“His hand still rested on her breast, but his fingers had stilled. The touch that had been so agitating now felt comforting. As though he soothed her by it.”

“She wished he could make her somehow indelibly his; that they were still children so they could cut their fingers and mingle their blood and know this meant something. She longed for some transformation more lasting than that wrought by the law and his name, some visceral change he might effect in her so that anyone on the street with one glance would know she was his.”

“When he entered after her, she saw that he meant to come straight to her, and she raised a hand. "No," she said. "Wait."His footsteps halted. He had always listened to her, hadn't he? Had always heard her."-Emma and Julian”

“Alex understood such discipline. He knew the rarity of it, and the cost. And on the rare occasions when he happened to touch her, he did wonder what else she might have been, if she had not been so determined to be typical.”

“She had told herself she should be reassured by his squeamishness; a man who balked at scars would not give her new ones. Now she suddenly wondered if she’d had it wrong. A man without scars would always underestimate their value. He would not see them as marks of courage.”

“and I said, 'That is why you don't climb mountains, Gwen.' But now I wonder. You aren't afraid of heights.""No", she said. "Not particularly.""Only missteps."She paused midstroke. Did he mean to imply this had been a misstep? "I was afraid," she said carefully. "For a very long time. But no longer." "So was I," he said, and lifted her chin and kissed her.”

“—that if she touched him right now, their flesh would recognize each other. The wildest thought: these scars, his and hers, would speak to each other, communicating intimacies that could not be unshared.”