Ellen O'Connell Quotes

He shook her gently. Listen to me, listen, there's nothing anybody could do to you that would make me not want you - no hurt, no scar, nothing. These past days I've been afraid they broke you, ruined all the fire. I'd mourn, Annie - I don't want you different - but I'd still want you. I love you.

He wondered if maybe just occasionally the gods designed a woman fit for a king or a prince and then gave her to an ordinary man. Maybe they did such a thing once in a while, knowing an ordinary man would treasure her more, love her better. Maybe they even let him keep her - for a while.

He entered her in a single hard thrust, opening her, stretching her and forcing a moan of surprise from her. She was ready, so ready, and yet totally unprepared. She'd been wrong. She was still virgin to this, to his strength and her need, to the pleasure and the pain and the sheer triumph of having him. He drove into her and she rose to him, clutched him tighter, harder. Her nails raked and dug into his back, her teeth into his neck.

Cord softened his voice as he addressed Anne. "Thought I'd see if you want to come home with me, babe."
She crossed the room in two leaps and threw herself at him. Cord kept the rifle trained on Wells, but he caught Anne with his left arm and crushed her to him. He buried his mouth and nose in her hair and breathed deeply of her.
Until this moment there had been no room for any emotion but fear in Cord. Now, with Anne safe in his arms, rage seared through him. If they did not get out of here quickly, he would leave the room drenched in blood.

Facing him, she saw what she didn't need to see to know. Even if most wives experienced being washed by a fully aroused, naked husband, they would never know this - a man no words had been invented to describe, beyond handsome, beyond beautiful. His skin glowed copper in the light from the fire, shadows emphasizing the curves of muscle and planes of bone. His erection was hers, for her.

Her hands cupped his face, thumbs caressing his cheekbones. "I love you, Mr. Bennett."
"Good thing. Hate to be the only one afflicted.

Well, they came the day after you did, but they made me angry, so I sent them away." Noah did not understand. "Sent them away?" Cord rejoined the conversation. "Ran them out of the house with a rifle." Noah couldn't have shown more astonishment if they'd said a mouse had killed a cat.

You know how it is. You make up your mind about something, and then you stop seeing anything that doesn't fit the way you already think things are.

Your brother told me once, 'Gaetan believes what he wants to.' Do you
believe as your people do, or did some of the things they taught at the school
take root?"
About the time she wondered if not answering was his way of telling her to
mind her own business, he said, "My brother was wrong. If I could choose, I
would choose the Chihinne way. The things I learned in the school make that
impossible, so I believe what I can, not what I want to.

What she'd done was give him a glimpse of something that scared the bejesus out of him, something never meant for men like him that could start a hunger that would eat away what little was left inside him that didn't need to be shoved into the dark place.

She toyed with the top button of his shirt. "Do Apaches kiss?"
"The people believe the mouth is only for eating."
"Oh." She didn't try to hide her disappointment.
He shifted her against him a little and cupped her breast with one hand, his thumb rubbing across the nipple. "They also believe a woman's breast is only for nursing a child."
Lowering his mouth over hers, he ran his tongue between her lips, exploring her tongue, making her shiver with a stroke along the roof of her mouth.
When he raised his head at last, she whispered, "I'm glad you're an unbeliever.

She was honest enough to admit she married him because actions other men would not conceive of to start with or carry out to finish with were ordinary for [him] ... not that she ever wanted or needed a husband who would steal without compunction, but she wanted that toughness, that hard eyed indifference to what anyone else thought, to - danger.

That took a while." Frank was looking not at her but at his brother. She needed to tell somebody. "It was awful. That horse really is vicious. I wish I could go back and relive last Sunday, and we wouldn't be here." Frank said, "The thing you've got to learn is that Cord's meaner than most of what he comes up against. You were worried about him the day he half-killed those poor yahoos too, if I remember.

If a man could taste wind and fire, they would taste like Katherine. When he stood in high places looking down on things made small by distance, he tried to feel what the eagle felt soaring free on the wind. He was an earthbound man. Only his spirit could ever soar, and only Katherine raised him so high.

Jessup said, "Doesn't surprise me somehow. I feel I'm walking out of a wolf den in one piece by the grace of God." He glanced at Anne. "Just what you need to be doing, adding to this family."
"My influence will be gentling."
There were at least three derisive snorts around the room, and Jessup laughed out loud.

Your skin is white, but I think the white god made a mistake, or maybe he did it on purpose to play a joke. He gave you an Apache heart.

Martha said, "Do you have any idea of the kind of surprise your brothers are in for sooner or later? Or are you doing it on purpose?"
Cord put his hat on and pulled it low, hiding his eyes. "Grown man walks around with his eyes shut tight, he shouldn't be surprised if he bumps into something he didn't see. You aren't trying to convince anybody of anything they don't want to believe." Martha laughed. "You win. I just hope I'm there when the blind men hit the wall.