“She had conquered them, as she would conquer so many in the years to come, by goodness rather than strength. It is a sorrowfully rare strategem.”

“Finally, when she was shaking so much that he staggered with the violence of her pleasure, he drove her back against the wall and took her as she stood, careless of the clothes that bunched between them, oblivious to everything but the primitive, driving force that had conquered him far more devastatingly than he had conquered her.”

“And one battle looks much like another when you survey the corpses after.”

“Scott stood by the bedside, looking down at her. Then he spread his hands, revealing the fine tremors there.‘Look what you do to me. You make me weak.’ Grace reached out a hand and touched his ridged stomach. ‘You’re the strongest man I know,’ she said softly, feeling the shift and clench of muscle under her fingers as she stroked them down to his belt. She tugged at it. ‘I want you.”

“She felt shy, like a precious gift being gloatingly unwrapped, but she didn’t resent his moment of purely masculine triumph. The glory of the moment was also hers, this beautiful man hers. He was giving himself to her and asking nothing but what she was willing to give in return.”

“She wasn’t aware of the rip he made in the back of her dress when his shaking hands wrenched the zip down, only of the molten sensuality of his gaze as he steered her into a shaft of light near the window and studied her breasts, nestled in their cups of pure white lace. ’Sweet…pretty…did you wear this for me?’ he asked thickly, roughly tracing the outline of the lace across the curving swells. ‘Did you want me to take off your dress tonight, Grace? To admire you like this?’ ’I…’ His arousal was so flatteringly intense that she couldn’t deny him the truth. ‘Yes…’ She closed her eyes, gasping as she felt the stroke of his thumbs across the seams, finding the rigid tips that were evidence of her own desire.”

“Her mouth trembled and parted and she began to gasp in light, shallow breaths that made her flushed breasts quiver deliciously, invitingly… He bent and touched a stiff pink nipple experimentally with his mouth, very gently. She jerked and cried out, exploding beneath him in a series of violent convulsions that almost unseated him.”