“I loved something I made up, something that's just as dead as Melly is. I made a pretty suit of clothes and fell in love with it. And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not. And I wouldn't see what he really was. I kept on loving the pretty clothes—and not him at all.”

“And when Ashley came riding along, so handsome, so different, I put that suit on him and made him wear it whether it fitted him or not... I kept on loving the pretty clothes - and not him at all.”

“He was so pretty I wanted to frame him and put him on my nightstand in a totally non-creepy, non-Hannibal Lector skin-suit-wearing kind of way.”

“I have this love for Mattie. It was formed in me as he himself was formed. It has his shape, you might say. He fits it. He fits into it as he fits into his clothes. He will always fit into it. When he gets out of the car and I meet him and hug him, there he is, him himself, something of my very own forever, and my love for him goes all around him just as it did when he was a baby and a little boy and a young man grown.”

“I have to clean up first. I’m still all sweaty and stuff from the crime scene.” I realized he was wearing a white shirt and I might have dried blood on me. It made me draw back and look at the front of him.“What is wrong, ma petite?”“I may have dried blood and things on me, and you’re wearing white.”He drew me back into his arms. “I would rather hold you close than worry about my clothes. The shirt will wash, or we can throw it away. I do not care.”I pushed back just enough to turn my face up, resting my chin on his chest so that I gazed up the line of his body, and he looked down so that our eyes met down the line of his chest. “I know you love me, but when you don’t care about your clothes, I know it’s true love for you.” I grinned as I said it.He laughed, abrupt, surprised, and for a moment I got to see what he must have looked like centuries ago before being a vampire had taught him to control his face and show nothing for fear it would be used against him by those more powerful than him.I smiled up at him, held as close to him as I could with clothes and weapons still on, and loved him. I loved that I could make him laugh like that, loved that he felt safe enough to show me this part of him, loved that even when we were ass-deep in alligators, being with each other made it better. The alligators would be chewing on our asses either way, but with each other it was more fun, and we were more likely to be able to make a matching set of alligator luggage out of our enemies rather than end up as their dinner.I gazed up at him as the laughter filled his face, and just loved him. The day had sucked, but Jean-Claude made it suck a lot less, and that was what love was supposed to do. It was supposed to make things better, not worse, which made me wonder if Asher truly loved anyone. I pushed the thought away, and enjoyed the man in my arms, and the fact that I had made him laugh.”

“He made himself and what he made is one damn fine man. I am so proud to call him my brother I am bursting with it when I see him.”