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“Charlie looks away first. He rubs the side of his jaw. “You’re right. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to accept this can’t be anything.”

Quote by Emily Henry

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Book Lovers

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Emily Henry

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“He’s a sweet guy,” Charlie says quietly. “Anyway, he let the car stuff go and started picking up paperbacks for me every time he stopped by a garage sale, or a new donation box came into Mom’s shop. He has no idea how much erotica he’s given me.” “And you actually read it.” Charlie turns his wineglass one hundred and eighty degrees, eyes boring into me. “I wanted to understand how things worked, remember?” I arch a brow. “How’d that turn out for you?” He sits forward. “I was slightly disappointed when my first serious girlfriend didn’t have three consecutive orgasms, but otherwise okay.” A torrent of laughter rips through me. “So I’ve found the key to Nora Stephens’s joy,” he says. “My sexual humiliation.” “It’s not the humiliation so much as the sheer optimism.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“He rolls his eyes. “You know this doesn’t count for number six, right? Maybe in Manhattan they consider this skinny-dipping, but in Sunshine Falls we’d call that getup ‘a glorified bathing suit.’ ” Another challenge. I’m a woman possessed. I sink beneath the water, unclasp my bra, and hurl it at him. It thwacks against his chest. “Closer,” he allows, lifting the dainty black lace strap to examine it in the moonlight. “All this,” he says seriously, “wasted on Blake Carlisle.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“Mrs. Struthers liked me because I fucking loved school,” he says. “I mean, once I figured out how to actually read. Didn’t exactly make me a hit with other kids, though. In high school, things weren’t as bad, and then eventually . . .” “You got hot,” I say somberly. His laugh grates over my skin. “I was going to say ‘I moved to New York.’ ” We’ve stopped moving. Heat corkscrews through my rib cage, coiling tighter with each spiral. I clear my throat enough to joke, “And then you got hot.” “Actually,” he says, “that only happened four or five weeks ago. There was this big meteor shower, and I made a wish and . . .” Charlie holds his arms out as he drifts closer.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
Author:Emily Henry
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“We have to talk about this first,” he says. “Things are complicated for me right now.” And yet we’re still clamoring for each other. Charlie’s hands raze over my thighs, squeezing so hard I might bruise. My nails are in his back, urging him close. His warm mouth skims over my shoulder, his tongue and teeth finding my pulse at the base of my throat. I nod. “Then talk.” Another sharp kiss, his teeth hard against my lip, his hands hard against my ass. “It’s hard to think in words right now, Nora.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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“Until you got here,” he rasps, “all this place had ever been was a reminder of the ways I was a disappointment, and now you’re here, and—I don’t know. I feel like I’m okay. So if you’re the ‘wrong kind of woman,’ then I’m the wrong kind of man.” I can see all of the shades of him at once. Quiet, unfocused boy. Precocious, resentful preteen. Broody high schooler desperate to get out. Sharp-edged man trying to fit himself back into a place he never belonged to begin with. That’s the thing about being an adult standing beside your childhood race car bed. Time collapses, and instead of the version of you you’ve built from scratch, you’re all the hackneyed drafts that came before, all at once.”

Book LoversEmily HenryCharlie LastraNora Stephens
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