Rhubarb?”“Why?”“Because I was going to hail down a bottle of beer and I figured you might get thirsty having your mouth open so much.”“Make it a white wine and I’ll keep it short.”“No, you won’t, but it might slow you down. Be right back.”

“I feel you. Inside. In the parts of me I crushed the night my mother died. No matter how I tried to keep you out, you got in and I couldn't let you leave me behind. So listen to me when I say this. My life is yours. You're the reason I'll stay alive. The only goddamn reason.”

“I’ve known since the first moment I saw you and every day after has only made me surer. I see who you are, right down to your soul. I know you’re the kind of woman who gives of herself, completely. I know the promises you make mean more to you than the cost. I know that family is the most important thing to you in the entire world. But most of all, I know that you feel exactly the same thing I do—we belong together, Del. You’re the piece of me that’s been missing all my life and I can tell just looking that I’m the same for you.”