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She has always been strong. Her father had told her, smiling, that she was better than any son could have been, but along with strength she had had brains, and had seen the wistfulness in his eyes when he trained her. Her mother had told her, quietly and with all the more force for its politeness, that sowing wild oats was unladylike.
She had never been a lady. She had not then and does not now wish to pretend, to play as though someone's wife and mother was all she wanted to be in her life.
With the other men she's had, her strength was a toy. The tricks she could do with her mind and body amusing jokes, if they were noticed at all. Never respected enough to be even a threat.
This man could never not notice. The curves of her breasts and hips are secondary to the lines of muscle, the things she can do with her skill. The first time she decided she would have him after all, he pressed his mouth to the scar on her thigh and looked up at her with worship in his eyes, and the smile on his face felt as much like home as the hilt of a knife.
This time, his fingers in her are a revelation, and when she pins him down he says he loves her with the way his mouth falls open.
After, when she's rolled them back, he says it with his mouth, too, and she says against the feel of his breath on her throat, "You love the soon-to-be Mrs. Slade Wilson. She's soft and caring and full of love. Out there, I'm Captain Adeline Kane, and I'm tougher than you'll ever be."
He tells her, "I love you," his smile against her mouth like a talisman, "in every way possible," and she knows it's true.