Home > Work > Tempted (Alex Kennedy, #1)
21 " I love you,” I told him. “And all of this, our life, is everything I wished to have but wasn’t sure I could keep. I never felt like that with Alex, James. I always knew that what we shared wouldn’t last. He never belonged to me. Not the way you do. "
― Megan Hart , Tempted (Alex Kennedy, #1)
22 " I knew I’d sounded bitter, but I didn’t bend even when guilt threatened to throttle me with its bony fingers. “I hope it was worth it, Mom. "
23 " This one says they’ll place your ‘little blessing in disguise’ with a local ‘Christ-oriented family.’ What about the non-Christ-oriented families? Don’t they deserve the right to adopt kids? "
24 " She talked, he nodded. She was satisfied. He was oblivious. "
25 " I’m not sure a man can ever understand the complicated matter of feminine relationships. "
26 " And still, we said nothing, like we’d all been trained so well to do. "
27 " Faced with too many choices, my mother often chose none. "
28 " drifting on daydreams of cunnilingus, "
29 " Everything was heat and sweat, bump ’n’ grind. Stroke and sigh. "
30 " my voice firm as I took charge. Keeping the surface polished. "
31 " More smiling. Fierce. I was getting a headache. I smiled. "
32 " It would have been so much easier if he had. If he’d put his foot down and demanded we host my parents’ party someplace else. If he’d taken the choice from me, I could’ve blamed him for making what I wanted come true. "
33 " I got it together, of course. I always did. I pushed away what shamed me and made me unhappy, and I smoothed out the rest to make a pretty, perfect surface. It was getting harder and harder to do. "
34 " There’s no foreplay quite like youthful exploration, when each undone button is cause for exaltation. "
35 " I want to tell you that you’ll know love when it hits you, and it will all be great and you’ll find that one person who makes your heart sing, the end, happily ever after. I want to do that for you, I really do. But I’m just not that person. I’m sorry. "
36 " But my mother-in-law didn’t admit to mistakes, a nifty little trait she’d handed down to her son. "
37 " I didn’t fall in love with James. Falling sounds like an accident. Falling hurts. I’d fallen in love with Michael, fallen hard like slipping off a cliff and hitting the rocks below. Falling in love was something I’d vowed never to do again. I chose to love James. "
38 " I’m not dense. It was a power struggle with a veneer of shiny. "
39 " I made my goodbyes and stole away the photos of them in their youth, leaving them to what they’d made of their lives. "
40 " I put a smile on and pretended it was real. "