131
" This horrible, awful ache settles in my heart, a knot slipping around it, tightening. I have the most terrifying thought—no, vision?—that this knot, insistent and tight, is the end of a tether, and that tether, gossamer fine yet tensile strong, stretches from my heart, through the air and space and fuck, even time, and its other end, its home, is a knot like mine, around another's heart.
Around his. "
― Chloe Liese , Everything for You (Bergman Brothers, #5)
133
" Something my therapist said to me a few weeks ago… I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it.” I wait for her, listening in silence but for the snap and pop of the cured wood roaring in the fireplace. “She said you can’t believe someone’s love for you until you think that you’re worthy of it,” she says quietly, staring at the fire. “You have to love yourself. And in that way, I think you are far ahead of me, Ren.” “How do you mean?” She sighs. “Some days I do feel cynical. Other days I’m optimistic. I think that on hard days, when everything hurts and everything feels difficult, I don’t find myself very lovable. And I know it’s not true, that I’m not allowed to struggle, that I’m not lovable when I do, but it feels…real.” I pull her close. "
― Chloe Liese , Always Only You (Bergman Brothers, #2)
136
" Your love is the one you look upon.’ Oh, Ren,” she whispers, throwing her arm around me and kissing my neck. “This is insanely sweet. And thank goodness you weren’t ‘looking upon’ the wonton soup when you read it.” I laugh as I kiss her back. “I’m so glad it was you instead.” “You didn’t really love me at first sight,” she says skeptically. “That doesn’t exist.” “I don’t know, buttercup. You walked through the door on my first day, and my heart kicked in my chest. Knocked the wind right out of me.” “Hm. Well, for my part, I realized I liked you when I bumped into that fabulous naked chest.” “Francesca.” I growl softly against her neck and nip it. “Okay. It was when you were doing shirtless push-ups.” Pressing her into the sofa and sliding down the blanket, I settle between her legs. “Gumdrop, you’re taunting me.” “Doodlebug.” Frankie slides her arms down my back. “I’m going to be real honest and confess the first thing I liked about you was your butt, but only because you’d passed me while my head was down, walking into the meeting room, so I only caught the back half of you.” She gives the backside in question an affectionate squeeze. “But then I walked in, and saw this copper hair, those wintry eyes.” She sighs. “And I thought, ‘Well, damn. He’s off-limits, Frankie. So fuhgeddaboudit. "
― Chloe Liese , Always Only You (Bergman Brothers, #2)
137
" You’re quiet, Brawny.”
“I’m always quiet, Willa.”
“No, you’re not. I mean, sometimes you are but, generally, you talk to me
plenty.”
Ryder stops on the trail, making me bump into him. Slowly, he turns and
peers down at me. “I guess I do. But that’s different. That’s only when it’s us. "
― Chloe Liese , Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers, #1)