From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

He nodded, a blush [you read that right, Ethan actually blushed!!] creeping across his perfectly sculpted cheekbones. I gnawed the edge of my lip, the protectiveness in his eyes curling something deep in my abdomen. He didn't speak, but he nodded, as if admitting the emotion in his eyes.
(p. 91)

(view spoiler)[Ethan had done the same thing to me. His body was over mine, his arms over my head, his lips at my ear. The contact made me shudder with desire, even as chaos broke out around us. And I wasn't thrilled about the role reversal; I was his guard, after all. I was supposed to protect him. But my rank as Sentinel didn't stop him from surrounding me with his body and from yelling, "Be still!" even as I struggled beneath him, trying to reverse our positions to keep him out of harm's way. Be still, he silently repeated, as I huddled on the floor, enveloped by the feel and warmth and smell of him.
(p. 86)

I turned back to Ethan, giving his body a once-over. You're all right? I silently asked him, then raised my gaze to his eyes. They'd gone silver. [...] then he lifted a hand to my cheek, his silvered pupils tracking across my face, as if assuring himself that I was okay. I'm fine, I told him.
(p. 87-88)

My lips parted. Although my very skin was on fire and my lips felt swollen from his touch, I managed to whisper, "You aren't playing fair."
"I'm not playing, Sentinel."
For a moment, we stood silently, neither of us responding to the obvious invitation. Ethan took the plate and fork from my hands and placed them on the cart. Then he took my hand and pressed it to his chest, to the crisp cotton of his shirt. His heart thudded beneath my palm, his blood racing beneath my fingertips.
(p. 116)

He moved forward and took my hand, then joined our fingers together, raising our linked hands between us. "You would be worth any cost."
[...]
"I am beginning to remember---" He stopped, shook his head, then started again. "I am beginning to remember what it means to need things. Laughter. Companionship. Love." He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to mine. "And I need you, Merit."
(p. 118)

"You undo me, Merit. Wholly and completely. You don't take me at my word. You challenge me at every opportunity. And that means when I'm with you, I am less than the head of this House ... and I am more than the head of this House. I am a man." He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. "In my very, very long life, I need you more than I have ever needed anything."
(p. 119)

We lay there together quietly, even as the sun fought the horizon behind the shutters in his room, two lovers savoring the fleeting cover of darkness.
"What's your favorite thing?" he whispered, his lips at my ear.
"My favorite thing?" I traced a fingertip across his long fingers, across the veins in his hand.
"Tell me something you haven't told another vampire."
The question was as sad as it was sweet. He wanted to know something dear to me ... as long as it was a secret I'd held dear from others. Something I hadn't yet brought across to the supernatural world into which he'd brought me.
(p. 128)

"[...] You think I haven't thought about what it might be like to return to my rooms at the end of the night and find you there---to find you in my bed, to have your body and your laugh and your mind? To look across a room and know that you were mine---that I'd claimed you. Me."
He drummed a finger against his chest. "Me. Ethan Sullivan. Not the head of Cadogan House, not the four-hundred-year-old vampire, not the child of Balthasar or the Novitiate of Peter Cadogan. Me. Just me. Just you and me." He moistened his lips and shook his head. "I don't have that luxury, Merit. I am the Master of this House. The Master of hundreds of vampires I've sworn to protect."
"I'm one of your vampires," I reminded him.
He sighed and rubbed a hand across his forehead. "You are my greatest strength. You are my biggest weakness."
(p. 313)

He stopped me with his hand at my jaw, thumb against my chin. "Sometimes, people must adapt. Immortality doesn't make the things we love less important; it means we must learn to treasure them. Protect them."
I swallowed hard and made myself lift my gaze to him, fear and joy and more fear bursting in my chest.
"It is an apology," he said, "for not believing in you ... or in us. Yesterday, I thought I'd lost you, and then we fought together," he said. "I pushed you away for fear of what our relationship would do, could do, to this House. And then we protected this House together. That is the true measure of what we could do."
He paused, then tapped a finger against the box. "This is a wish," he said quietly, "that even after four hundred years of existence, a man can be strong enough to accept the gifts he's given."
"Ethan---," I began, but he shook his head.
"I'm prepared to wait for a positive response."
"That's going to take a while."
Ethan lifted a single eyebrow, a grin lifting one corner of his mouth. "Sentinel, I am immortal."
(p. 354-355) (hide spoiler)]

So here it is ladies and gentleman: I will finally write a review that is barely a blip on the radar. It will be short - minuscule even! Famous last words. If this paragraph is still here and you're reading it, that means I amazingly (somehow!) succeeded.