“Leslie Ann was now agonizing over a full-length Flame gown that actually appeared to be burning fire covering her lush body: cool blue flames hugging her neck, red-hot flames usually covering her breasts, fluttering orange and yellow fire hips, all down along her white-hot legs to her Bunsen burner tipped high-heel shoes.”

“Anita Kleinman was a slight woman in her seventies. Her hair was thinning and white with a touch of pink, and was swept back from her face in unbroken waves. She wore a full-length Chinese silk gown covered with bright gold dragons on a blue background. Her fingers were tipped with long red nails and heavy with gold rings. She held out her arms in an expression of welcome and perhaps to show me the full extent of her dragons.”

“The pale whiteness of her upturned face as she choked on the smoke; the tangled length of her hair as she tried to shake the flames from it; the beauty of her cherry-blossom robe as it burst into flame: it was all so cruel, so terrible!”

“The pinpoint flame of anger and grief becomes a hot needle, then a hot knife.It melts the frost that binds her lips.It melts the sea in her eyesss.(from uncorrected galley)”

“At the moment when her eyes closed, when all feeling vanished in her, she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted on her lips, a kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.”

“Painfully, the tips of his fingers grazed over her neck, torturing her soul. She didn't move as his hand stroked the length of her nape, feeling the slight warmth of her aura make him lightly tingle with a frenzied anticipation. Her blood burned for him, feeling her veins bubble hot as he continued to linger his seductions along the rims of her body. He listened attentively as the beating of her heart increased tri-fold, the quickening pulse thump beneath his horny fingertips.”