I stayed silent, watching her breath. I wanted to freeze time, to hold on to this moment forever. No woman had ever affected me this deeply. Maybe it was her innocence—the fact that she was a blank slate due to her amnesia, free to write her story anew without the weight of past memories. God, how I longed to help her fill those empty spaces.

~Conan Thorin, Day Shift

Those crystal-blue eyes of hers…they cut through all the bullshit and pierced my soul. I was forever lost to her. That twenty percent angel, eighty percent devil mix made me want to dive headfirst into whatever underworld she’d take me.

~Conan Thorin, Day Shift

I’d gone into the dungeon to find out whether Lachlan Byrnes could be trusted and returned wanting his hands on me and his violence aimed at everyone else.

God help anyone who stood in his way when Lachlan got free.

God help me when he turned all that attention back on me.

I was already half out of my mind over a man who’d barely touched me.

He, a man who took what he wanted, had no way of knowing that he held a woman who had never been taken. He had no idea I was still a virgin, that I’d never done any of this before.

I’d kept it to myself, thinking I would know when the right time would be for my first lover.

And now, somehow, the right time looked a hell of a lot like being pinned against a wall and f***ed by a man who’d stalked me for weeks.

~Lyla Oakley, Eyes on You

When she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and slid them down those long legs of hers, I stopped breathing altogether. She rose to her full height, standing unabashedly naked in front of me, her head held high, her blue eyes daring me to look away. I didn’t.

All rational thought escaped me. My heart started pounding like a damn drum, and my throat became as dry as sand. She was perfect—every inch of her.

Daria must’ve noticed how enthralled I was, because her lips curled into a teasing grin. “What’s the matter, Boy Scout? Never seen a naked woman before?”

~Braxton Thorin, Mission Shift

Tonight I wanted to be wrecked, to be so consumed by someone that I couldn’t remember my name, much less all the screwed-up things life had thrown at me. Kol was the kind of man who could do that; I could tell just by the way he moved. I wanted him to worship every inch of me, to let him light up every one of my nerves like a Christmas tree.

~Noelle Nichols, Christmas Cancellation

I was beginning to understand that once Lachlan decided something was his responsibility, the cost to himself stopped being part of the equation. Pain, danger, inconvenience—it didn’t seem to matter. He would do what he said he would do and deal with the consequences afterward.

“And every selfish part of me wants to take you at your word, bring you home, put you in my bed, and never ask another fucking question about it.”

My heart kicked hard against my ribs.

“Then what’s stopping you?”

“Making sure I don’t become another cage simply because mine feels better than Ciro’s did.”

Her innocence and vulnerability made me weak in a way I hated. As I looked at the towel at her feet, felt her bare skin pressed against me, and inhaled the scent of her, the edges of my control started to fray.

I should’ve stepped away the second her arms started to wrap around me.

But I didn’t. Because a dark part of me—the bratva-born part—wanted to mark her. Ruin her.

~Nikolai Volkov, Eyes on You

“And when you make love to me, you don’t touch me like something that needs to be repaired. You know exactly what men did to me, and your hands still move over me like every inch of my body is something you want. You don’t make me feel damaged or fragile. You make me feel like a woman you can’t get enough of.”