“Cary Taylor. Loving you isn’t a character defect.”“Well, it’s not very smart. I was such an asshole to him,” he muttered, looking disgruntled. “He could do so much better.”“That isn’t your decision to make for him.”“Someone needs to make it.”“And you’re volunteering because you love him, too.” My mouth curved. “Don’t you think that sounds ass-backwards?”

“I had to bite back a laugh. "Cary Taylor. Loving you isn't a character defect."Chapter 12, pg 213”

“I don’t think you do. This” –he gestured impatiently at himself– “is just a fucking shell. You’re what drives me, Eva. Can you understand that? You’re my heart and soul. If something ever happened to you it would kill me, too. Keeping you safe is goddamned self-preservation! Tolerate it for me, if you won’t do it for yourself.”I surged into him, knocking him off-balance and onto his back. I kissed him hard, my heart pounding and blood roaring in my ears.“I hate to freak you out,” I murmured between desperate kisses, “but you’ve got it real bad for me.”

“If I could,” he went on, “I would remain like this indefinitely—clasped by you, held inside you, a part of you—without moving at all. When we make love, I fight climax with everything I have. I don’t want to come; I do not want it to end. No matter how long I make it last, it isn’t nearly long enough. I am furious when I cannot hold back any longer. Why, Jess? If all I seek is the physical relief of natural lust, just as I would seek sleep or food, why would I deny myself?”She turned her head and caught his mouth with hers, kissing him desperately.“Tell me you understand,” he demanded, his lips moving beneath hers. “Tell me you feel it, too.”“I feel you,” she breathed, as intoxicated by his ardency as she was by the finest claret. “You have become everything to me.”

“Cracking his knuckles, Cary dramatically prepared to open his fortune cookie. “Let’s see. Will I be rich? Famous? About tomeet Mr. or Ms. Tall, Dark, and Tasty? Traveling to distant lands? What’d you guys get?”“Mine’s lame,” I said. “In the end all things will be known. Duh. I didn’t need a fortune to figure that out.”Gideon opened his and read, “Prosperity will knock on your door soon.”I snorted.Cary shot me a look. “I know, right? You snatched someone else’s cookie, Cross.”“He better not be anywhere near someone else’s cookie,” I said dryly.Reaching over, Gideon plucked half of mine out of my fingers. “Don’t worry, angel. Your cookie is the only one I want.”He popped it in his mouth with a wink.“Gag,” Cary muttered. “Get a room.” He cracked his fortune with a flourish, and then scowled. “What the fuck?”I leaned forward. “What’s it say?”“Confucius say,” Gideon ad-libbed, “man with hand in pocket feel cocky all day.”Cary threw half his cookie at Gideon, who caught it deftly and grinned.“Give me that.” I snatched the fortune out from between Cary’s fingers and read it. Then laughed.“Fuck you, Eva.”“Well?” Gideon prodded.“Pick another cookie.”Gideon smiled. “Pwned by a fortune.”Cary threw the other half of his cookie.”

“I love you, Gideon.”“God.” He looked at me with something that resembled disgust. Whether it was directed at me or himself, I didn’t know. “How can you say that?”“Because it’s the truth.”“You just see this”—he gestured at himself with a wave of his hand. “You’re not seeing the fucked-up, broken mess inside.”I inhaled sharply. “You can say that to me? When you know I’m fucked up and broken, too?”

“I WAS seriously hurt because of you. Seeing you in another guy's arms, kissing him... It shredded me, Eva. Cut me open and left me bleeding. I kicked he ass in self-defense.”