"Confessions"
Neither of them ever so much as mentioned the word love.
It was, Roy suspected, impossible for her to say anything like that. It simply wasn't her way. Although she was a courageous woman, she never took risks; and the very word hummed with danger. Love was an open car, a back alley, a gown without a place to holster a gun – foolish. To use a word like love was to lay down her weapons, to spread her arms to the advancing lines.
For his part, he had used it too often, demeaned it, and so he couldn't let her see the sullied thing. How could he bring before her, her, a high concept brought so low? Other women had demanded devotion, demanded nothings, and so love became nothing, nothing but a thing to coax greater pliancy.
That wasn't what he wanted from her. All he wanted was the curve of her cheek, the snap of her wit, the feel of her skin; all he wanted was her high and breathy voice joining him hesitantly in song; all he wanted was her self-conscious avoidance of the word love that showed him, as no one else had showed him, that the concept was real.