Another flash of recognition sped through her mind. It__ him, her thoughts whispered through the fog of arousal. And she wanted to know who he was. What else he could do for her. What he__ feel like inside her. What he would unleash within her.

Xavier had thought he was in paradise before. He__ been wrong. Sophia was more than paradise. She was the very reason he breathed.

He shivered beneath her touch, and his jaw clenched. It pleased her. Her longing rose to the surface, and an unfamiliar emotion overcame her. It swam beneath her skin, lighting little flickers of recognition. It was the same heat__he same feeling__hat had made her run the night before. Not this time, though. This time she would own it. Embrace it. Ride it. Enjoy it.

You__e my true north. No compass would point me in any other direction but to you.

It was her. No one had eyes like that. Eyes as pure as the sky on a fresh, wintery morning. Ones that sucked him in and refused to let go. No one had her touch. Feather light and warm. A touch that sizzled his insides and brought him to his knees.And no one had that pure, simple, cherry-vanilla scent. The sweetness that was only her, like she was a dessert made just for him. To lick, nibble, and enjoy.

Are you what is called a lucky man? Well, you are sad every day. Each day has its great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were trembling for the health of one who is dear to you, today you fear for your own; tomorrow it will be an anxiety about money, the next day the slanders of a calumniator, the day after the misfortune of a friend; then the weather, then something broken or lost, then a pleasure for which you are reproached by your conscience or your vertebral column; another time, the course of public affairs. Not to mention heartaches. And so on. One cloud is dissipated, another gathers. Hardly one day in a hundred of unbroken joy and sunshine. And you are of that small number who are lucky! As for other men, stagnant night is upon them.