“My gaze flew to him once more,noting the cigarette he set down even as he exhaled a long plume of white."Why are you lying there smoking while I'm chained to a wall?"I demanded.The look he gave me was a mixture of relief and cynicism."Since it seems you don't remember anything about the past two days,let me assure you,luv-I earned that smoke.”

“Winston Gallagher!" I said, recognizing the first ghost I'de met. Then my eyes narrowed & I covered my hand in front of my crotch as I saw Winstons gaze fasten there next. "Don't even think about poltergeisting my panties again". "This is the sod? Come here you scurvy little--" "Bones don't!" I interrupted. He stopped, giving a last glare to him while mouthing YOU. ME. EXORCIST. before returning to my side.”

“If I didn’t want you so much,” he said in a deadly purr, “I’d let you keep fucking me with your gaze, but you make me impatient.”

“You do that, and I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about you."He grinned, his mood changing from serious to wicked in an instant. "Why? I'm all those things and more."I shook my head. Ian was more proud of his depravity than anyone I'd met, but if he helped me pull Bones out from under four bespelled vampires and one demonically-enchanced vamp, I'd shower him with prostitutes and porn while swearing he was an angel.”

“Then he leaned down, breath warm on my neck as he whispered his next words. "You've wondered if I felt differently about you since your abilities diminished. Let this serve as your answer.”

“I missed you, Kitten,” he growled. Then his mouth crushed over mine, his kiss more filled with raw need than romantic welcome. That was fine; I felt the same way. Aside from my compulsive urge to run my hands over him to assure myself that he was really here, relief, happiness, and the most profound feeling of rightness zoomed through me, settling all the way to my core. I hadn’t realized how deeply I’d missed Bones until that very moment, hadn’t let myself acknowledge how everything felt off when I was apart from him. On some levels, it was frightening how much a part of me he’d become. It let me know just how much I’d crumble if anything happened to him. “Why didn’t you answer your mobile earlier?” Bones murmured once he lifted his head. “I tried you several times. Tried Mencheres, too. Even Tepesh. None of you answered. Scared the wits out of me, so I stowed away on a FedEx plane to make sure you were all right.” “You came all the way from Ohio because I didn’t answer the phone?” I was torn between laughter and disbelief. “God, Bones, that’s a little crazy.” And it was, except the part of me that had had images of his tombstone dancing in my head because he hadn’t answered his phone earlier was nodding in complete understanding. Despite all our protestations, we were so alike when it came to fear over the other’s safety, and I doubted we’d ever change. “Crazy,” I repeated, my voice roughening with the surge of emotion in me. “And have I told you lately. that your crazy side . . . is your sexiest side?” He chuckled before his mouth swooped back over mine in another dizzying kiss. Then he picked me up, brushing past Vlad and Mencheres without even a hello, though I doubted either of them was surprised.”

“But the main point is that he still had swimmers in his sacks.”“Excuse me?”“You know, luv. Sperm, if you want to be all technical about it. He still had living sperm in his juice."Cat and Bones”