Suzanne Brockmann Quotes

Max's unflinching gaze never left that house.
"What do you think's going to happen?" Jules asked him quietly, "if you let yourself peel that giant S off your shirt and take a nap? If you let yourself spend an hour, an evening, screw it, a whole weekend doing nothing more than breaking and taking enjoyment from living in the moment? What's going to happen, Max, if - after this is over - you give yourself permission to actually enjoy Gina's company? To sit with her arms around you and let yourself be happy. You don't have to be happy forever - just for that short amount of time."
Max didn't say anything.
So Jules went on. "And then maybe you could let yourself be happy again the next weekend. Not too happy," he added quickly. "We wouldn't want that. But just happy in a small way, because this amazing woman is part of your life, because she makes you smile and probably fucks like a dream and yeah - see? You are listening. Don't kill me, I was just making sure you hadn't checked out."
Max was giving him that look. "Are you done?"
"Oh, sweetie, we have nowhere to go and hours til dawn. I'm just getting started."
Shit, Max said with his body language. But he didn't stand up and walk away. He just sat there.
Across the street, nothing moved. And then it still didn't move. But once again, Max was back to watching it not move.
Jules let the silence go for an entire minute and a half. "Just in case I didn't make myself clear," he said, "I believe

Some of the ideas were silly, thanks to Molly, who, despite being upset with Jones, was still trying to keep the mood upbeat.
They had boxes and boxes of copy paper. They could make thousands of paper airplanes with the message, "Help!" written on them and fly them out the windows.
Could they try to blast their way out of the tunnel? Maybe dig an alternative route to the surface? It seemed like a long shot, worth going back in there and taking a look at the construction - which Jones had done only to come back out, thumbs down.
Two of them could create a diversion, while the other to took the Impala and crashed their way out of the garage.
At which point the Impala - and everyone in it - would be hit by hundreds of bullets.
That one - along with taking their chances with the far fewer number of soldiers lying in wait at the end of the escape tunnel - went into the bad idea file.
Molly had thought that they could sing karaoke. Emilio had a Best of Whitney Houston karaoke CD. Their renditions of I Will Always Love you, she insisted, would cause the troops to break rank and run away screaming.
Except the karaoke machine was powered by electricity, which they were trying to use only for the computer and the security monitors, considering - at the time - that the generator was almost out of gasoline.
Yeah, that was why it was a silly idea.
It did, however, generate a lot of desperately needed laughter.

Okay," Max said. "Now I'm terrified that I, um, said it too late?"
His uncertainty turned his words into a question. "Am I too late?" he asked again, as if he actually thought . . .
As much as Gina enjoyed watching him squirm, she forced her lungs and vocal cords to start working again. "Are you . . ." She had to clear her throat, but then it really didn't matter what she said, because the tears in her eyes surely told him everything he wanted to hear.
She saw his relief, and yes, he was still scared, she saw that, too, but mixed in with that was hope. And something that looked a heck of a lot like happiness.
Happiness - in Max's eyes.
"Are you really asking me for a second chance?" she managed to get it all out in a breathless exhale.
He kissed her then, as if he couldn't bear to stand so close and not kiss her. "Please," he breathed, as he kissed her again, as he licked his way into her mouth and . . . God . . .
She could've stood there, kissing Max forever, but the man on the megaphone just shouldn't shut up.
Besides, she wanted to be sure that this was about more than just sex.
"Do you want me in your life?" Gina asked him. "I mean, need is nice, but . . ." It implied a certain lack of free will. Want on the other hand . . .
"Want," he said. "Yes. I want you. Very much. In my life. Gina, I was lost without you." He caught himself. "More lost, or . . ." He shook his head. "Fuck it, I'm a mess, but if for some reason you sti

Jesus," A.J. said, because he still hadn't gotten used to Jamie popping in and out like that. He still couldn't believe his eyes - if it truly were his eyes that needed to be believed, and not his brain that was responsible for sending him hallucinations of the old man he'd adored back when he was a child and life was so much less complicated.
And great, now Alison was looking at him as if he'd just shouted Jesus in the middle of her office, which he had, and there was nothing to do about it but plunge onward. "Yes, Jesus, yes," he said, which sounded even more stupid than he'd thought it would.

The very first picture that came up on the camera's little view screen was of him.
What did that mean that she'd kept this picture of him?
Was it because she still cared?
Or had she saved it as a warning? Like, "Never forget how completely screwed up your relationship was with this loser ... "
It wasn't a particularly good picture. In fact, it was pretty embarrassing.
Sitting up in his bed, Max was in his room at Sheffield. It was the photo Gina had taken the day after he'd arrived there. He looked like crap warmed over after his very first physical therapy session, and he was glowering into the camera because he goddamn didn't want his picture taken.

What assignment?" Lucky asked. "If it's training an all-woman SEAL team, then, yes, thank you very much, I'm your man.

There's no right way or wrong way to work. There's only your way.

Damn, this op has been like a fucking Love Boat episode.

I'm not the one who kissed you in the bathroom. In case you're thinking I forgot about that, or somehow missed it, or ... "
"Kind of hard to miss," Ian agreed. "Your lips, mine. A distinct smacking sound. Yup, that was me kissing you. Still, it was short - quickly over and done. A kiss good-bye. The subtext was I hope we don't die, but if we do, it was nice meeting you. Not at all like that under-the-dock kiss." He paused. "The one where you jumped me. The first time. So far." He narrowed his eyes at her, much the way she'd done to him. "Naturally I'm suspicious. Did you intentionally leave my clothes behind?

Well," she said carefully. "Someday I'd like to get married and have a family, but
"
"She does," Tasha informed her uncle. "She's pretty and she makes good sandwiches. You should ask
her to marry you.

Thanks again, sir." Jules shook his hand again.
"You're welcome again," the captain said, his smile warm. "I'll be back aboard the ship myself at around nineteen hundred. If it's okay with you, I'll, uh, stop in, see how you're doing."
Son of a bitch. Was Jules getting hit on? Max looked at Webster again. He looked like a Marine. Muscles, meticulous uniform, well-groomed hair. That didn't make him gay. And he'd smiled warmly at Max, too. The man was friendly, personable. And yet . . .
Jules was flustered.
"Thanks," he said. "That would be . . . That'd be nice. Would you excuse me, though, for a sec? I've got to speak to Max, before I, uh . . . But I'll head over to the ship right away."
Webster shook Max's hand. "It was an honor meeting you, sir." He smiled again at Jules.
Okay, he hadn't smiled at Max like that.
Max waited until the captain and the medic both were out of earshot. "Is he - "
"Don't ask, don't tell." Jules said. "But, oh my God."
"He seems nice," Max said.
"Yes," Jules said. "Yes, he does."
"So. The White House?"
"Yeah. About that . . ." Jules took a deep breath. "I need to let you know that you might be getting a call from President Bryant."
"Might be," Max repeated.
"Yes," Jules said. "In a very definite way." He spoke quickly, trying to run his words together: "I had a very interesting conversation with him in which I kind of let slip that you'd resigned again and he was unhappy about tha

Deck, I slept with this guy," Tracy said.
"No you didn't," he said quietly. "You slept with Michael. Who turned out to not be real. That's what you should be upset about. That your perfect man was an act."
She had to smile at that. "Perfect, except for the part where he moved to Maine. That sucked."
He smiled, too. "Perfection's overrated, anyway. If he was real, you'd've been bored in a month. No one to argue with.

It's not my fault, what?" she countered, as she opened the package of chocolate chips. "That I make you 'feel' something--other than miserable?

Sam found a chair under Robin's butt and evicted him from it, bringing it over to his pregnant wife."Sorry, I wasn't thinking," Robin apologized.
"Thanks," Alyssa said to Robin as she sat down, even as she gave Sam a darkly amused look.
"What?" he said. "I was just helping him think.

You shouldn't pull out the chair for me, or even open doors for me," she told him.
He pulled back slightly to look at her, his face only inches from hers. Even in the dim light, she could see that his eyes were brown and only brown. There were no flecks of gold or green, just one single, deep shade of chocolate.
He studied her intensely then leaned toward her again, his breath warm against her neck as he spoke. "You don't think Alice Plotkin deserves that kind of respect?"
"She's supposed to be invisible."
"She's not invisible to me."
Again, he pulled back, and the warmth in his eyes seemed to heat her from within. His gaze flicked down to her mouth, and Alessandra knew with complete certainty that he was going to kiss her. In just a moment, he was going to pull her toward him and kiss her. She couldn't think of anything she wanted more.
Cutting his hair had been torture. He'd sat there, without a shirt on, Ace bandage around his ribs, obliviously sexy. She'd touched the hard muscles on his shoulders and back more than once, using the lame excuse of brushing cut hair off him.
Sometimes - okay, more than sometimes - the hair had been imaginary.
Touching Harry was like touching electricity. She hadn't wanted to stop. His hair was so soft and thick, his skin silk over steel.

When you sit that way, you look kind of like a beach ball with a head," he continued. "Your haircut is really, really bad, I'm probably going to lose my job for helping you this way, and I'm dying to fuck you."
He glanced at her. "That honest enough for you?

If she was going to live in Cow's Bowels, New York, she wanted the complete small town package. She wanted a Fourth of July parade, a country fair with an oxen pull and a pie-eating contest, and she wanted a little, homey mom-and-pop supermarket, run by Mr. Whipple himself.

You're not my type for long-term imprisonment.

Why does it not surprise me that you talk during sex?

/When/ the piano falls, not /if/. Oh, Alyssa. What a way to live. With potential pain and heartbreak lurking around every corner.
And the only way to effectively counter it was to prepare for the worst to happen.
Or maybe even to run away from the good things
like love. If you didn't let yourself love someone, you couldn't lose them.
No wonder Alyssa had fought so hard for so long to keep Sam out of her life.

I used to shake my head when I heard about mothers who were shocked - shocked! - when their kids came out. I didn't understand how they had missed seeing something so essential when looking at their children. But too many parents see only what they want to see, and that's true whether our kids are gay or straight.

She felt like a real bitch. But that was a good thing. Bitch was a good word. Women who were aggressive and strong were tagged as bitches. She should buy herself a T-shirt that read Proud to be called a bitch.

I want what you have with Sam. I want someone who won't freak out when I have a night like tonight. I want trust and respect and ... I want someone who'll say I love you in front of a crowd of co-workers and friends.

The lust and attraction are often a given in a romance novel - I want to dig into the elements of true friendship that form a foundation for a solid, gonna-last-forever romantic relationship.

You have no idea how much I appreciate your friendship," Jules said. Sam held out several bills. "Yeah, actually I do," he said. "It's probably as much as I appreciate yours.

I love quick," Gina said. "And come on, I'm getting jealous here. Was it zero sex last year for you,
too?"
"Yes," he admitted. "I love you, you weren't there - what was I going to do?"
"Are you actually embarrassed, " she asked, "because you weren't some kind of man-ho and - "
"No," Max said. "I'm embarrassed that it took me an entire fucking year and a half and the worst scare
of my life to figure out that I can't live without you.

And you're convinced you can hide yourself better than an organization that specializes in hiding people from bad guys?"
"From what I've seen, yes. The Witness Protection Program didn't do a very good job of keeping me safe, did it?"
"Whereas you will, yourself?"
She lifted her chin defiantly. "There's obviously a lot I'll need to learn. But there's got to be some book in the library that will tell me what to do. How to hide."
A book from the library? Harry concealed his laughter with a cough. She was going to get a book.
"The setup was a complete goatfuck, I'll grant you that." He took a sip from a can of Pepsi he'd opened four hundred miles ago. It was warm and flat, but it contained caffeine. Christ, he was tired, and she was going to get a book.

You can't choose who you love, Kelly, but you can waste it. Why on earth would anyone want to waste it?

And I'm standing there, and I think, damn. I think, this is it. I'm going to die. Right here, right now - simply because I am a black man in an American city.

Tell me," he demanded. "Tell me when. I'm going to come with you."
...
"Tell me," he ordered.
"I'm ... yes!" she said. "Yes!"
...
"Can you really do that/" she asked. "Come on command?"
Mike Muldoon, Navy SEAL, to Joan DaCosta

His consolation prize was a hat. A battered fedora that looked as if it had blown off of Humphrey Bogart during the filming of Key Largo. Sucked up into the atmosphere during the movie's hurricane, it had ended up here, on the other side of the world, sixty years later.
On his head.
Even though it had been enshrined in a closet inside the house, it kind of smelled as if it had spent about three of those decades at the bottom of a birdcage.
Yesiree. It was almost as fun to wear as the brown leather flight jacket.
Which really wasn't fair to the flight jacket. It was a gorgeously cared-for antique that didn't smell at all. And it definitely worked for him, in terms of some of his flyboy fantasies. But the day had turned into a scorcher. It was just shy of a bazillion degrees in the shade.
He needed mittens or perhaps a wool scarf to properly accessorize his impending heat stroke.
"Today, playing the role of Indiana Jones, aka Grady Morant, is Jules Cassidy," he said, as he slipped his arms into the sleeves.
Was anyone really going to be fooled by this? Jones was so much taller than he was.

He moved into the left lane, rolled down his window, and tossed all of Alessandra's new clothes and her shoe out of the car. "Oh, my God!" She spun in her seat, watching as her clothes hit the ground seventy-five miles an hour, getting caught in the brush. "Oh, my God!" She stared at him, aghast. "Why did you do that? Are you completely out of your mind?

You automatically lose when you give up.

She'd also prepared by wearing her hair combed back severely from her face, and putting on her stiffest, highestcollared business suit. She all but carried a riding crop.

Then...you want to tell me what's going on with you and Deck?" Lindsey asked.
"Nothing's going on," Tracy started to say, but changed it to a simple, "No." Lindsey, after all, wasn't an idiot. Naked plus naked equaled something, not nothing.

Yousef gave up his kingdom to be with her, and Madeleine, well her father disowned her, too," Sophia continued. "But they didn't care. They went to America together and lived happily ever after. Until Hitler invaded Poland and started World War Two. Madeleine lost her husband and both of her sons in the war." She sighed dramatically. "I used to wonder, what if, when she stood in this room, at the very moment that she fell in love with Prince Yousef, what if she had the power to know what was to come? All that heartache and loss ... would she have taken that same path anyway?

And oh, /that's/ when I jumped him. Such willpower I'd had up to that very moment and it all crumbled. I kissed him, and Lord Almighty, he kissed me and we were both crying.
"This is going to be hard," he said. "This life we're choosing."
"Maybe so," I said, kissing him again, "but I'd prefer hard and wonderful any day over easy and run of the mill."
Dot to Walt on their interracial relationship.

What if I told you that you were a hundred percent wrong?'
'Wow,' she said. 'You are good. Talk about not being the bad guy in your own movie. 'You are a hundred percent wrong,' she repeated, with a horrendous, over-the-top-Yankee-fied imitation of his barely-there drawl.

That much hope had brought Max to his knees.
Apparently if he didn't let himself weep like a little girl to relieve this emotional pressure building inside of him, he was in danger of hitting the ground in a dead faint.
Jules crouched beside him, checking for his pulse. "Are you okay? You're not, like, having a heart attack or a stroke, are you?"
"Fuck you," Max managed, swatting his hand away. "I'm not that old."
"If you really think heart disease is about age, then you definitely need to make an appointment with a cardiologist, like tomorrow - "
"I just . . . tripped," Max said, but when he tried to get up, he found he still hadn't regained his equilibrium. Shit.
"Or maybe you needed to get on your knees to pray," Jules said as Max put his head down and waited for the dizziness to pass. "That excuse sounds a little more believable, if you want to know the truth. 'Hello God? It's me, Max. I know I've been lax in my attention to You over the past forty-mmph years, but if You give me a second chance, I'll make absolutely certain this time around I'll tell Gina just how much I love her. Because withholding that information sure as hell didn't do either of us one bit of good, now did it?'"
"I did what I - " Max stopped himself. To hell with that. "I don't have to explain myself to you."
"That's right, you don't." Jules ignored Max's attempt to push him away, and helped him to his feet. "But you might want to work up some kind of Forgive-Me

You're guilty of making the same mistake most people make. You say 'I love you' but what you really mean is 'I want you.' You think it's the same thing, but it's not. You don't fall in love with someone just because they fuck you like there's no tomorrow." Alyssa purposely used his words, "I don't doubt that you wanted me, Sam. That you still do. Because on that really primitive, physical level, yeah, I still want you, too. But that's not love. That's about possessing, about being possessed. It's not real
it can't possibly last. Love is something you give. It's not about taking, or possessing.

What do you think, Ronnie? Do you think we could stop after just one kiss?

He wanted Eden, and he wanted Pinkie, but mostly he wanted Eden, because together they could make their own Pinkie.

Jenk shook his head as he headed for the rental car counter. He felt his shoulders tightening as he walked away, certain that Izzy wasn't quite ready to be silent or invisible yet. He was halfway there when Izzy shouted, "Jenkins! I wish I could quit yew!"
Of course. The obligatory Brokeback Mountain reference. Jenk flipped Zanella a double bird without bothering to look back.

Although my elephant is different than yours. Mine's bright purple and I like to lead him around on a leash and introduce him to people by name.

Venting, even just a little, keeps the apeshits away.

You'd think the jolt of suddenly being hit by a human bullet would've woken the guy up, but he'd completely checked into the stupor suite at the Hotel Hypoxia.

Do you think," she said, "instead of having sex, we could make love?"
"I'd love that," Ken whispered.

Blood pressure check!" The doorknob rattled, as if the nurse were intending just to walk in, but the lock held, thank God. The nurse knocked again.
"Oh, shit," Gina breathed, laughing as she scrambled off of him. She reached to remove the condom they'd just used, encountered . . . him, and met his eyes. But then she scooped her clothes off the floor and ran into the bathroom.
"Mr. Bhagat?" The nurse knocked on the door again. Even louder this time. "Are you all right?"
Oh, shit, indeed. "Come in," Max called as he pulled up the blanket and leaned on the button that put his bed back up into a sitting position. The same control device had a "call nurse" button as well as the clearly marked one that would unlock the door.
"It's locked," the nurse called back, as well he knew.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said, as he wiped off his face with the edge of the sheet. Sweat much in bed, all alone, Mr. Bhagat? "I must've . . . Here, let me figure out how to . . ." He took an extra second to smooth his hair, his pajama top, and then, praying that the nurse had a cold and couldn't smell the scent of sex that lingered in the air, he hit the release.
"Please don't lock your door during the day," the woman scolded him as she came into the room, around to the side of his bed. It was Debra Forsythe, a woman around his age, whom Max had met briefly at his check-in. She had been on her way home to deal with some crisis with her kids, and hadn't been happy then, either. "And

So where's my hug.

Go fuck yourself! - Dan said genuinely pissed off.
Izzy
I've found that I'm a little shy for such blatantly public display of self-affection. Besides, I like to be wined and dined before I have my way with myself. I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy.

And I was thinking with a part of my
anatomy that has nothing to do with my brain." Veronica had to laugh at that. "Oh, really?" "Yeah," Joe said. His smile grew softer, his eyes gentler. "My heart."
And then he kissed her.

... now that I'm stuck here for an undetermined amount of time, it seems beyond foolish not to let me help." She took a bite for emphasis. "You could at least let me make you a sandwich," she added balefully through her mouthful.
"That was me being respectful of your law degree," Ian said.

What's better than loving and being loved?

When both men had their shirt off, as they did right now, it was like living in an Abercrombie & Fitch ad- a six-pack celebration, complete with triceps and biceps galore.
No doubt about it, Dolphina loved her new job.

Um,' he said, because she was smiling at him and he was an idiot.

He spoke in telegram-as if every word he used cost five bucks, and he only had a twenty in his wallet.

If he's at this party, I want you to stay far away from him."
"Shouldn't that rule apply to you, and Jules, too? Unless your penises make you magically bulletproof.

You're the very nicest jerk I know.

As Ian popped the lock and opened the car door, he turned to Phoebe. "Can you do me a favour?"
She immediately stepped toward him, fully embracing their new mature relationship. "Of course."
Ian looked pointedly over his own shoulder and said, "Tell me the truth. Does this car make my glowing ass look fat?"
She'd naturally followed the direction of his gaze, but now she looked up, hard, into his eyes. And she smiled back at him despite herself. She even laughed. "You're an idiot."
"When things get too serious, I get a rash."
She pointedly looked back down at his nether regions, despite the fact doing so made her blush. Still, she spoke coolly, dryly. "Not on your ass."
If Ian believed in love, that would've been it for him. Instantly. Enthrallingly. Eternally. Instead, he just laughed. "Thank God for that. See if there's anything remotely clothinglike in the backseat or the trunk.

His looks were the result of a genetic crapshoot.

You have to really want to be a Navy SEAL. The passion you need to endure the rigors of training, to become the best of the best ... It's admirable.

Here comes the bride. All dressed in white. For some reason, Chelsea could hear Bugs Bunny's voice in her head, singing the childish words that had been put to the tune. It would have been funny if she hadn't been so damn scared.

It doesn't get any easier to breathe," Max told him, "but you learn to live with it, because you can't live without it.

the landlord, Mr. El Cheap-o Thompkins,

He would've gotten a bigger change of expression from the Lincoln head at Mount Rushmore.

Savannah, I've been talking my ass off for more than an hour now, telling you shit no one's ever heard anything about, hoping that I'll say something, Jesus God, anything that will convince you to have sex with me.

Are you one of his teammates?"
"Yeah," Adam said, and it wasn't a lie because according to some people, both he and Tony were playing for the other team. Which made them teammates of a sort.

You can live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him, you know.

We can stop and see if the library has a copy of Hiding from the Mob in Ten Easy Steps. Maybe there'll be some tip in there that I've missed.

I'll be careful."
He looked at her.
"I promise."
"Call me if you need me."
"Cosmo."
He turned to look at her.
"It does go both ways. I don't want to get a call from Tom Paoletti and Decker every Memorial Day.

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I figured it was probably best for me to leave that bicycle back there for a real emergency.

While I sleep, and I sleep often these days, he spends much of his time in the church downtown. The very one I never could convince him to attend. He claims he is praying. But I know he is trying to strike a bargain with our Maker.
One hand of Black Jack, I know he says. Winner gets to keep the girl.
I know for sure, were J. granted that game of cars with the Almighty, he'd go into it with both an ace and a jack up his sleeve.

Jules had listened in on nearly every word exchanged while they'd been back there together, and it was more than obvious that Max had yet to pull Gina into his arms and do his imitation of the Han Solo and Princess Leia big-moment kiss from The Empire Strikes Back.
Maybe when Jules and the E-man walked out of the garage and climbed into that ancient Escort - which turned out to be part of the Testa fleet-Max would take the opportunity to plant a big, wet one on this woman that he still so obviously adored.
Or maybe not.
"Sweetie, I love the haircut," Jules told Gina as he gave Max back his cell phone. "You look fabulous for a woman who's been dead for five days."
"What?" she said, but it was time to go.
"Max'll fill you in," he said. There. There was no way Max was going to be table to tell Gina about receiving the report of her death without getting a little misty-eyed. At which point Gina would, at the very least, throw her arms around him. If Max couldn't manage to turn that into a truth-revealing kiss, he didn't deserve the woman. "Ow," he added as Emilio pressed his weapon into Jules's kidney.
"Sorry," Emilio managed to put the right amount of apology into his voice, but he was obviously so stressed that he didn't quite get the right facial expression to match. It was pretty odd. Particularly when he jabbed Jules again. "Let's go."
Wow, wasn't this going to be fun?
Max, meanwhile, had stepped protectively in front of Gina. He caugh

She cleared her throat but still her voice came out much too huskily. "Are you all right? I didn't see you there. I didn't mean to kick you."
He was looking at her, examining her, and he smiled crookedly. "You look good in the morning, Al."
Her hair was stringy, her eyes were tired and puffy, and she had on absolutely no makeup. "I look like hell."
"Whoa, that's pretty harsh language for you."
"You look like hell, too."
"Hell is an improvement for me," he told her. "In fact, I consider it a compliment. See, shit's my usual look. On really bad days, I look like total shit. So, yeah, hell is a big step up for me." His smile made his eyes crinkle. "So, thank you very much."
Alessandra couldn't keep from smiling back.

She sorted through the clothes. "Do you mind wearing Emilio's underwear?" She turned back to him with the two different styles that she'd found. "You're about the same size. And they're clean. They were wrapped in a paper package, like from a laundry service."
Max gave her a look, because along with the very nice, very expensive pair of black silk boxers she'd pilfered from Emilio, she'd also borrowed one of his thongs.
"What?" Gina said. It was definitely a man-thong. It had all that extra room for various non-female body parts.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm not," she said, trying to play it as serious. "One, it's been a while, maybe your tastes have changed. And two, these might actually be more comfortable, considering the placement of your bandage and - "
He took the boxers from her.
"Apparently I was wrong." She turned away and started sorting through the pairs of pants and Bermuda shorts she'd grabbed, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. To make sure he didn't fall over.
Right.
After he got the boxers on, he took off the bathrobe and . . .
Okay, he definitely wasn't as skinny as he'd been after his lengthy stint in the hospital. Emilio's pants probably weren't going to fit him, after all. Although, there was one pair that looked like they'd be nice and loose . . . There they were. The Kelly green Bermuda shorts.
Max gave her another one of those you've-got-to

Robin didn't like that idea very much-Jules spending time with Adam? "I get jealousy too, you know. You used to be in love with him."

Jules turned his head to look at him. "That was before I knew what love really was". He smiled. "When I met you, Robin, God.... I had to redefine everything. You know, there was this country song my mother really liked. It used to annoy me, I was in my technopop phase, but lately I just... I find myself thinking about the lyrics all the time. That was a river, this is the ocean.... I thought I loved Adam, and I did, but... it wasn't even close to this incredible ocean that I feel for you".

You couldn't attach a 'but' to 'I love you'. You could onlt attach an 'and'.

This wasn't Weirdville, this was fricking Wonderland. Alice here was all grow up, but she was still chowing down on too much of that psychedelic mushroom.

I hate to break it to you," he said, "but this time a pair of sunglasses isn't going to cut it. People are probably going to know you've been crying."
"I thought you were dead," she told him, her voice muffled, her face buried in his shirt. "When those bullets hit you, I thought . . . I thought . . ."
"Yeah, I know," Harry said, stroking her hair. His heart was in his throat. Was it possible she really cared that much? "I know you pretty well by now, Al. You thought, 'Oh, fuck, the dumb son of a bitch is dead. Now who are they going to send to annoy the crap out of me?

As Ian looked at her, he felt something in his chest slip and shift. The pressure came with a blood-tingling rush of triumph and satisfaction, pride and a deeply burning sense of possessiveness. His inner caveman warrior had been awakened and wanted to rush around the room, peeing into the corners, marking it - and her - as his own, while shouting Mine! and randomly smashing things for emphasis.
But he knew that was he was feeling was the equivalent of emotional and hormonal indigestion. He hadn't done this in a long time. And he particularly hadn't done it with a woman he liked as much as this one. In fact, he'd never had sex with anyone that he genuinely liked as much as he liked Phoebe.

My glass is not only half-full, it holds five-hundred-dollar-a-bottle Dom Perignon champagne.

What's the point of complaining. It just makes the people around you feel bad too. - Savannah

But she was quick to add, "I'm not saying I believe you're related to Kid Gallagher - "
"For the love," I said, "of God . . . "
"Jamie," A.J. interrupted her. "Not Kid. Jamie.

Knock-knock." Gina poked her head in the door.
"Come on in," Jones said. "We've got all our clothes on for a change. Oh, wait, it's you who gets it on in the - "
"Okay," Gina said. "Am I ever going to live this down?"
"Eventually," Molly said. "But Max singing you old Elvis songs over the walkie-talkie? Honey, that's going to be impossible to kill."
"I think it's sweet," Jones told her.
"The singing or the kitchen tabling?" she asked.
"Both," he said. "Seriously, Gina. He's all right.

There's no such thing as an underwear elf. Even when it goes missing, it's somewhere in the room. So make sure you find it.
DARK OF NIGHT by Suzanne Brockmann

Love me unconditionally, so I can start learning to love myself, Senior Chief.
Expect only the best from me, and I'll give it to you, Senior Chief.
Give me shit when I slip and deserve shit because that's further proof that I matter to you, Senior Chief.
Be my hero, Senior chief, and never let me down.
In the past, it had been a burden at times
his role of the infallible hero, the mighty senior chief
but it had never been so heavy as it was right now.
Because he'd seen something else in Teri Howe's eyes, something different, something he'd never seen in all of the hopeful young faces that had come before.
Kiss me, Senior Chief.

Vic, of course, clasped Max's hand, obviously sizing him up, doing that macho squeeze thing that drove Gina nuts. "He's younger than I remember," he said to Gina. Perfect. Thank you so much, Victor. Then, back to Max, "We met - very briefly - a few years ago. Looks like being shot has agreed with you."
"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say," Gina told the man who had just moved into first place as the most stupid of her three very stupid brothers.
"What?" Vic shrugged as he dragged over a chair. "I'm just saying - Max looks good. You know, for an older guy. What'd, ya lose weight while you were in the hospital?"
"Yes, Victor," Gina said. "They call it the Almost Dying Diet." She turned to Max. "My brother is an idiot."
"It's all right," he said, flexing his fingers - no doubt checking to make sure Victor hadn't broken his hand.

She was going to let him in, going to give him everything he so desperately wanted, and take more form him than he'd probably dreamed he was capable of giving. - Molly to 'Jones'/Grady

No doubt about it, Lawrence Decker was the reason God had invented nakedness.

Life. Unfair and painful at times. But always moving forward, always shifting,changing, with times relentless passage smoothing down jagged parts until it no longer hurts quite so much to breathe.

Jane to Cosmo
So you're thinking, you know, 'WTF, I thought we were going to do the horizontal mambo, and she has /questions/?' But really, I'm just keeping the conversation going until we can get into the bedroom, because I know that as soon as I touch you, I'm going to go up in flames, and I really don't want our first time to be on my office floor. Or on my desk. I mean, how would I ever get anything done again with that kind of vibe coming off of it?

Ah. That was what he was doing. Once they were beneath the covers, no one would be able to tell if they were making love or simply trying on each other's underwear. Especially if they turned off the lights.

I'm not a big drinker and I've had enough secondhand smoke for this decade and the next, so ... "
Great. All she had to do was complain about the deafening volume of the music, and she might as well slap a sticker on her forehead saying old next to the one that already said nerd.
"Band's good, though," she added. "Country's not my thing, but the players are ... proficient." And great, now she sounded like a professor. Proficient. God.
But he was nodding. "Country's not my thing, either."
"But you have a cowboy hat," she said, and as soon as the words left her lips, she realized how stupid she sounded, no - not that she sounded, but that she was.

This is what we, in the con business, call making a spectacle of ourselves. Let's try to avoid that from now on."
"Except [ ... ] Mr. No-Sex-in-the-Bathrooms is going to describe two probably drunk people who staggered in. Plus, he thinks I'm a prostitute. We can double down on that by ... " She stopped him, glancing back into the store throught the big plate-glass windows. Ian looked, too, and sure enough, the clerk was still watching them warily.
"Perfect, she said, and the made what was, absolutely, the international two-handed gesture for sexual intercourse. She then added a couple of exaggerated hip thrusts, saying, "I want to make this absolutely clear, because this guy's kind of an idiot." She then rubbed her fingers together, after which she held out her hand, palm up, as if to say Pay me.
Ian cracked up. "That's actually kind of scary. Sex with a mime. Do I have to pay extra to make sure you don't do the trapped-in-a-box thing while we're doing it?

But he didn't seem surprised to see her. 'Hey.'
'Hey, yourself.' Okay, that was stupid. Her grandmother used to say Hey, yourself. Great, she was turning into her grandmother at the most inopportune time. She didn't want to sound like a well-adjusted sixty-year-old.

First of all, she was uncertain how to read the statement. Did Harry actually mean what he said, or was there another underlying message? Did he mean "Wow, you are so completely unattractive, no other man could possibly be interested in you, so I'll take advantage of you by pretending to desire you. And maybe I'll get lucky and get laid while having a big laugh at your expense?"
Or did he mean "I'll tell you this to make you feel better because, even though it's not completely true, you don't repulse me, and if we do end up having sex, I'll just make sure all the lights are off."
"Look, Allie, I didn't mean to freak you out or anything," Harry said. "I mean, by saying what I said back in the car . . ."
Alessandra realized that she had blindly followed him and they were standing on one of the lines, waiting to order their daily indigestion. She had been staring sightlessly up at the menu.
"It's just . . . You wanted honesty," he continued, "and I . . ." He shrugged. "I took it a little too far, as usual. Some things probably just shouldn't be said."
"I don't know how to do this," Alessandra admitted. "Talking to men was easy when I was beautiful. But now . . ."
Harry was looking at her, studying her very naked, very plain face, his dark brown eyes so intense. It was as if the crowd around them had ceased to exist, as if they were the only two people standing in that fast-food lobby. He touched her hair, pushing a limp lock back behind her ear.

Was it really called dry humping, if they did it underwater? Probably not. Crying shame that they both had their jeans on, because this was definitely one of those adrenaline-fuelled moments of passion with a total loss of inhibition, where need and desire trumped all reason.

He was Lieutenant again. Which meant he was so screwed. Sam or even Roger would have had at least a slim chance of talking her out of bringing him in, but not Lieutenant Starrett.

I was still a novice at the caped crusader super-sleuth thing, but it didn't take a degree from the Sherlock Holmes Detective School to see exactly what had happened here. Alison had come home, put her lunch in the zapper, poured herself a beverage, turned on her computer and ...
vanished off the face of the earth.

I remain convinced that the most valuable use of time for a newly published author is to write a second book that's even better than the first, and a third that's better than the second, and on and on.