“Wow," she breathed."I know, right? Hung like a horse.""If you're really nice-and you live through this-I'll promise not to tell V.""About my size."She laughed a little, "No, that you assumed I'd look at you in any fashion other than professionally.”

“I want to see the front of you.”“That’s what all the girls say.”“Do you expect me to roll you over? ’Cuz I will.”“Your mate’s not going to like this.”“As if that’s going to bother you?”“True. It actually makes it worth the effort.”With a groan, he shoved his palms into the shimmering silver pool of blood beneath him, and flopped over like the side of beef he was.“Wow,” she breathed.“I know, right? Hung like a horse.”“If you’re really nice—and you live through this—I’ll promise not to tell V.”“About my size.”She laughed a little. “No, that you assumed I’d look at you in any fashion other than professionally.”

“You really love her don't you," she said.With all my heart."She looked as sad as I'd ever seen her.What's your heart telling you to do?"I don't know."Maybe", she said gently,"You're trying to hard to hear it.”

“But I'll tell you something, Father; you give me Regan's identical twin: same face, same voice, same smell, same everything down to the way she dots her i's, and still I'd know in a second that it wasn't really her! I'd know it! I'd know it in my gut and I'm telling you I know that thing upstairs is not my daughter! I know it! I know!”

“V jerked back to the present. And for some reason didn't lie. "I'm thinking about my tattoos." "When did you get them?" "Almost three centuries ago." She whistled. "God, you live that long?" "Longer. Assuming I don't get cracked dead in a fight and you fool humans don't blow up the planet, I'll be breathing for another seven hundred years.”

“Any other vexations to report?" he asks."I love the word 'vexations.'""It's the 'x.' Nice to jump off a 'v' and bite into an 'x' like that.""Just the usual ones," she says."How was the weekend?""Vexing. Not really, I just wanted to say it. You?”