“Ever had a woman say no to you, Dmitri?”“Once.” He turned the corner with a smile that made her want to cup his face, trace those beautiful lips with her own. “I married her.”

“Dropping her hand, she turned in his arms. Then, rising up on tiptoe, she cupped his face in her palms and drew him down. Her kiss was innocent, vulnerable, a caress so gentle that it made him her slave between one breath and the next.”

“I need you," he said to her, this woman who'd fought for her own right to live her life free of limits, "to build me some remote detonation devices."Amazing brown eyes shot with blue peering into his as she pressed her nose to his. "You always say the most romantic things.”

“Smiling, she went for his throat and almost had him, when—using a move that was all sorts of illegal—he flipped her again so her front pressed into the leaf-laden ground, her wrists still locked in his iron grip and pinned above her head. “Cheater.” “So says the woman who tried to kick my balls into my throat,” he pointed out, even as he licked the salt off the skin of her neck in a lazy and highly provocative move.”

“He shot her a grin brimming with deliberate wickedness. "Today, I want to lead you astray."Her returning smile was a little shy but full of a quiet mischief he figured most people never saw. "Are you sure I'm not already beyond redemption?"He chuckled. "How could you be with a name like Angelica?"She made a face. "I'm an Annie, not an Angelica.""I prefer Angel.""Do you like your women angelic?"He chuckled. "No baby, I like my woman exactly as she is.”

“In my time,” he said, “they believed in witches. Are you a witch, Honor, that you make me say these things to you?” Causing him to rip open wounds that had stayed safely scabbed over for so long that, most of the time, he managed to forget they existed. Her hands, so very, very gentle, continued to hold his face as she tugged him down until their foreheads touched. “I’m no witch, Dmitri. If I was, I’d know how to fix you.”

“Are your eyelashes like your hair?”“Yes. They’re very beautiful—want to see?”Her lips twitched. “Vanity is a sin,Bluebell.”“When you have it, flaunt it, I say.”-Elena and Illium”