“Little wonder he felt so often that he'd prolapsed all moral certainty.”

“He stared at her, knowing with certainty that he was falling in love. He pulled her close and kissed her beneath a blanket of stars, wondering how on earth he'd been lucky enough to find her.”

“It took all of her moral strength not to kick him—just a little—while he was so conveniently at her feet.”

“The queen had passed him, so close he'd felt the stir of air, and he guessed that if she had turned her head, only a little, and met his eyes, he might have died right there.”

“Chase was gone then, and Donnie was back, alone in his room, wondering about those pictures from an art book he'd so admired. Because it felt like he'd just lived one, and it had been beautiful, so beautiful, and he'd been able to reach out and touch the lines of it, but it still hurt.”

“He'd been inside of a storm, all right. He'd been swept up in a tornado of sex and memory, naked regret and short-lived ecstasy. Now he felt tossed out of it onto the hard, prickly ground. He felt bruised and used.”