She would allow him to comfort her. And perhaps, someday, she would listen patiently if a dark, dreary night found him well in his cups and he drunkenly confessed to still feeling scores of wounds that weren’t his own, but those of men under his command.

When you look at me that way, I feel so beautiful." "You are beautiful." He signed deep in his chest. His hands slid up and down her arms, caressing her roughly. "So damned beautiful." "So are you." She put a hand to his bare chest, tracing the defined ridges of his musculature. "Like a diamond. Hard and gleaming, and cut with all these exquisite facets. Inside...pure, brilliant fire.

Forgive me, Your Grace. Are you suggesting a woman is some sort of … piece of fruit to you? One squeeze, and you know if she’s ripe?

How is it you’ve never married?” A soft splash. “It’s an easy enough thing. Every morning I wake up, go about my day, and return to bed at night without having recited marriage vows. After several years, I have the trick of it down.

The further he raided, the closer he came to the other rooms. Those unused, cobwebbed chambers of her heart. Would he dare to venture there? She doubted. Jumping off a cliff was a flashy sort of courage, but a man would need true strength and valor to break through those padlocked doors. There were dark, uncharted spaces within her that had been built to house love, and even she was afraid to explore them. Terrified to learn just how vast and how achingly empty they truly were.

Amazing, then, how with that one remark, he made a mortifying situation thirteen times worse.

What is the world coming to, with these modern women? A man can't tell them what to do.