Amanda R

“...you can hate a place with all your heart and soul and still be homesick for it.”
― Joseph Mitchell

“Then take it all! Take my life! What care I now that the wench is gone! Damn her! Damn her fickle heart! Ah, man, I hate her! Fickle wife! She taunts me, seduces me, cajoles me, flees me, leaves me wanting her all the more. Have I no more will of my own?"

His voice broke, and he sobbed, hiding his face behind an arm flung across it. Shanna's throat tightened, and there was no ease for the ache in her breat. With tears of her own gathering in her eyes she tried to hush him. He heard none of her pleas, but lifted his hands and held them before his eyes, turning them, staring at them as if he had never seen them before.

"But still - I love her. I could take my freedom and fly - but she holds me bound to her." His hands became limp fists which slowly crumpled to his sides as he groaned listlessly. "I cannot stay. I cannot leave." His eyes closed, and swiftly the moment was gone.

Choking on a sob, Shanna bowed her head in abject misery.”
― Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Shanna

“It was the sound of her name being called that brought Shanna into full wakefulness.

"Shanna! Shanna! Don't go!"

It seemed a call of distress, lonely in the silence of night, and she could not mistake the voice. She flew from her bed and out onto the balcony, not pausing for her robe, and entered Ruark's room...

"Are you really there, Shanna? Or does my dream befuddle my sight?" His fingers closed lightly around her wrist and brought it against his lips. Kissing her soft skin, he murmured, "No maiden of my dreams could taste as sweet. Shanna, Shanna," he sighed. "I thought I had lost you."

She bent low to press her trembling mouth upon his. "Oh, Ruark," she breathed against his lips. "I thought I had lost you."

He laid an arm about her nape and pulled her down beside him, searching her eyes in the meager glow.

"I'll hurt your leg!" Shanna protested in concern.

"Come here!" he commanded. "I would know if this is a dream or more heady stuff.”
― Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Shanna

“The moment my lips touch yours, it will be your first kiss. Because if you've never felt anything when someone's kissed you, then no one's ever really kissed you. Not the way I plan on kissing you.”
― Colleen Hoover, Hopeless