“Wh-what doyou think you are doing?""I am getting some sleep, Governess. And so help me, if you keep me from it, yourlovely backside will be a latticework of switch marks."Summer held her breath as Wade yawned, shifted, and settled into a more comfortableposition.Surely he was not thinking she would remain with him like this for the rest of the night!"Captain Wade, I must insist--!""Blood”

“I can teach you how to defend yourself some. Not" - he held her gaze - "that it will always keep you safe. There are times when no amount of training will stop what others would do.""So why..." She let the question drift away."Because it helps me sleep at night, because it helps me focus, because sometimes I like knowing that maybe if I were in danger again it would help."He kissed her forehead."And sometimes because it gives me hope that it'll make me strong enough to be loved and protect the one I would try to love.”

“Where we goin’?” Wade whispers to me as we approach the white picket fence that surrounds the row of wooden crosses.For all I know my grandmother could be planning to shoot us and bury us with the rest of the family, but I don’t think it would help to share this notion with Wade”

“Do you know what else I think? I think I like the idea of Lola Carlyle worrying about me." He slid his knuckle along her jaw to her chin and she held her breath.”

“Whose hearts must I break? What lies must I maintain? - Through whose blood am I to wade ?”

“He caught her hand. “What do you want from me, Grace?”That was easy. “Everything.” She wanted to touch his chest, but since he held her hand prisoner, she insinuated one leg between his legs, delighting in what it did to his breathing. “I don’t want you to hold anything back. I don’t want you to be so careful with me all the time.”“Grace….”“I want you to give me as much as I can take, and then I want you to give me more.”“Like I did last night?”His voice was rough, laced with self-disgust. God help her, she’d never loved him more.”