Vicky

“I will never be that fresh-faced girl who believed life owed me something. Life doesn’t owe you shit. Good things, bad things, they happen to us all, and most of the time, we have no control over any of it. It’s not how life tries to break you that’s the story. Life tries to break everyone. The story isn’t that you fell. The story is that you got up again and again and again. I got up.”
― Charleigh Rose, Team Player 2: A Sports Anthology

“Jessica, you are a pain in the arse, do you know that? If I were not so immensely fond of you, I should throw you out the window."

She wrapped her arms about his waist and laid her head against his chest. "Not merely 'fond,' but 'immensely fond.' Oh Dain, I do believe I shall swoon."

"Not now," he said crossly. "I haven't time to pick you up.”
― Loretta Chase, Lord of Scoundrels

“You'll want all your strength for the wedding night."

I cannot think why I should need strength," she said, ignoring a host of spine-tingling images rising in her mind's eye. "All I have to do is lie there."

"Naked," he said grimly.

"Truly?" She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "Well, if I must, I must, for you have the advantage of experience in these matters. Still, I do wish you'd told me sooner. I should not have put the modiste to so much trouble about the negligee."

"The what?"

"It was ghastly expensive," she said, "but the silk is as fine as gossamer, and the eyelet work about the neckline is exquisite. Aunt Louisa was horrified. She said only Cyprians wear such things, and it leaves nothing to the imagination."

Jessica heard him suck in his breath, felt the muscular thigh tense against hers.

"But if it were left to Aunt Louisa," she went on,"I should be covered from my chin to my toes in thick cotton ruffled with monstrosities with little bows and rosebuds. Which is absurd, when an evening gown reveals far more, not to mention--"

"What color?" he asked. His low voice had roughened.

"Wine red," she said, "With narrow black ribbons threaded through the neckline. Here." She traced a plunging U over her bosom. "And there's the loveliest openwork over my...well, here." She drew her finger over the curve of her breast a bare inch above the nipple. "And openwork on the right side of the skirt. From here" --she pointed to her hip--"down to the hem. And I bought---"

"Jess." Her name was a strangled whisper.

"--slippers to match," she continued." Black mules with--"

"Jess." In one furious flurry of motion he threw down the reins and hauled her into his lap.”
― Loretta Chase, Lord of Scoundrels

“You fault me for having standards?' Sebastian countered icily.
'Not at all. I fault you for having two sets of them.'
~ Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent & Cam Rohan.”
― Lisa Kleypas, Devil in Winter