“As if Spade's chivalry would allow him to do anything to a woman. The harshest punishment she could imagine him dishing out to Cat would be refusing to open a door for her.”

“Could she kiss him? Would he allow her that? Was that something he could pretend was nothing? What about making love? Could she just open up her legs and pull him inside her and have him all she wanted and later give her assent that it was nothing?”

“In Nvengaria we would not dream of doing this. We do not punish a woman for what a man has done, and if he dishonors her and she shoots him, it is regarded as justifiable and she is praised for her bravery.”

“Normally this is where she would have told him to put his dick in the doorway, so she could slam the door shut on her way out”

“If they had been riding in a car, she would have waited for him to go around and open the door for her, but riding in a truck is different”

“It was all he could do. To make her see what she was doing, what she was ending, and to punish her if she did so. Nobody would blame him. There might be finagling, there might be bargaining, there would certainly be humbling of herself, but there it was, like a round cold stone in her gullet, like a cannonball. And it would remain there unless she changed her mind entirely. The children stay,”