you know :)

From his side of the bed, Mort watched Xiao move closer to him. The sheets that wrapped around him fell away and revealed him entirely. " What if I did want to keep you?" asked Mort teasingly, and he half knew that this kind of talk made Xiao uneasy. He seemed a flighty thing, and ever since Mort ...

"There you go! I knew I could count on you, Mr. Soroka," Mort said cheerfully. "To the naysayers and rogues of my acquaintance I have added with you a gentleman with a sense of adventure and curiosity," he added, to stoke the flame of Heinrich's jealousy.
It was somewhat of a hyperbole, but Mort ...

The surgeon Mortimer Blake could not say of himself that he was wholly surprised about his nightly visitor. Mr. Boone did not seem the type to listen to precautions about taking things slow. While setting his broken arm had not given Mort much trouble, the laudanum might have been measured with too ...

Instead of responding by bending down for a kiss, Mort let himself fall on the bed and said: "No, I should not be doing that; there is no question about it, Mr. Walker." Sitting on the bed, he put his hands on Xiao, he felt the skin of his cheeks and his neck and there were no clothes and no lapel ...

"If I tell you, it will reveal a lack of originality," Mort answered. "Not to say, it's fascinating what people report on and what they leave out of the story; they could have mentioned your grace and charm. Is it true you came here from Egypt?" he asked and followed her gaze to the milling crowd ...

There might have been singing last night, but Mort did not undertake great strain to recall it. Heinrich sang when he was drunk; it was a regrettable fact—not because his voice was unpleasing, it was not. He had a very nice voice. But he liked to sing very vexing songs that one should not think a ...

In the room of Mortimer Blake slept strange bedfellows. The night that Xiao had been supposed to stay in the apartment of the surgeon had turned into a night and then a day, spent in feverish slumber. Mort had lingered around the bed. He had watched over the body that lay wrapped in his sheets for ...

The thought that Mr. Soroka might be having trouble with young women had so far not occurred to Mort—but why should he not? He had, Mort thought with a sideway glance towards the Russian, despite his awkward manner a countenance that was oddly charming; furthermore, it could not be said that there ...