Tessa Dare
Certainty becomes you.Collection: Certainty
Cleverness is like rouge - liberal application makes a woman look common and desperate. Wit is knowing how to apply it.Collection: Knowing
Is it truly so unfathomable, that an imperfect girl might be perfectly loved?Collection: Girl
The pain of an injury is over in seconds. Everything that comes after is the pain of getting well." He gave her a heartfelt look, full of apology. "I'd forgotten that you see. Coming back to life ... It hurts.Collection: Hurt
Oh no. Don't smile. You'll kill me. I stop breathing when you smile.Collection: Love
He couldn’t compare a woman to a torrentially beautiful monsoon, and then look surprised that he’d gotten wet.Collection: Beautiful
How is it you’ve never married?” A soft splash. “It’s an easy enough thing. Every morning I wake up, go about my day, and return to bed at night without having recited marriage vows. After several years, I have the trick of it down.Collection: Morning
Dedication: For all the girls who walk and read at the same time.Collection: Girl
He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn't have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him, and he wanted it back.Collection: Done
You are a sweet man." -"God, there it is." He flopped back on the bed, as if shot through the heart. "Repeat that to anyone, and I will have you brought up on charges of slander." "I wouldn't dream of telling a soul.Collection: Dream
I'm male. You rubbed your...femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted.Collection: Thinking
What on earth are you wearing? Did you take orders in a convent since we spoke last? Little Sisters of the Drab and Homely.Collection: Order
No, Susanna, " he said. "I cannot love you just a little. If that's what you want, you must find a different man." His green eyes were breathtaking in their intensity. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. "Because I can only love you entirely. With everything I am, and everything I ever will be. Body, mind, heart, soul.Collection: Love You
She couldn't "heal" him. No woman could. Events that far in the past just couldn't be undone. But perhaps he didn't need a cure, but . . . a lens. Someone who accepted him for the imperfect person he was, and then helped him to see the world clear. Like spectacles did for her.Collection: Past
What is the world coming to, with these modern women? A man can't tell them what to do.Collection: Men
Forgive me for speaking frankly, but after the past quarter-hour's conversation, I am unconvinced that any of you possess the sense or sensitivity to impart the news in any respectful fashion" - AmeliaCollection: Fashion
Colin stared at the officer. “Thorne, you scare me. I’m not ashamed to say it.Collection: Scare
After spending all of her girlhood fervently wishing she could run away from home— she’d actually done it.Collection: Running
A man might engage in flirtation with distinterest, even disdain. But he never teases without affection.Collection: Men
Jesus. Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Delilah, Jezebel, Salome, Judith, Eve. Trouble, every last one. Add Minerva Highwood to the list.Collection: Jesus
She [Susanna] realized she was still hugging the wall. Pride propelled her two steps forward. As she advanced, something bleated at her, as though chastising her for trespassing. She stopped midstep and peered at it. "Did you know there's a lamb in here?" "Never mind it. That's dinner." She gave it a smile and a friendly pat. "Hullo, Dinner. Aren't you a sweet thing." "It's not his name, it's his...function.Collection: Sweet
I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” she said, breathing hard. “But it would take far more than that to scare me.” A quick flex of his arms, and their bodies collided. And he whispered, just as his mouth fell on hers, “God, I was hoping you’d say that.Collection: Sorry
Forgive me, Your Grace. Are you suggesting a woman is some sort of … piece of fruit to you? One squeeze, and you know if she’s ripe?Collection: Forgive Me
What? You mean to travel almost five hundred miles alone? No. I can’t let you do that. I . . . I forbid you.” It was Colin’s first attempt at forbidding anyone to do anything, and it worked about as well as he’d expected it to. Which was to say, not at all.Collection: Mean
Don’t. Don’t play that game.” His brow pressed to hers. “When I heard you cry out . . . it was like a saber to the gut. I wanted to die.Collection: Games
He quietly groaned. Again and again, he’d witnessed this phenomenon with his friends. They got married. They were happy in that sated, grateful way of infrequently pleasured men with a now-steady source of coitus. Then they went about crowing as if they’d invented the institution of matrimony and stood to earn a profit for every bachelor they could convert.Collection: Grateful
Your breasts are alabaster orbs.' "What?" Rufus objected. "That's stupid. I'm not saying that." "Do you have some better suggestion?" "Why can't you just say she's got a fair set of titties?Collection: Stupid
The Blushing Pansy," his cousin read aloud, in a tone of abject horror. "Tea shop and confectionery." Bram swore. This was going to be ugly.Collection: Cousin
No, no. Don't make that face. Every time I propose to you, you make that twisty, unhappy face. It wears on a man's confidence.Collection: Men
She would allow him to comfort her. And perhaps, someday, she would listen patiently if a dark, dreary night found him well in his cups and he drunkenly confessed to still feeling scores of wounds that weren’t his own, but those of men under his command.Collection: Dark
You don't want me to feel obligated? Well, I'm sorry, Lily. I am here because I feel obligated." He brought her hand to his chest, pressing her palm flat against his rapidly thumping pulse. "I'm obligated by my heart. It's decided you're essential to my existence, you see. And it's threatening to go out on labor strike if I don't make you mine this very day. So yes. I am here on bended knee, acting from a deep, undeniable sense of obligation. I am, quite simply, yours." He swallowed hard. "If you'll have me.Collection: Sorry
I knew right then you were the only one for me." He pulled her hand from his face, kissed her palm, then pressed it flat against his chest. "Beatings, battles, fights. No matter how bleak the circumstance, no matter how my soul despaired ... this heart never once gave up." His voice deepened, went thick with emotion. "I've a theory as to why. Do you want to hear it?" She nodded. "This heart is yours. It's yours," he said. "It always will be.Collection: Heart
Oh, dear." She let her head fall back to the pillow. "There it went. I've fallen in love with you now." "Just now?" Chuckling, he came to a sitting position, resting his forearm on one bent knee. "Well, thank God for belated blessings." He ran a hand through his hair. "It's been coming on rather longer than that for me." "What?" She sat bolt upright. "What can you mean? Since when?" "From the first, Amelia. From the very first.Collection: Fall
I was afraid. Of getting hurt in other ways. To be truthful, I still am." His thumb stroked her cheek. "I would never hurt you." "I don't think you can promise me that." She squeezed his bruised fingers. "But it makes things a bit more equal, to know that I can hurt you, too." His gaze fell to her lips. He said simply, without any trace of irony, "You are killing me.Collection: Hurt
There's a very generous donation in the parish's future if you make this fast. Ten minutes, at the most." Frowning, the man fumbled open his liturgy. "There's an established rite, Your Grace. Marriage must be entered into with solemnity and consideration. I don't know that I can rush--" "Ten minutes. One thousand guineas." The liturgy snapped closed. "Then again, what do a few extra minutes signify to an eternal God?" He beckoned Amelia with a fluttering, papery hand. "Make haste, child. You're about to be married.Collection: Children
I'm infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you're a very attractive man. But I don't like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably in public and are only marginally better in private. I only find you remotely tolerable when you're kissing me.Collection: Kissing
I have to go," he said. "You don't understand. Someone wants to kill me. "Someone wants to kill you?" she repeated. "Well, I want to make love to you. My goodness, Julian. With two such compelling alternatives, however will you choose?Collection: Two
Do you know," he said, "there are men who would like very much to see me dead. Powerful men. Obscenely wealthy me. Men who can afford to be patient and engage the services of large, ruthless brutes. I've managed to evade them all. But you...God's truth, I think you'll be the very death of me.Collection: Powerful
He laughed. A strained, ha, ha, ha, I may die of this laugh.Collection: Laughing
The words burned on her tongue, but Minerva couldn’t give them voice. What a hopeless coward she was. She could pound on his door at midnight and demand to be respected as an individual. She could travel across the country in hopes of being appreciated for her scholarly achievements. But she still lacked the courage to ask for the one thing she wanted most. To be loved, just for herself.Collection: Country
Don’t you do that.” She turned away from the mirror, toward him. “Don’t you dare make a joke. It took a great deal of courage to say what I did. And you don’t have to speak a word in return, but I will insist you be man enough to take it. I won’t have you making light of my feelings, or making light of yourself—as if you’re not worthy of them. Because you are worthy, Colin. You’re a generous, good-hearted person, and you deserve to be loved. Deeply, truly, well, and oftenCollection: Men
You’re like a gift,” he said, his voice rough. “All wrapped up for someone else. A man can’t look at you, but think of loosing those bows, one by one.Collection: Men
Whatever soul I had, Katie, I think I placed it in your keeping twenty years ago. And now, it's as if...every time we kiss, you give a little piece of it back.Collection: Kissing
Kate realized she had a grave problem. She was infatuated. Or mildly insane. Possibly both.Collection: Insane
For the love of ammonites, man! That's just stupid. Why on earth would the Society need to protect unmarried women from bone-dry lectures regarding soil composition? Do your members find themselves whipped into some sort of dusty frenzy, from which no delicate lass would be safe?" Mr. Barrington tugged on his coat. "Sometimes the debate does get heated." Colin turned to her. "Min, Can I just hit him?" "I think that's a bad idea." "run him through with something sharp?Collection: Running
Her chin lifted. "Very well. Here is my best offer. Half of my nakedness for all of yours." He pretended to think on it. " It's a bargain.Collection: Thinking
He had to feel those lips on him again. Had. To. This wasn’t a mild expression of preference. This was an imperative. His body was insistent. To continue his existence on this earth, he now needed the following: food, water, shelter, clothing, and Minerva Highwood’s lips.Collection: Expression
Oh no. Oh God. I couldn't possibly be so stupid." "Don't limit yourself. You can be anything you wish.Collection: Stupid
It's never been my desire to conquer you, Amelia. If you leave this room with me, it must be at my side. As my wife, my lover, my partner ...” His thumb brushed her lip. “My dearest friend.Collection: Wife
Clearly the sight of a well-muscled forearm incited a woman to utter depravity. How else to explain the invention of cuffs?Collection: Sight