“I tried to curl around him, holding him with my arching body. His mouth was slow and searching, the kisses hard at first, then loosening as if unraveling from their own heat. The pleasure thickened, hard flushes rising through me, bringing the desire to full-slip ripeness.”

“Because you need me," he said, drawing in his breath as she squirmed against him. "Just as I need you." He crushed his mouth to hers. "I've needed you for years." Another kiss, this one deep and drugging, his tongue searching her intimately”

“Harry's blood quickened as lurid images filled his mind...her against him, beneath him. That smiling mouth, his alone, her whispers curling into his ear. Her skin, soft and ivory pale in the darkness. Skin heated by skin, sensation emerging as he touched her.She was worth anything, he thought, even giving up the last remnants of his soul.”

“And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes searching. It occurs to me that no one in my life has ever concerned himself so thoroughly with my happiness.”

“I don't share my body heat indiscriminately.”

“Rest,” Logan said. “Both of you.” His caressing gaze moved over his wife and infant daughter.“I'll watch over you.”“Love me?” Madeline asked with a faint smile, and yawned again.“It used to be love.” He brushed his lips over her closed eyelids. “Now there's no word for it.”“You once told me that you thought love was a weakness.”“I was wrong,” he whispered, kissing the corners of her mouth. “I've discovered it's my onlystrength.”Madeline fell asleep with a smile still on her lips, her hand curled around his.”

“You'll be my wife," he said inexorably."You want to own me!" she accused, trying to crawl away from him."Yes." He flung her down on the bed and flattened his weight on her. As he spoke, his hot breath fannedher mouth and chin. "Yes. I want other people to look at you and know you're mine. I want you to takemy name and my money. I want you tolive with me. I want to be inside you . . . part of your thoughts . . . your body . . . all of you. I want you totrust me. I want to give you whatever elusive, impossible, goddamned mysterious thing it is you need inorder to be happy. Does that frightenyou? Well, it frightens the hell out of me. Don't you think I'd stop feeling this way if I could? It's not as ifyou're the easiest woman in the world!!”