“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.”

“Her hand holding his for a dozen paces. His, resting on the small of her back for a moment. Touches that had no real purpose but to say I’m here and We are together still.”

“He liked to touch, she realized. In bed, he kept his arms around her or a hand on her like now. The way he played with her breasts, or just touched her, or ran his hands over her body, made her feel so...so beautiful, Desirable.”

“He placed his hand under hers gently and straightened her fingers. His touch felt like fire and ice and commanded her complete attention.”

“Yes; he had done it. She was in the carriage, and felt that he had placed her there, that his will and his hands had done it, that she owed it to his perception of her fatigue, and his resolution to give her rest. She was very much affected by the view of his disposition towards her, which all these things made apparent. This little circumstance seemed the completion of all that had gone before. She understood him. He could not forgive her, but he could not be unfeeling. Though condemning her for the past, and considering it with high and unjust resentment, though perfectly careless of her, and though becoming attached to another, still he could not see her suffer without the desire of giving her relief. It was a remainder of some former sentiment, it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship; it was a proof of his own warm and amiable heart, which she could not contemplate without emotions so compounded of pleasure and pain, that she knew not which prevailed.”

“Time seemed to stop; the world around them stilled. There was only her. His thumb caressed at her lips, the lips he wanted to kiss.Katianna rolled her face in his palm—a caressing nuzzle and he stilled, his breath froze in his chest.A response. A submissive one at that. His heart, stilled fractured by that single nuance, but his loins burst with a wave of warmth.A response—it had been a response. Oh fuck he had to kiss her. His whole body was screaming for her now.”