“I recognized Tiger Lily instantly; I had seen her before. She stood out like a combination of a roving panther and a girl. She stalked instead of walked. Her body still held the invincibility of a child, when at her age it should have been giving way to fragile, flexible curves.”

“I stalked over to Echo, feeling like a tiger after its prey. She backed up against the wall, but i kept up my approach. I pressed against her, feeling each sensual curve. I wanted to touch every inch of her body. Her sweet smell intoxicated me. Her eyes kept their laughter, but her smile faded as she bit her lower lip. Damn, did she have any idea what she was doing? For a girl hell-bent on keeping me away, she sure did everything to turn me on.”

“If there was a true moment that Tiger Lily fell so in love with Peter she could never turn back, it was that night, when he shivered and walked and told her he was warm, and told her he loved her so much. She was fierce, to be sure, but she had a girl's heart, after all. As she walked home that night, she was shaking from the largeness of it.”

“She adored all beautiful things in their every curve and fragrance, so that they became part of her. Day by day, she gathered beauty; had she had no heart (she who was the bosom of womanhood) her thoughts would still have been as lilies, because the good is the beautiful.”

“Keegan felt nervous as Rourk walked toward her. What should she say? In an instant, he stood in front of her. She felt his fingers trace the side of her face. She looked up into his grey eyes as he leaned down and kissed her.Keegan had kissed boys before, but she’d never felt anything like this.”

“You looked strange climbing in the tree like that."Tiger Lily pulled her braids between her fingers, her sudden self-consciousness feeling foreign and strange to her. "I didn't do it to look nice," she said."But you do care."Tiger Lily studied the tree and decided if she did care, she would now choose not to. "I don't," she said."All girls do," he added, pushing the point."You must not know many girls.""I know a million," Peter said, dark and serious. There was a long awkward silence, but if Peter regretted his words, I couldn't tell.”