Checkmate Quotes

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

Checkmate, bitch.

Checkmate, bitch. -Arriane

I’m never gonna wait that extra twenty minutes to text you back, and I’m never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already. When we all know everyone’s life has been hard enough already it’s hard to watch the game we make of love, like everyone’s playing checkers with their scars, saying checkmate whenever they get out without a broken heart. Just to be clear I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.

Arianne had her feet up on the table, wearing a striped conductor's cap. Arriane was fixated on the game. A chocolate cigar bobbed between her lips as she contemplated her next move. Roland was giving Arianne the hawk eye. "Checkmate, bitch," Arianne said triumphantly, knocking over Roland's king.

Intuition listens to an inner voice and responds to an instant sentiment that may checkmate reason. It is only in hindsight that its soundness or fallibility is proven. ("Blame storming")

Smug, I looked back at Tatiana. "Isn´t eighteen the legal voting age?" Checkmate, bitch.

Death is not a checkmate…it is more like a carnival trick. You cannot win, no matter how you move your Queen.

I coax my palm into his lapel in search of my wish, returning his feverish kisses. "Checkmate, you son of a bug," I say against his mouth two seconds before my fingers find an empty pocket. "Sleight of hand, blossom," he says right back. " 'Tis in fact in my pants pocket, if you'd like to search there.

Occurrences can be unpredictable. If we have to endure a cascade of rumpling coincidences, it’s fate that dictates our lives, taking over the common procedure of ‘timing,’ and, thus, sealing the bondage of our free choice. Once our choice is kidnapped and strangled to the core, fate checkmates our destiny. (“Wrong time. Wrong place”)

Sorry,” he mumbled. “You should be!” Zoe snapped. “You scared the hell out of me and now I’m about to give birth to two Bradfords out in the middle of nowhere with no drugs! Do you have any idea how big a Bradford head is? Huh? Do you?

But I'd take you because you're the best part of my day, Rory. Always have been and always will be.

...It’s hard to watch the game we make of love, like everyone’s playing checkers with their scars, saying checkmate whenever they get out without a broken heart. Just to be clear I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.

Tell me that you didn’t break the ban, Rory. Tell me that there aren’t two Bradfords beating the shit out of each other over the last slice of cheese in my kitchen.

It figured that the one man that treated her like a woman was the one that made her wish she was a man so that she could kick his ass.

Stupid, toe curling kissing bastard

We all play chess with Fate as partner. He makes a move, we make a move. He tries to checkmate us in three moves, we try to prevent it. We know we can't win, but we're driven to give him a good fight.

Oh my God! Stop eating that!” “Your trail mix tastes funny,” Trevor said with a cringe. “That wasn’t trail mix, you bastard! That was potpourri!” “Well, that explains a lot,” he said, giving her a sheepish smile as he returned the large wooden bowl back to the side table. She didn’t need to look to know that he’d already eaten half the bowl of potpourri. She didn’t even bother asking him what the hell was wrong with him since she knew the answer. The man was a Bradford. Enough said.

Man may feel like a feeble and powerless pawn, at some moment in his life. This apprehension can come out of the blue, in the middle of the day, at the center of a public place, like a cerebral attack. Check mated by 'daily routine', he may feel trapped in a smothering set of circumstances and only a deconstruction of all impeding barriers can bring about a vital mental deliverance. ( "Check and mate" )

She’ll checkmate your ass before you even know you’re sitting at the board.

In the name of God! You, demon, born in the dark! I seal you here! Checkmate!

He possessed me. He owned me. I was the queen. He was the king. Checkmate.

If you fuck this up, I’m gonna have to kill you,” Rory swore, leaning in to kiss him. “I’m not gonna fuck this up,” he promised as he met her lips in a hungry kiss. “Good.

But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.

All that mattered was that he could look forward to aggravating the piss out of Rory each and every night.

I'm drenched in the flood which has yet to come I'm tied up in the prison that has yet to exist Not having played the game of chess I'm already the checkmate Not having tasted a single cup of your wine I'm already drunk Not having entered the battlefield I'm already wounded and slain I no longer know the difference between image and reality Like the shadow I am and I am not

I want you, Rory,” he said against her lips. “Forever.” “I want you too, Connor,” … “You’ve got me

Woe to he who checkmates his opponents at last, only to discover they have been playing cribbage.

I could see, already, how this was going to end. "You'll have checkmate in three moves... Luckily for me," I told him, my fingers closing around my own queen, "I'll have checkmate in two.

I'll listen to you, but you need to treat me with a little respect. Because it doesn't sound like I'm a pawn. Sounds like I'm more of a queen." A vein in his temple began to throb, and she grew bolder, the sense of power emanating from the mark on her chest filing her with the mettle she'd lost after the break-in two years ago. Lowering her voice to a tense whisper, she nipped his earlobe. "Checkmate.

Connor; "Push me and you might just find yourself locked in the trunk of a car and on a ferry headed off to Nova Scotia. . .Again" he said Softly loving the way she practically shook with rage against him. "I knew that was you, you bastard" She snarled, looking torn between going for his nipples again or just out right killing him. "You deserved it", he felt obligated to remind her. She scoffed. "I was twelve!" "you super glued my shorts to my ass!" the smile that teased her lips transformed her face from beautiful to breathtakingly beautiful in a matter of seconds. . . She chuckled softly as she moved to put a little space between them. "I actually forgot about that".

The strong are strengthened by reverses; the trouble is that the true meaning of events scores next to nothing in the match we play with men. Appearances decide our gains or losses and the points are trumpery. And a mere semblance of defeat may hopelessly checkmate us.

When a chance for real happiness comes by, grab it with both hands and devour it. If it lasts five minutes or five lifetimes, it's still worth it.

In my experience, commitment leads to expectations, and expectations lead to lies, and hurt, and disappointment-stuff I'd rather not experience, or force others to experience.

My son took many years to learn the simple truth. You cannot love any one person adequately until you have made friends with the rest of the human race also. Adult love demands qualities which cannot be learned living in a vacuum of resentment.

Whereas a novice makes moves until he gets checkmated (proof), a Grand Master realizes 20 moves in advance that it’s futile to continue playing (conceptualizing).

If you're naive - which means immature, inexperienced, or a bit thick - you get eaten alive.

Where are the links of the chain ... joining us to the past?

We have reached the open sea, with some charts; and the firmament.

Time, the ultimate grandmaster that could never be checkmated. There was no way out of its distended belly.

A 'god' who's will is resisted, designs frustrated, and purpose checkmated, possesses no title to Deity.

For an hour, blended with all she could offer, something noble had been created which had nothing to do with the physical world. And from the turn of his throat, the warmth of his hair, the strong, slender sinews of his hands, something further; which had. Though she combed the earth and searched through the smoke of the galaxies there was no being she wanted but this, who was not and should not be for Philippa Somerville.

I tell you what, Rory. If you're ready in an hour, I'll buy you an extra-large cup of cocoa before we go out, one before we come home and as many as you want in between." As many as she wanted? Dear God, she was in heaven, she thought with a content little sigh before something occurred to her and when it did, her eyes narrowed dangerously on him. "This isn't some sort of sick joke, is it?" she demanded, because really, this was hot cocoa and she didn't screw around when it came to her cocoa.

It doesn’t do my self-esteem much good though, does it?’ ‘Your self-esteem has had a lifetime of steady attention,’ said Philippa abstractedly.

If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate

It's just a matter of throwing in a few sacrifices, then checkmate!

Oh, God,” Annabelle said feelingly, and turned her face against Hunt’s shoulder, as if closing her eyes would make them all disappear. Her ear tingled as Hunt bent to murmur to her, his voice threaded with amusement. “Checkmate.

As he explained to his officers and men, the war against Persia could not be finished until the shah, as the Persians called their king, was mat, or finished. The endgame had to be shah mat, a Persian phrase that would evolve in time into checkmate.

You have the same smile, the same shaped eyes, the same way of tilting your head to listen, the same stubborn streak, the same common sense. Lots of things about you and him are the same.

Checkmate" doesn't mean you've simply cornered the enemy king.It's a declaration that the enemy king is yours.

You might, without my crediting it, fall deeply in love and forever, with some warped hunchback whelped in the gutter. I should equally stop you from taking him.

You haven’t enough artillery, have you?’ ‘Against you or the Germans?’ said Lymond.

When she felt the hot creamy chocolate go down her throat and into her stomach some of the tension in her body disappeared. Three long sips later and she felt close to being able to face the day. By the time half the cocoa was gone she was in her special place, the place where everything was fine and she could face anything including Connor and a visit from her dad. By the time she finished the rest of the cocoa she'd be able to keep this calm going for the rest of the day, but of course she needed a second cup.

Tant que je vive, mon cueur ne changera Pour nulle vivante, tant soit elle bonne ou sage Forte et puissante, riche de hault lignaige Mon chois est fait, aultrene se fera *** Long as I live, my heart will never vary For no one else, however fair or good Brave, resolute, or rich, of gentle blood My choice is made, and I will have no other.

In the absence of a global tracking system to effectively track pedophiles and checkmate their activities, the door will continue to remain open to these group of people who sneak into Facebook, connect with us on Twitter and show the world how they violated and infected our children on YouTube.

It'll be like a game of chess. We can let the game unfold as it did before, but if we want to avoid checkmate, we'll have to readjust the pieces a few moves shy of the finish.

Being on Facebook too much in a row is like playing chess in a black hole. You never know if the next move will lead you to a checkmate or a mate checked.

The Great Khan tried to concentrate on the game: but now it was the game’s reason that eluded him. The end of every game is a gain or a loss: but of what? What were the real stakes? At checkmate, beneath the foot of the king, knocked aside by the winner’s hand, nothingness remains: a black square, or a white one. By disembodying his conquests to reduce them to the essential, Kublai had arrived at the extreme operation: the definitive conquest, of which the empire’s multiform treasures were only illusory envelopes; it was reduced to a square of planed wood.

Adriana: I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night. Gil: No, you can't, you couldn't pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can't. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there's nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.

Grandmaster games are said to begin with novelty, which is the first move of the game that exits the book. It could be the fifth, it could be the thirty-fifth. We think about a chess game as beginning with move one and ending with checkmate. But this is not the case. The games begins when it gets out of book, and it end when it goes into book..And this is why Game 6 [between Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue] didn't count...Tripping and falling into a well on your way to the field of battle is not the same thing as dying in it...Deep Blue is only itself out of book; prior to that it is nothing. Just the ghosts of the game itself.

On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite.

Checkmate to us I think,’ Cyrus said softly. ‘Now listen to me,’ he said, dropping his gaze to Evie. ‘If you want protection you can come with us now. Your boyfriend, however, is one of them. And what’s rule number three, Vero?’ ‘Kill all unhumans,’ the girl answered flatly. ‘Jesus,’ Evie said, bringing her hands quickly to Cyrus’s chest and pushing him hard. He fell backwards a few steps. ‘This is not Fight Club,’ she yelled. ‘You can break a rule for Chrissake.

Before God, you are my soul; and till death and beyond, will remain so.

But faith is so easy to hold onto when you don't need it. And so hard to find when you do.

like a window had been thrown open inside my head and my heart, where there had been closed shutters before.

My dad was Callum McGregor. Hanged for political terrorism. Hanged for being a rapist and a murderer. Hanged for being a son of a bitch.

During a relationship with a psychopath, you are likely to experience a range of emotions that you’ve never felt before: extreme jealousy, neediness, rage, anxiety, and paranoia. After every outburst, you constantly think to yourself, “If only I hadn’t behaved that way, then maybe they’d be happier with me.” Think again. Those were not your emotions. I repeat: those were not your emotions. They were carefully manufactured by the psychopath in order to make you question your own good nature. Victims are often prone to believe that they can understand, forgive, and absorb all of the problems in a relationship. Essentially, they checkmate themselves by constantly trying to rationalize the abuser’s completely irrational behavior.

Philippa allowed polite regret to inform every muscle. ‘Whatever day it occurs,’ she said, ‘I feel I have a previous engagement.’ ‘May I congratulate you,’ he said agreeably, ‘on your evident popularity.’ ‘Anything I can do,’ Philippa said, ‘to save you from the exhaustions of pluralism.

And that was when she realized that laughter, which they had lost, had come back to them, and they were whole again.

Every other woman since Eve has asked to be loved more than honour. But not you.

Since I doubt, at the moment, whether I can stomach any hysterical verbiage, suppose we simply say what we mean.

One knows, when all one’s life one has walked in dangerous places, when the silence is that of ambush and when the silence is that of emptiness.

Intolerance drunk is bad enough, but intolerance sober is quite insupportable.

He was constantly surprising me like that. I had thought I didn't like surprises, but I found I did when they came from him.

For once I didn't look away immediately. I forced myself to meet her contemptuous gaze. I allowed myself be swept away by it, to drown in it - the way I'd done so many times before. The way I would willingly do again. Because at least she was here to hate me. At least I had that. I watched my daughter conjure up the filthiest look in her vast arsenal before she turned away with complete disdain. I didn't mind that so much. It meant I could watch her, drink her in without her protest. Look at our daughter, Callum. Isn't she beautiful, so very beautiful? She laughs like me, but when she smiles... Oh Callum, when she smiles, it's picnics in Celebration Park and sunsets on our beach and our very first kiss all over again. When Callie Rose smiles at me, she lights up my life. When Callie Rose smiles at me.

The smile that teased her lips transformed her face from beautiful to breathtakingly beautiful in a matter of seconds. He was damn thankful that she didn't know the effect that had on him or she'd do it to bring him to his knees and god help him, but he'd love every fucking second of it.

You remind me of a boy I used to know Same Smile, same easy, laid-back style And man, could he kiss Blew my mind the very first time His lips touched mine. You remind me You remind me of a boy I used to like. Same eyes, strong arms, same open mind And man, could he dance Arms around me, lost in a trance I'd hear his heart You remind me I'm scared of you How did you find me? Turn and walk away 'Cause you remind me You remind me of a boy I used to love Same laughter and tears, shared through the years And man, how he felt Made my bones more than melt He touched my soul. You remind me I'm scared of you How did you find me? Turn and walk away 'Cause you remind me

I see,” says Elizabeth, lips pursing. “And what happens if I still choose to say WPC? Will there be a warrant for my arrest?” “No, but I’ll think a bit less of you,” says Donna. “Because it’s a really simple thing to do, and it’s more respectful to me.” “Damn, checkmate, okay,” says Elizabeth, unpursing her lips. “Thank you,” says Donna.

daughter of the servants.” “Gee, you must have been lonely, Judge, having nobody to play with.” “I played with Sam Westing—chess. Hour after hour I sat staring down at that chessboard. He lectured me, he insulted me, and he won every game.” The judge thought of their last game: She had been so excited about taking his queen, only to have the master checkmate her in the next move. Sam Westing had deliberately sacrificed his queen and she had fallen for it. “Stupid child, you can’t have a brain in that frizzy head to make a move like that.” Those were the last words he ever said to her. The judge continued: “I was sent to boarding school when I was twelve. My parents visited me at school when they could, but I never set foot in the Westing house again, not until two weeks ago.” “Your folks must have really worked hard,” Sandy said. “An education like that costs a fortune.” “Sam Westing paid for my education. He saw that I was accepted into the best schools, probably arranged for my first job, perhaps more, I don’t know.” “That’s the first decent thing I’ve heard about the old man.” “Hardly decent, Mr. McSouthers. It was to Sam Westing’s advantage to have a judge in his debt. Needless to say, I have excused myself from every case remotely connected with

There is no one to understand us, except ourselves.

Nine-tenths of every attack is bluff. The art is to know when to call it.

The more modest your expectations, the less often you will court disappointment.

History is the grand master, and only by studying his game can the pupil learn and improve. [Maria Florkowska]

Ow!” he winced, stepping away from Rory as he rubbed the back of his head where it suddenly throbbed. He looked over his shoulder and found all five of her brothers watching them with innocent doe-like expressions on their faces. “It was a squirrel,” Craig said, somehow keeping a straight face. “Vicious little bastards,” Bryce added solemnly. “You should really be careful,” Johnny added before mouthing “bitch.

Pick me up at eight," she said, moving to walk away so that she could go kick something. "Seven, and wear something sexy, sweetheart," Connor said with that damn cocky tone that was going to get him bitch slapped.

It was bad enough that she'd made a deal with the devil and was apparently addicted to his kisses, but now she had her brothers going behind her back and orchestrating something that couldn't possibly end well for her.

There are times,’ said Philippa shortly, ‘when I feel like the entire Russian army.’ ‘There are times,” said Lymond equally shortly, ‘when I wish that you were. It would solve the whole Tartar problem and save Ottoman Turkey for Jesus.

A soul is only set free when it becomes constrained by the bonds of love.

Fancy what a game of chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects, more or less small and cunning; if you were not only uncertain about your adversary's men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffle himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. You might be the longest-headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you depended arrogantly on your mathematical imagination, and regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. Yet this imaginary chess is easy compared with the game a man has to play against his fellow-men with other fellow-men for his instruments.

You shouldn't be stripping in front of your employees. What if he sues?” he demanded, barely reigning in his temper when all he wanted to do was throttle the woman for covering up. “I would never sue!” her secretary yelled from behind the door. “I'm willing to sign a waiver!

None of them, not even what he suspected should have been little boys, were small. He’d always thought that the James boys were freakishly large, but the men that were beating the shit out of each other over food had been much, much bigger. Most every single one of them had been shirtless and all had been buff, making him feel scrawny and making him wonder if Rory thought he was scrawny.

I coax my palm into his lapel in search of my wish, returning his feverish kiss. "Checkmate, you son of a bug," I say against his mouth two seconds before my fingers find an empty pocket. "Sleight of hand, blossom," he says right back. "'Tis in fact in my pants pocket, if you'd like to search there." I shove him off and drop to the floor, wiping my mouth. "It's mine!" "And you'll receive it when the time is right." His lips, all I can look at, tilt into that smug smile that I've come to detest. He motions toward the chair. "Sit. You've just been soundly kissed. No doubt you're short of breath." "Don't flatter yourself." I huff in an effort to hide the gulp of air and hold the teddy bear against my chest. "That kiss meant nothing. It had underlying motivation." "Oh, to be sure. That kiss was nothing if not motivational.

As long as you remember that I hate you," Rory mumbled against his lips. "I'll remember," he promised. "And you hate me," she reminded him as she continued to caress his lips with light, teasing kisses that had his arms tightening around her and his body trembling with the need to consume her. "With a passion.

If you’re the first of November, you’re Scorpio. A large reporter of his owne Acts. Prudent of behaviour in owne affairs. A lover of Quarrels and theevery, a promoter of frayes and commotions. As wavery as the wind; neither fearing God or caring for Man.’ ‘Better,’ said Lymond coldly, ‘to be stung by a nettle than pricked by a rose.

He was not a figment of daydream or of fantasy. He was the quick-witted man who had raced with her; the man whose strong wrists had pulled her from trouble; whose laughter recognized, more than his own, her buffoonery; whose voice had whispered, sung, exclaimed or cursed, with equal felicity, carefree as birdsong on top of their striving. Whose essence, stripped by necessity was, it now seemed, warm and joyous and of great generosity.

We are here. We will work together for what purpose seems to us right. We will work with calm, and with tolerance and, please God, with saving laughter. ‘We know something of men. We know of evil, and of sloth, and of self-seeking ambition. We accept it, and will use what we have of wit and good faith to overcome it. ‘And if we do not overcome it, still we are the road; we are the bridge; we are the conduit. For something have we been born. For something have we been brought here. And if we hold firm, the men who peopled our earth need not be ashamed, when the reckoning comes, to say, we worked with all we had been given; and for one another.’

My name is Francis Crawford, and my brother and I studied at St Barbe.’ ‘I know that,’ said Moses. He took the ring, and stood, the broad grin stamped on his features. ‘It is true what you did to all the Professors’ boots?’ Lymond stared at him. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Yes. I’m afraid it is.’ ‘Is it true about the mathematical proposition you placed before Orontius Finnaeus that spelt …’ ‘I don’t know how you heard about it,’ said M. de Sevigny. ‘Perhaps you had better not tell me what else you know about my misspent youth.’ Moses said, ‘When the ladies of the rue Glatigny were invited …?’ ‘That,’ said M. de Sevigny, ‘is what I meant.

I enter. I’m not scared of Master Ez. I lean against the door with my eyes shut and breathe. Why did he ask me here if he wasn’t going to be waiting? “You look gorgeous,” a silky voice purrs and I jump again. “I thought you weren’t here. Why did Aaron let me in?” My voice quivers in fear- hell, yeah… I’m afraid of Master Ez. The office doesn’t get a second of my notice. Master Ez sits at his desk. He doesn’t get up. He smirks at me lasciviously. His steel eyes glow in the dim room. He commands me to look at him and I can’t stop. “I ask the questions, Regina.” The cadence is smooth, but there is an undercurrent of threat. He called me Regina, only Ezra calls me Regina. The one that was upset when I fled to the bathroom is the childlike Ezra- he probably would call me Regina, too. Master Ez calls me Queen. The true Ezra is a combination of both- an integrated personality. He’s the one talking to me. Why is HE looking at me like that? “I don’t understand that look, Ezra,” I mumble. “As I’ve said over and over, we are one in the same- Master Ez and I.” He sighs like he gets sick of pointing out that fact. “Um- yeah… but Master Ez loves ladies and they’re missing an appendage for you to enjoy,” I tease because anything else would scare the shit out of me. “Regina, Regina,” he laughs. “The Ezra I used to be liked boys. That changed- quickly and against my will. Master Ez only likes girls. Doesn’t it seem likely that if who I used to be liked boys and who manifested liked woman, that perhaps I enjoy both now? If we are to cohabitate in peace, we have certain concessions to make.

For a moment, disconnected by the stitch in his side, he listened not to the sense but to the interplay of the two flexible voices, one masculine and light, one mellow and feminine, unreeling their story, faintly affronted amid mounting hysteria. He opened his eyes. He knew, because his memories of Francis Crawford went back further than those of anyone there, that Lymond was rather drunk, although he could still disguise it. The quick-wittedness, the invention, the faultless comedy timing were present at the price of a little concentration which had closed his outer consciousness for the moment. Jerott, no longer laughing, sat in the shadows and watched the dazzling performance and both the players, blond and brown, artist and acolyte. Acolyte. But Philippa was a child no longer: he had known that since that single evening in Lyon. The severe, clear-skinned profile turned towards Francis might have belonged to any great lady. The brown and brilliant gaze only quizzed him at intervals: she seemed able, Jerott saw, to sense by instinct the course of his fantasy; and as with Lymond, what she was doing at present occupied all her awareness. Then Francis surged to his feet, leaving his robe, and launched into Jason’s querulous tour de force, fractured by interruptions and a mounting fury of incoherent resentment, and finally disintegrating in chaos.

I don't like to make mistakes. Which is why I haven't been with a man before now." He as thrown off balance so quickly and completely, he coud hear his own brain stumble. "Well,that's...that's wise." He took one definite step back, like a chessman going from square to square. "It's interesting that makes you nervous," she said, countering his move. "I'm not nervous,I'm...finished up here, it seems." He tried another tactic, stepped to the side. "Interesting," she continued, mirroring his move, "that it would make you nervous,or uneasy if you prefer, when you've been...I think it's safe to use the term 'hitting on me' since we met." "I don't think that's the proper term at all." Since he seemed to be boxed into a corner,he decided he was really only standing his ground. "I acted in a natural way regarding a physical attraction. But-" "And now that I've reacted in a natural way, you've felt the reins slip out of your hands and you're panicked." "I'm certainly not panicked." He ignored the terror gripping claws into his belly and concentrated on annoyance. "Back off, Keeley." "No." With her eyes locked on his, she stepped in.Checkmate. His back was hard up against a stall door and he'd been maneuvered there by a woman half his weight.It was mortifying. "This isn't doing either of us any credit." It took a lot of effort when the blood was rapidly draining out of his head, but he made his voice cool and firm. "The fact is I've rethought the matter." "Have you?" "I have,yes,and-stop it," he ordered when she ran the palms of her hands up over his chest. "You're hearts pounding," she murmured. "So's mine.Should I tell you what goes on inside my head,inside my body when you kiss me" "No." He barely managed a croak this time. "And it's not going to happen again." "Bet?" She laughed, rising up just enough to nip his chin. How could she have known how much fun it was to twist a man into aroused knots? "Why don't you tell me about this rethinking?" "I'm not going to take advantage of your-of the situation." That,she thought,was wonderfully sweet. "At the moment,I seem to have the advantage.This time you're trembling,Brian." The hell he was.How could he be trembling when he couldn't feel his own legs? "I won't be responsible.I won't use your inexperience.I won't do this." The last was said on a note of desperation and he pushed her aside. "I'm responsible for myself.And I think I've just proven to both of us,that if and when I decide you'll be the one, you won't have a prayer." She drew a deep, satisfied breath. "Knowing that's incredibly flattering." "Arousing a man doesn't take much skill, Keeley. We're cooperative creatures in that area." If he'd expected that to scratch at her pride,and cut into her power,he was mistaken. She only smiled,and the smile was full of secret female knowledge. "If that was true between us, if that were all that's between us, we'd be naked on the tack room floor right now." She saw the change in his eyes and laughed delightedly. "Already thought of that one, have you? We'll just hold that thought for another time.