“You're in deep with me, aren't you, baby?"
I whispered my question just to confirm.
"Drowning." he whispered back.”
“Are you here to freak me out in any other way?"
"Nope."
"This would include asking me for a date," I warned.
"Babe, don't date," he replied.
"You don't?"
"Do tequila shots followed by 5 hours of sex count as a date? he asked.
"Um... no," I answered.
"Then I don't date."
I smiled at him.
Then, stupidly, I asked. "You can have sex for 5 hours?"
He smiled at me.
Yikes.
Moving on.”
“You're bossy, arrogant, intrusive, annoying... "
His minor grin amplified.
See! Totally unrepentant...
"Do I have anything going for me?"
"... you can be sweet, you're a cuddler, and you carried me out of a burning building..."
"I'm a cuddler?"
"You spoon."
His brows went up. "That's important enough to be on your list?"
"Uh... yeah."
[He's grinning] "Fuckin' ridiculous what women think is important.”
“Don't call me baby when you're pissed, Sweet Pea."
"Don't call me Sweet Pea at all, baby”
“I felt a warm hand on the skin of my lower back.”
I twisted my neck, looked up and there he was.
I held my breath and he asked, “You comin’ or what?”
That was it. That was his pickup line. “You comin’ or what?”
I went.”
“About five seconds after I left you today, things between you and
me, they changed,” he informed me in a quiet voice.
I felt my brows draw together as my mind processed the fact that
this was not good.
“Changed?” I asked. “How?”
“You got attitude, the kind I like. So I decided I’m gonna ride that
attitude wave of yours, see how things work out.”
“The hot-o-meter started ringing like crazy as hot guys descended on me, my car and Tack from two directions.
Boy was I glad I curled my hair.”
“He started to pull away again but she called his name so he stopped.
“Yeah?”
“Before you go, give me the dimples,” she demanded.
That thing in his throat prickled and Hawk dipped his head and kissed the indentation at the base of his wife’s throat. Then he lifted his head and smiled at her.
Her hand came to his face and he felt the pad of her thumb in one of his dimples.
Then her eyes moved from her thumb to his and she smiled back.
”
“You live in your head too much, you curl up and shut shit out and spend so much time doing it, you forget to live your life. You can’t live your life in your head. That isn’t living.”
“No wonder. Puerto Rican, Italian and Cuban –
the perfect ingredients for a hot, bossy, badass cocktail.”
“Okay,” I started, “perhaps at this juncture we should discuss our
relationship.”
“Clue in again, Gwen, the reason our relationship is the way it is, is
so I don’t ever have to waste my fuckin’ time doin’ stupid-ass shit
like discussing it.”
Oh boy. Now I was getting really angry.”
“Woulda made a deal with the devil to get my wife and daughter back." He was still whispering and my breath stilled.
"Don't have that chance so nothin' I can do about that. But I darkened your door, baby, and you lit up my life again so I'm not lettin' that go.”
“Our relationship wasn’t easy. It wasn’t mellow. It wasn’t comfortable and sedate. He was too bossy and I was too much of a smartass. We bantered and sometimes we fought. But I’d learned I was completely unable to endure Hawk being mad at me and then I’d noticed that Hawk felt the same. No grudges were ever held. We created sparks but those sparks never caught the kind of fire that could do damage. Instead, we got over it and moved on.”
“He leaned deeper toward me and said softly, "I'm gonna tell you what I make of this. What I make of it, Gwendolyn, is if my woman had a sister who I knew was in some serious shit, she would not be havin' a chat with Kane Allen, she would not be sleepin' alone and therefore she would not ever have to worry about whether she needs a baseball bat of crowbar because she'd be in bed beside me." Mitch Lawson”
“Don’t forget the chocolate fudge frosting!”
“Gotcha,” Dad shouted back.
“Good to know, even after a family drama, Gwen’s still hard at work on that great ass,” Gus noted.”
“Sweet Pea, the way you eat means you got tits and ass. This is good because I like tits and ass. This is bad because Tack and Lawson like 'em just as much as me. Then he shoved his noodles and veg into his mouth and said with his mouth full, Tack maybe more.”
“You’re livin’ in Badass World, baby,” he whispered in my ear. “Fair warning, until I fix what I cut in you, you’re there to stay.”
“You're cute in the morning," he told me.
"I am?" I asked.
"Cute and sweet."
"Mm," I mumbled, glad he thought that but I'd always been a morning person. I was a night person too. I was an anytime person when I wasn't stressy and in a bad mood.
One of his hands left my back and I watched his eyes get heated and intense as they studied my face.
Then he did something beautiful, something amazing, something that, if I'd had any doubts as to my certainty, they would have disintegrated.
He tenderly slid the backs of his knuckles against the skin of my cheek while he muttered, "A year and a half. Totally fuckin' missed out.”
“Women like clothes, they like shoes, they like flowers and they like people to look at them and think,‘God, she’s gorgeous.’ The more people who think that, the better it is. The one day in your life where you get all that rolled up into one is your wedding day. And it
comes with jewelry and presents and ends
with a vacation where it’s practically law that you have to wear fabulous underwear and have lots of sex.”
“Then he noted softly, "You're pissed."
Was he for real? "Uh...yeah," I verified. "Don't be pissed," he ordered.
No, seriously, he couldn't be for real.”
“Ohmigod! This place is so cool!” This was Tracy, who was sashaying into the warehouse looking around like she just hit the candy garden with chocolate stream at Willy Wonka’s. Her eyes caught site of Elvira who was in the kitchen. “Hey girl! What’s up?”
“Job satisfaction, beanpole, what’s up with you,” Elvira replied on a huge smile thus taking the sting out of her nickname for Tracy (I hoped).
If Cam was yin to Tracy’s yang, Elvira was yang to all of our yins.”
“I need to quit," Elvira announced. "I gotta turn in my resignation. I can't work with a man knowin' his capacity to give pleasure. I mean, I can work with a man guessin' his capacity to give pleasure but not knowin' it. This is it. I hit the threshold. I never understood TMI. In my opinion, no amount of information is too much information but I've found it. I'm here.”
“I also suspected he was on the cover of the Denver Firefighters calendar, picture used for the month of July, he was that hot. If the firefighters merged with the police officers and they did a group shot that included Lawson and Jury, the paper might spontaneously combust.”
“Do you have any other siblings?" I asked.
"Yeah," he answered.
"What? A sister? Brother? Two? Twelve?" I pressed.
"Another brother," he answered.
Good God. There were three Italian, Cuban, Puerto Rican male Delgados roaming the earth. How did I not know this? As a woman, I should have instinctually felt their presence.”
“This is the us you wanted us to be, Gwen.”
“I know you're a step down from superhero, Hawk, but seriously?"
He grinned. "You think I'm a step down from superhero?”
“Then he walked in, the Great Mystery Man, now known as Cabe "Hawk" Delgado.
I'd fallen in love with him at first sight. No joke. He was hot but it wasn't lust. It was love.
Okay, it was part lust but it was mostly love.”
“I been working for Cabe Delgado for seven years. When I walked my ass into this place to interview for the job, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Hot guys everywhere. So much fine ass, shit! I woulda worked here for nothin'. First day, thirty minutes in, these boys, they became a pain in my ass. Sortin' their shit out is like herdin' cats. Luckily eye candy provides job satisfaction.”
“It might make me selfish, and an idiot, but when you needed time to get your head together after you'd had your heart broken by a commando, hanging at a mountain hideaway with a biker was a good way to heal”
“I might accidentally become like a hermit or a terrorist or something.”
“Clear.
Cold.
Empty.
Like how I feel
right now. Love
is strange. One
minute you’re
jungle fever.
The next
you’re
Artic
winter.”
“no small achievement when you consider the British climate, the fact that Blackpool is ugly, dirty and a long way from anywhere, that its sea is an open toilet, and its attractions nearly all cheap, provincial and dire.”
“We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That’s where the adventure is. Not knowing where you’ll end up or how you’ll fare. It’s all a mystery, and when we say any different, we’re just lying to ourselves. Tell me, when have you felt most alive?”
“That’s right. He is Charls. I am Charls. We are cousins,’ said Charls, gamely, ‘named after our grandfather. Charls.”
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