“Not kink, she'd purred into his ear, sending every nerve in his long neglected body firing. But not vanilla, either.... Zach understood now why some people were afraid of her. He was afraid of her....”

“You are my heart,” he said. He’d said those very words to her that morning. But that morning, they’d sounded affectionate and playful. Now he said them as if he were stating a fact of anatomy. “I will not lose you. I’m sending you away to keep you safe. Do you understand? Say ‘Yes, sir.’”Nora nodded and swallowed a sudden lump in her throat.”Yes, sir.”Soren bent his head and kissed her long and slow before pulling back.”

“S&M is as psychological as it is physical and sexual, Zach. Imagine being as deep inside a woman’s mind as you are inside her body.”

“If you come back to me," he said, making a rare concession, "will you run or crawl?"Nora had pressed her whole body into him at that moment. Resting her head on his strong shoulder, she watched as a tear forged a river down his long and muscled back. "I'll fly.”

“Pourquoi?" Kingsley demanded. "Why? You take her every way you can, every chance you have. Why her and not me?"Soren hadn't replied, and for that Kingsley had been forever grateful. He knew the answer, but to hear it would have broken the one last unbroken part of his spirit.”

“Once upon a time,” Nora said, as she fluttered a series of kisses over his shoulders that sent every nerve in his body reeling, “a very poor girl from a fucked-up family became a famous writer with a wicked pen and an even more wicked tongue who made seven figures a year. And she went everywhere she wanted to and did everything she wanted to. And nobody ever tried to stop her. And she had her own pet Angel who needed to learn how to talk. So guess what she did?” “What?” Michael asked. He laughed in surprise as Nora slammed him down onto his back and slid on top of him. She brought her mouth onto his and forced his lips apart. “She gave him her tongue.”

“Vanilla people were so cute sometimes.”