“Poor slut, I think she loves me,' said Gray, his eyes closed.”

“She needed to know more. “But that means…”“It means I love you, Violet. I have never said that aloud to another human being.”He said it quickly and tonelessly. As if he was afraid of the words. Violet stood basking in those words the way she might a sunbeam after a long, gray day. She closed her eyes. And she knew she was lit from within.“Do not let me just stand here having said those words,” he said stiffly. “It’s undignified.”“I love you, too,” she said softly, hurriedly. Feeling abashed. Eyes still closed. Egads. So this was what it was like to be in love. Awkward and foolish, indeed.”

“I think your eyes might be the exact same color as mine," she said wonderingly."What fine gray-eyed babies we shall have," he said, before he thought the better of it.”

“She closed one eye and looked at me and said, "I know there is a blessing in this somewhere.”

“Be safe, she whispered. Then she closed her eyes and said in a low, broken monotone, "I love you.KailaniSiobhan Fallon”

“I closed my eyes, thinking, Let me love you, Hardy, just let me.”