“Pickaxes?" Alex screwed up his brow. "What do you plan to do with those in Bristol, Pooele? Beat upon little old ladies?”

“Can—” She caught her lip in her teeth. “Can you tell me . . . ? How does one breathe?”Very unsteadily while those eyes gazed up at him. “Breathe?”“While kissing.” Not easy. He tried to moderate his voice. “In the usual manner, I imagine.”Her slender brows dipped.“At opportune moments,” he suggested.Her lips twisted up in that manner he both dreaded and longed for.“Through one’s nose, perhaps,” he said, because his only refuge was to continue speaking or to walk away.“Really?” She appeared unconvinced.And so, because her skepticism suited his need to have her lips beneath his again, he showed her how one breathed while kissing. To her soft gasp of surprise, he took her waist in his hands, bent to her mouth, and kissed her in truth this time. Her lips were warm and still, and then not still as he felt her eager beauty, tasted her, and made her respond.She held back at first, and then she gave herself up to it. Her mouth opened to him as though by nature, offering him a sweet breath of the temptation within. If he’d gone seeking an innocent with more ready hunger he could not have found her. But he had not wanted an innocent. He’d wanted no one, yet here he was with his hands on a girl he could not release, his tongue tracing the seam of sweet, full lips that she parted for him willingly.“Now, breathe,” he whispered against those lips, then he sought her deeper. She made sounds of surrender in the back of her throat. He wanted to run his hands over her body, to pull her to him and make her know what a real kiss could be.“Breathe.” God, she smelled so good. He could press his face against her neck and remain there simply breathing her. But he feared that if he enjoyed much more of Diantha Lucas he would be in a very bad way when it came to giving her over to her stepfather and subsequently her intended. A very bad way indeed. And she didn’t deserve it. Rule #9: A gentleman must always place a lady’s welfare before his own.She slipped her tongue alongside his, gasped a little whimper of pleasure, and he coaxed her lips open and showed her more than how to breathe. He showed her how he wanted her.It was a pity for Miss Lucas’s welfare that no gentleman could be found here, after all.”

“Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.”

“If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.”

“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything”

“Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.”

“Life seems sometimes like nothing more than a series of losses, from beginning to end. That's the given. How you respond to those losses, what you make of what's left, that's the part you have to make up as you go.”