Lisa Kleypas

“A few more minutes," he said stubbornly."No. I just spent the better part of a day sorting through garbage on your behalf. I have other stuff to do. Paid work. Unlike you, I can't survive on air."(Ghost to Alex)”

“Beautiful Hannah. If you were mine, I'd lay you on silk sheets and wrap you up in ropes of pearls, and feed you honey from a silver spoon. Of course, you wouldn't be able to make all your high-minded judgments if you were a fallen woman...but you wouldn't care. Because I would pleasure you, Hannah, every night, all night, until you forgot your own name. Until you were willing to do things that would shock you in the light of day. I would debauch you from your head down to your innocent little toes-" "Oh, I despise you...”

“What flaw could you possibly find in his appearance?""His posture," Hannah muttered."What about it?""He slouches.""He's an American. They all slouch. The weight of their wallets drags them over.”

“Great men don't nessarily make good husbands.”

“I'm one of those people who was meant to have a very ordinary life. I have no special talent, no great beauty, nothing that distinguishes me from a hundred, thousand other girls. But I can't go through an entire lifetime without at least one night of magic.”

“Safe men are for marrying. Dangerous men are for pleasure.”

“In my entire life, I've never managed to do anything that I've truly been ashamed of.”

“The audience falls in love with a leading man because he'll never belong to any of them.”

“It's not what you project... it's what you don't show.”

“Just you,' Hardy said when he got his breath back. 'All I want is you.”

“I never take advice, good or bad. That would only encourage more of it.”

“You took advantage of me while I was sleeping," she said breathlessly. "That's not fair." Gentry's hand moved over her hip in a slow circle."I seldom play fair. It's usually easier to cheat."A sudden laugh bubbled in Lottie's throat. "You are the most shameless man I've ever encountered.""Probably," he conceded, pushing her hair aside and lowering his smiling mouth to the back of her neck.”

“You ignorant whelp. You dare to warn me away from her? I created her. Without my influence, Charlotte would be a bovine in the country with a half-dozen children at her skirts...or spreading her legs for every man who dropped a coin between her breasts. I've spent a fortune to make her into something far better than she was ever meant to be.""Why don't you send me a bill?""It would beggar you," Radnor assured him with raw contempt."Send it anyway," Nick invited gently. "I'll be interested to learn the cost of creating someone.”

“Murmuring her name, he brought her hand to his face and nuzzled ardently into her palm, his lips brushing the warm circlet of her gold wedding band. 'My love is upon you,' he whispered... and she knew then that she had won.”

“...even though you said yes to the wrong man, I hope that won't cause you to say no to the right one.”

“She wanted him to stop, but more than that, she wanted him to go on forever.”

“My love is upon you.”

“Lately I've become so damned distracted that I can't make a decision about anything. I can't think clearly. I've got knots in my stomach, and constant pains in my chest, and whenever I see you talking to any man, or smiling at anyone, I go insane with jealousy. I can't live this way. I—" He broke off and stared at her incredulously. "Damn it, Evie, what is there for you to smile about?""Nothing," she said, hastily tucking the sudden smile back into the corners of her mouth. "It's just… it sounds as if you're trying to say that you love me.”

“I thought I would spend the rest of my life searching for little reminders of you...”

“Come on, Ella. Sleep green.'Ignoring him, I got into bed wearing a T-shirt and boxer shorts printed with penguins. I reached over to the nightstand and flipped off the lamp.A moment of silence, and then I heard a lecherous murmur. 'I like your penguins.”

“Sometimes you meet a really nice guy, but no matter how you try, you can’t seem to make yourself wanthim. But that’s not nearly as bad as when you meet the wrong guy, and you can’t make yourself not want him.”

“I know. But I hate weddings.”“Because of Darcy?”“Because a wedding is a ceremony where a symbolic virgin surrounded by women in ugly dresses marries a hungover groom accompanied byfriends he hasn’t seen in years but made them show up anyway. After that, there’s a reception where the guests are held hostage for two hours withnothing to eat except lukewarm chicken winglets or those weird coated almonds, and the DJ tries to brainwash everyone into doing the electricslide and the Macarena, which some drunk idiots always go for. The only good part about a wedding is the free booze.”“Can you say that again?” Sam asked. “Because I might want to write it down and use it as part of my speech.”

“It was a bad habit of hers … looking for safety in places where there wasn’t any.”

“Most people don't have facades," Natalie said drily. "Oh everyone thinks they do, but when you dig below the facade, there is only more facade.”

“I tried to curl around him, holding him with my arching body. His mouth was slow and searching, the kisses hard at first, then loosening as if unraveling from their own heat. The pleasure thickened, hard flushes rising through me, bringing the desire to full-slip ripeness.”

“Sometimes the fractures in two separate souls became the very hinges that held them together.”

“He slitted his eyes open and squeezed them shut again as he saw her finger intruding deeper into the bottle. "Grows..."he forced himself to continue, "until the fruit is ripe.""They do? That is the cleverest...a pear in its own little...oh no.""What?" Marcus asked through clenched teeth."My finger's stuck."Dumbfounded, he looked down at the sight of Lillian tugging on her imprisoned finger."I can't get it out," she said."Just pull at it.""It hurts. It's throbbing." "Pull harder.""I can't! It's truly stuck. I need something to make it slippery. Do you have some sort of lubricant nearby?""No.""Not anything?""Much as it may surprise you, we've never needed lubricant in the library before now.”

“- No, no... She shook her head for emphasis. No.His lips twitched.- One 'no' is enough, darling.”

“Leo knew next to nothing about governesses, save for the drab creatures in novels, who tended to fall in love with the lord of the manor, always with bad results.”

“One of the women at the clinic had remarked dryly that Harrow's personal magnetism not only affected men, women and children but also extended to armoires, assorted chairs and the nearby goldfish in a bowl.”

“I had to wait for someone special. Someone who would make my heart feel as if it's been trampled by elephants, thrown into the amazon, and eaten by piranhas.”

“I realized that my kisses with Dane had become a form of punctuation, the quotations or the hasty dash at the end of a conversation”

“Alex's gaze bore her through like an icicle. He was tempted to shove her back into the ornate carriage and tell the driver to head straight for London. Or a far hotter place.”

“Pretend you're mine," he urged, his arms closing around her. "Just for a minute. Pretend there's never been anyone but me, that I'm the one you're promised to. Do it for me....I'll never ask again.”

“Te amo. Amo cada parte de ti, cada pensamiento y cada palabra ... todo el complicado y fascinante manojo de cosas que eres. Te quiero con diez tipos diferentes de necesidad a la vez. Amo todos tus estados, la forma en que eres ahora, la idea de cuánto mas bella serás en las próximas décadas. Te amo por ser la respuesta a cada pregunta que mi corazón pueda formular.Todos los fuegos de infierno podrían arder durante mil años y eso no igualaría lo que siento por ti en un minuto del día. Te amo tanto que no hay ningún placer en ello. Nada más que tormento. Porque si pudiera diluir lo que siento por ti a una millonésima parte, todavía sería lo suficiente como para matarte. E incluso si esto me vuelve loco, preferiría verte vivir en los brazos de ese bastardo frío y sin alma antes que morir en lo míos.Kev Merripen”

“I'm sorry." Her voice cracked. "McKenna-""Not sorry enough." He pressed his wet face to hers, his mouth rubbing over her cheeks and chin in feverish, rough half kisses, as if he wanted to devour her. "Not nearly enough. You say you've had to live without your heart...how would you like to lose your soul as well? I've cursed every day I've had to live without you, and every night that I spent with another woman, wishing that it was you in my arms-""NO-" she moaned."Wishing," he continued fiercely, "for some way to stop the memories of you from eating away at me until there was nothing left inside. I've found no peace anywhere, not even in sleep. Not even in dreams..." He broke off and assaulted her with hungry, shuddering kisses. The taste of his tears, his mouth, made Aline disoriented and hot, her head reeling from shocks of pleasure. McKenna seemed possessed by a passion that bordered on violence, his lungs wracked with hard breaths, his hands tightening with a force that threatened to leave bruises on her tender flesh. "By God," he said with the vehemence of a man to whom entirely too much had happened, "In the past few days I've suffered the torments of the damned, and I've had enough!”

“A book had always been a door to another world... a world much more interesting and fantastical than reality. But she had finally discovered that life could be even more wonderful than fantasy.And that love could fill the real world with magic.”

“On Monday they went out for a private picnic.On Tuesday they went for a carriage drive.On Wednesday they went to pick bluebells.On Thursday they fished at the lake, returning with damp clothes and sun-glazed complexions, laughing together at a joke they didn't share with anyone else.On Friday they danced together at an impromptu musical evening, looking so well matched one of the guests remarked it was a pleasure to watch them.On Saturday Matthew woke up wanting to murder someone.”

“It wasn't a meaningless act for me either," Marcus said, his raspy whisper tickling her ear. "Yesterday I finally realized that all the things that I thought were wrong about you were actually the things I enjoyed most. I don't give a damn what you do, so long as it pleases you. Run barefoot on the front lawn. Eat pudding with your fingers. Tell me to go to hell as often as you like. I want you just as you are. After all, you're the only woman aside from my sisters who has ever dared to tell me to my face that I'm an arrogant ass. How could I resist you?" His mouth moved to the soft cushion of her cheek. "My dearest Lillian," he whispered, easing her head back to kiss her eyelids. "If I had the gift of poetry, I would shower you with sonnets. But words have always been difficult for me when my feelings are strongest. And there is one word in particular that I can't bring myself to say to you...'goodbye'. I couldn't bear the sight of you walking away from me. If you won't marry me for the sake of your honor, then do it for the sake of everyone who would have to tolerate me otherwise. Marry me because I need someone who will help me to laught at myself. Because someone has to teach me how to whistle. Marry me, Lillian...because I have the most irresistable fascination for your ears.”

“Because you need me," he said, drawing in his breath as she squirmed against him. "Just as I need you." He crushed his mouth to hers. "I've needed you for years." Another kiss, this one deep and drugging, his tongue searching her intimately”

“There's not much I wouldn't do for you, Ella, " he said quietly. "Haven't you figured that out yet?”

“Most of the time when couples argue, it’s not really about the thing they’re fighting about; there’s a deeper reason why they’re arguing.”

“I’ve lost someone, too. And there were no rules for how to deal with the death of someone you loved. You had to accept that the loss would always stay with you, like a reminder note pinned to the inside of your jacket. But there were still opportunities for happiness. Even joy.”

“The smarter you are, the more reasons you have to be miserable.”

“You know," I told him on our wedding night, "I'm just as much me when I'm with you, as I am without you."And because Hardy understood what I meant, he pulled me into his arms, against his heart.”

“I need you for a lot of things, Hardy. A lifetime's worth of things.”

“I was going to have to leave you anyway. Because I loved you too much to drag youdown with me."My hand crept up to caress the rigid line of his jaw. "Why'd you change your mind?" I whispered."After I calmed down a little and had a chance to think, I figured . . . I love you enough to try and deserve you. I would do anything, be anything, for you.”

“Hardy Cates," I said, coming into the room, "you behave, or I'll step on your tube."The nurse seemed taken aback by my unsympathetic bedside manner. But Hardy's gaze met mine in a moment of bright, hot voltage, and he relaxed, reassured in a way that cooing sympathy could never have done. "That only works if it's a breathing tube," he told me.”

“Hardy's either done the wrong thing for the wrong reason . . . " Another big swallow. "Or the wrong thing for the right reason.”

“No," I said automatically, "don't do anything about Dad. You can't fix my relationship with him.""I can block or run interference.""Thanks, Jack, but I don't need blocking, and I really don't need any more interference."He looked annoyed. "Well, why did you waste all that time complaining to me if you didn't want me to do something about it?""I don't want you to fix my problems. I just wanted you to listen.""Hang it all, Haven, talk to a girlfriend if all you want is a pair of ears. Guys hate it when you give us a problem and then don't let us do something about it. It makes us feel bad. And then the only way to make ourselves feel better is to rip a phone book in two or blow something up. So let's get this straight — I'm not a good listener. I'm a guy.""Yes you are." I stood and smiled. "Want to buy me a drink at an after work bar?""Now you're talking," my brother said, and we left the office.”