“The sight made her ache. How can I not touch you? she thought hopelessly, and then she was doing it, her fingers on his wrist. He didn't jump or even look at her, just stopped writing. Neither one of them moved, nothing moved, and the whole thing lasted three or four seconds at most, but when Pen took her hand away and started to breathe again, her chest hurt, as though she had been holding her breath for a very long time.”

“She expected the pain, when it came. But she gasped at its sharpness; it was not like any pain she had felt before. He kissed her and slowed and would have stopped. But she laughed, and said that this one time she would consent to hurt, and bleed, at his touch. He smiled into her neck and kissed her again and she moved with him through the pain. The pain became a warmth that grew. Grew, and stopped her breath. And took her breath and her pain and her mind away from her body, so that there was nothing but her body and his body and the light and fire they made together.”

“She touched something deep in his soul. He didn't believe in love at first sight, but the thought of hurting her made his chest ache.”

“Come here into the warmth," he said easily. He reached for her, taking her hand and pulling her toward him. "I've been waiting for you." He stroked her hair, shifting a bit to let the light fall on her. "For a very long time."She, too, reached for him, following a line in the air along the length of the forming scar that marred his chest. A corona flared around him until she moved past the point where the sunlight hit her eyes. She stared at his chest, at the gashed and ill-healed flesh, and he, seeing her attention, took her hand and brought her fingers to his mouth. She felt the warmth of his breath, the pressure of his lips, soft and warm. "I wish you had never been wounded," she said. "Even though it brought you home to me.”

“She got to her knees, running her nails lightly along his chest, loving the way he groaned, loving how his breath wheezed out when she took him into her hands, loving him, even when he reared up and said, “Now,” and took her waist in his hands and pushed her onto her back. She didn’t object or take offense. Words were beyond her, too, as he surged into her, hard and fast, and she forgot how to breathe and how to think.”

“Her breathing ragged, her body went lax under his. “We’re not done,” he rasped, fisting a hand in her dark, short hair. Law greedily took her mouth as he started to ride her again—deep, hard. So damned hungry, so damned hungry …If she’d had the breath, she might have told him to give her a minute.But even if she had had the breath? He would have stolen it away again.”