"'You can't seduce the Orc. The Orc does not care that you have a comeliness score of eighteen. The Orc only sees that you are a High Elf. From an Orcish standpoint, you're rather ugly.'"

"We confer in front of the refrigerator. Ostensibly, Lydia and I are in the kitchen for more soda and chips to take back to the living room, but of course, that's only an excuse to be here. Our real reason is a little more serious."

"Within minutes, the garden is back to normal, and the gazebo is quiet and sleepy; although a perceptive visitor will see some pieces of a dead munchkin buried in a compost heap under a pile of splinters. Gazebos eliminate waste rapidly; their healthy, quick digestion process helps in the efficient production of mulch. This is one reason gazebos are sought out as garden caretakers."

"It doesn't hurt. No, really, it doesn't. It never does, provided, of course, you have no heart to be broken in the first place."

"And so, we're dancing, like twin planets in search of a sun, slowly orbiting the chest that sits more or less in the center of the living room."

"He proceeds to go about distracting me. As it transpires, I am easily distracted."

"'You'll probably find this particular lesson rather enjoyable,' he says, and smiles. 'It involves a lot of kissing.'"

"Drowning. Melting. Disintegrating, disintegrating. I'm dissolving into him. All I feel is my desire, which will kill me with ecstasy; and him, overwhelming, hard as granite on the outside, sharp as steel, and yet warm and soft and comforting beneath the surface, a blanket, a hearth fire. In this is everything I ever wanted or needed, and it caresses me softly, holding me in warmth and sweetness."

"Deep within, a warm, flowing current pulses. It wants to swell. I am profoundly thirsty, and oh, I'm hungry. Swell the current. Raise the river, bring down the rain, overflow. Overflow your life into my mouth, and my dear love, let me in, let me in. I have never needed anybody so, and here, you need me too, I can taste it in your kiss, in every wave I drink in, I am here, let us float together. I will hold your head above the water. Let us swim in love, rushed along the currents at flood. We will swim in eternal bliss."

"We float together on this boundless sea of our own making, caressed by waves, dissolved by tides."

"The rain begins to fall in earnest. By the time I make it back to the car, I am soaked and freezing."

"If I am going to die tonight, I will die of pleasure."

"The warmth of his kiss makes me sigh with delight."

"It's a gigantic old-fashioned claw-footed tub with a reclining back and deep sides. We aren't even slightly squashed."

"Sweetness ravishes me as he takes my mouth with his lips. His hands close about my wrists."

"Wrestling. Straining. The age-old dance of bodies seeking, and finding, what they want in each other. Kisses that taste like wine and chocolate. Skin slick with desire and sweat."

"'Need you,' he moans, and I can't tell whose need is greater, his or mine."

"Later, in the darkness, after the candles have been blown out and the toys put away, he cradles my body against his, stroking my hair and whispering to me. I feel the Earth he is channeling with his presence, and cling to him."