" Don’t you see?” she cried. “I cannot have been wrong that you don’t have a heart.”
He came toward her swiftly, grasped her wrist, and flattened her hand to his chest. Through his ribs, his heartbeats beneath her palm were fast and hard. “You are denying me this?” he said close to her brow, the depth of his voice coating her rawness. “Because it has been like this since you walked through the door of that inn four days ago. It was like this when you stood across your parlor in London refusing me. And in Edinburgh in April. And each time I have seen you for longer than I can say.”
“Stop. Do not say this.”
“I don’t need to kiss you to feel this,” he said. “You have been turning me inside out for years. "

― Katharine Ashe , The Earl (Devil's Duke, #2; Falcon Club, #5)