If I take you at your word and I wouldn't want a partnership if I didn't, then you are helping defend what I hold dear so you have my full support. I ...ill go further if you want to ask more of me I won't guarantee agreeing but will promise to give the request considered thought.”“Thank you and you have confirmed my gut feeling that you are the right person for us.”“Your sure that its the gut and not forward and a little lower.”Bad girl, more positive evidence.” That Sonya had got up and was. A ton of ice for your—“ Abigail slapped her hand across his mouth before he finished that sentence. “Gabriel!” He only laughed behind her palm before puckering his lips to kiss it. He mumbled something that sounded like I-love-you, but it came out “rye-ruv-ru.” She quirked a brow at him and asked “huh? I don’t understand what you’re saying, Mr. Raven.” His hot tongue slithering against her open palm had her jolting her hand away as heat made her belly clench. Him and that wicked tongue. . Can you tell me anything you've accomplished that a weak woman wouldn't? You've told me repeatedly that you want Jonathan to be strong enough to accept you, yet have you accepted him the way he is, the way he shows love?Laura's eyes blazed, "I quote from your journal: ' I knew in my heart, from what he said, and how he acted, he never loved me enough to want to know why. He never loved me enough to want to understand. He had never asked me why, because why did not matter. Only making love to. Not really.We'd met over the Christmas holidays, Yvette and I, as a result of my choosing to pull on my best hair shirt by not going back to England for the festive season. Our paths had crossed because at the time she was waitressing in a café on the river, a café where I ended up after a heavy, moribund drinking session on Christmas Eve.She was Belgian, six years older than me, and was more obviously battered by disappointment than any woman I'd ever met.Consequently, she was.