““Tomorrow?”
“Sh.” She put her hand across his lips. “Never say the word!””

“Hoyt began moving his lips as if he were trying to suck the ice cream off the top of a cone without using his teeth. She tried to make her lips move in sync with his. The next thing she knew, Hoyt had put his hand sort of under her thigh and hoisted her leg up over his thigh. What was she to do? Was this the point she should say, “Stop!”? No, she shouldn’t put it that way. It would be much cooler to say, “No, Hoyt,” in an even voice, the way you would talk to a dog that insists on begging at the table.
Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns – oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest – no, the hand was cupping her entire right – Now! She must say “No, Hoyt” and talk to him like a dog[…]”

“Shanne said, “You are quiet; are you sad?”
“In a way. Do you know why?”
She put her hand across his mouth. “Never speak of it. What must be, will be. What can never be—can never be.”
Ghyl turned to look at her, trying to divine every last scintilla of her meaning.
“But,” she added in a soft voice, “what can be—can be.””

“Sometimes… sometimes keeping alive is too tiring," she whispered, wringing her hands. Before he knew what he was doing, he pressed his lips against her brow. "Don't ever say that. Ever.”

“She kissed me, author of The Little Dog Laughed. Then she took my wrist with her two hands. She pressed her lips into the palm of my hand. She placed my hand upon her bosom between her breasts. She turned her lips toward my face and waited. And Arturo Bandini, the great author dipped deep into his colorful imagination, romantic Arturo Bandini, just chock-full of clever phrases, and he said, weakly, kittenishly, "Hello."”

“I really wish you hadn't worn that sweater,'he muttered into her ear.
'It's good practice for you,' she replied, her lips moving against his skin.
'Tomorrow, fishnets.'
Against her side, warm and familiar, she felt him laugh.”

“From his lips/Not words alone pleased her.”

“She watched his lips forming the words, at the same time she heard them under her skin, under her winter coat, so near and full of warmth that she felt herself go hot.”

“She put her hand in his, and he clasped it firmly, knowing he had been waiting for her all his life.”

“For a long time the Baldwynn did not speak. At last he said, “Will you serve the Goddess now? Knowingly and lovingly, in sweet obedience and humble acknowledgment of all that she is?”
“No.” The word was a pebble in her mouth. She spat it out. “Not now, not tomorrow, not if I live to be a million. Never.”
The Baldwynn stopped and took her hands in his. “Dear child,” he said. “I feared there was no hope for you.””