“Shame, when she was younger, had stopped her. Fear, as she grew older, trapped the truth within her.”

“I thought she was older than she was, and I thought she was younger than she was. She looked older, but she acted younger, so no matter what her age was, I was surprised by it.”

“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.”

“She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.”

“She wept with shame for her lack of will and with fear for a love she couldn't control.”

“She expected the pain, when it came. But she gasped at its sharpness; it was not like any pain she had felt before. He kissed her and slowed and would have stopped. But she laughed, and said that this one time she would consent to hurt, and bleed, at his touch. He smiled into her neck and kissed her again and she moved with him through the pain. The pain became a warmth that grew. Grew, and stopped her breath. And took her breath and her pain and her mind away from her body, so that there was nothing but her body and his body and the light and fire they made together.”