If loneliness was a choice, what was the other option? To settle for second-best and try to be happy with that? And was that fair to the person you s… - Lisa Kleypas

"I can't get it out," she said.

"Just pull at it."

"It hurts. It's throbbing."

"Pull harder."

"I can't! It's truly stuck. I need something to make it slippery. Do you have some sort of lubricant nearby?"

"No."

"Not anything?"

"Much as it may surprise you, we've never needed lubricant in the library before now."

You deserve someone better than me. Someone young and idealistic…someone who can experience things for the first time along with you. I'm not always kind, and I have more faults than I'd care to name. All I can promise is that I'll want you until my last breath.

I never want to be apart from you,” he said. “I’m going to buy an island and take you there. A ship will come once a month with supplies. The rest of the time it will be just the two of us, wearing leaves and eating exotic fruit and making love on the beach . . .”

You’d start a produce export business and organize a local economy within a month,” she said flatly.

Harry groaned as he recognized the truth of it. “God. Why do you tolerate me?”

Poppy grinned and slid her arms around his neck. “I like the side benefits,” she told him. “And really, it’s only fair since you tolerate me.