“As she stepped off the platform, the material parted and he got a gimpse of stockinged feet and slender calves, a single lacy blue garter.His body tightened.He'd been hard off and on for hours.Now his shaft filled again, lengthened and began to throb. Silently he cursed.If he didn't know this was often the way selections were made, he would have wondered if Grace might not be torturing him on purpose.She had seduced him on the ship, he recalled, instantly wishing he hadn't as the ache in his groin grew worse.”

“Ethan! What on earth are you doing?""Excuse us,please.It is very warm in here and my wife has begun to feel a little faint." With a smile fixed on his face,giving a series of the same brief explanation,he carried her through the crush,out the front door of the mansion,along the gravel drive to where his carriage was parked."Home,Jennings," he said to the coachman as a footman opened the door. "And don't spare the horses." Setting her swiftly on the carriage seat, he climbed in and took a place beside her."Are you insane?" Grace stared at him with disbelief as the matched pair of grays stepped into their traces and the coach jolted forward. "We can't just leave. We're the guests of honor! What will people think?""They will thank that I am ravenous for my wife's lovely body,and I am.""But-""Another word,Grace, and I swear I will take you right here."Her eyes widened for an instant, then she sat back on the seat of the carriage, careful to keep facing forward, casting him only an occasional sideways glance.If his body hadn't been throbbing with such urgent need,he might have smiled.”

“I can't believe this." Temper still high, she planted her hands on her hips. "For weeks, I have imagined you making love to me.I even tried to seduce you." So he had been right about that. "Now-when we are in the middle of the Duke of Sheffield's ball-you decide you want me.""I've never stopped wanting you,Grace."She started to back away. "You made me look like a fool."Ethan stalked to her, matching her step for step. Now that his mind was made up,he intended to have her and soon. "You didn't look the least like a fool. You looked like a woman whose husband desired her."Her back came up against the door."You...you are still the pirate you were aboard your ship!""That's right.And I intend to plunder the treasure I acquired the day we were wed.”

“I didn't think you would be able to find me.I was so frightened..."He took hold of her hand, brought it to his lips. "I would have looked forever if I'd had to.”

“Hawk was like a man gone mad. He'd hardly slept all night for worrying about her, and here she was, calmly riding back to Fort Laramie and her lover. He longed, at that moment, to put his hands around her slender throat and choke some sense into her.”

“Wait and see," Claire said excitedly. "Your husband will not be able to resist you."Grace hoped Claire was right.Since the night he had kissed her in the drawing room after their disastrous dinner party,he had done a magnificent job of exactly that.”

“Step by step she lived over every instant of the time she had been with Robert... She recalled his words, his looks. How few and meager they had been for her hungry heart! ... She wondered when he would come back. He had not said he would come back. She had been with him had heard his voice and touched his hand. But some way he had seemed nearer to her off there in Mexico.”