Lisa Kleypas

I__e lowered my character with a great deal of unwholesome reading material.

There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile...no sound sweeter than your laughter...no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you__e my only hope of happiness. Tell me, Lillian, dearest love...how can you have reached so far inside my heart?

You shouldn't be shy," he told her. "I'd give my soul for a glimpse of you without your clothes.""Don't joke about that.""About seeing you naked? I wasn't joking.""Your soul," Helen said earnestly. "It's too important.

It was a kiss to level mountains and shake stars from the sky. It was a kiss to make angels faint and demons weep...a passionate, demanding, soul-searing kiss that nearly knocked the earth off its axis.

He looked like a fallen angel, replete with all the dangerous male beauty that Lucifer could devise.

I spent most of my youth hauling sides of beef and pork to my father's shop. Carrying you is far more enjoyable.""How sweet," Annabelle mumbled sickly, her eyes closed. "Every woman dreams of being told that she's preferable to a dead cow.

You know,_ she said dreamily, passing over his question, __ou__e not nearly as handsome as Lord St.Vincent.___here__ a surprise,_ he said dryly.__ut for some reason,_ she continued, __ never want to kiss him the way I do you._ It was a good thing that she had closed her eyes, for if she had seen his expression, she might not have continued. __here is something about you that makes me feel terribly wicked. You make me want to do shocking things. Maybe it__ because you__e so proper. Your necktie is never crooked, and your shoes are always shiny. And your shirts are so starchy. Sometimes when I look at you, I want to tear off all your buttons. Or set your trousers on fire.

I want you any way I can get you. Not because you__e beautiful or clever or kind or adorable, although devil knows you__e all those things. I want you because there__ no one else like you, and I don__ ever want to start a day without seeing you.

No marriage stays in the same pattern forever. It is both the best feature of marriage and the worst, that it inevitably changes.

I've missed you, Sebastian.""Have you, love?" He unfastened the buttons of her robe, the light eyes glittering with heat as her skin was revealed. "What part did you miss the most?""Your mind," she said, and smiled at his expression."I was hoping for a far more depraved answer than that.""Your mind is depraved," she told him solemnly.He gave a husky laugh. "True.

The letter had been crumpled up and tossed onto the grate. It had burned all around the edges, so the names at the top and bottom had gone up in smoke. But there was enough of the bold black scrawl to reveal that it had indeed been a love letter. And as Hannah read the singed and half-destroyed parchment, she was forced to turn away to hide the trembling of her hand. __hould warn you that this letter will not be eloquent. However, it will be sincere, especially in light of the fact that you will never read it. I have felt these words like a weight in my chest, until I find myself amazed that a heart can go on beating under such a burden. I love you. I love you desperately, violently, tenderly, completely. I want you in ways that I know you would find shocking. My love, you don't belong with a man like me. In the past I've done things you wouldn't approve of, and I've done them ten times over. I have led a life of immoderate sin. As it turns out, I'm just as immoderate in love. Worse, in fact. I want to kiss every soft place of you, make you blush and faint, pleasure you until you weep, and dry every tear with my lips. If you only knew how I crave the taste of you. I want to take you in my hands and mouth and feast on you. I want to drink wine and honey from you. I want you under me. On your back. I'm sorry. You deserve more respect than that. But I can't stop thinking of it. Your arms and legs around me. Your mouth, open for my kisses. I need too much of you. A lifetime of nights spent between your thighs wouldn't be enough. I want to talk with you forever. I remember every word you've ever said to me. If only I could visit you as a foreigner goes into a new country, learn the language of you, wander past all borders into every private and secret place, I would stay forever. I would become a citizen of you.And there it stopped.

It's the perfect solution. We argue all the time. We can't stand each other. It's like we're already married.

All right, then,_ she snapped, __o as you please! Perhaps afterward we could manage a coherent discussion._ Twisting beneath him, she flopped onto her stomach.Christopher went still. After a long hesitation, she heard him ask in a far more normal voice, __hat are you doing?_____ making it easier for you,_ came her defiant reply. __o on, start ravishing.__nother silence. Then, __hy are you facing downward?___ecause that__ how it__ done._ Beatrix twisted to look at him over her shoulder. A twinge of uncertainty caused her to ask, __sn__ it?__is face was blank. __as no one ever told you?___o, but I__e read about it._ Christopher rolled off her, relieving her of his weight. He wore an odd expression as he asked, __rom what books?___eterinary manuals. And of course, I__e observed the squirrels in springtime, and farm animals and-__he was interrupted as Christopher cleared his throat loudly, and again. Darting a confused glance at him, she realized that he was trying to choke back amusement.Beatrix began to feel indignant. Her first time in a bed with a man, and he was laughing.__ook here,_ she said in a businesslike manner, ____e read about the mating habits of over two dozen species, and with the exception of snails, whose genitalia is on their necks, they all__ She broke off and frowned. __hy are you laughing at me?Christopher had collapsed, overcome with hilarity. As he lifted his head and saw her affronted expression, he struggled manfully with another outburst. __eatrix. I__ . . . I__ not laughing at you.___ou are!___o I__ not. It__ just . . ._ He swiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and a few more chuckles escaped. __quirrels . . .___ell, it may be humorous to you, but it__ a very serious matter to the squirrels.

One glance and I knew exactly who and what he was. The classic alpha male, the kind who had spurred evolution forward about five million years ago by nailing every female in sight. They charmed, seduced, and behaved like bastards, and yet women were biologically incapable of resisting their magic DNA.

Getting to a higher spiritual level is like increasing your credit score. You get a lot more points for sinning and repenting than if you have no credit history at all.

Seduction is merely encouraging a man to do something he already wants to do.

You think I'd cheat on you?" I demanded with all the innocent outrage I could muster."With another guy, no. With a cheeseburger . . . in a heartbeat.

I'm a big believer in putting things off, In fact, I even put off procrastinating.-Ella Varner