“
I used to think of you as a villain, but you’re not my villain. You’re your own villain.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Vicious (Sinners of Saint, #1))
“
A Story of a Nemesis and a Villain with no chance at a happy ending. Where the prince doesn't save the princess. He tortures her. And the beauty doesn't sleep. She's stuck. In a nightmare
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L.J. Shen (The Kiss Thief)
“
But what are villains, my dear wife, if not misunderstood heroes?
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
You drive a hard bargain. Welcome to the dark side, Persephone. Leave your heart at the door.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
The angel on my shoulder was…well, currently duct-taped and gagged in the devil’s trunk.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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I wish you’d fall in love with me so hard you won’t be able to think about anything else. To eat. To breathe.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
Listen to me. The two most important decisions in our lives are not ours to make. Our creation and our death. We don’t choose to be born, and we don’t choose when or how we die. But everything in-between? That’s our jurisdiction. We can fill in the blanks as we please.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
The thing is, you can't really rely on love. Which is why I intend to offer you something far more consistent. Commitment, friendship and loyalty. I promise to give you my protection, no matter the price. I will never turn our back on us. We will fall in and out of love many times, but I promise to always find my way back to you. To put us back together even when the temptation to break things off is too much. And when loves feels far away..."
He presses his forehead to mine, his lips moving over mine.
"I will bring it right back to our doorstep.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
I should warn you, Edie. I’m not the prince in this fairy tale. I’m the villain. The poisonous apple, the flame-breathing monster.
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L.J. Shen (Scandalous (Sinners of Saint, #3))
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I may have saved you from a bleeding heart, but your bleeding heart saved me.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
Peopling was by far more exhausting than running a marathon.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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He took my hand in his. Such a simple gesture, yet it felt as though he plucked the stars from the sky for me.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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Hate is just love with fear and jealousy thrown into the mix.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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…will break every bone in his body and reassemble him to look like a Picasso painting if he as much as touches a hair on her head…
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
But his ears were small, like my wife’s, and he had that look—the look that could make empires fall—that only Persephone Penrose had ever managed to hone. A look that disarmed me.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
You know how I knew you weren’t Angelo when we kissed? Not because of your height or your scent. It was because you tasted like ash. Like betrayal. You, Senator Keaton, taste bitter and cold, like poison. You taste like a villain.
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L.J. Shen (The Kiss Thief)
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Even villains have a happy ending every now and again.
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L.J. Shen (Sparrow (Boston Belles, #0.5))
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You need a hug.” I frowned. “And a shrink. Not in that order.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
She smiled. I died a little inside.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
I love you, but I love me, too. And I deserve more than you’ve given me.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
I want your ass. Happy? Want it with the scars. With the fucked-up, tragic story. With every fiber of my body. I want to fuck you, and own you, and bruise you, and save you. But I can’t do any of those things. Why? Because you’d hate me afterwards, and that’s a fact, not a speculation. Mark my words. For reasons I can’t tell you right now, fucking you will break you and ruin me. And I may be a bastard, but I’m not the fucking villain.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Bane (Sinners of Saint, #4))
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We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn't drag you down a dark path.You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus. I love you as he loved the sun. Too close. Too hard. Too fast.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
I know women are fond of battery-operated devices, but they’re never as good as the real thing.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
She scooted next to me, wrapped in a gown that clung to her curves like I would if I wasn’t a hundred and one shades of messed up.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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I’m going to grab a front-row seat when you finally realize you are not the soulless bastard you think you are.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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In the words of Joe Exotic, I am never going to recover from this. Cillian holding my hair while he is making me puke.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
the pigs called—they wanted their chauvinism back.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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The Fitzpatricks have enough fuck-you money to build a dick-shaped statue the size of Lady Liberty.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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Feelings did not interest me unless I found a way to exploit them.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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Love is overrated, not to mention fickle. It comes and goes. You can’t build a foundation on it. Mutual interests and alliance are a different story.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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But villains are just misunderstood heroes.
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L.J. Shen (In the Unlikely Event)
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You're handsome when flustered."
"I swear, Persephone, I'm going to relocate you to your precious Namibia if you don't stop grating on my nerves."
"So now I annoy you constantly." Her blue eyes shone. "That's one, steady emotion. Twenty-six more to go!
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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Maybe something got stuck in his teeth." Hunter tapped his cards against the table. "Like, you know, feelings or something."
"Zip it." I warned.
"No. They're right. You're beaming." Sam frowned at me in abhorrence. "It's disgusting. People are trying to eat here." He dropped his sandwich onto his plate.
"Leave him alone. I think is cute." Hunter took a pull of his beer. "Kill caught a case of the feels, and there's no vaccine for what he's experiencing.
”
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
Having her felt almost too easy at that moment, yet entirely impossible.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
Welcome to the dark side, Persephone. Leave your heart at the door.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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For a reason I can’t fathom, we want each other. Let’s not pretend otherwise, Kill.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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I felt a bulge nestling against my body. It was thick and long, splaying across most of my belly. That thing belonged in a rifle case, not a vagina.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
I win—I pay your debt, and in return, you hop off the Cillian is Satan train. If my wife wants to ride it, she’ll buy her own ticket and travel solo.
”
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
In many ways, it felt like having an impotent sugar daddy—I got all the perks but not the dick. The problem was, I wanted the dick. The shoes were great, but not so great I wanted to moan their names.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
The two most important decisions in our lives are not ours to make. Our creation and our death. We don’t choose to be born, and we don’t choose when or how we die. But everything in-between? That’s our jurisdiction.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
(...) But you're not fooling anyone. Your marriage isn't real."
"Ours wasn't, either. In the spirit of being candid, I, too, have a confession to make. You were always nothing more than a distraction. It was always Kill. You were on borrowed time. But Cillian? Cillian is my forever.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
I should warn you, Edie. I’m not the prince in this fairy tale. I’m the villain. The poisonous apple, the flame-breathing monster.”
“Good. I always enjoyed the broken in the fairy tales better. The apple always looked shinier because I knew it could destroy me. The villain was just damaged and misunderstood, and the monster…” I leaned on my tiptoes, biting the tip of his ear, just barely reaching his impossible height. “I always kept the door to my closet a little ajar as a kid to make sure it could come out in case it wanted to play.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Scandalous (Sinners of Saint, #3))
“
She wanted to marry you! Stipulations and assholery included. Now my question is this—how did you manage to lose her? How did you let the only girl you’ve ever loved just…go?'
'I don’t—'
'Of course you do!' He smashed my head against the dirt. I twisted, grabbing him by the shirt and rolling him over, switching our positions so I was on top of him now.
'You fool, anyone with a pair of working eyes could see you’re crazy about her. You couldn’t look Persephone in the eye like a six-year-old for as long as you’ve known her. You couldn’t bring yourself to attend her goddamn wedding. You’ve had it bad for her from the moment you saw her. You let her go because of your stupid insecurities. Because you are so convinced you’re Hades, doomed, dark, and unredeemable, you haven’t even bothered to read the myth all the way.'
He reached to wrap his fingers around my throat, pressing, draining the oxygen out of me.
'Persephone!' He clasped harder.
'Loved!' He shook me by the neck.
'Hades!'
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
A story of a Nemesis and a Villain with no chance at a happy ending. Where the prince doesn’t save the princess. He tortures her. And the beauty doesn’t sleep. She’s stuck. In a nightmare.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Kiss Thief)
“
Lost in Hell, Persephone, Take her head upon your knee; Say to her, “My dear, my dear, It is not so dreadful here.” —Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
The bleeding heart is a pink and white flower that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional heart shape. It is also referred to as the heart flower or as lady-in-bath. The flower is known to be poisonous to the touch and deadly to consume. And, like the mythological goddess Persephone, it only blossoms in spring.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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The villain who broke my heart without even noticing my immortal existence.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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You’re not my Prince Charming,” I blurted out, my thoughts going back to the conversation I’d had with my sister in her car the night I told her about my engagement. “You’re the villain.” “Fear is my greatest asset.” He tipped his head down, pretending to nuzzle my throat, his hoarse, low baritone reverberating deep inside me. “But what are villains, my dear wife, if not misunderstood heroes?
”
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
In the end, I wasted the Cloud Wish in one, reckless moment. On a doomed desire, a stupid crush, an unrequited lover. On the man every media outlet in America referred to as The Villain. On Cillian Fitzpatrick.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
The night that marked the birthday of the man who taught me how to be good, and as a homage, I allowed this one small crack in my shield, giving her a hint of warmth. My dead brother was a good man. But me? I was a great villain.
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L.J. Shen (The Kiss Thief)
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love is a luxury not everyone can afford
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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So I lived with your bleeding heart. A poisonous reminder of how much I wanted you.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
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Sailor was the most asexual thing in the world after a surgical face mask before she’d met Hunter.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
We are not Hades and Persephone, Flower Girl. Never were. I didn’t drag you down a dark path. You pulled me into the light. Helpless, I followed. Blindly, I got burned. I am Icarus.
”
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
know what I’ll ch-ch-choose, Auntie Persy,” he said, smiling. “I’ll choose what I always choose. I’ll choose you.
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
No.' I pushed him away. 'Not in a million years. No, nope, nien, niet.' I was rummaging through my memory for other languages to refuse him in. 'No,' I said again. 'The last one was in Spanish, not English.
”
”
L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))
“
If you think you’re walking through that door, you’re not just a cold fish, Cillian. You’re a dumb one, too.'
Cillian. Not Hubs or Kill.
She also called you a dumb, cold fish. Perhaps that’s the part you should focus on.
”
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L.J. Shen (The Villain (Boston Belles, #2))