“The impact hit her like a physical blow. He was..."Beautiful." Eyes of such pure undiluted blue it was as if some heavenly artist had crushed sapphires into his paints and then colored in the irises with the finest of brushes.”

“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.”

“When he put the old-fashioned mechanical toy on her palm, she stopped breathing. It was a tiny representation of an atom, complete with colored ball bearings standing in for neutrons, protons, and on the outside, arranged on arcs of fine wire, electrons. Turning the key on the side made the electrons move, what she’d thought were ball bearings actually finely crafted spheres of glass that sparked with color. A brilliant, thoughtful, wonderful gift for a physics major.“Why magnesium?” she asked, identifying the atomic number of the light metal. His hand on her jaw, his mouth on her own. “Because it’s beautifully explosive, just like my X.”

“No,” he responded, reaching out to trace the shell of her ear. “They grew back even more beautiful. Blue edged with silver.” Elena laughed at the scowl in his voice.”

“His hand closed around her throat. Not a threat. Just the most possessive way a predatory changeling male had of touching a woman outside of sex. “Don’t say his name.” He brushed his thumb across her pulse.”

“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.”

“He leaned down until his lips brushed her ear. “I told you to stop flinching.” And then he bit her. A slow, painless nip but there were definitely teeth involved.”