The Viscount Who Loved Me (Bridgertons, #2)

by Julia Quinn

And then there was Kate Sheffield. The bane of his existence. And the object of his desires. All at once.

And his breath was sucked right out of his body. “My God,” he gasped. “Kate.”

“Sometimes …” Anthony said in a halting voice, “sometimes there are reasons for our fears that we can’t quite explain. Sometimes it’s just something we feel in our bones, something we know to be true, but would sound foolish to anyone else.”

He knew well the singularly strange sensation of loving one’s family to distraction, and yet not feeling quite able to share one’s deepest and most intractable fears. It brought on an uncanny sense of isolation, of being remarkably alone in a loud and loving crowd.

this book is for the oldest siblings

For one split moment he had the bizarre thought that she somehow knew everything about him, every last detail from the moment of his birth to his certainty of his own death. It seemed, in that second, with her face tipped up toward his and her lips slightly parted, that she, more than anyone else who would ever walk this earth, truly knew him.

so romantic ugh

And that was probably why, when Anthony finally reacted to her words, he didn’t yank her to him and kiss her until she was gasping, and he didn’t press his lips to her ear and burn his breath against her skin, making sure she understood that he was on fire for her, and not her sister. Never her sister.

But seeing one fly so dangerously close to Kate, brushing by her hair, landing on the lacy sleeve of her dress—it was terrifying, almost hypnotizing. His mind raced ahead, and he saw the tiny monster sink its stinger into her soft flesh, he saw her gasping for air, sinking to the ground. He saw her here at Aubrey Hall, laid out on the same bed that had served as his father’s first coffin.

“Anthony,” she whispered, his name a benediction, a plea, a prayer all in one. “Anything,” he replied raggedly, dropping to his knees before her, his lips trailing a hot path along her skin as his fingers frantically worked to release her from her gown. “Ask me anything,” he groaned. “Anything in my power, I give to you.”

I desire you. I burn for you. I can’t sleep at night for wanting you. Even when I didn’t like you, I lusted for you. It’s the most maddening, beguiling, damnable thing, but there it is. And if I hear one more word of nonsense from your lips, I’m going to have to tie you to the bloody bed and have my way with you a hundred different ways, until you finally get it through your silly skull that you are the most beautiful and desirable woman in England, and if everyone else doesn’t see that, then they’re all bloody fools.”

im dying

And in that moment, she knew she loved him. With every thought, every emotion, every piece of her being, she loved him.

He had fallen in love with his wife. He had fallen in love with his wife, and now the thought of dying, of leaving her, of knowing that their moments together would form a short poem and not a long and lusty novel—it was more than he could bear.

If he could have drawn her within him, he would have done it and kept her there forever.

“Yes,” Colin agreed. “Just go home and tell her that you love her. What could be more simple?”

colin doing the absoluted most

It was simple. His world was Kate. If he denied that, he might as well stop breathing right now.

hell, he’d buy her a hundred new dresses if she’d only promise never again to step into a carriage if it was being driven by anyone other than himself.

this is so romantic stop