Proper handling of a horse like this is no simple matter. He was trained to race, from birth. Not only to race, but to be the best. Once a champion, he was spoiled with attention...

I’ll take her.

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?

Then that’s all you need to know. I have you. If there are beasties in the dark, they have to get through me

Because I can only love you entirely. With everything I am, and everything I ever will be. Body, mind, heart, soul.” – Victor Bramwell, Earl of Rycliff.

No. No, I’m fine. It’s not blood. The militiamen were adjusting Sir Lewis’s trebuchet, and there was a mishap. You took a melon for me.” She smiled, even though her lips trembled.

He laced his hands behind his neck and propped his boots on the opposite arm of the sofa. If an artist were to capture this image, it would have been labeled,Smugness: A Portrait. She wanted...

Surely this marked a new level of achievement in his amatory career. Never before had he charmed the frock off a woman with talk of mathematics. Never before would he have thought to try.

It seemed any young woman at odds with her place in life–be she a genteel lady or a serving girl–might find a happier home within the pages of a book.

A man might engage in flirtation with distinterest, even disdain. But he never teases without affection.

You’re a grown woman, and a clever one. I believe you understand the situation. And I’m going to trust that you know your own mind.

I’m a man, Simms. Unless we’re discussing nipples, I don’t see the value in these distinctions.

Then she sighed. Just the faintest, softest release of breath. The sound swept through his chest like a hurricane, with the force to topple trees.

And I will curse the gods along with them, Min. Some wild monsoon raged through me as I looked at you just now. It’s left me rearranged inside, and I don’t have a map.

I slept well last night. But when I woke this morning, I missed you so intensely. I don’t even know how to describe the sensation. I looked at the other pillow, and it just seemed...

I’m going to build that house with my own hands, from the foundation to the roof. I’m going to do it for us, and I’m going to do it right, so it lasts forever. Can’t...

I don’t care who he is. He needs to disappear.” Ransom turned and called out the window. “For the love of G-d man. I have England’s sweetheart bent over the desk and panting for me....

Oh no. Don’t smile. You’ll kill me. I stop breathing when you smile.

Kate realized she had a grave problem. She was infatuated. Or mildly insane. Possibly both.

So odd. Most women of his acquaintance relied on physical beauty and charm to mask their less-pleasant traits. This girl did the opposite, hiding everything interesting about herself behind a prim, plain facade.What other surprises...

No man deserves a woman like that. He mortgages his very soul to win her and spends his life paying off the debt.

I’m not going to touch her,” he said “She’s not mine.She never will be.””Indeed.” Bruiser rolled his eyes and dusted off his hat. “Definitely no years of pent-up lusting there. Glad we have that sorted.

Cleverness is like rouge – liberal application makes a woman look common and desperate. Wit is knowing how to apply it.

Oh, dear.” She let her head fall back to the pillow. “There it went. I’ve fallen in love with you now.””Just now?” Chuckling, he came to a sitting position, resting his forearm on one bent...

I never thought Greek philosophy could make a damn bit of sense to me. And most of it didn’t, but those words just seemed right. ‘Love is composed of a single soul, inhabiting two bodies.'”...

I know how mirrors work. They’re all in league with the cosmetics trade. They tell a woman lies. Drawing her gaze from one imagined flaw to another, until all she sees is a constellation of...

Oh.” God, she was sweet. Sweet and pink and musky and Izzy.

A better man wouldn’t play this ‘sweethearts’ game with her when he knew very well it couldn’t lead to more.But he wasn’t a better man. He was Colin Sandhurst, reckless, incorrigible rogue—and damn it, he...

When I heard you cry out . . . it was like a saber to the gut. I wanted to die.

I was afraid. Of getting hurt in other ways. To be truthful, I still am.”His thumb stroked her cheek. “I would never hurt you.””I don’t think you can promise me that.” She squeezed his bruised...

And she was well-enough acquainted with loneliness to understand that the worst part wasn’t having nobody caring for you – it was having nobody to care for.

The pain of an injury is over in seconds. Everything that comes after is the pain of getting well.” He gave her a heartfelt look, full of apology. “I’d forgotten that you see. Coming back...

He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn’t have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him, and he...

These kisses… they were confessions. Tastes of everything she had stored inside her. Everything she could give a man if he was brave enough to accept. Kiss by kiss, she was baring herself to the...

Griff had never been the fanciful sort, even as a boy. When he was with Pauline, the world was different. She forced him to see things through fresh eyes. Suddenly his library was the eighth...

I’m infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you’re a very attractive man. But I don’t like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably...

Truly? That whole determined, dangerous saunter across the room was for me? In that case, would you mind going back and doing it all over again? Slowly this time, and with feeling.

He had no secrets left. No defenses. He had nothing, except that same vast, dark, empty, infinite ache that had resided in him for as long as he could remember. An endless flight of stairs,...

I’m not going to accept your challenge. There will be no duel.””Why not? Because I’m a woman?””No, because I’ve seen the way you spinsters handle a pistol. You’d shoot me dead where I stood.

Of course one kiss changes things. If it’s done right, a kiss changes everything.

He lay on the bed, freshly shaven and washed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms propped behind his head. His posture said, Yes, ladies. I truly am this handsome. And I don’t even have...

Clearly the sight of a well-muscled forearm incited a woman to utter depravity. How else to explain the invention of cuffs?

Izzy was utterly convinced. Never mind Arabian horses, African cheetahs. No creature in the world could bolt so quickly as a rake confronted with the word “marriage”. They ought to shout it out at footraces...

There’s a very generous donation in the parish’s future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most.”Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. “There’s an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered...

This explains so much,” she said, clucking her tongue in mother-hen fashion. “You’re compensating for this withered appendage.”Withered appendage? What the devil was she talking about? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Colin’s...

—Porque yo estoy aquí, con ganas de darte un elogio apropiado, pero mi vocabulario miserable me lo impide. Creo que lo que necesitamos es una excursión científica. Tengo que aventurarme en una selva donde la...

It started to rain. Fat, heavy drops of summer rain – the kind that always struck her as vaguely lewd and debauched. Little potbellied drunkards, those summer raindrops, chortling on their way to earth and...

You don’t want me to feel obligated? Well, I’m sorry, Lily. I am herebecause I feel obligated.” He brought her hand to his chest, pressing herpalm flat against his rapidly thumping pulse. “I’m obligated by...

She’d been mad for him as a girl, but she’d chalked that up to youthful infatuation. She’d tracked the events of his life religiously for a decade, but she’d told herself that was idle curiosity....

There are all kinds of courage in the world, and most of it takes place far from battlefields.