“I know how it is, he said, his tone shifting. Voice warm and low. Intimate again. You like it this way. Sneaking around. And it seemed to me he was offering a way out, and so I shrugged, nodded. Say nothing more, he said, reaching for me. Saved from having to explain, I kissed him to stop talk, to stop thought.” LoveRomancePassionRelationshipsLustAge Difference Book:Thirst for Salt Source: Thirst for Salt
“But as we learn to trust, we take more risks. He touched me with what I can only think to describe as authority--so different from my sexual experiences so far, those incoherent collegiate rumblings. Jude turned to me, rolling onto his side. He brushed the sand from my cheek and said, Sleep with me tonight. I thought I just did. I don't mean fucking, he said, and I marveled at the word in his mouth--not a curse or a blunt force but somehow spoken with lightness, worn in with the warmth of many years. I mean come home with me. Spend the night. I want to be able to reach for you.” LoveRomancePassionRelationshipsAge Difference Book:Thirst for Salt Source: Thirst for Salt
“I had longed for this. To fall asleep in his warmth, to feel that our time together for once was unlimited.” LovePassionRelationshipsAge Difference Book:Thirst for Salt Source: Thirst for Salt
“Who is to say what love is or what it wants to be, the shape it takes, or how quickly it comes on? Love has always made a fool of time.” LovePassionRelationshipsAge Difference Book:Thirst for Salt Source: Thirst for Salt
“In his absence, I imagined the house had revealed something about Jude's true nature--private, and unyielding in all the places I'd thought he was inviting me in. You're quiet tonight, my mother said. With the wine in my blood, I could have told her about it t hen. Bold enough and wanting, suddenly, a witness. But what words would I use to describe to my mother what we did together? Did not have the language for it. Could not look her in the eye and call it love.” LovePassionRelationshipsAge Difference Book:Thirst for Salt Source: Thirst for Salt
“I looked around the cabin--its white walls, the linen curtains that puffed in the breeze like sails, paintings of boats and nautical knots. This place, I knew, would not remember me. Already, most traces of my presence had been swept away and scrubbed clean. But what about Jude? I wanted to stain him, like pollen Wanted to press into his skin, Remember me here.” LovePassionRelationshipsAge Difference Book:Thirst for Salt Source: Thirst for Salt