“Once, he hadn't been able to touch her without causing himself pain. Now, it only hurt when he didn't touch her.”

“Raphael lifted a finger, tracing it over her cheekbone. She flinched. Not because he was hurting her. The opposite. The places he touched ... it was as if he had a direct line to the hottest, most feminine part of her. A single stroke and she was embarrassingly damp. But she refused to pull away, refused to give in." (page 33 , Gollancz edition)”

“For the first time in forever, he was stunned to silence. Not by her words, but by the tenderness in her hands, the worry in her eyes. He was an archangel. He’d been wounded far, far worse and shrugged it off. But then, there had been no woman with sun kissed by the sunset and eyes of storm gray to tear into him for daring to get himself hurt.”

“However," he continued when she remained silent, her throat a knot of emotion, "it seems Montgomery could not help himself when it came to this vase. I'm afraid he has a weakness for beautiful things and has been known to relocate an item if he feels it is not being accorded the proper appreciation. Once he 'relocated' an ancient sculpture from the home of another archangel.”

“An instant later, they were kissing. It was no light brush this time, no exploring touch. This was all tongues and teeth and wicked wetness as he kissed her like a man who had rough, sweaty, dirty sex on his mind and didn't care if she knew it.”

“She watched as he settled down on the bed with Naya skin to skin on his chest. His hand all but covered her tiny body as he stroked her in that changeling way, bonding with her on the most elemental level. Then he purred, and Naya made a happy little sound of delight, very much a cat in her love of touch.”

“She wished he’d stop touching her. Not because she didn’t like it but because she liked it far too much. It made her hunger for things that could never be hers. And if someone went hungry for too long, they started to starve. Started to hurt.”