“What is it about Paris that I just can’t keep my hands off of you?” I ask him in between kisses.“It has nothing to do with Paris and everything to do with my raw sexuality, baby. I’m fucking irresistible,” he growls just before he shoves his tongue down my throat. I can’t argue with that.”

“God, baby, I can’t do this. I can’t pretend I’m not fucking thrilled you’re standing in my house right now.”

“Well,’ I said, ‘Paris is old, is many centuries. You feel, in Paris, all the time gone by. That isn’t what you feel in New York — ’He was smiling. I stopped.‘What do you feel in New York?’ he asked.‘Perhaps you feel,’ I told him, ‘all the time to come. There’s such power there, everything is in such movement. You can’t help wondering—I can’t help wondering—what it will all be like—many years from now.”

“I’m scared of him. I’m disgusted by the vile monster he becomes, this beast he lets out. But I still love him. I’d still do anything for him. I can’t just turn off my heart. I want to, I do, but I can’t. I love him with everything I have and I hate myself for it. Because it’s wrong to love him, I know. It’s so wrong.”

“I didn’t know what to say to that. I just stared at him. He was right, of course he was right, but… “I can’t do my job like this.” “No,” he said, “you can’t.” Then suddenly I felt the first tear slide down my face. “No crying,” he said. Another tear joined the first. I fought not to wipe at them. His hand dropped to his side and he took a deep breath. “That’s not fair. Don’t cry.” “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, but you’re right, I think. I’m pregnant, damn it, not crippled.”

“Quiet,” he repeated on a growl, “I’m about to fuck my wife and the only words I want her saying when I do it are ‘yes’, ‘Tor’, ‘my prince’, ‘baby’ and ‘oh my God’.”