Secrets of a Summer Night (The Wallflowers Book 1)

“No, I’ll hurt you. I’m leaning on your leg.” “That’s not my leg,” came his roguish reply, making her laugh.

“I love you more,” Annabelle said, and brought her mouth to his. She felt a surge of exquisite pleasure, accompanied by the elusive sense of completeness, of perfect fulfillment, that they had never quite reached before. She was floating in warmth, as if her soul was bathed in light. Drawing back, she saw from the stunned brilliance in Simon’s gaze

“I realized something,” she said huskily, “when I was standing outside the foundry, watching it burn and knowing you were inside.” She swallowed hard against the thickness in her throat. “I would rather have died in your arms, Simon, than face a lifetime without you. All those endless years . . . all those winters, summers . . . a hundred seasons o

One glance at Simon left no doubt that if he could have gotten his hands on her, he would have murdered her on the spot. “Annabelle,” he roared, between spasms of coughing, “get out of this building now!” “Not without you.”

“Despite his flaws, one has to admit that he is a whale-sized catch.” “I’ll be thrilled when someone harpoons him,” Lillian muttered, making the other two laugh.

Crying out, she hurried to the long, fallen form. It was Simon, alive and conscious, his leg trapped beneath the steel shaft of a fallen crane. As he saw her, his soot-smeared face contorted with horror, and he struggled to a half-sitting position. “Annabelle,” he said hoarsely, pausing as he was wracked with coughing. “Dammit, no—get out of here!

“Are you annoyed because I didn’t tell you earlier? I’m sorry. But it’s not the sort of thing one can just blurt out over tea, or in the entrance hall . . . ‘Here’s your hat, and by the way, I’m a virgin’—”

“Every time I see you,” he murmured, “I think you couldn’t possibly become any more beautiful—and you always prove me wrong.”

Alarmed, Annabelle heard the sound of a muffled sob. “Mama . . .” she said hesitantly as she stared at her mother’s rigid back, “I’m sorry, I—” “Thank God,” Philippa murmured unsteadily, not seeming to hear her. “Thank God.”