“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”“No, we don’t.” He liked meeting like this, over her bare ass, a hot-off-the-presses copy of the Rocky Mountain News, and a steaming cup of coffee. It was so perfect, he planned on doing it every day for the rest of his life. He just hadn’t told her yet.”

“Hawkins's plan to be more careful was starting to include things like "carefully brushing her off," and "carefully take her home," where he could "carefully kiss her mouth" and "carefully take her clothes off.”

“It worried him. Like him, she had to be exhausted. She smelled like gasoline; her clothes were torn. She had a small white bandage on her forehead where the EMT had cleaned her cut. Dirt smudged her face, her arms, her legs. He knew she still didn't have any underwear, and for the first time, he felt bad about it. Real bad. He wanted to protect her, make her feel secure, keep her from harm—and all he'd done was lose her underwear and practically get her blown up.”

“He caught her, and he held her, and he let her cry, and cry, and cry, and he let her use his sheets to wipe her eyes, and her nose, and God knows what, because he had plenty of clean sheets, and he only had one Kat.”

“He'd wanted to take her dirty and take her sweet, take her any way he could get her and every way he could dream up”

“He needed to gather her up, hold on to her, anything to help her stop trembling. Something was going to shake loose if she didn’t.”

“You stole my heart, Regan,"he told her. "And I don't particularly want it back.”