“And you’re prickly enough about being young.”She was amusing him. “More than ever, I feel as if I’ve robbed the cradle.”But she knew how to puncture his mirth. “You are very old,” she agreed demurely.He pushed her backward onto the grass.She laughed and fought him. Within minutes he had her arms trapped over her head, and he kissed her while the world whirled around them. “I win!” he said against her lips.“Only because you used brute force.”“It’s better than drugs in a glass of wine,” he retorted.“You would think so, since you hold the brute force.”He grinned down at her. “But I did win.”“Yes, yes, you won.” She dismissed his boasting as if it were of no consequence. “Are you ever going to forget that stupid manacle?”“No, I think I’ll be bringing it up at inconvenient moments for the rest of our lives.”At his ill-thought-out words, they both froze, their eyes wide with shock. The rest of their lives?Their gazes shifted away from each other.”

“Wow," she said weakly. "That's even more amazing than I thought it would be."Alex's arms were still looped around her waist; it took a serious effort not to draw her back to him and start kissing her again. He managed to control himself and grinned. "You mean with me or just in general?""In general," she said. "But I have a feeling it's especially amazing with you." She leaned back in his arms, studying him. Shaking her head with a slight smile, she reached out and stroked the line of his cheekbone. "Do you even realize how gorgeous you are?"What he realized was that he was happier than he'd ever been. He gazed at Willow, drinking in her face, feeling amazed that this was happening--that she was here with him and that she actually felt the same way."Come here," he said softly. And pulling her toward him, he simply held her, cradling her against his chest.”

“While this is all very amusing, the kiss that will free the girl is the kiss that she most desires,” she said. “Only that and nothing more.”Jace’s heart started to pound. He met the Queen’s eyes with his own. “Why are you doing this?”… “Desire is not always lessened by disgust…And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire your kiss, she won’t be free.”“You don’t have to do this, Clary, it’s a trick—” (Simon)...Isabelle sounded exasperated. ‘Who cares, anyway? It’s just a kiss.”“That’s right,” Jace said. Clary looked up, then finally, and her wide green eyes rested on him. He moved toward her... and put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him… He could feel the tension in his own body, the effort of holding back, of not pulling her against him and taking this one chance, however dangerous and stupid and unwise, and kissing her the way he had thought he would never, in his life, be able to kiss her again. “It’s just a kiss,” he said, and heard the roughness in his own voice, and wondered if she heard it, too.Not that it mattered—there was no way to hide it. It was too much. He had never wanted like this before... She understood him, laughed when he laughed, saw through the defenses he put up to what was underneath. There was no Jace Wayland more real than the one he saw in her eyes when she looked at him… All he knew was that whatever he had to owe to Hell or Heaven for this chance, he was going to make it count.He...whispered in her ear. “You can close your eyes and think of England, if you like,” he said.Her eyes fluttered shut, her lashes coppery lines against her pale, fragile skin. “I’ve never even been to England,” she said, and the softness, the anxiety in her voice almost undid him. He had never kissed a girl without knowing she wanted it too, usually more than he did, and this was Clary, and he didn’t know what she wanted. Her eyes were still closed, but she shivered, and leaned into him — barely, but it was permission enough.His mouth came down on hers. And that was it. All the self-control he’d exerted over the past weeks went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Her arms came up around his neck and he pulled her against him… His hands flattened against her back... and she was up on the tips of her toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her... He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, trying to tell her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things he could never say out loud...His hands slid down to her waist... he had no idea what he would have done or said next, if it would have been something he could never have pretended away or taken back, but he heard a soft hiss of laughter — the Faerie Queen — in his ears, and it jolted him back to reality. He pulled away from Clary before he it was too late, unlocking her hands from around his neck and stepping back... Clary was staring at him. Her lips were parted, her hands still open. Her eyes were wide. Behind her, Alec and Isabelle were gaping at them; Simon looked as if he was about to throw up....If there had ever been any hope that he could have come to think of Clary as just his sister, this — what had just happened between them — had exploded it into a thousand pieces... He tried to read Clary’s face — did she feel the same? … I know you felt it, he said to her with his eyes, and it was half bitter triumph and half pleading. I know you felt it, too…She glanced away from him... He whirled on the Queen. “Was that good enough?” he demanded. “Did that entertain you?”The Queen gave him a look: special and secretive and shared between the two of them. “We are quite entertained," she said. “But not, I think, so much as the both of you.”

“Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn’t have cared less about either . . . he was all she wanted. She couldn’t help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn’t seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him.He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn’t known better she would have sword that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time.“Did you miss me?” he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer.She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom.He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. “You know, we didn’t get much time alone yesterday. And I didn’t get a chance to tell you . . .”Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated on the fluid masculinity of his tone.“I feel like I’ve waited too long to finally have you, and then yesterday . . . when . . .” He stopped, seemingly at a loss, and he tried another approach. His hand stroked her cheek, igniting a response from deep within her. “I can’t imagine living without you,” he said, tenderly kissing her forehead, his warm breath fanning her brow. He paused thoughtfully for a moment before speaking again. “I love you, Violet. More than I ever could have imagined. And I don’t want to lose you . . . I can’t lose you.”It was her turn to look arrogant as she glanced up at him. “I know,” she stated smugly, shrugging her shoulder.He shoved her playfully but held on to her tightly so that she never really went anywhere. “What do you mean, ‘I know’? What kind of response is that?” His righteous indignation bordered on comical. He pulled her down into his arms so that his face was directly above hers. “Say it!” he commanded.She shook her head, pretending not to understand him. “What? What do you want me to say?” But then she giggled and ruined her baffled façade.He teased her with his mouth, leaning down to kiss her and then pulling away before his lips ever reached hers. He nuzzled her neck tantalizingly, only to stop once she responded. She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him closer, frustrated by his mocking ambush of her senses.“Sat it,” he whispered, his breath warm against her neck.She groaned, wanting him to put her out of her misery. “I love you too,” she rasped as she clung to him. “I love you so much . . .”His mouth moved to cover hers in an exhausting kiss that left them both breathless and craving more than they could have. Violet collapsed into his arms, gathering her wits and hoping that no one walking in on them anytime soon.”

“He pushed up onto his heels and then pulled her up against him, one hand cradling the nape of her neck, the other splayed wide over her back. His mouth came down on hers and right before he kissed her, he muttered, “Fuck, you’re going to drive me insane, I know it.”Then his mouth crushed down onto hers. His taste was different—darker.Her, she realized. He tasted of her.”

“She shouldn’t have been beautiful—she was too forward, too freckled, too thin. Still… Oh, to hell with it all. He wasn’t hungry, anyway. He reached out and took her hand, drawing her to him. She drifted near, until she was close enough to kiss. Close enough for him to see the green of her eyes, widening as he turned her hand over, palm up.“There’s something I’ve wanted to do since the first moment I saw you,” he said. It came out close to a whisper.“Oh?” He could feel the puff of breath from that word against his nose.“Don’t even think of arguing.”She shook her head. Her lips opened, an impossible, inviting fraction.He set the fork in the palm of her hand and closed his fingers tightly around hers. “I want you to eat,” he said.”