" What are you doing?” she asks, trying to wrestle her hand out of mine.
“Holding your hand,” I tell her. “You see I’m dastardly like that.”
“More like bastardly,” she mumbles under her breath.
“That’s the spirit,” I goad her. “A few more back and forths like that and it’ll be like we can hold an actual conversation. "

― Karina Halle , The Wild Heir (Royal Romance #2)