“What Evie needed was a little hair of the dog, but her parents had confiscated her hip flask. It was a swell flask, too—silver, with the initials of Charles Warren etched into it. Good old Charlie, the dear. She’d promised to be his girl. That lasted a week. Charlie was a darling, but also a thudding bore. His idea of petting was to place a hand stiffly on a girl’s chest like a starched doily on some maiden aunt’s side table while pecking, birdlike, at her mouth. Quelle tragédie.”

“He tightened his grip on her hand and pulled her toward him in the darkness. He knew exactly how she’d respond, her other hand coming up to push him away, her hand touching the bare, hot skin of his chest so that she drew back in surprise, long enough for him to wrap her tightly against his chest, trapping her hand between them. He knew she’d try to jerk her head away when he slid his hand into her hair and tilted her face back for his kiss. And he knew she’d open her mouth for him.What he hadn’t guessed was what it would feel like. [...]He hadn’t known a mouth could feel like that. That a woman, an argumentative, reluctant woman could feel so hot in his arms, so incredibly right that his monumental self control could start to slip.”

“She whimpered, the sound lost in Mike’s mouth. She was entirely his, completely without willpower or volition. His mouth ate at hers, his shoulders curved in to her like some powerful wall of flesh. He moved his hips against her in short, stabbing movements, hands lifting her hips against his.”

“Why are you standing here, Charlie Brown?""I'm waiting for that little red-haired girl to walk by... I'm going to say hello to her and ask her how she's enjoying her summer vacation, and just sort of talk to her... You know...""You'll never do it, Charlie Brown... You'll panic...""Besides that, she's already walked by!”

“No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.”

“As he’d slept one night, suffering from some nightmare, she’d gazed down at him with tenderness. Her chest had ached with feeling for him—as his continued to do for her. She’d smoothed hair from his brow, soothing him with soft words.”