I’ll take your bet,” he said grimly. “I’m going to win it. And in three months, I’m going to put this back on your finger, and take you to bed, and do things to you that are outlawed in the civilized world.

I wondered how many times in my life I had done something just because I wanted to without weighing the consequences.

Darlin'...I know what you look like when you've been kissed.

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.

What did you do with memories, feelings, needs, that didn’t belong anywhere?

She was a beautiful woman, if not a happy one, and attracting a man was never a problem. Keeping one, however, was a different matter.

I had learned this lesson so many times before. It was the great inner truth that didn't require the support of logic. Every time I loved, I lost, and I was diminished. I wondered how much of me would be left after tomorrow.