“Luke, you have to know, it won’t be like the other guys. If it’s you, it’ll be worse.” My voice went softer, lower, barely a whisper. “If this goes bad, it’ll destroy me.”

“Wherever it takes me, good to know in the end, it’ll lead back to you.”

“It’ll be all right, my love,” he assured me quietly. “Right,” I whispered, not believing him. His hand brought mine to his chest as his other hand came out, hooked me around the neck and pulled me to him. “If it isn’t, I’ll make it so,” he declared. “That’s a vow.”

“I’m taking my mortal as my mate. You love me, I love you, we’re connected, what we have is beautiful and that’s all it’ll ever be. For eternity. Until the end of days. Until the sun falls from the sky, all you and I will share is beauty.”

“I’d had a really bad day and you hurt me.”His hand at my jaw tensed and he kept whispering when he said, “I’ll probably do it again, Red,because I’m a man and any man can be a dick. But I won’t do it like that, not again. I know you got softunder that attitude and I’ll have a mind to that.”

“So promise me, right now, my dick still inside you, you naked on top of me in bed, us sharing what we just shared, us having a taste of what it’s like apart and knowin’ we’re better together, you won’t leave me.”

“He raped me, Agent Calhoun, he hit me but he didn’t kill me. As long as I’m breathing,I’ve got fight in me and luckily I’m breathing.”It was at that he whispered, “You aren’t like a lot of women.”“Yes I am,” I whispered back. “I’m like all women. You see this but inside there’ssomething else that I won’t let you see or him see but it’s the mess he left me. But that’smine. No one gets to it. Everything you get and he gets is a show. One thing you learn reallyquickly and really well when that kind of thing happens to you is to be a fucking greatactress. You don’t have a choice in that because a man like that does something like that toyou, you lose having choices. The only choice you have is what role you intend to play. Ipicked my role and that… that Agent Calhoun is what you see.”