“There was something about her mouth that made me feel possibilities...the way a train ticket holds possibilities, the way a boat docked at sunset does, the way a voice on the radio announcing victory does. A mouth can have that it can seem brave, and bold. Finite and infinite. After a war, you need both of those things. "Why don't you kiss me, she said. "Celebrate a new world." And so I did. I could not forget that kiss. I still cannot. I put my fingertips to her face. Indeed,changed that day, but the change in life was no smaller or less significant. The moment took my sorrow and made it swarm the streets in victory, shouting in joy and rightness, and from that I have never quite recovered.”

“I kissed her.  I kissed her so thatshe could feel my regret, my desire to do right, the way that she had a pieceof me now and I wasn’t letting go.  I kissed her because I had to and kissingher made me feel better.  When I lifted my head her mouth looked puffy and dampand her eyes were glassy with banked passion.I missed you too.”

“There are no words for how much I will miss her, but I try to kiss her so that she'll know. I try to kiss her to tell her the whole story of my love, the way I dreamed of her when she was dead, the way that every other girl seemed like a mirror that showed me her face. The way my skin ached for her. The way that kissing her made me feel like I was drowning and like I was being saved all at the same time. I hope she can taste all that, bittersweet, on my tongue.”

“I have waited for this, Beth, this moment,” he whispered as he took her hands in his and brought her fingertips to his mouth, kissing each fingertip before placing her palms on either side of his face. “When Sussex, Black and I returned from the East, I watched you as you did this—touched Sussex, then Black. And I waited, holding my breath, barely able to control my feelings, waiting to feel your touch on my face. But you did not. You made a polite enquiry after my health and left me standing alone by the hearth. And, then, the other afternoon with Sheldon, you touched him, and I was alone, and apart again. Remembering what it was like to await your touch, and then never to feel it. Beth,” he whispered as he moved closer to her, “won’t you touch me? See me?”

“I cannot expiate my sin, yet I am compelled to try. My mind will not let me rest. There must be something I could have done, some way I could have acted, something I could have changed to snatch victory from bitter defeat.”

“His mouth was wet and hot and intensely demanding, so sharp and piercing with need that it broke through Mattie’s defenses the way nothing else could have. A burst of excruciating hunger made her almost frantic with wanting him. She shifted in his arms and met his kiss wide open, giving as furiously as she took.“Oh, Mattie,” he said against her mouth. “I’ve never wanted a woman in my life like I want you. You’re driving me crazy.”