Quotes from Julie Anne Long

When she pulled it out, something tum- bled out along with it: a soft copper lock of her own hair. She went blank for a moment, thrown oddly off bal ance. The things lined up neatly on the floor in front of her were like words to a sentence in a language she had only begun learning, a sentence punctuated poignantly by a copper curl. They told a story Rebecca sensed she already half knew, she could feel it radiating, increasing in light, on the far reaches of her awareness.

And for a moment he simply held her and she held onto him. It might have been the most perfect moment of his life so far.

His smile was slow, and contained such a combination of genuine amusement, self-deprecation, and appreciation for her that for an instant every part of her felt illuminated, warmed, and too exposed.

his father had pointed up and shown him Polaris, hanging up there like a diamond pin holding the black, black sky in place.

Her predicament (the word she had come to prefer in her mind, rather than circumstances) had turned her into quite a philosopher, when by nature she'd always been a pragmatist. For instance, one allegedly wasn't rewarded for all of the good one did until on departed the Earthly Plane. But if you committed one (albeit epic) transgression, a lifetime of damnation seemed required.

Hugh sought the right words. It's just that... He pushed his hair back. And then he sighed. I feel that if one is properly living life...an excess of rumination and metaphor can put you at a remove from all that's beautiful about it. If one takes advantage of all the senses - breathing, feeling, seeing... touching...tasting... he tried not to look at Lillias ...then merely being alive is poetry.

It's just that no one can completely take care of themselves. Not even me, and I have a freaking black belt in karate. It's not a man versus woman thing. It's a 'let somebody care about you thing.' And sometimes that takes more guts and sense than taking on the whole damn world by yourself.

Time seemed to elongate like honey dripped from a spoon.

She gazed up into his face, and he gazed down into hers as if she were a landscape he was inspecting for hidden enemies. Or perhaps hidden wonders. Lost. His voice lowered conspiratorially. Would you like your hand back? The right words to say were bobbing around somewhere in the syrup her brain had become; she couldn't quite fish them out. The truth was, at the moment, her hand seemed to rightly belong to him. As though it were a trophy he'd won for snatching arrows out of air.

How he felt (hard as a wall, safe as a house, dangerous as a wild animal), how he smelled (sweat, sawdust, smoke, musk, sex), how he tasted (like sin, if sin was a liqueur)- taken together they should have all comprised an adventure. And then a lesson. And then be rapidly consigned to history.

Something was stirring in him, though; a bud of comprehension that could very well bloom into forgiveness if left unchecked.

He just hadn't expected to have his equilibrium roughly jostled by a pair of blue eyes this evening. He couldn't remember ever seeing eyes quite that color before. So achingly lovely they made him restless. He felt oddly as though he needed to do something about them.

she echoed with longing, like struck crystal.

Murmured to him nonsense, which is the language of love

Once I have the target in my sights, he said, close to her ear, I think of what I love most in the world. What will happen if I miss? Will they be harmed? Will they go hungry? Will I see them again? He paused at length. Because I've learned that once you know what truly matters in life, and once you know who and what you truly love, then you know who you are...and your aim will always be true.

the brightening he detected in the room around him might just be the whites of dozens of eyes as they widened [upon him]

Sorry . . . thank you. Good night," she said finally. She pivoted and headed for the house. He stared blankly. Thank you, good night? Like she was Lynyrd Skynyrd, and he was a San Francisco crowd?

Trust was freedom, she understood now. It was a luxury. Without it, life was a cell. No emotion could ever get through unfettered and it seemed a hellish way to live.

He looked both a little bit dangerous and refined, like a ceremonial knife.

Nonchalance, she could have told Argosy, does not pay.

But there really was no point in asking. She read things, she knew things, and out they came, little surprises. It was strangely like unwrapping little gifts, not all of which he appreciated. She clung to facts and information, like flotsam in a shipwreck. They'd saved her.

Reveries made one soft. he never should have forgotten that the world was on the side of the planners, not the dreamers.

The man finally pulled himself from the water onto the pier again. Dazzled, she watched water run in clean rivulets down the muscles of his back and buttocks. He shook himself like a great cheerful animal, diamond droplets flying from him, exhaled a satisfied-sounding, Ahhhh! and then strode off the pier and vanished from her sight.

Nothing was more erotic than a big, hot, strong guy armed with a spreadsheet whose object was to make her life easier.