Sometimes, she unfairly envied him the way his youth still had meaning for him, especially unfairly knowing how badly it had hurt him and how much damage it had left behind. And yet somehow he managed to remember pieces of it in ways that didn't get corrupted by all of that, and it was so damned cute when he did it.

Cute, and self-confident, and strangely sexy, or maybe she just had a godawful crush on him. Or both.

Both.

Still, it wasn't his reminiscence and dubious babble that stole her heart this time. It was the soft touch of his fingertips as they traced the shape of her lips, and that incredible honeyed warmth in his eyes when he said 'breathtaking'. Maybe because 'breathtaking' wasn't about how she looked as much as how she affected him, she liked hearing it even more.

"I'll take your breath any time you let me, Neil Blair," she murmured, and didn't let herself think about what she was saying.