“I will see to this; you see to your sister. Be quick about it. It won’t be long before I come for you, and you’d best be ready, Jess, with my ring still gracing your hand. You won’t stay me then. I’ll drag you to Scotland in irons if I have to.” He left her in a rush. As always, taking her heart with him.”

“I won’t lie. I want to beat the hell out of any man who’s had you—you’d be smart to keep them the hell away from me—but nothing in your past can change how I feel about you.”

“I want you bound. And not on the outside. I’m working my way in.”“Gideon—““I won’t ever take it further than you can handle,” he promised, his eyes glittering hotly in the muted lighting. “But I’ll take you to the edge.”I squirmed, both aroused and disturbed by the thought of giving up that much control. “Why?”“Because you want to be mine and I want to possess you. We’ll get there.” His hand slid under my shirt and cupped my breast, his fingers rolling and tugging my nipple, igniting my body.”

“(he pulled her hand back up and set it over his heart) "This tightening in my chest that you can't see? That's something I've never felt before. You've got something no one else has. You don't have a shortcoming, sweetheart. You have an advantage.”

“Love can be lost and found again. But that won’t happen for me. I won’t survive without you, Eva.”

“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.”