Don’t panic, I thought. But already my breathing was faster, shallower. “You mean you can feel happy or sad or—” “Desire.” A barely-there smile.

...five minutes from now, when everything else had dropped away and I realized the full impact of what I’d done, I’d feel my heart breaking.

reading a good book in silence is like eating chocolate for the rest of your life and never getting fat.

If we're doing this for ten hours, I'm going to need a little incentive to stay motivated." Patch hooked his elbow around my neck and dragged me into a kiss. "Every time you strip my sword, I owe you a kiss. How's that sound?" I bit my lip to keep from giggling. "That sounds really dirty." Patch waggled his eyebrows. "Look whose mind just rolled into the gutter. Two kisses per strip. Any objections?" I pulled on an innocent face. "None whatsoever.

It was a smile that spelled trouble. With a promise.

If you keep running from me, you're never going to figure out what's really going on.

Did I really want to stay on this road longer, knowing it was only going to end in devastation?