Tessa Dare > Quotes

“Oh no. Don't smile. You'll kill me. I stop breathing when you smile.”
― Tessa Dare, A Lady of Persuasion

“Oh no. Oh God. I couldn't possibly be so stupid."

"Don't limit yourself. You can be anything you wish.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“He kissed her. Without warning, without permission. Without even deciding to do it, but simply because he couldn't have done anything else. He needed that breath she was holding. It belonged to him, and he wanted it back.”
― Tessa Dare, One Dance with a Duke

“Dedication: For all the girls who walk and read at the same time.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“I'm infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you're a very attractive man. But I don't like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably in public and are only marginally better in private. I only find you remotely tolerable when you're kissing me.”
― Tessa Dare, One Dance with a Duke

“Oh, dear." She let her head fall back to the pillow. "There it went. I've fallen in love with you now."
"Just now?" Chuckling, he came to a sitting position, resting his forearm on one bent knee. "Well, thank God for belated blessings." He ran a hand
through his hair. "It's been coming on rather longer than that for me."
"What?" She sat bolt upright. "What can you mean? Since when?"
"From the first, Amelia. From the very first.”
― Tessa Dare, One Dance with a Duke

“I was afraid. Of getting hurt in other ways. To be truthful, I still am."
His thumb stroked her cheek. "I would never hurt you."
"I don't think you can promise me that." She squeezed his bruised fingers. "But it makes things a bit more equal, to know that I can hurt you, too."
His gaze fell to her lips. He said simply, without any trace of irony, "You are killing me.”
― Tessa Dare, One Dance with a Duke

“The pain of an injury is over in seconds. Everything that comes after is the pain of getting well." He gave her a heartfelt look, full of apology. "I'd forgotten that you see. Coming back to life ... It hurts.”
― Tessa Dare, Twice Tempted by a Rogue

“For God’s sake. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Smile.”

“How do you know I’m smiling?”

“I can hear it. Hell, I can feel it. It’s all warm and sweet and . . .” He scowled. “Bah.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“Truly? That whole determined, dangerous saunter across the room was for me? In that case, would you mind going back and doing it all over again? Slowly this time, and with feeling.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“No, Susanna, " he said. "I cannot love you just a little. If that's what you want, you must find a different man." His green eyes were breathtaking in their intensity. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. "Because I can only love you entirely. With everything I am, and everything I ever will be. Body, mind, heart, soul.”
― Tessa Dare, A Night to Surrender

“And she was well-enough acquainted with loneliness to understand that the worst part wasn't having nobody caring for you - it was having nobody to care for.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“This is ideal, you’ll see. We do everything backward. It’s just how we are. We began with an elopement. After that, we made love. Next, we’ll progress to courting. When we’re old and silver-haired, perhaps we’ll finally get around to flirtation. We’ll make fond eyes at each other over our mugs of gruel. We’ll be the envy of couples half our age.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“Astonishing. In the morning, when she sat working at that table of correspondence, silhouetted by sunlight . . .

Her hair truly did look like an octopus.

It was the way she wore it, he thought. Or maybe the way it wore her. It all sat perched atop her head in that big, inky blob. And no matter how strenuously she pinned it, dark, heavy curls worked loose on all sides, like tentacles.

Of course, it was an entrancing, strangely erotic octopus. Ransom worried this might be how fetishes developed.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“Don’t you do that.” She turned away from the mirror, toward him. “Don’t you dare make a joke. It took a great deal of courage to say what I did. And you don’t have to speak a word in return, but I will insist you be man enough to take it. I won’t have you making light of my feelings, or making light of yourself—as if you’re not worthy of them. Because you are worthy, Colin. You’re a generous, good-hearted person, and you deserve to be loved. Deeply, truly, well, and often.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“He squeezed her hands. “I love you. I love that you’re clever and loyal and curious and kind. I love that you’re often so fearless and bold and strong—but I also love that you’re occasionally not, because then I can be strong for you. I love that I can tell you anything. Anything at all. And I love that you always have something surprising to say. I love that you call things by their right names. That you aren’t afraid to call a tit a tit, or a cock.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“It’s all right,” she said. “You’re through.”

“Jesus,” he finally managed, pushing water off his face. “Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. For that matter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.” Still not enough. He needed to reach back to the Old Testament for this. “Obadiah. Nebuchadnezzar. Methuselah and Job.”

“Be calm,” she said, taking him by the shoulders. “Be calm. And there are women in the Bible, you know.”

“Yes. As I recall it, they were trouble, every last one.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“No man deserves a woman like that. He mortgages his very soul to win her and spends his life paying off the debt.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“No, no. Don't make that face. Every time I propose to you, you make that twisty, unhappy face. It wears on a man's confidence.”
― Tessa Dare, A Night to Surrender

“Oh, but this gift isn’t the same as an ermine. This is property. Don’t you understand how rare that is for a woman? Property always belongs to our fathers, brothers, husbands, sons. We never get to own anything.”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those women with radical ideas.”

“No,” she returned. “I’m one of those women with nothing. There are a great many of us.”
― Tessa Dare , Romancing the Duke

“Yes, I am certain it’s infatuation. I’ve felt it before.”
Now Ash was the one who became a maelstrom of irrational emotion. That emotion being jealous anger. “Toward whom?”
“Why should it matter?”
“Because,” he said, “I like to know the names of the people I despise. I keep them in a little book and pore over it from time to time, whilst sipping brandy and indulging in throaty, ominous laughter.”
― Tessa Dare, The Duchess Deal

“Of course one kiss changes things. If it's done right, a kiss changes everything.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“She stared at him, horrified. And thrilled. And horrified at being thrilled.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“Mr. Sand, do you think it's possible to fall in love in the space of a single day?"

He smiled. "I wouldn't know. I only fall in love at night. Never lasts beyond breakfast, though.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“He let his eyes flitter over her. “I don’t see anything ‘precisely.’ I can tell you’re slender. I can see you’re wearing white, or some light color. Your face is pale, your lips are reddish. And there appears to be a dark brown octopus attacking your head.”

“That’s my hair.”

Ransom shrugged. “You asked what I see. I see tentacles.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“Every time you wake up, you let fly the most marvelous string of curses. It’s never the same twice, do you know that? It’s so intriguing. You’re like a rooster that crows blasphemy.”
― Tessa Dare, Romancing the Duke

“He lay on the bed, freshly shaven and washed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms propped behind his head. His posture said, Yes, ladies. I truly am this handsome. And I don't even have to try.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“I'm male. You rubbed your...femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted.”
― Tessa Dare, A Week to be Wicked

“Clearly the sight of a well-muscled forearm incited a woman to utter depravity. How else to explain the invention of cuffs?”
― Tessa Dare, Goddess of the Hunt

“I think you underestimate my capacity for taking normal human interaction and making it awkward.”
― Tessa Dare, When a Scot Ties the Knot