Below Her Mouth Quotes

There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.

It doesn't eat meat." I said. "It's a herbivore. It's like a big cow." Denna looked at me and started to laugh. Not hysterical laughter, but the helpless laughter of someone who's just heard something so funny they can't help but bubble over with it. She put her hands over her mouth and shook with it, the only sound was a low huffing that escaped through her fingers. There was another flash of blue fire from below. Denna froze midlaugh, then took her hands away from her mouth. She looked at me, her eyes wide, and spoke softly with a slight quaver in her voice, "Mooooo.

Except fang. I glared at him. "Go on, try to stop me, I dare you." It was like the old days when we used to wrestle, each trying to get the better of the other. I was ready to take him down, my hands curled into fist. "I was just going to say be careful," Fang told me. He stepped closer and brushed some hair out of my eyes. "And I've got your back." He motioned with his head toward the torpedo chamber. Oh my God. It hit me like a tsunami then, how perfect he was for me, how no one else would ever, could ever, be so perfect for me, how he was everything I could possibly hope for, as a friend, boyfriend, maybe even more. He was it for me. There would be no more looking. I really, really loved him, with a whole new kind of love I'd never felt before, something that made every other kind of love I'd ever felt feel washed out and wimpy in comparison. I loved him with every cell in my body, every thought in my head, every feather in my wings, every breathe in my lungs. and air sacs. Too bad I was going out to face almost certain death. Right there in front of everyone, I threw my arms around his neck and smashed my mouth against his. He was startled for a second, then his strong arms wrapped around me so tightly I could hardly breathe. "ZOMG," I heard Nudge whisper, but still fang and I kissed slanting our heads this way and that to get closer. I could have stood there and kissed him happily for the next millennium, but Angel, or what was left of her was still out there in the could dark ocean. Reluctantly, I ended the kiss, took a step back. Fang's obsidian eyes were glittering brightly and his stoic face had a look of wonder on it."Gotta go," I said quietly. A half smile quirked his mouth. "Yeah. Hurry back." I nodded and he stepped out of the air lock chamber, keeping his eyes fixed on me, memorizing me as he hit the switch that sealed the chamber. The doors hissed shut with a kind of finality, and I realized that my heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to start snapping ribs. I was scared. I was crazily, deeply, incredibly, joyously, terrifyingly in love. I was on a death mission. Before my head simply exploded from so much emotion, I hit the large button that pressurized the air lock enough for the doors to open to the ocean outside. I really, really hoped that I would prove somewhat uncrushable, like Angel did. The door cracked open below me and I saw the first dark glint of frigid water.

He dipped his head, placing his mouth to the space below her ear. He nipped her there, just a tiny bite that sent a wave of heat through her veins. And then his lips moved lower, leaving a hot trail behind. “You drive me insane, absolutely freaking insane. Do you know that? I bet you do.

We would lie on coral sand, below sugary stars, watching Cassiopeia mount her throne and the Great Bear wash its paws in the South. I would say, "I have a secret to tell you." And, folding me in your arms, boyish and sly, you would answer: "Whisper it into my mouth.

As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen such a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look as was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, and high forehead and the wide-set eyes.

She went to the window. A fine sheen of sugary frost covered everything in sight, and white smoke rose from chimneys in the valley below the resort town. The window opened to a rush of sharp early November air that would have the town in a flurry of activity, anticipating the tourists the colder weather always brought to the high mountains of North Carolina. She stuck her head out and took a deep breath. If she could eat the cold air, she would. She thought cold snaps were like cookies, like gingersnaps. In her mind they were made with white chocolate chunks and had a cool, brittle vanilla frosting. They melted like snow in her mouth, turning creamy and warm.

Lincoln closed his eyes. It seemed like the right thing to do, no matter what happened next. He closed his eyes and felt her fingertips touching his cheek, then his forehead, then his eyelids. He took a breath--ink and hand soap. "I" -- he heard her whisper, closer than he expected, and shaky and strange -- "think I might be a very stupid girl." He shook his head no. Just barely. So that only someone who was holding his cheek and his neck would notice. "Yes," she said, sounding closer. He didn't move, didn't open his eyes. What if he opened his eyes and she saw what she was doing? She kissed his cheek, and he let his head tip forward into her hands. She kissed his other cheek. And his chin. The groove below his bottom lip. "Stupid girl," she said near the corner of his mouth, sounding incredulous, "what could you possibly be thinking?" Lincoln found his mouth. "Perfect girl," he said so quietly that only someone with her hands in his hair and her lips all but touching his could possibly hear. "Pretty girl." He found her mouth. "Perfect." Kiss. "Magic." Kiss. "Only girl.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds; While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a lustre of midday to objects below, When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blixen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!" As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky; So up to the housetop the coursers they flew With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too— And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack. His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight— “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

My Selection wasn’t a farce, but it wasn’t that far off. My father chose all the contestants by hand, picking young women with political alliances, influential families, or enough charm to make the entire country worship the ground they walked on. He knew he had to make it varied enough to seem legit, so there were three Fives thrown into the mix but nothing below that. The Fives were meant to be little more than throwaways to keep anyone from being suspicious.” I realized my mouth was gaping open and shut it immediately. “Mom?” “Was meant to be gone almost immediately. Truth be told, she barely made it past my father ’s attempts to sway my opinion or remove her himself. And look at her now.” His whole face changed. “Though it was hard for me to imagine, she is even more beloved as queen than my mother. She has made four beautiful, intelligent, strong children. And she has been the source of every happiness in my life.

Blitz and Hearth were almost at the shore when Alex stopped abruptly. I didn't have any energy left either, but I thought I should try to sound encouraging. "We - we have to k-keep going." I looked over. We were nose-to-nose under the blankets. Her eyes glinted, amber and brown. Her scarf had dipped below her chin. Her breath was like limes. Then, before I even knew what was happening, she kissed me. She could have bitten off my mouth and I would have been less surprised. Her lips were cracked and rough from the cold. Her nose fitted perfectly next to mine. Our faces aligned, our breath mixed. Then she pulled away. "I wasn't going to die without doing that," she said. The world of primordial ice must not have frozen me completely, because my chest burned like a coal furnace. "Well?" She frowned. "Stop gaping and let's move." We trudged towards the shore. My mind wasn't working properly. I wondered if Alex had kissed me just to inspire me to keep going, or to distract me from our imminent deaths. It didn't seem possible she'd actually wanted to kiss me. Whatever the case, that kiss was the only reason I made it to shore.

She forks up a little nibble and wedges it in her mouth. "Yum," she croaks. Mrs. Wong looks pleased. "It's made with tofu." I can't resist. "Free-range tofu?" My mother looks over at me sharply. Mrs. Wong takes the bait. "Now, Cassidy, tofu isn't an animal," she chides. "It's soy bean curd. Soy bean curd doesn't need to roam free." On the floor below me, Emma lets out a little snort. I nudge her again with my foot. We're both grinning at the thought of a corral somewhere with little cubes of tofu wandering around. "Home, home on the range," I sing to her under my breath. "Where the deer and the tofu roam free...

Why did I allow the abuse to continue? Even as a teenager? I didn’t. Something that had been plaguing me for years now made sense. It was like the answer to a terrible secret. The thing is, it wasn’t me in my bed, it was Shirley who lay the wondering if that man was going to come to her room, pull back the cover and push his penis into her waiting mouth it was Shirley. I remembered watching her, a skinny little thing with no breasts and a dark resentful expression. She was angry. She didn’t want this man in her room doing the things he did, but she didn’t know how to stop it. He didn’t beat her, he didn’t threaten her. He just looked at her with black hypnotic eyes and she lay back with her legs apart thinking about nothing at all. And where was I? I stood to one side, or hovered overhead just below the ceiling, or rode on a magic carpet. I held my breath and watched my father pushing up and down inside Shirley’s skinny body.

Her mouth was on his with such ferocity, it knocked him back a step. He managed to haul her back so he could gasp for air and answers. "Not that I'm complaining." "Then don't. Shut up and put out Savoie." "You are so romantic, detective." She chained rough kisses about his neck. "What if I can't perform under this unexpected pressure?" Her hand dropped below his belt for an assessing fondle. "Just my luck. Appears to be high performance all the way." He chuckled and began to nuzzle and nip at her rather roughly, his attention supercharged by her aggression. "And what kind of handling are you looking for?" "Fast and reckless

Dove found Flower waiting outside her apartment. Flower was staring at her Doc Martins and in a very slow-motion move; she looked up at Dove. “Jesus!” Flower’s eyes were wide and her mouth stayed open. Dove wanted to ask, “Bad Jesus or good Jesus?”, but Flower had already used almost half her allotted words on Dove’s predicament. She felt guilty asking for more.

There can be no question that parrots have more intellect than any other kind of bird, and it is this that makes them such favourite pets and brings upon them so many sorrows. ...Men will buy them ... and carry them off to all quarters of the native town, intending, I doubt not, to treat them kindly; but "the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel", and confinement in a solitary cell, the discipline with which we reform hardened criminals, is misery enough to a bird with an active mind, without the superadded horrors of ... life in a tin case, hung from a nail in the wall of a dark shop... Why does the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals never look into the woes of parrots? ... However happy you make her captivity, imagination will carry her at times to the green field and blue sky, and she fancies herself somewhere near the sun, heading a long file of exultant companions in swift career through the whistling air. Then she opens her mouth and rings out a wild salute to all parrots in the far world below her.

More lady-lessons. It is impossible to do all and be all a lady must be and not tie oneself in a knot. A lady must walk erect with dignity, looking straight before her with eyelids low, gazing at the ground ahead, neither trotting nor running nor looking about nor laughing nor stopping to chatter. Her hands must be folded below her cloak while at the same time lifting her dress from the floor while at the same time hiding her mouth if her smile is unattractive or her teeth yellow. A lady must have six hands!

Stephen's heart was big to bursting with the violence of his grief, yet even as he looked distractedly from side to side his mind told him that there was something amiss, the more so as the cheering had now almost entirely died away. The whaler had a huge spread of canvas aboard, far too great a press of sail for her possibly to enter the lagoon: she was tearing along with a great bow-wave and she sped past the mouth of the farther channel. A cable's length beyond the Opening her main and fore topgallantmasts carried clean away, as though brought down by a shot, and she instantly hauled to the wind, striking her colours as she did so. Her pursuer came racing into sight round the southern cape, studdingsails aloft and alow on either side—a dead silence from the motionless Norfolks below—fired a full, prodigal broadside to leeward, lowered down a boat and began to reduce sail, cheering like a ship clean out of her mind with delight. 'She is the Surprise,' said Stephen, and he whispered, 'The joyful Surprise, God and Mary be with her.

Her grandmother spoke so softly that even Manon could barely hear over her own gasps for air. “As your mother labored to push you out, she confessed who your father was. She said you … you would be the one who broke the curse, who saved us. She said your father was a rare-born Crochan Prince. And she said that your mixed blood would be the key.” Her grandmother lifted her nails to her mouth and licked off Manon’s blue blood. No. No. “So you have been a Kin Slayer your whole life,” her grandmother purred. “Hunting down those Crochans—your relatives. When you were a witchling, your father searched the lands for you. He never stopped loving your mother. Loving her,” she spat. “And loving you. So I killed him.” Manon gazed at the drop below, the death that beckoned. “His despair was delicious when I told him what I’d done to her. What I would make you into. Not a child of peace—but war.” Made. Made. Made.

With his mouth still tightly fixed to hers, their breaths mingling, he dragged her hand from around his neck and placed her palm just below her navel. Then he covered it with his own.

A satyr? What’s it doing here?” Brune ambled up next to her, blew on a spoonful of steaming oatmeal, and shovelled it into his mouth. “Puking,” he said, unhelpfully, and then called out to the creature below.

They were all the same size, but when you put them on, the clothes shifted and slid until they fit. The uniforms were apparently the same, because as Jenna slipped into the skirt, the hem brushed her shins, only to slither back up her body until the skirt fell just below her knees. “I don’t know if that’s convenient or creepy,” she said, inspecting her legs. Shoving off the covers, I got out of bed and went to get my own uniform. “Let’s go with creepy, shall we?” Jenna pulled on her blazer, and I noticed she was chewing her lower lip, obviously thinking something over. “You know, that’s a dangerous habit for a vampire,” I told her, nodding at her mouth.

Vexed with herself, Cassandra took a handkerchief from the congealed pocket of her dress and pressed it hard over a new trickle of tears. After a minute or two had passed, she became aware of someone ascending the stairs in a measured tread. Embarrassed to be caught crying on the steps like a lost child, Cassandra struggled to rise. A low voice stopped her. "No... please. I only wanted to give you this." Through a blur, she saw the dark form of Tom Severin, who had come to stand a step below her, with two glasses of iced champagne in his hands. He extended one to her. Cassandra began to reach for it, but hesitated. "I'm not supposed to have champagne unless it's mixed with punch." One corner of his wide mouth tipped upward. "I won't tell." Cassandra took the glass gratefully, and drank. The cold fizz was wonderful, easing the dry tightness of her throat. "Thank you," she murmured.

The Desire To Paint" Unhappy perhaps is the man, but happy the artist, who is torn with this desire. I burn to paint a certain woman who has appeared to me so rarely, and so swiftly fled away, like some beautiful, regrettable thing the traveller must leave behind him in the night. It is already long since I saw her. She is beautiful, and more than beautiful: she is overpowering. The colour black preponderates in her; all that she inspires is nocturnal and profound. Her eyes are two caverns where mystery vaguely stirs and gleams; her glance illuminates like a ray of light; it is an explosion in the darkness. I would compare her to a black sun if one could conceive of a dark star overthrowing light and happiness. But it is the moon that she makes one dream of most readily; the moon, who has without doubt touched her with her own influence; not the white moon of the idylls, who resembles a cold bride, but the sinister and intoxicating moon suspended in the depths of a stormy night, among the driven clouds; not the discreet peaceful moon who visits the dreams of pure men, but the moon torn from the sky, conquered and revolted, that the witches of Thessaly hardly constrain to dance upon the terrified grass. Her small brow is the habitation of a tenacious will and the love of prey. And below this inquiet face, whose mobile nostrils breathe in the unknown and the impossible, glitters, with an unspeakable grace, the smile of a large mouth ; white, red, and delicious; a mouth that makes one dream of the miracle of some superb flower unclosing in a volcanic land. There are women who inspire one with the desire to woo them and win them; but she makes one wish to die slowly beneath her steady gaze.

THOSE BORN UNDER Pacific Northwest skies are like daffodils: they can achieve beauty only after a long, cold sulk in the rain. Henry, our mother, and I were Pacific Northwest babies. At the first patter of raindrops on the roof, a comfortable melancholy settled over the house. The three of us spent dark, wet days wrapped in old quilts, sitting and sighing at the watery sky. Viviane, with her acute gift for smell, could close her eyes and know the season just by the smell of the rain. Summer rain smelled like newly clipped grass, like mouths stained red with berry juice — blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. It smelled like late nights spent pointing constellations out from their starry guises, freshly washed laundry drying outside on the line, like barbecues and stolen kisses in a 1932 Ford Coupe. The first of the many autumn rains smelled smoky, like a doused campsite fire, as if the ground itself had been aflame during those hot summer months. It smelled like burnt piles of collected leaves, the cough of a newly revived chimney, roasted chestnuts, the scent of a man’s hands after hours spent in a woodshop. Fall rain was not Viviane’s favorite. Rain in the winter smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. Winter rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets, for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths — the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. The first bout of warm spring rain caused normally respectable women to pull off their stockings and run through muddy puddles alongside their children. Viviane was convinced it was due to the way the rain smelled: like the earth, tulip bulbs, and dahlia roots. It smelled like the mud along a riverbed, like if she opened her mouth wide enough, she could taste the minerals in the air. Viviane could feel the heat of the rain against her fingers when she pressed her hand to the ground after a storm. But in 1959, the year Henry and I turned fifteen, those warm spring rains never arrived. March came and went without a single drop falling from the sky. The air that month smelled dry and flat. Viviane would wake up in the morning unsure of where she was or what she should be doing. Did the wash need to be hung on the line? Was there firewood to be brought in from the woodshed and stacked on the back porch? Even nature seemed confused. When the rains didn’t appear, the daffodil bulbs dried to dust in their beds of mulch and soil. The trees remained leafless, and the squirrels, without acorns to feed on and with nests to build, ran in confused circles below the bare limbs. The only person who seemed unfazed by the disappearance of the rain was my grandmother. Emilienne was not a Pacific Northwest baby nor a daffodil. Emilienne was more like a petunia. She needed the water but could do without the puddles and wet feet. She didn’t have any desire to ponder the gray skies. She found all the rain to be a bit of an inconvenience, to be honest.

The gentleness of his mouth on hers surprised her, the slow caress of his lips and tongue not unlike the waves below them. She curved her hand around the back of his neck and let herself float on the rhythm, let her fears drift and her body take over.

I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it. I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain, but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed, such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of waterglasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said, “Go on! You are first, and we shall follow. Yours is the right to begin.” The other added, “He is young and strong. There are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out from under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and I could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer, nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.

dont get me wrong oblivion I never loved you kiddo you that was always sticking around spoiling me for everyone else telling me how it would make you nutty if I didnt let you go the distance and I gave you my breasts to feel didnt I and my mouth to kiss O I was too good to you oblivion old kid thats all and when I might have told you to go ahead and croak yourselflike you was always threatning you are are going to do I didnt I said go on you inter- est me I let you hang around and whimper and Ive been getting mine Listen theres a fellow I love like I never love anyone else thats six foot two tall with a face like any girl would die to kiss and a skin like a little kittens thats asked me to go to Murrays tonight with him and see the cab- aret and dance you know well if he asks me to take another Im going to and if he asks me to take another after that Im going to do that and if he puts me into a taxi and tells the driver to take her easy and steer for the morning Im going to let him and if he starts in right away putting it to me in the cab Im not going to whisper Oblivion do you get me not that Im tired of automats and Childss and handling out ribbon to old ladies that aint got three teeth and being followed home by pimps and stewed guys and sleeping lonely in a whitewashed room three thou- sand below Zero oh no I could stand that but its that Im O Gawd how tired of seeing the white face of you and feeling the old hands of you and being teased and jollied about you and being prayed and implored and bribed and threatened to give you my beautiful white body kiddo thats why

Her eyebrows were plucked into thin arched lines, which gave her a permanent look of surprise, or outrage, or inquisitiveness, such as you might see on a startled child, but below them her eyelids were tired-looking. Not so her eyes, which were the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright sunlight, a blue that shuts you out. Her nose must once have been what was called cute but now was too small for her face. Her face was not fat but it was large. Two lines led downward from the corners of her mouth; between them was her chin, clenched like a fist.

And Tenar listened to the sea, a few yards below the cave mouth, crashing and sucking and booming on the rocks, and the thunder of it down the beach eastward for miles. Over and over and over it made the same sounds, yet never quite the same. It never rested. On all the shores of all the lands in all the world, it heaved itself in these unresting waves, and never ceased, and never was still. The desert, the mountains: they stood still. They did not cry out forever in a great, dull voice. The sea spoke forever, but its language was foreign to her. She did not understand.

Toraf runs to his mate. “My poor princess, who did this to you?” he says, tugging gently at a corner of the tape. She snatches her face away from him and chastises him in muffled outrage. Galen strides to them and promptly rips the tape from Rayna’s mouth. She yelps, raking him over with a scalding look. “You did that on purpose!” Galen wads the tape into a sticky ball then drops it to the floor. “What happened?” Rayna squares her shoulders. “I’m going to kill Nalia for good this time.” “Okay. But what happened?” “She poisoned me. Or something. “Triton’s trident, Rayna. Just tell me what hap-“ “Nalia kept saying she needed to go to the restroom, so I let her use the downstairs bathroom. I figured it would be okay because she seemed to have calmed down since you left, so I united her. Anyway, she was taking a long time in there.” Rayna points to the bathroom below the stairwell. “So I checked on her. I knocked and knocked but she didn’t answer. I opened the door-I should’ve known something was off since it wasn’t locked-and the bathroom was dark. Then she grabs me from behind and puts something over my face. The last thing I remember is Emma standing in the doorway screaming at Nalia. Next thing I know, I wake up in this chair, tied up like some common human.” Toraf finally frees her. She examines the red lines embedded into her wrists. Rubbing them, she winces. “I’m going to do something bad to her. I can be creative, you know.

There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs, and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up and she looks down. She looks at the mouse. Then she takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly.

How fucking amazing would it be to run my sharp pocketknife along her throat and puncture the skin below her right ear. I could gather up her tainted blood with the pad of my finger and smear it around her mouth to see if it really does match her whorish lipstick. Would she suck herself off of my finger? A

Hidden under wild ferns on Howth. Below us bay sleeping sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweet and sour with spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft, warm, sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her; eyes, her lips, her stretched neck, beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me. Me. And me now. Stuck, the flies buzzed.

I’m going to take Ashleigh Li. I’m going to own her body in every way imaginable. I’m going to take her from behind. From above. From below. She’s going to beg me for more, beg for my cock in her mouth, and beg me to do it again and again and again. She will never forget me, even if she does walk out of my life tomorrow.

M-m-master, when I was on the Quasar I had a paracoita, a doll, you see, a genicon, so beautiful with her great pupils as dark as wells, her i-irises purple like asters or pansies blooming in summer, Master, whole beds of them, I thought, had b-been gathered to make those eyes, that flesh that always felt sun-warmed. Wh-wh-where is she now, my own scopolagna, my poppet? Let h-h-hooks be buried in the hands that took her! Crush them, master, beneath stones. Where has she gone from the lemon-wood box I made for her, where she never slept at all, for she lay with me all night, not in the box, the lemon-wood box where she waited all day, watch-and-watch, Master, smiling when I laid her in so she might smile when I drew her out. How soft her hands were, her little hands. Like d-d-doves. She might have flown with them about the cabin had she not chosen instead to lie with me. W-w-wind their guts about your w-windlass, snuff their eyes into their mouths. Unman them, shave them clean below so their doxies may not know them, their lemans may rebuke them, leave them to the brazen laughter of the brazen mouths of st-st-strumpets. Work your will upon those guilty. Where was their mercy on the innocent? When did they tremble, when weep? What kind of men could do as they have done—thieves, false friends, betrayers, bad shipmates, no shipmates, murderers and kidnappers. W-without you, where are their nightmares, where are their restitutions, so long promised? Where are their abacinations, that shall leave them blind? Where are the defenestrations that shall break their bones, where is the estrapade that shall grind their joints? Where is she, the beloved whom I lost?

The ring-tone on one of my phones is the song: "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing Blood, are you washed in the Blood of the Lamb..." One day, I was sitting somewhere and the phone rang; before I could answer the call, a woman had started to manifest and a strange voice spoke from her mouth, screaming: "Stop that music, stop that music!" The demon in her was affected by the song, because of the power in the Blood of Jesus. 19. Virtue-restoring power. 20. Burden-removingpower. 21. Bondage-destroying power: When you plead the Blood of Jesus into any situation, it will eventually bow. Many people do not understand the overcoming weapons that they have in the word of God. The Bible says: "And they overcame him by the Blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." Today, you will watch that Blood in display, if you will pray the prayers I am suggesting below, from your heart. That Blood was not shed in vain; it was shed for forgiveness, deliverances, protection, etc. You would be cheating yourself, if you do not use that facility. A 26 year old sister, who was looking like an old woman, heard a message like this and decided to use it. She locked herself up for three days, pleading the Blood of Jesus into her situation. By the time she came out, her correct body, shape, face, had been restored to her. She now looked

For a moment, my lights picked out like searchlights the girl’s naked body, slight as a child’s, ivory white against the dead white of the snow, her hair bright as spun glass. She did not look in my direction. Motionless, she kept her eyes fixed on the walls moving slowly towards her, a glassy, glittering circle of solid ice, of which she was the centre. Dazzling flashes came from the ice-cliffs far over her head; below, the outermost fringes of ice had already reached her, immobilised her, set hard as concrete over her feet and ankles. I watched the ice climb higher, covering knees and thighs, saw her mouth open, a black hole in the white face, heard her thin agonised scream.

[…] without much ardor but quite unmistakably, she was writhing her hips as if she were dancing. When he was very close, he saw' her gaping mouth: she was yawning lengthily, insatiably: the great open hole was rocking gently atop die mechanically dancing body. Jean-Marc thought: she’s dancing and she’s bored. He reached the seawall: down below, on the beach, he saw men with their heads thrown back releasing kites into the air. They were doing it with passion, and Jean-Marc recalled his old theory: there are three kinds of boredom: passive boredom: the girl dancing and yawning; active boredom: kite-lovers; and rebellious boredom: young people burning cars and smashing shop windows.

PIPER TUMBLED THROUGH THE SKY. Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away the body of the bronze dragon spinning out of control, its wings limp, fire flickering in its mouth like a badly wired lightbulb. A body shot past her – Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. ‘Not coooooool!’ She tried to call to him, but he was already too far below. Somewhere above her, Jason yelled, ‘Piper, level out! Extend your arms and legs!’ It was hard to control her fear, but she did what he said and regained some balance. She fell spread-eagle like a skydiver, the wind underneath her like a solid block of ice. Then Jason was there, wrapping his arms around her waist. Thank god, Piper thought. But part of her also thought: Great. Second time this week he’s hugged me, and both times it’s because I’m plummeting to my death. ‘We have to get Leo!’ she shouted. Their fall slowed as Jason controlled the winds, but they still lurched up and down like the winds didn’t want to cooperate. ‘Gonna get rough,’ Jason warned. ‘Hold on!’ Piper locked her arms around him, and Jason shot towards the ground. Piper

She turned to enter a stall, lowered to her knees, and made the familiar pattern of motions, hair pushed back and three fingers snaked into her mouth, repeating nothing in her head as she sang out her stomach. As it splashed and clouded out below her, she remembered how virtuous and light it felt to have done thing. Thought not while you did it. Then you were alone and it always hurt.

She had experienced in her early forties a sense of relief when age became visible. The nearness of beauty she had previously been acutely aware of - how it bobbed just below the surface of her face where she couldn't access it, and how it shone from her sister - stopped tormenting her. Formerly it felt akin to a personal failing, one she could overcome with an unidentified act of will or resistance never mustered. Age was something different and alien. It was separate from herself and unstoppable. it did not make her happy to see the heaviness which grew around her mouth or the slight droop of one eyelid but it was calming in its way, freeing to be looked at less as she went out in the world. When it hurt her pride she comforted herself by imagining that the varying roles of her life had been simplified, and that this was a good thing.

On the contrary, an airy and innocent playfulness seemed to flicker like the shadow of summer leaves over her childish face, and around her buoyant figure. She was always in motion, always with a half-smile on her rosy mouth, flying hither and thither, with an undulating and cloud-like tread, singing to herself as she moved, as in a happy dream. Her father and female guardian were incessantly busy in pursuit of her, but, when caught, she melted from them again like a summer cloud; and as no word of chiding or reproof ever fell on her ear for whatever she chose to do, she pursued her own way all over the boat. Always dressed in white, she seemed to move like a shadow through all sorts of places, without contracting spot or stain; and there was not a corner or nook, above or below, where those fairy footsteps had not glided, and that visionary, golden head, with its deep blue eyes, fleeted along.

From down here, it was obvious what had happened to Nettle. A huge cluster of pitcher plants was gathered right below the hill, gaping maws ready to swallow any animal that tumbled down it. Each one looked like a long green sack, tipped with stripes of dark pink around the open mouth at the top. Sundew had a collection of much smaller pitcher plants growing outside her nest to catch flies before they buzzed in and bothered her. She really didn’t like this big kind, though; it was super creepy to look at a giant pitcher plant and wonder whether there might be a dragon corpse decomposing inside it. Or, in this case, a dragon that was still very much alive and spitting mad. “GET ME OUT! GET ME OUT OF THIS THING!” Nettle shrieked. One of the plants wobbled as she slammed herself into the side. “Whoa,” Cricket said, landing beside Sundew. “She’s … in there? Why doesn’t she just fly out?” “Meeebomorp,” Bumblebee added, wide-eyed.

The two sat quietly on the park bench, and Dove liked it. If she sat perfectly still, neither could ruin the moment. He seemed to feel the change as well as they watched two squirrels bound about in front of them. The squirrels were adorable and brave, jumping close to Dove and Johnson—maybe because they were motionless. Dove wanted to comment on the Disneyesque scene in front of them but kept her words on the tip of her tongue, not wanting to spoil the quiet. The two squirrels sat side by side, each a mirror of the other, munching on acorns in their paws. With their fuzzy faces and sweet, black eyes, they reminded Dove of exactly why she loved the park. Next to her, Johnson sighed in contentment. The male squirrel dropped his nut and jumped quickly behind the female squirrel. Oh dear God! Don’t do it. You horny little bastard! The male squirrel refused to read Dove’s mind and started climbing on the female squirrel. Dove heard Johnson’s groan of disgust as the male began the motions of copulation. She shook her head. Fucking figures. The tender new feelings between Dove and this handsome man were now spoiled with the obscene visual of the hairy rodents humping. Johnson had to comment. “Wow. Squirrels usually engage in some style of MATING dance.” He looked around the park for other examples to prove his point. “Much like humans, they’re attracted to the smell of the GENITALS and fancy tail motions.” Dove tried to figure out where she belonged in this conversation that he apparently thought was acceptable small talk. The obscene, public intercourse ended with one final, furry pump. The female never even dropped her nut. “Well, I guess that was a dinner date.” Dove covered her mouth and shook her head. She prayed for a flock of hungry hawks to swoop in and eat the little Snow White porn stars so she and Mr. Gorgeouspants could just stop talking about nether regions for a minute. “This time of the year, NUTS are more important than anything else.

There was a scream from inside. Drawing his sword, Haung crept up to the door and slid inside, merging with the shadows. The source of the scream was illuminated by the conjured light-ball in the centre of the room. Haung took in the scene and felt all strength flee from muscles. His arms fell limp by his side and the tip of his sword struck the tiled floor with a bright clink. From the rafters, two small bodies hung, rope tight round their necks, blackened tongues swelling from their mouths and sightless eyes staring into the void. Below the bodies of the two children, a naked woman, bruised body and bloody face sat staring at him. Blood pooled from between her knees and it was clear to Haung what had happened to her, and to her young children. She screamed again and again. Her eyes were desperate and disbelieving. Her claw fingered hands tore at her cheeks again and again. Ragged lines of blood dripped down her face, tears of madness and grief. Haung stared at her, unable to move.

Gregori tugged on her hair to force her back to him. "You make me feel alive, Savannah." "Do I? Is that why you're swearing?" She turned onto her stomach, propping herself up onto her elbows. He leaned into her, brushing his mouth across the swell of her breast. "You are managing to tie me up in knots. You take away all my good judgement." A slight smile curved her mouth. "I never noticed that you had particularly good judgement to begin with." His white teeth gleamed, a predator's smile, then sank into soft bare flesh. She yelped but moved closer to him when his tongue swirled and caressed, taking away the sting. "I have always had good judgement," he told her firmly, his teeth scraping back and forth in the valley between her breasts. "So you say.But that doesn't make it so. You let evil idiots shoot you with poisoned darts. You go by yourself into laboratories filled with your enemies. Need I go on?" Her blue eyes were laughing at him. Her firm, rounded bottom was far too tempting to resist. He brought his open palm down in mock punishment. Savannah jumped, but before she could scoot away, his palm began caressing, producing a far different effect. "Judging from our positions, ma petite, I would say my judgement looks better than yours." She laughed. "All right,I'm going to let you win this time." "Would you care for a shower?" he asked solicitously. When she nodded, Gregori flowed off the bed, lifted her high into his arms,and cradled her against his chest. There was something too innocent about him. She eyed him warily. But in an instant he had already glided across the tiled floor to the balcony door, which flew open at his whim, and carried her, naked, into the cold, glittering downpour. Savannah tried to squirm away, wiggling and shoving at his chest, laughing in spite of the icy water cascading over her. "Gregori! You're so mean. I can't believe you did this." "Well,I have poor judgement." He was grinning at her in mocking, male amusement. "Is that not what you said?" "I take it back!" she moaned, clinging to him, burying her fact on his shoulder as the chill rain pelted her bare breasts, making her nipples peak hard and fast. "Run with me tonight," Gregori whispered against her neck. An enticement. Temptation. Drawing her to him, another tie to his dark world. She lifted her head, looked into his silver eyes, and was lost.The rain poured over her, drenching her, but as Gregori slowly glided with her to the blanket of pine needles below the balcony,she couldn't look away from those hungry eyes.

Dove still couldn’t trust herself to speak without blubbering. But she could kiss. Not Lotsa, not a dressed-up weirdo. Just Dove. She pulled her hand from its sweet prison and touched his face. She leaned in to kiss him, and instead of worrying about which way her nose was pointing, if her armpits were sweating, or if there was a funky taste in her mouth left over from dinner, she thought about lips and touch and kissing. When Johnson moaned, Dove felt so powerful she could have head-butted a dinosaur to death.

Please wait here. "Annoying yet romantic," she said aloud. She sat down on the folding chair and peered inside the paper bag. A handful of tiny jam-filled donuts dusted with cinnamon and sugar sent up an intoxicating scent. The bag was warm in her hands, flecked with little bits of oil seeping through. Luce popped one into her mouth and took a sip from the tiny white cup, which contained the richest, most delightful espresso Luce had ever tasted. "Enjoying the bombolini?" Daniel called from below. Luce shot to her feet and leaned over the railing to find him standing at the back of a gondola painted with images of angels. He wore a flat straw hat bound with a thick red ribbon, and used a broad wooden paddle to steer the boat slowly toward her. Her heart surged the way it did each time she first saw Daniel in another life. But he was here. He was hers. This was happening now. "Dip them in the espresso, then tell me what it's like to be in Heaven," Daniel said, smiling up at her. "How do I get down to you?" she called. He pointed to the narrowest spiral staircase Luce had ever seen, just to the right of the railing. She grabbed the coffee and bag of donuts, slipped the peony stem behind her ear, and made for the steps. She could feel Daniel's eyes on her as she climbed over the railing and slinked down the stairs. Every time she made a full rotation on the staircase, she caught a teasing flash of his violet eyes. By the time she made it to the bottom, he had extended his hand to help her onto the boat. There was the electricity she'd been yearning for since she awoke. The spark that passed between them every time they touched. Daniel wrapped his arms around her waist and drew her in so that there was no space between their bodies. He kissed her, long and deep, until she was dizzy. "Now that's the way to start a morning." Daniel's fingers traced the petals of the peony behind her ear. A slight weight suddenly tugged at her neck and when she reached up, her hands found a find chain, which her fingers traced down to a silver locket. She held it out and looked at the red rose engraved on its face. Her locket!

In the Novel He described her mouth as full of ashes. So when he kissed her finally he was thinking about ashes and the blacker rim just below the edge of the ashtray, and the faint dark rim that outlined her lips, and the lips themselves, at the limit of another darkness, farther and far more interior. Then the way the red, paling, just outside those lines caught fire and the pages caught soon after that. Slowly at first, but then all at once at the scalloped brown corners of each; like the ruff of an offended and darkening bird, extended, then folded in on itself; multiple, stiffening, gone.

He is tangled in Isabelle's arms, he is curtained by Isabelle's hair, he is touching Isabelle's body, he is lost in Isabelle, in her smell and her taste and the silk of her skin. He is onstage, the music pounding, the floor shaking, the audience cheering, his heart beating beating beating in time with the drumbeat. He is laughing with Clary, dancing with Clary, eating with Clary, running through the streets of Brooklyn with Clary, they are children together, they are one half of a whole, they hold hands and squeeze tight and pledge never to let go. He is going cold, stiff, the life draining out of him, he is below, in the dark, clawing his way to the light, fingernails scraping dirt, mouth filled with dirt, eyes clogged with dirt, he is straining, reaching, dragging himself up toward the sky, and when he reaches it, he opens his mouth wide but does not breathe, for he no longer needs to breathe, only to feed. And he is so very hungry. He is sinking his teeth into the neck of an angel's child, he is drinking the light. He is bearing a Mark, and it burns. He is raising his face to meet the gaze of an angel, he is flayed by the fury of angel fire, and yet still, impudent and bloodless, he lives. He is in a cage. He is in hell. He is bent over the broken body of a beautiful girl, he is praying to whatever god that will listen, please let her live, anything to let her live. He is giving away that which is most precious to him, and he is doing so willingly, so that his friends will survive. He is, again, with Isabelle, always with Isabelle, the holy flame of their love encompassing them both, and there is pain, and there is exquisite joy, and his veins burn with angel fire and he is the Simon he once was and the Simon he now will be, he endures and he is reborn, he is blood and flesh and a spark of the divine. He is Nephilim.

Beside the great image she seemed little, and even for a woman she was not tall, in spite of her high diadem. She wore the whole costume of the Goddess, all but the snakes. Even her skin, pale golden, polished and clear, had a look of ivory. Her high round breasts had golden tips, like those above her. Their faces were painted just alike, the eyes drawn round with black, the brows arched and thickened, the small mouth red. It seemed the face below must be itself the same. Since childhood I had seen my mother dressed for her priestly office; yet I was awed. She had never claimed to be more than a servant of the deity. This small stiff figure had a bearing that might claim anything.

She hit the button again, holding her breath this time until she heard it. Soft, sibilant, as insubstantial as the breaths that came before: Shannon. The voice whispered Shannon. The blood rushed out of her head. Her heart knocked hard in her chest. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the counter to keep from falling. She was starting to hyperventilate, had to calm it down before she was taken by a full-blown panic attack. Paper bag. Think. Think! Drawer below the silverware, next to the sink. Over the nose and mouth. Breathe slowly, slowly. Holding the bag against her face, Shane slid to the floor with her back against the cabinets, legs splayed, lungs heaving. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be Jordan. Jordan was dead.

Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck. Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress grapes of Burgundy. Sun’s heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple by the Lion’s head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you’ll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips, her stretched neck beating, woman’s breasts full in her blouse of nun’s veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me. Me. And me now. Stuck, the flies buzzed.

Okay, I’m going to tell you what I think. It’s like this,” he said grimly. “Quit or don’t quit. Take the promotion or not take it. But, if you take the graveyard shift, mark my words, we will eventually—I don’t know how, and I don’t know when—live to regret it.” Without saying another word he walked inside. In bed Alexander let her kiss his hands. He was on his back, and Tatiana sidled up to him naked, kneeling by his side. Taking his hands, she kissed them slowly, digit by digit, knuckle by knuckle, pressing them to her trembling breasts, but when she opened her mouth to speak, Alexander took his hands away. “I know what you’re about to do,” he said. “I’ve been there a thousand times. Go ahead. Touch me. Caress me. Whisper to me. Tell me first you don’t see my scars anymore, then make it all right. You always do, you always manage to convince me that whatever crazy plan you have is really the best for you and me,” he said. “Returning to blockaded Leningrad, escaping to Sweden, Finland, running to Berlin, the graveyard shift. I know what’s coming. Go ahead, I’ll be good to you right back. You’re going to try to make me all right with you staying in Leningrad when I tell you that to save your hard-headed skull you must return to Lazarevo? You want to convince me that escaping through enemy territory across Finland’s iced-over marsh while pregnant is the only way for us? Please. You want to tell me that working all Friday night and not sleeping in my bed is the best thing for our family? Try. I know eventually you’ll succeed.” He was staring at her blonde and lowered head. “Even if you don’t,” he continued, “I know eventually, you’ll do what you want anyway. I don’t want you to do it. You know you should be resigning, not working graveyard—nomenclature, by the way, that I find ironic for more reasons that I care to go into. I’m telling you here and now, the path you’re taking us on is going to lead to chaos and discord not order and accord. It’s your choice, though. This defines you—as a nurse, as a woman, as a wife—pretend servitude. But you can’t fool me. You and I both know what you’re made of underneath the velvet glove: cast iron.” When Tatiana said nothing, Alexander brought her to him and laid her on his chest. “You gave me too much leeway with Balkman,” he said, kissing her forehead. “You kept your mouth shut too long, but I’ve learned from your mistake. I’m not keeping mine shut—I’m telling you right from the start: you’re choosing unwisely. You are not seeing the future. But you do what you want.” Kneeling next to him, she cupped him below the groin into one palm, kneading him gently, and caressed him back and forth with the other. “Yes,” he said, putting his arms under his head and closing his eyes. “You know I love that, your healing stroke. I’m in your hands.” She kissed him and whispered to him, and told him she didn’t see his scars anymore, and made it if not all right then at least forgotten for the next few hours of darkness.

But her nose is exceedingly large. It gives the impression that it has been stolen from someone else and thereafter fastened in the center of her face. It is as if a large, stone lantern from some major shrine had been moved to a tiny ten-square-meter garden. It certainly asserts its own importance, but yet looks out of place. It could almost be termed hooked: it begins by jutting sharply out, but then, halfway along its length, it suddenly turns shy so that its tip, bereft of the original vigour, hangs limply down to peer into the mouth below. Her nose is such that, when she speaks, it is the nose rather than the mouth which seems to be in action. Indeed, in homage to the enormity of that organ, I shall refer hence forward to its owner as Madam Conk.

Chapter One: The Dawn and the Dread Heartbeat, heartbeat comes from Valhallan way, To meet down in judgment, to ply its trade. Two →swords← to join in worthy cross, Actions to be rendered, one to be lost. She did come now from ’yond northern slope, A day of reckoning did she again once hope. A devout meeting was her qwesterly bane, To stay her hand was to go insane. St. Kari of the Blade to meet her past, A wicked enemy, peerless of match. Rode Kari she her charger on down, Past the Dead Land where Gaul sat crowned. A killing job, yea, she desired to lastly kill, To set things right so her heart might lie still. Upon the mist and roaring plain, She entered in, a soul uncontained. A fierce wind in deed, and forever freed, Enemies she annihilhates (’tis hur’ creed). Her own advanced guard of a sort, Multitudes to follow in her report. Know this Valkyrie from on cold, An ancient maiden soft and bold. A warrior spirit from Ages past, A fragmented mind like broken glass. Solid in stature this eternal framed being, Yet crippled within from internaled bleedings. A sword saint so refined in the poetic art, A noble character yet with a banshee’s heart. Rhythmed horse now to the beats, Kari emboldened amid the sleet. Beyond the mountain she does come, Unto southern fields wherein rules hot sun. Far from that murderous Deadlands ground, The land up swells; the dead still abound. Traverses she those bygones of leprous civilizations Those cities crumbled by the exhalted of oblivions. Stark traces etched now bare in the land, That are no more again, save dust in the hand. A cool stream now in desert sans (Does more good when one is damned). Stopped she her mount to admire the flow, A lovely stream with skeletons packed below. Blue air whisps; dragon flied motion. Flintsteel striking!!! Sparked of commotion. Cold water chortles rushtish with tint, Told of past carnage, it whetted her glint. Fallen warriors, they are no more, Swirls and eddies mark their discord. Gurgled shouts slung and gathered, Faces glazed while steel lathered. Refreshing though it was to her mouth, She smelled an air; she flared about. Came up that ridge of loud, sanded hill, Below a man and his half-score of kills. Kari’s eyes waxed in smug contempt, Possibilities ran deep with no repent . . . On Kari, Valkyrie, Cold Steel Eternity Vol. II

In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner . . . All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear . . . “He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat.

When she was done, the blacksmith looked her over and nodded, then reached below his table to place another object on its surface. For a heartbeat, Manon only stared at the crowned helmet. It had been forged of the same dark metal, the nose and brow guards fashioned so that most of her face would be in shadow—save for her mouth. And her iron teeth. The six lances of the crown jutted upward like small swords. A conqueror’s helm. A demon’s helm. Manon felt the eyes of her Thirteen, now armed, upon her as she tucked her braid into the neck of her armor and lifted the helmet over her head. It fitted easily, its interior cool against her hot skin. Even with the shadows that hid most of her face, she could see the blacksmith with perfect clarity as his chin dipped in approval. She had no idea why she bothered, but Manon found herself saying, “Thank you.

The holy well was before them. If it hadn't been marked as special, the place where the water came to the surface, fresh and clean and clear, would have been easily missed. But long ago, someone had built a stone border around it and added a vertical font with a woman's worn face on it. Water poured from her open mouth into the pool below. Little white moss flowers grew all around it. A few yards away was a craggy standing stone. The stone was twice as tall as Merida and covered all over with carved spirals. On the first day of spring solstice, the sun lit up a perfect trail of light along the stone as it rose; quite magical. Merida used to ride Angus to the stone when she was first learning all the wilds of DunBroch; it was so impressive that it had taken her several visits to realize that the holy well, not the stone, was the reason this path was kept clear.

Especially as something massive and slimy lurched from below, the size of two city buses. An enormous worm, gleaming with water and mud. A mouth full of rows of teeth opened wide and snapped— Bryce fell back on her ass as the worm caught three of the flying lizards between those teeth. Swallowed them all in one bite. Her starlight flared, casting the whole cavern in light and shadow. The creatures on the walls screeched—either at the worm or the light—flapping off their perches and right into the creature’s opening jaws. Another snapping bite, river water and metallic-reeking mud spraying with the movement, and more vanished down the worm’s throat. Bryce could only stare. One twist of its behemoth body and it’d be upon her. One bite and she’d be swallowed. Her starlight could do nothing against it. It had no eyes. It likely operated on smell, and there she was, a trembling treat offered up on that bridge— A strong, slim hand grabbed Bryce under the shoulder and dragged her back.

She let herself be had. With two women in the room behind her and her staff wandering the halls, she relaxed into his hold and returned his kiss. He tasted of the tea, of the sweetness of sugar; he tasted like a very bad idea that she would soon regret, but not now. Never now, while he kissed her yet. His hand skimmed down her body, shaping her breast. She opened her eyes and discovered him watching her, so blue his eyes were, and his palm over her stiffening nipple suddenly seemed to carry a message, too. The audacity of his touch, paired with the frank boldness of his look, made her laugh from sheer delight. She felt him grin against her mouth. His hand slipped farther yet, seizing her by the waist and pulling her more solidly against him. Her joints felt like melting waxworks, incapable of supporting her. She flung her arms around him and let him have all of her weight—and hit the wall harder yet as he stepped straight into her. Now she was doubly pinned, the tight, taut planes of his body as unyielding as the plaster behind her. Again he kissed her, harder yet, as though trying to convince her of something. What? What was the aim of his persuasion? She kissed him back eagerly, for did he not see? She was already convinced. She found his hair, soft and a touch too long, where it brushed against his collar. The skin beneath was hot and smooth. Her palm wrapped around his nape, and as she gripped him, she shuddered. This need felt elemental. Like hunger or thirst. From the entry hall far below came the sound of voices. They froze. Her eyes snapped open. His were so very, very blue. Someone would see them. They stood in plain view. His face turned into her neck. She heard, felt, the great breath he drew. Very low, against her skin, the roughness of his jaw abrading her, he spoke. “Friendship is not what I want.” Her hands broke free of her caution. They found his back, gathering in handfuls the soft wool of his jacket. Think. There were reasons, very good reasons, to discourage him. Money: he had none. Power: he had too much over her. He simply didn’t realize it.

She kissed his lips and felt his smile form. Alone in this beautiful space, Blake and Livia made things right. Blake kissed her slowly and patiently, like he had all the time in the world. Carefully, they eased back to lie down, and Blake braced himself above her. He smelled of mint and fresh soap. Livia put her hands on his chest and felt the densely packed muscles there. Empowered by his adoration, she shrugged off her fleece shirt, enjoying the feeling of being trapped between his arms. Blake’s eyes became stormy seas. “Damn it all to hell,” he cursed. Despite his words, Livia believed she was winning this battle of seduction. Blake kissed her mouth and sucked on her bottom lip. He moved to her earlobe and breathed, “First, I will blow, then I will lick, last I will bite.” Holy crap. Blake blew a gentle stream of minty breath along the outside of Livia’s ear, down to her neck, and along the edge of her breasts where they peeked out of her bright blue bra. Blake took his time creating an elaborate pattern on her stomach, and Livia was pretty sure he’d spelled the word torture. He increased the pressure of his breath as he grazed below her belly button to the top of her jeans. He skipped back to her mouth and gave her another long, slow kiss. “And now I lick,” he murmured. Livia bit back the embarrassingly loud moan she felt building. He gently traced the same trail his breath had left, this time with his tongue. When he reached her breast, she lost control and grabbed his hair, intent on kissing him. “No. No.” Blake held her wrists above her head. “I’ve done this to you so many times in my mind. I won’t have you rush me.” Livia groaned and arched her back in an effort to change his mind. But his slow, sexy smile told her he was doing it his way. “Fine.” Livia dutifully kept her hands above her head as he picked up where he’d left off. His tongue had her making noises that surely scared the wildlife. He spent an inordinate amount of time licking just above her belt buckle. Then again he was back to her mouth. He spoke through his kiss. “I’m going to bite you now.” Blake began down the same flaming path on Livia’s body with his teeth, nibbling in time with her heartbeat. When it speeded up, he bit slightly harder. After what seemed to be sixteen million glorious years, Blake was at the top of her jeans again. A light, almost invisible, mist from the gray clouds now gave the clearing a slick sheen. The cool rain and his hot mouth were ecstasy. Blake unbuckled her belt and used his tongue and teeth to unbutton her jeans. He chuckled as he flipped her zipper with his teeth. Each pop of the releasing zipper filled the woods as he blew again on the newly revealed skin. Livia knew what to expect this time: blow, lick, bite. Oh, sweet God! This is heaven. At last, Livia could no longer obey and reached her hands down to his angelic face. Blake glanced up as if to rebuke her, but quickly smiled and let her sit up to meet his lips. Love. Crazy, soon, ever. Love, Livia’s mind raged. She tried to tell him with kisses, but it wasn’t enough. Blake knelt before her, and Livia straddled his thighs. She pulled back to try putting it into words and noticed how Blake glistened, covered in tiny raindrops. The clear, cool pond she’d described to Cole had just exploded over them. But instead of drowning, they wore it like a cloak.

The necessary special effects are not in my possession, but what I’d like for you to imagine is Clementine’s white face coming close to mine, her sleepy eyes closing, her medicine-sweet lips puckering up, and all the other sounds of the world going silent—the rustling of our dresses, her mother counting leg lifts downstairs, the airplane outside making an exclamation mark in the sky—all silent, as Clementine’s highly educated, eight-year-old lips met mine. And then, somewhere below this, my heart reacting. Not a thump exactly. Not even a leap. But a kind of swish, like a frog kicking off from a muddy bank. My heart, that amphibian, moving that moment between two elements: one, excitement; the other, fear. I tried to pay attention. I tried to hold up my end of things. But Clementine was way ahead of me. She swiveled her head back and forth the way actresses did in the movies. I started doing the same, but out of the corner of her mouth she scolded, “You’re the man.” So I stopped. I stood stiffly with arms at my sides. Finally Clementine broke off the kiss. She looked at me blankly a moment, and then responded, “Not bad for your first time.

So all in all, Nona’s worth to the children was universally agreed to be minimal. She ranked very low among them, definitely below Honesty and Beautiful Ruby and only fractionally higher than Born in the Morning. The only person Born in the Morning outranked was the seven-year-old, who was just Kevin. Those were really their names—even Kevin—but nobody ever told Nona why Hot Sauce was called Hot Sauce. Hot Sauce had no parents, so she couldn’t ask them. The other kids had thirteen people at home between them, but the numbers were skewed by Born in the Morning, who was saddled with five fathers: Eldest Father, Second Eldest Father, Brother Father, Younger Brother Father, and New Father. More importantly to Nona, Beautiful Ruby had a new baby at home, and sometimes Ruby’s mother brought the baby to the school foyer, and she could look at the baby’s fingernails, which were small. Nona explained all this to Camilla and Pyrrha and sometimes to Palamedes over dinners, usually in the hope that she could talk so much nobody would notice she wasn’t using her mouth to eat. They all agreed that whatever made Nona happy at school made Nona happy at school, but the bottom line remained that she shouldn’t buy anybody drugs.

The Garden" How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays, And their uncessant labours see Crown’d from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow’rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose. Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence, thy sister dear! Mistaken long, I sought you then In busy companies of men; Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow. Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude. No white nor red was ever seen So am’rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress’ name; Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found. When we have run our passion’s heat, Love hither makes his best retreat. The gods, that mortal beauty chase, Still in a tree did end their race: Apollo hunted Daphne so, Only that she might laurel grow; And Pan did after Syrinx speed, Not as a nymph, but for a reed. What wond’rous life in this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons as I pass, Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass. Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find, Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade. Here at the fountain’s sliding foot, Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root, Casting the body’s vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide; There like a bird it sits and sings, Then whets, and combs its silver wings; And, till prepar’d for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light. Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walk’d without a mate; After a place so pure and sweet, What other help could yet be meet! But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there: Two paradises ’twere in one To live in paradise alone. How well the skillful gard’ner drew Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new, Where from above the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run; And as it works, th’ industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!

I” - he heard her whisper, closer than he expected, and shaky and strange – “think I might be a very stupid girl.” He shook his head no. Just barely. So that only someone who was holding his check and his neck would notice. “Yes,” she said, sounding closer. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. What if he opened his eyes and she saw what she was doing? She kissed his check, and he let his head tip forward into her hands. She kissed his other check. And his chin. The groove below his bottom lip. “Stupid girl,” she said near the corner of his mouth, sounding incredulous, “what could you possibly be thinking?” Lincoln found his mouth. “Perfect girl,” he said so quietly that only someone with her hands in his hair and her lips all but touching his could possibly hear. “Pretty girl.” He found her mouth. “Perfect.” Kiss. “Magic.” Kiss. “Only girl.” There are moments when you can’t believe something wonderful is happening . And there are moments when your entire consciousness is filled with knowing absolutely that something wonderful is happening. Lincoln felt life he’d dunked his head into a sink full of Pop Rocks and turned on the water. He shook his jacket onto the floor and put his arms around her. All he could think was Beth. All he could do was let this dream come true.

The speaker standing on an upturned barrel at the intersection of 135th Street and Seventh Avenue was shouting monotonously: “BLACK POWER! BLACK POWER! Is you is? Or is you ain’t? We gonna march this night! March! March! March! Oh, when the saints — yeah, baby! We gonna march this night!” Spit flew from his looselipped mouth. His flabby jowls flopped up and down. His rough brown skin was greasy with sweat. His dull red eyes looked tired. “Mistah Charley been scared of BLACK POWER since the day one. That’s why Noah shuffled us off to Africa the time of the flood. And all this time we been laughing to keep from whaling.” He mopped his sweating face with a red bandanna handkerchief. He belched and swallowed. His eyes looked vacant. His mouth hung open as though searching for words. “Can’t keep this up,” he said under his breath. No one heard him. No one noticed his behavior. No one cared. He swallowed loudly and screamed. “TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT! We launch our whale boats. Iss the night of the great white whale. You dig me, baby?” He was a big man and flabby all over like his jowls. Night had fallen but the black night air was as hot as the bright day air, only there was less of it. His white short-sleeved shirt was sopping wet. A ring of sweat had formed about the waist of his black alpaca pants as though the top of his potbelly had begun to melt. “You want a good house? You got to whale! You want a good car? You got to whale! You want a good job? You got to whale! You dig me?” His conked hair was dripping sweat. For a big flabby middle-aged man who would have looked more at home in a stud poker game, he was unbelievably hysterical. He waved his arms like an erratic windmill. He cut a dance step. He shuffled like a prizefighter. He shadowed with clenched fists. He shouted. Spit flew. “Whale! Whale! WHALE, WHITEY! WE GOT THE POWER! WE IS BLACK! WE IS PURE!” A crowd of Harlem citizens dressed in holiday garb had assembled to listen. They crowded across the sidewalks, into the street, blocking traffic. They were clad in the chaotic colors of a South American jungle. They could have been flowers growing on the banks of the Amazon, wild orchids of all colors. Except for their voices. “What’s he talking ’bout?” a high-yellow chick with bright red hair wearing a bright green dress that came down just below her buttocks asked the tall slim black man with smooth carved features and etched hair. “Hush yo’ mouth an’ lissen,” he replied harshly, giving her a furious look from the corners of muddy, almond-shaped eyes. “He tellin’ us what black power mean!

He put his mouth by her ear. “Easy, now, Senna.” His thumb stroked her jaw as if he were gentling a wild thing. His sculpted body was hot behind hers. “Be easy " “Stop touching me,” she pleaded in a whisper. His thumb stopped moving. “What?” “Kiss me.” The rest of him went completely still... “What did ye say?” he asked in a low, masculine rumble… Her heart started a strange thudding. Their voices were so quiet that the breeze blowing over them nearly drowned them out. Both were held paralyzed by the riders on the highway below. No one was going anywhere. In fact, it might all be over in a matter of minutes. And all she wanted was his touch. If I am going to die, she suddenly decided, it will not be absent the touch of this Irishman.She touched his hand and slid it across the mere inch back to her lips. Shutting her eyes, she trailed the tip of her tongue over his warm flesh.His body rippled slightly, like wind over waves. She felt every muscle in his body shift, very minutely, very definitely. He brushed his thumb once over her parted lips. Her breath shuddered out. “Did ye tell me to kiss ye, Senna?” “I did.” Her whisper trembled. “Why?” “Because,” she whispered, “if I’m going to die, it will not be lacking all the things I am lacking at present.” A pause. “Ye’re lacking a kiss, then?” She nodded.

Muriah approached him with a new pair of khakis and a couple of T-shirts. “I guessed at the size so you might want to go try these on first.” He took the clothes and slid his arm around her waist, maneuvering her toward the fitting room. “Hey, I didn’t sign on to be your dresser.” She grumbled, but didn’t struggle. He pulled the door closed and turned to meet her eyes. “It’s light in here and full of people. Apep will not be able to surprise us, and his serpents cannot spy. We need to talk.” *** He stripped off the wet shirt, exposing his chiseled torso. She did her best not to choke on her tongue. His tanned skin and taut muscles tempted her, luring her to touch him. Turning around to give him privacy seemed like the right thing to do, but there wasn’t a hint of modesty in this Mayan god, and if he could handle getting this personal, then she could, too. When he unzipped the wet pants, she held her breath. Would an ancient guy wear underwear? She was about to find out. He bent over to lower the wet slacks. When he straightened up, she realized he’d been talking, but she didn’t have a clue what he had said. Instead, all her attention was focused on a fine trail of dark hair leading from just below his navel and disappearing under the low-slung elastic band of his boxer briefs. “Muriah?” Her gaze snapped up to meet his. Thank the universe he couldn’t read her thoughts. “Yeah?” “Did you hear my question?” He stood two feet from her in only his underwear, and he thought she was listening? He was either completely unaware of his sex appeal, or he was way too accustomed to being obeyed. Probably both. She cleared her throat. “I must’ve missed it.” A spark lit his eyes that told her he might have more than a clue to his sex appeal. He picked up the T-shirt and pulled it on. “I asked if you knew of another hotel closer to the airport so we can get out of New York as soon as the sun sets tomorrow.” “I’m sure I can find one.” She pulled out her phone, grateful to have something to pretend to focus on besides him tucking his package into the new khakis she pulled off the rack for him. “I probably should’ve grabbed some dry underwear, too.” “They are nearly dry now. I will be fine.” He popped the tags off, and she glanced up from her hotel search. “They’re not going to like you taking the tags off before you pay.” The corner of his mouth curved up. “They will be honored to take my money.” She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Do you ever not get your way?” He stepped closer to her, his chest an inch from hers until her back pressed against the modular wall of the fitting room. “Rarely.” His dark gaze held hers, and the deep rumble of his voice sent heat through her body. “But some things are worth the extra effort.

What I felt for you in Doranelle and what I feel for you now are the same. I just didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to act on it.” She knew why she needed to hear it—he knew, too. Darrow’s and Rolfe’s words danced around in her head, an endless chorus of bitter threats. But Aelin only smirked at him. “Then act away, Prince.” Rowan let out a low laugh, and said nothing else as he claimed her mouth, nudging her back against the crumbling chimney. She opened for him, and his tongue swept in, thorough, lazy. Oh, gods—this. This was what drove her out of her mind—this fire between them. They could burn the entire world to ashes with it. He was hers and she was his, and they had found each other across centuries of bloodshed and loss, across oceans and kingdoms and war. Rowan pulled back, breathing heavily, and whispered against her lips, “Even when you’re in another kingdom, Aelin, your fire is still in my blood, my mouth.” She let out a soft moan, arching into him as his hand grazed her backside, not caring if anyone spotted them in the streets below. “You said you wouldn’t take me against a tree the first time,” she breathed, sliding her hands up his arms, across the breadth of his sculpted chest. “What about a chimney?” Rowan huffed another laugh and nipped at her bottom lip. “Remind me again why I missed you.” Aelin chuckled, but the sound was quickly silenced as Rowan claimed her mouth again and kissed her deeply in the moonlight.

In the second week, more people appeared. Esme met a missionary couple returning to a place called Wells-next-the-Sea. ‘It’s next to the sea,’ the lady said, and Esme smiled and thought she must remember that, to tell Kitty later. She saw them both glance at the black band round her arm, then look away. They told her about the huge beach that stretched out below the town and how Norfolk was full of houses made of pebbles. They had never been to Scotland, they said, but they had heard it was very beautiful. They bought her some lemonade and sat with her on deck-chairs while she drank it. ‘My baby brother,’ Esme found herself saying, as she swirled the ice in the bottom of the glass, ‘died of typhoid.’ The lady put her hand to her throat, then rested it on Esme’s arm. She said she was very sorry. Esme didn’t mention that her ayah had also died, or that they had buried Hugo in the churchyard in the village and that this bothered her, that he was being left behind in India while they all went to Scotland, or that her mother hadn’t spoken to her or looked at her since. ‘I didn’t die,’ Esme said, because this still puzzled her, still kept her awake in her narrow bunk. ‘Even though I was there.’ The man cleared his throat. He gazed out to the lumped, greenish line of what he’d told Esme was the coast of Africa. ‘You will have been spared,’ he said, ‘for a purpose. A special purpose.’ Esme looked up from her empty glass and studied his face in wonder. A purpose. She had a special purpose ahead of her. His dog-collar was startling white against the brown of his neck, his mouth set in a serious downturn. He said he would pray for her.

His mouth moved along the line of her jaw to her neck, pausing only to whisper, “Where is your mother?” “Out,” Kate gasped. His teeth tugged at the edge of her bodice. “For how long?” “I don’t know.” She let out a little squeal as his tongue dipped below the muslin and traced an erotic line on her skin. “Good heavens, Anthony, what are you doing?” “How long?” he repeated. “An hour. Maybe two.” Anthony glanced up to make sure he’d shut the door when he had entered earlier. “Maybe two?” he murmured, smiling against her skin. “Really?” “M-maybe just one.” He hooked a finger under the edge of her bodice up near her shoulder, making sure to catch the edge of her chemise as well. “One,” he said, “is still quite splendid.” Then, pausing only to bring his mouth to hers so that she could not utter any protest, he swiftly pulled her dress down, taking the chemise along with it. He felt her gasp into his mouth, but he just deepened the kiss as he palmed the round fullness of her breast. She was perfect under his fingers, soft and pert, filling his hand as if she’d been made for him. When he felt the last of her resistance melt away, he moved his kiss to her ear, nibbling softly on her lobe. “Do you like this?” he whispered, squeezing gently with his hand. She nodded jerkily. “Mmmm, good,” he murmured, letting his tongue do a slow sweep of her ear. “It would make things very difficult if you did not.” “H-how?” He fought the bubble of mirth that was rising in his throat. This absolutely wasn’t the time to laugh, but she was so damned innocent. He’d never made love to a woman like her before; he was finding it surprisingly delightful. “Let’s just say,” he said, “that I like it very much.” -Anthony & Kate

The small moan she released into his mouth made him smile, and kiss her more deeply. After several moments he shifted his mount's reins to his left hand to free his right to caress her. His eager fingers went straight to her breast to knead briefly before focusing on her nipple. Much to his satisfaction, Claray gasped and arched into the caress when he pinched and teased the sensitive tip as he'd wanted to do. Her response to his touch was most gratifying. Her kiss became frantic, and she squirmed in his lap, her bottom unintentionally rubbing against him in a most exciting manner. Eager for the moans and mewls of pleasure he'd drawn from her in the river, Conall released her nipple and let his hand drift down over the swaddled fox and below to press between her legs through the plaid she wore. When Claray immediately broke their kiss on a gasp, he pressed more firmly, then claimed her lips again and thrust his tongue into her mouth as he began to rub her through the heavy cloth, eliciting those groans and mewls he'd wanted. She was so damed responsive to him it made him ache, and if it weren't for the fact that he had Payton, Roderick, Hamish and two hundred warriors at his back, he'd have ridden into the woods, dragged her to the ground, thrown up her skirts and sunk himself into her. As Payton had said, bedding her every night and filling her belly with a bairn or nine would be no hardship at all, and where before Conall had thought he wouldn't care if her father decided to break the betrothal and find her someone else to wed, the idea was now anathema to him. He wanted her for himself. He wanted to sink himself into her wet heat and stay there for a week. The only way to do that though was to claim and marry her. Oddly enough, that suddenly didn't seem a bad idea.

And then the world stopped and there was nothing but Rose as she slipped from the crowd to stand before him. Grey forgot about Lady Devane. He forgot about everyone but her. She wore a mask, but even if he hadn’t recognized the hair and the dress he would have known it was her. He knew her scent, the shape of her mouth. He recognized her by the way his heart rejoiced at her nearness. She stared at him, her mask doing nothing to conceal her wonder. “Why are you here?” Grey smiled down at her. Did she notice that he’d pinned the rosette from the gown she’d worn their first night together to his lapel? “Because I hold you above my horse, my fortune, and my pride.” Her brow puckered. “I beg your pardon?” “Those were the traits you said you required in a husband, were they not?” Her face relaxed, and he thought he saw a glimmer of understanding in her dark eyes. “Yes. I believe they were. You came here just to tell me that?” He laughed. Her face was so bright below the edge of her mask, her eyes damp and warm. It broke is heart-and buoyed it as well-to know he was responsible for all of that. “No. I came here to dance with my wife. And to do this.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her in front of the entire ballroom. He didn’t care about the gasps or that everyone could see. He didn’t care what they said or whether or not his behavior was proper. He was a duke, damn it. A scandalous one at that. When he lifted his head, Rose’s eyes fluttered open. Her breath came in short, gentle heaves. “I’m very glad you decided that could not wait until I get home.” Grey offered his arm. “Shall we?” “There’s no music.” But she took his arm anyway. The orchestra had stopped playing shortly after he walked in. Grey turned his gaze in their direction, nodded at the leader and once again the room was filled with music.

From the dairy a wall extended which formed the right-hand boundary of the octangle, joining the bull’s shed and the pig-pens at the extreme end of the right point of the triangle. A staircase, put in to make it more difficult, ran parallel with the octangle, half-way round the yard, against the wall which led down to the garden gate. The spurt and regular ping! of milk against metal came from the reeking interior of the sheds. The bucket was pressed between Adam Lambsbreath’s knees, and his head was pressed deep into the flank of Feckless, the big Jersey. His gnarled hands mechanically stroked the teat, while a low crooning, mindless as the Down wind itself, came from his lips. He was asleep. He had been awake all night, wandering in thought over the indifferent bare shoulders of the Downs after his wild bird, his little flower... Elfine. The name, unspoken but sharply musical as a glittering bead shaken from a fountain’s tossing necklace, hovered audibly in the rancid air of the shed. The beasts stood with heads lowered dejectedly against the wooden hoot-pieces of their stalls. Graceless, Pointless, Feckless, and Aimless awaited their turn to be milked. Sometimes Aimless ran her dry tongue, with a rasping sound sharp as a file through silk, awkwardly across the bony flank of Feckless, which was still moist with the rain that had fallen upon it through the roof during the night, or Pointless turned her large dull eyes sideways as she swung her head upwards to tear down a mouthful of cobwebs from the wooden runnet above her head. A lowering, moist, steamy light, almost like that which gleams below the eyelids of a man in fever, filled the cowshed. Suddenly a tortured bellow, a blaring welter of sound that shattered the quiescence of the morning, tore its way across the yard and died away in a croak that was almost a sob. It was Big Business, the bull, wakening to another day, in the clammy darkness of his cell.

What else do you want to know?’ he asked. Possessed by morbid curiosity, her eyes darted to the scar that cut just over his ear. She’d found it shortly after they met, while he lay unconscious in the grass. He didn’t need to ask what had caught her attention. ‘I got that in a fight against imperial soldiers. Ask me why.’ She shook her head, unable to bring herself to do it. The cocoon of warmth that had enveloped the entire afternoon unwound itself in an instant. ‘Are you having second thoughts about being here with me?’ He planted a hand into the grass, edging closer. ‘No. I trust you.’ He was giving her all the time in the world to shove him away, to rise, to flee. Her heartbeat quickened as she watched him. Moving ever so slowly, he braced an arm on either side of her, his fingers sinking into the moss. ‘I asked you to come with me.’ Despite her words, she dug her heels into the ground and inched backwards. ‘I feel safe with you.’ ‘I can see that.’ He affected a lazy smile as she retreated until her back pressed against the knotted roots that crawled along the ground. His boldness was so unexpected, so exciting. She held her breath and waited. Her pulse jumped when he reached for her. She’d been imagining this moment ever since their first duel and wondering whether it would take another swordfight for him to come near her again. His fingers curled gently against the back of her neck, giving her one last chance to escape. Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her. It was as natural as breathing to wrap his arms around her and lower her to the ground. He settled his weight against her hips. The perfume of her skin mixed with the damp scent of the moss beneath them. At some point, her sense of propriety would win over. Until then he let his body flood with raw desire. It felt good to kiss her the way he wanted to. It felt damn good. He slipped his tongue past her lips to where she was warm and smooth and inviting. Her hands clutched at his shirt as she returned his kiss. A muted sound escaped from her throat. He swallowed her cry, using his hands to circle her wrists: rough enough to make her breath catch, gentle enough to have her opening her knees, cradling his hips with her long legs. He stroked himself against her, already hard beyond belief. He groaned when she responded, instinctively pressing closer. ‘I need to see you,’ he said. The sash around her waist fell aside in two urgent tugs while his other hand stole beneath her tunic. She gasped when his fingers brushed the swath of cloth at her breasts. The faint, helpless sound nearly lifted him out of the haze of desire. He didn’t want to think too hard about this. Not yet. He felt for the edge of the binding. ‘In back.’ She spoke in barely a whisper, a sigh on his soul. She peered up at him, her face in shadow as he parted her tunic. She watched him in much the same way she had when they had first met: curious, fearless, her eyes a swirl of green and gold. He pulled at the tight cloth until Ailey’s warm, feminine flesh swelled into his hands. He soothed his palms over the cruel welts left by the bindings. She bit down against her lip as blood rushed back into the tortured flesh. With great care, he stroked her nipples, teasing them until they grew tight beneath his roughened fingertips. God’s breath. Perfect. He wanted his mouth on her and still it wouldn’t be enough. Her heart beat out a chaotic rhythm. His own echoed the same restless pulse. ‘I knew it would be like this.’ His words came out hoarse with passion. At that moment he’d have given his soul to have her. But somewhere in his thick skull, he knew he had a beautiful, vulnerable girl who trusted him pressed against the bare earth. He sensed the hitch in her breathing and how her fingers dug nervously into his shoulders, even as her hips arched into him. He ran his thumb gently over the reddened mark that ran just below her collarbone and felt her shiver beneath him.

Quote from "The Dish Keepers of Honest House" ....TO TWIST THE COLD is easy when its only water you want. Tapping of the toothbrush echoes into Ella's mind like footsteps clacking a cobbled street on a bitter, dry, cold morning. Her mind pushes through sleep her body craves. It catches her head falling into a warm, soft pillow. "Go back to bed," she tells herself. "You're still asleep," Ella mumbles, pushes the blanket off, and sits up. The urgency to move persuades her to keep routines. Water from the faucet runs through paste foam like a miniature waterfall. Ella rubs sleep-deprieved eyes, then the bridge of her nose and glances into the sink. Ella's eyes astutely fixate for one, brief millisecond. Water becomes the burgundy of soldiers exiting the drain. Her mouth drops in shock. The flow turns green. It is like the bubbling fungus of flockless, fishless, stagnating ponds. Within the iridescent glimmer of her thinking -- like a brain losing blood flow, Ella's focus is the flickering flashing of gray, white dust, coal-black shadows and crows lifting from the ground. A half minute or two trails off before her mind returns to reality. Ella grasps a toothbrush between thumb and index finger. She rests the outer palm against the sink's edge, breathes in and then exhales. Tension in the brow subsides, and her chest and shoulders drop; she sighs. Ella stares at pasty foam. It exits the drain as if in a race to clear the sink of negativity -- of all germs, slimy spit, the burgundy of imagined soldiers and oppressive plaque. GRASPING THE SILKY STRAND between her fingers, Ella tucks, pulls and slides the floss gently through her teeth. Her breath is an inch or so of the mirror. Inspections leave her demeanor more alert. Clouding steam of the image tugs her conscience. She gazes into silver glass. Bits of hair loosen from the bun piled at her head's posterior. What transforms is what she imagines. The mirror becomes a window. The window possesses her Soul and Spirit. These two become concerned -- much like they did when dishonest housekeepers disrupted Ella's world in another story. Before her is a glorious bird -- shining-dark-as-coal, shimmering in hues of purple-black and black-greens. It is likened unto The Raven in Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem of 1845. Instead of interrupting a cold December night with tapping on a chamber door, it rests its claws in the decorative, carved handle of a backrest on a stiff dining chair. It projects an air of humor and concern. It moves its head to and fro while seeking a clearer understanding. Ella studies the bird. It is surrounded in lofty bends and stretches of leafless, acorn-less, nearly lifeless, oak trees. Like fingers and arms these branches reach below. [Perhaps they are reaching for us? Rest assured; if they had designs on us, I would be someplace else, writing about something more pleasant and less frightening. Of course, you would be asleep.] Balanced in the branches is a chair. It is from Ella's childhood home. The chair sways. Ella imagines modern-day pilgrims of a distant shore. Each step is as if Mother Nature will position them upright like dolls, blown from the stability of their plastic, flat, toe-less feet. These pilgrims take fate by the hand. LIFTING A TOWEL and patting her mouth and hands, Ella pulls the towel through the rack. She walks to the bedroom, sits and picks up the newspaper. Thumbing through pages that leave fingertips black, she reads headlines: "Former Dentist Guilty of Health Care Fraud." She flips the page, pinches the tip of her nose and brushes the edge of her chin -- smearing both with ink. In the middle fold directly affront her eyes is another headline: "Dentist Punished for Misconduct." She turns the page. There is yet another: "Dentist guilty of urinating in surgery sink and using contaminated dental instruments on patients." This world contains those who are simply insane! Every profession has those who stray from goals....

Oliver reached past her to yank the curtains closed, then moved to sit beside her. She stiffened, but didn’t resist as he looped one arm about her waist to pull her back against his hard body. “You don’t even know what you’re giving up,” he rasped, “what it’s like to shatter beneath a man’s touch. If you knew, you wouldn’t be so eager to throw that away for the cold comfort of a respectable marriage.” She closed her eyes against his words, but they were designed to tempt her, and tempt her they did. Last night had only roused her curiosity. Now, with the spicy scent of his cologne in her nostrils and his breath warming her cheek, she wanted to know more, feel more. His voice lowered to a whisper. “Let me at least show you what you’d be missing.” She felt rather than saw him shrug off his cloak, leaving him in his shirtsleeves. That sent a wayward thrill down her spine. “Have you forgotten that I’m deplorably a virgin?” she said, attempting to regain control over the situation. “No. And you’ll still be one when I’m done.” He pressed his lips against the bit of neck below her bonnet, making her shiver deliciously. Then he untied her bonnet and tossed it onto the opposite seat so he could press a kiss into her hair. “I only want to give you a taste of passion, sweetheart. Enough for you to see what it could be like between us.” “Oliver…” she protested, turning toward him. That proved a mistake, for he caught her head in his hands and kissed her. Boldly. Deeply. And she couldn’t bring herself to stop him. Mercy, how fiercely he kissed! He scarcely allowed her breath as his mouth plundered hers over and over, startling her pulse into a wild gallop. She curled her fingers into his shirt, not sure whether she was trying to hold him closer or push him away. It didn’t matter. He had full command of her, and he knew it. His large hands held her still as his tongue tangled with hers, and his thumbs slid down to caress her throat with a tenderness at odds with the wild abandon of his kisses.

Bang! Clang! Bang! Clangity bang, rat-a-tat! "Reuben, I have been thinking, what a good world this might be, if the men were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea." "Oh,no!" Willow rose off Rider's lap so fast her forhead bumped his chin. "What is that racket?" he asked, standing and following her to the window overlooking the street. One corner of her mouth quirked in mock disgust. "Take a look for yourself." Clangity bang! Rat-a-tat! The men below beat their pots and pans with wooden spoons and, in a couple cases, gun butts. "Rachel, I have long been thinking, what a fine world this might be, if we had some more young ladies on the side of the Northern Sea. Too ral loo ral. Too ral lee." "Looks like your brothers and the whole Niners team!" Rider laughed. "What are they doing?" "Haven't you ever heard of being shivareed, husband?" Outside the boisterous, drunken voices broke into another chorus of Reuben and Rachel. "Rachel, I will not trasport you,but will take you for a wife. We will live on milk and honey, better or worse we're in for life." Willow chuckled as all up and down Allen Street lights began to glow through every window. Someone in a room down the hall lifted their window, threw a chamber pot at the crooners, and followed it with a foul epithet. Undaunted, the man broke into a chorus of Aura Lea. "They sure have lousy timing," Rider commented wryly. "Just how long does this little serenade last?" Seeing a tall figure in a long frock coat coming up the street, Willow replied, "I think it's about to end very soon now." Virgil Earp's face shone in the gaslight in front of the Grand. "All right, boys," the couple heard him say, "the party's over." He looked up at Rider and Willow with a wide, winsome grin and waved. With that, he ushered the drunken serenaders down the street and into a saloon. Rider turned from the window, shaking his head. "Now where were we? Ah,yes!" he swooped Willow off her feet and tossed her onto the huge bed. "That's not where we were." She laughed. "It's where we were headed, lady, and that's good enough for me.

Vim?” “Sweetheart?” The whispered endearment spoken with sleepy sensuality had Sophie’s insides fluttering. Was this what married people did? Cuddled and talked in shadowed rooms, gave each other bodily warmth as they exchanged confidences? “What troubles you about going home?” He was quiet for a long moment, his breath fanning across her neck. Sophie felt him considering his words, weighing what to tell her, if anything. “I’m not sure exactly what’s amiss, and that’s part of the problem, but my associations with the place are not at all pleasant, either.” Was that…? His lips? The glancing caress to her nape made Sophie shiver despite the cocoon of blankets. “What do you think is wrong there?” Another kiss, more definite this time. “My aunt and uncle are quite elderly, though Uncle Bert and Aunt Essie seem the type to live forever. I’ve counted on them living forever. You even taste like flowers.” Ah, God, his tongue… a slow, warm, wet swipe of his tongue below her ear, like a cat, but smoother than a cat, more deliberate. “Nobody lives forever.” The nuzzling stopped. “This is lamentably so. My aunt writes to me that a number of family heirlooms have gone missing, some valuable in terms of coin, some in terms of sentiment.” His teeth closed gently on the curve of her ear. What was this? He wasn’t kissing her, exactly, nor fondling the parts other men had tried to grope in dark corners—though Sophie wished he might try some fondling. “Do you think you might have a thief among the servants?” He slipped her earlobe into his mouth and drew on it briefly. “Perhaps, though the staff generally dates back to before the Flood. We pay excellent wages; we pension those who seek retirement, those few who seek retirement.” “Is some sneak thief in the neighborhood preying on your relations, then?” It was becoming nearly impossible to remain passively lying on her side. She wanted to be on her back, kissing him, touching his hair, his face, his chest… “Or has some doughty old retainer merely misplaced some of the silver?” Vim muttered right next to her ear. “You’ll sort it out.

We were never introduced, ye know. I’m Mrs. Lord’s brother. You can call me Ruaidri.” “I’m not calling you anything, I’m leaving.” “And what is your name, Sunshine? Ye’re his sister, aren’t ye?” “Yes, I’m his sister, and there is no need for you to know my name, no need for you to be asking me all these questions and trying to detain me, no need for me to stay here when I must go.” He grinned, wickedly. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” “Tell what?” “Yer brother, if you let me steal a kiss.” She gasped, coloring hotly. “You—you are a rogue and a scoundrel to even suggest such a thing!” “I may indeed be a rogue and a scoundrel but if I am, it’s not for wantin’ a kiss from a pretty lass.” He straightened up from the window, his strong, perfect teeth very white in the glint of moonlight. “Oblige me?” “No!” “I’m bettin’ it’ll be far more explosive than what’s about to transpire down there in the garden. Come here, Sunshine. I’ve a mind to see if those lips of yers were made for kissin’.” Nerissa’s mouth fell open. Her face went white, then flooded with color, and she was so shocked she could not even take another step backward. Seeing it, the Irishman laughed and made a little dismissive gesture with his hand. “Ah, don’t mind me, lass. I’m just messin’ about with ye. I’d never hurt ye, not in a million years. I’m perfectly harmless.” “You—you don’t look harmless.” “No?” He arched a brow, his gaze dropping pointedly to her bosom, the nip of her waist and the flare of her hips with undisguised interest. “How do I look?” Dangerous. Virile. Predatory. Fascinating. “I can’t answer that.” “Not scared of me now, are ye?” “After what you just said to me? No, I am not scared. What I am, sir, is offended. Outraged.” “I paid ye a complement and ye’re offended? Outraged? Saint’s alive, what would your reaction be if I paid ye an insult?” “I can’t believe I’m standing here having this absurd conversation with you. You are rude and obnoxious and drunk, and I have already given you far more time and attention than you deserve. Good evening, sir.” He went back to looking down at the garden below, his gaze far more keen and watchful than his drunken state should allow. “’ Twould be a better one if ye came over here and let me give ye that kiss.” “Ohhh!” Incensed, she turned on her heel and hurried for the stairs, hearing his laughter ringing out behind her.

Sam Underwater, everything is quiet. Tranquil. Like heaven is all around you, caressing your body, pulling you into its embrace. Deeper and deeper, it pulls at your legs until they beg to be released. I hold my water-resistant camera in front of me and take multiple pictures of the cold depths of the ocean. Its beauty never fails to mesmerize me. But I can’t stay for too long; sooner or later, that urge to breathe always pulls me back to the surface toward the dark sky littered with a million flickering lights … back into the noise of swooshing water and rushing wind. The shore is mostly deserted, except for a few beer cans, party cups, and some clothes and trash lying scattered all around. The only other person there is Nate Wilson … the most handsome guy at school and so much more than that. He’s sitting on a few rocks near the edge of the beach with a girl by his side. I can’t stop watching. Their hands touch briefly, but then the wave overtakes me and blocks my view. When the water lowers, I shake my head, but the waves keep picking up. Still, I hold up my camera and take a few pictures. Right as he turns his head toward me, I dive underwater again. Here, there are no boys, no girls, and no secret touches. Just me and the water, and all the beautiful creatures below that need to meet my camera. A single picture says more than words ever will. No matter how powerful they are. Nate People say it only takes a few minutes for your life to be destroyed. I never believed them … until today. With just the snap of a finger, a stupid decision and a simple push, I marked my own fate. My body grows colder and colder the longer I stay in the water. It consumes me whole as I stray farther and farther away from myself. From reality. I’m so damn dizzy, but I can’t collapse here. Not now, not in the middle of the ocean. I take a deep breath and peel my eyes open, forcing myself to go. That’s when I spot her … the girl and her camera. FLASH. I cover my eyes with my hand. Salty seawater enters my nostrils and mouth as I struggle to swim. When I open my eyes again, the girl is gone; swallowed by the same waves that drag me back to the shore. As my feet sink into the sand and the water creeps up against my toes, I stop and turn around, clutching the long red hairs in my hand as though they’re my last lifeline. This is now the place where not only my life changed forever. But hers too.

Sometimes we ate raw onions like apples, too, I wanted to tell her. Sometimes, the tin foil held shredded chicken petrified in aspic. A fish head to suck on! I was filled with shame and hateful glee: everything I was feeling turned out at the person next to me. I was the one with an uncut cow's tongue uncoiling in the refrigerator of his undergraduate quad, my roommates' Gatorades and half-finished pad Thai keeping a nervous distance. I sliced it thinly, and down it went with horseradish and cold vodka like the worry of a long day sloughing off, those little dots of fat between the cold meet like garlic roasted to paste. I am the one who fried liver. Who brought his own lunch in an old Tupperware to his cubicle in the Conde Nast Building; who accidentally warmed it too long, and now the scent of buckwheat, stewed chicken, and carrots hung like radiation over the floor, few of those inhabitants brought lunch from home, fewer of whom were careless enough to heat it for too long if they did, and none of whom brought a scent bomb in the first place. Fifteen floors below, the storks who staffed the fashion magazines grazed on greens in the Frank Gehry cafeteria. I was the one who ate mashed potatoes and frankfurters for breakfast. Who ate a sandwich for breakfast. Strange? But Americans ate cereal for dinner. Americans ate cereal, period, that oddment. They had a whole thing called 'breakfast for dinner.' And the only reason they were right and I was wrong was that it was their country. The problem with my desire to pass for native was that everything in the tinfoil was so f*****g good. When the world thinks of Soviet food, it thinks of all the wrong things. Though it was due to incompetence rather than ideology, we were local, seasonal, and organic long before Chez Panisse opened its doors. You just had to have it in a home instead of a restaurant, like British cooking after the war, as Orwell wrote. For me, the food also had cooked into it the memory of my grandmother's famine; my grandfather's black-marketeering to get us the 'deficit' goods that, in his view, we deserved no less than the political VIPs; all the family arguments that paused while we filled our mouths and our eyes rolled back in our heads. Food was so valuable that it was a kind of currency - and it was how you showed loved. If, as a person on the cusp of thirty, I wished to find sanity, I had to figure out how to temper this hunger without losing hold of what it fed, how to retain a connection to my past without being consumed by its poison.

I would rather face the devil himself than that man,” Elizabeth said with a repressed shudder. “I daresay,” Lucinda agreed, clutching her umbrella with one hand and the side of the cart with her other. The nearer the time came, the more angry and confused Elizabeth became about this meeting. For the first four days of their journey, her tension had been greatly allayed by the scenic grandeur of Scotland with its rolling hills and deep valleys carpeted in bluebells and hawthorne. Now, however, as the hour of confronting him drew near, not even the sight of the mountains decked out in spring flowers or the bright blue lakes below could calm her mounting tension. “Furthermore, I cannot believe he has the slightest desire to see me.” “We shall soon find out.” In the hills above the high, winding track that passed for a road, a shepherd paused to gape at an old wooden wagon making its laborious way along the road below. “Lookee there, Will,” he told his brother. “Do you see what I see?” The brother looked down and gaped, his lips parting in a toothless grin of glee at the comical sight of two ladies-bonnets, gloves, and all-who were perched primly and precariously on the back of Sean MacLaesh’s haywagon, their backs ramrod-stiff, their feet sticking straight out beyond the wagon. “Don’t that beat all,” Will laughed, and high above the haywagon he swept off his cap in a mocking salute to the ladies. “I heered in the village Ian Thornton was acomin’ home. I’ll wager ‘e’s arrived, and them two are his fancy pieces, come to warm ‘is bed an’ see to ‘is needs.” Blessedly unaware of the conjecture taking place between the two spectators up in the hills, Miss Throckmorton-Jones brushed angrily and ineffectually at the coating of dust clinging to her black skirts. “I have never in all my life been subjected to such treatment!” she hissed furiously as the wagon they were riding in gave another violet, creaking lurch and her shoulder banged into Elizabeth’s. “You may depend on this-I shall give Mr. Ian Thornton a piece of my mind for inviting two gentlewomen to this godforsaken wilderness, and never even mentioning that a traveling baroche is too wide for the roads!” Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something soothing, but just then the wagon gave another teeth-jarring lurch, and she clutched at the wooden side. “From what little I know of him, Lucy,” she managed finally when the wagon righted, “he wouldn’t care in the least what we’ve been through. He’s rude and inconsiderate-and those are his good points-“ “Whoa there, whoa,” the farmer called out, sawing back on the swayback nags reins and bringing the wagon to a groaning stop. “That’s the Thornton place up there atop yon hill,” the farmer said, pointing.

Dom rose from his kneeling position, a keen hunger shining in his eyes. “Was that wicked enough for you, sweeting?” he drawled as he used his cravat to wipe his mouth. With her heart thundering loudly in her ears and her breathing staggered, it took her a moment to answer. “Not quite,” she managed, then tugged at the waistband of his drawers. “You still have these on.” That seemed to startle him. Then one corner of his lips quirked up. “I never guessed you were such a greedy little--“ “Wanton?” she asked before he could accuse her of being one. But he just shot her a smoldering smile. “Siren.” “Oh.” She liked that word much better. Feeling her oats, she gestured to his drawers. “So take them off.” With a laugh, he did so. “There, my lusty beauty. You have your wish.” “Yes…yes, I do.” Now she could study him to her heart’s content. But the reality was rather sobering. His member, jutting from a nest of dark curls, couldn’t possibly be hidden behind a tiny fig leaf like the ones on statues. “Oh my. It’s even bigger and more…er…thrusting without the drawers.” “Are you rethinking your plan for seduction now?” he asked, with a decided tension in his voice. “No.” She cast him a game smile. “Just…reassessing the…er…fit.” “It’s not as fearsome as it looks.” “Good,” she said lightly, only half joking. She looped her arms about his neck. “Because I’m not as fearless as I look.” “You’re a great deal more fearless than you realize,” he murmured. “But this may cause you some pain.” She swallowed her apprehension. “I know. You can’t protect me from everything.” “No. But I can try to make it worth your trouble.” And before she could respond to that, he was kissing her so sweetly and caressing her so deftly that within moments he had her squirming and yearning for more. Only then did he attempt to breach her fortress by sliding into her. To her immense relief, there was only a piercing pop of discomfort before he was filling her flesh with his. All ten feet of it. Or that’s what it felt like, anyway. She gripped his arms. Hard. He didn’t seem to notice, for he inched farther in, his breath beating hot against her hair. “God, Jane, you’re exactly as I imagined. Only better.” “You’re exactly…as I imagined,” she said in a strained tone. “Only bigger.” That got his attention. He drew back to stare at her. “Are you all right?” She forced a smile. “Now I’m rethinking the seduction.” He brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Let’s see what I can do about that.” He grabbed her beneath her thighs. “Hook your legs around mine if you can.” When she did, the pressure eased some, and she let out a breath. “Better?” he rasped. She nodded. Covering her breast with his hand, he kneaded it gently as he pushed farther into her below. “It will feel even better if you can relax.” Relax? Might as well ask a tree to ignore the ax biting into it. “I’ll try,” she murmured. She forced herself to concentrate on other things than his very thick thing--like how he was touching her, how he was fondling her…how amazing it felt to be joined so intimately to the man she’d been waiting nearly half her life for.

THE FIRST TIME she left the house with her sleeping son in her arms, still unsteady on her legs, gripping the railing tightly, she surveyed the yard, astonished. It was at once familiar and strange. Something was different, though she could not immediately put her finger on it. The morning sun beamed through the bushes. The leaves of the banana plants seemed greener, their fruit larger and yellower. The hibiscus and the bougainvillea had never looked so beautiful. A warm breeze caressed her skin. Maung Sein was perched on a log below her, chopping kindling. Stroke by stroke he would split branches as thick as a fist. The uniformity of his movements radiated something infinitely reassuring. Nu Nu looked at Ko Gyi in her arms. He had her nose. Her mouth. Her cinnamon skin. She cautiously took one of his little hands. It was warm. And would always remain so. Suddenly he opened one blinking eye, and then quickly the other. He had her eyes, too, without a doubt. Ko Gyi regarded his mother earnestly, intently. She smiled. His deep brown eyes did not move. They looked for a long time at each other. Then a quiet smile drifted across his face. No one had ever smiled at her that

She let him kiss her, let all the sensations he brought with his kiss course through her freshly relaxed body. His mouth was warm, strong, and he tasted sweet and spicy, partly from the ginger-laced cupcakes they'd been baking and testing, and partly because she knew that's just how he tasted. Under his continued exploration, she relaxed further, opened her mouth to him, took him in... and sighed as he filled her so perfectly. She groaned softly, or maybe it was him, as he took the kiss deeper, and it slowly turned more ardent. She realized she'd dug her nails into his shirt, pressing her knuckles into him as she clutched the linen in her fists in her urgent need to get closer to him. "Wow," she gasped against the skin of his jaw as he left her mouth to kiss the corners of her lips, then her cheek, her temple, and dropped his head down to nuzzle at the tender side of her neck. It was the sweetest seduction and a primal rush, all at the same time. She rose up on her toes, wanting more heat, more contact, more... Baxter. "How can this not be the right thing, Leilani," he whispered gruffly against the sensitive skin below her ear.

Okay, y’all,” Ashley announced. “This is our dress rehearsal. Our last chance to get everything perfect before the big night tomorrow. Any questions? Ideas? Opinions?” “Yeah, I have an idea.” Slumped on the front steps of the Battlefield Inn, Parker choked down a mouthful of cough syrup and tried not to speak above a whisper. “Let’s call it off. That would really make it perfect. No more ghost tour.” “Walk of the Spirits,” Ashley corrected him, irritated. “Walk of the Spirits. And we’re not calling it off. After all this time? All this work?” “All this suffering?” Roo added. She was perched one step below Parker, and was digging through her pockets for a cigarette. Her face still bore some major bruises from the storm, and a wide gash zigzagged across her forehead, not quite healed. She’d taken great pains to highlight this zigzag with dark, red lipstick. “You like suffering,” Parker reminded her. “And, excuse me, but you’re not the one with pneumonia.” "You don’t have pneumonia. You’re just jealous because Gage was in worse shape than you, and he got more attention.” “Well, it’s almost pneumonia. It’s turning into pneumonia.” Tensing, Parker let out a gigantic sneeze. “Shit, I hate this. I feel like my brain’s ten times its normal size.” Roo gave him a bland stare. “You know, when people lose a leg or an arm, they think they still feel it, even though it’s not really there.” “Will you two behave?” Ashley scolded. “And, Parker, where’s that newspaper article your mom was going to give us?” “Somewhere.” Parker thought a moment, then shrugged. “In my car, I think.” “Well, will you please go get it? The sooner we start, the sooner we can all go home.” “She’s right.” Though unable to hold back a laugh, Miranda came loyally to Ashley’s rescue. “Let’s just walk it through, and read the script, and make sure we’ve covered all the basic information. Ashley, what about your costume?” “I’ve got the final fitting after I leave here.” Ashley’s eyes shone with excitement. “Can you believe Mrs. Wilmington went to all that trouble to make it for me?” “She didn’t.” Parker scowled. “She got her dressmaker, or designer, or whoever the hell she calls him, to make it for you.” “Parker, that doesn’t matter--it was still really nice of your mother to do that.” “You’re a southern belle--how could she resist that?” Ashley shot Miranda a grateful smile. “That was Miranda’s idea.” “It made sense,” Miranda explained. “A costume sets the mood. It’s all about southern history and heritage, so our tour guide should be a southern hostess--hoopskirt and all.” “And I’m the only one who gets to dress up! And I can’t wait to wear it! It’s like cotton candy!” Roo arched an eyebrow. “Sticky?” “No! All pink and fluffy and…sweet. I love the way I feel in it.” “I agree,” Parker said hoarsely. “I love the way you feel in it, too. And I love the way you feel out of it even better.” Roo stared at him. “Wow. You should write greeting cards.

Okay, y’all,” Ashley announced. “This is our dress rehearsal. Our last chance to get everything perfect before the big night tomorrow. Any questions? Ideas? Opinions?” “Yeah, I have an idea.” Slumped on the front steps of the Battlefield Inn, Parker chocked down a mouthful of cough syrup and tried not to speak above a whisper. “Let’s call it off. That would really make it perfect. No more ghost tour.” “Walk of the Spirits,” Ashley corrected him, irritated. “Walk of the Spirits. And we’re not calling it off. After all this time? All this work?” “All this suffering?” Roo added. She was perched one step below Parker, and was digging through her pockets for a cigarette. Her face still bore some major bruises from the storm, and a wide gash zigzagged across her forehead, not quite healed. She’d taken great pains to highlight this zigzag with dark, red lipstick. “You like suffering,” Parker reminded her. “And, excuse me, but you’re not the one with pneumonia.” "You don’t have pneumonia. You’re just jealous because Gage was in worse shape than you, and he got more attention.” “Well, it’s almost pneumonia. It’s turning into pneumonia.

Cass couldn’t move. She stood there, transfixed, speechless, letting her eyes wander over his whole body. The moonlight outlined his broad shoulders and the dark brown hair that had grown even longer since she’d last seen him, the ends of it brushing against his cheekbones and dangling below his square jaw. He broke away from his friends with a wave and began to cross the piazza toward her, the collar of his shirt flopping open to expose a triangle of muscular chest. Warmth bloomed in Cass’s cheeks. Her hands had been all over those muscles just a few weeks earlier. Falco’s jaw dropped slightly as he approached, his lips curving into the lopsided smile she had missed so much. “Starling,” he said. “I cannot believe it. Are you the product of too much wine or too many wishes?” He reached out, taking one of her hands in his own. “You feel real enough.” “Hello, Falco,” she managed to say. She felt as if she might explode. Only now did she let herself realize how she had missed every tiny detail of him. More than anything, she wanted to pull him into her arms, to press her lips to the tiny scar beneath his right eye, to bury her face in the warmth of his hair. Falco lifted her hand to his mouth, brushing his lips gently across her soft skin. It was an innocent gesture, but Cass could sense the urgency beneath it. He felt exactly the same way she did. She knew it. Pulling her close and cradling her face in his hands, he said, “I have visited Florence’s breathtaking cathedrals and reviewed the works of the masters, but you are the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since I left Venice.” Heat coursed from his fingers into her skin and the blood and bones beneath it. Falco’s hands smelled faintly of paint. Cass smiled. She couldn’t help herself. For a second the two of them were back on San Domenico, kissing on a bench in her aunt’s garden. For a second, desire budded and bloomed inside of her, as scarlet and fragrant as Agnese’s roses. Intoxicating.

You said the god spoke to you. What did He say?" "That I was sent here, in answer to prayers, Illvin's among others, probably. The Bastard dared me, by my own son's god-neglected death, not to turn aside." She frowned fiercely in memory, and dy Cabon edged a little back from her. "I asked Him what the gods, having taken Teidez, could give me that I would trade spit for. He answered, Work. His blandishments were all decorated about with annoying endear merits that would have bought a human suitor a short trip to the nearest mud puddle by the hands of my servants. His kiss on my brow burned like a brand. His kiss on my mouth"—she hesitated, went on doggedly—"aroused me like a lover, which I most certainly am not." Dy Cabon edged farther back, smiling in anxious placation, and made little agreeing-denying motions, his hands like flippers. "Indeed not, Royina. No one could mistake you for such." She glowered at him, then went on. "Then He disappeared, leaving you holding the sack. So to speak. If this was prophecy, it bodes you ill, Learned." He signed himself. "Right, right. Um. If the first kiss was a spiritual gift, so ought the second to be. Yes, I quite see that." "Yes, but He didn't say what it was. Bastard. One of his little jokes, it seems." Dy Cabon glanced up as if trying to decide if that were prayer or expletive, guessed correctly, and took a breath, marshaling his thoughts. "All right. But He did say. He said, Work. If it sounds like a joke, it was probably quite serious." He added more cautiously, "It seems you are made saint again, will or nil." "Oh, I can still nil." She scowled. "That's what we all are, you know. Hybrids, of both matter and spirit. The gods' agents in the world of matter, to which they have no other entree. Doorways. He knocks on my door, demanding entry. He probes with his tongue like a lover, mimicking above what is desired below. Nothing so simple as a lover, he, yet he desires that I open myself and surrender as if to one. And let me tell you, I despise his choice of metaphors!" Dy Cabon flippered frantically at her again. It made her want to bite him. "You are a very fortress of a woman, it is true!" She stifled a growl, ashamed to have let her rage with his god spill over onto his humble head. "If you don't know the other half of the riddle, why were you put there?" "Royina, I know not!" He hesitated. "Maybe we should all sleep on it." He cringed at her blistering look, and tried again. "I will endeavor to think." "Do.

Avenell." His name was a whisper, a sigh, a sacred vow on her lips. The ache inside him deepened. He knew what she wanted. Somehow, he always knew. Despite the truth he had to acknowledge, he was unable to deny her. He lowered his head to take the words from her, pressing his mouth to hers as her eyes fell closed. Lifting his hand, he cradled the side of her face, indulging in the smooth warmth of her cheek against his palm and the way her pulse fluttered where the pad of his little finger rested below her earlobe. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, and he responded with a sensual sweep of his tongue. No matter how many times they had come together in the last couple of weeks, the heat never dissipated. The urgency and the passion seemed to grow. It was too much and yet would never be enough. She began to lean into him, and though he tensed when she pressed against his chest, he did not stop her. Nor did he object when her hands came up to rest on either side of his lower rib cage. He just breathed more deeply of her scent, allowing the essence that was Lily to overwhelm his senses. After a few long minutes, he drew back to rest his forehead against hers. He could not resist the temptation of savoring that moment.

Do you know how to climb a tree?" Grace straightened her posture. "Yes, I know how to climb a tree." "Okay," Carter said skeptically. "When I was your age, I practically lived in trees." Grace grabbed hold of the trunk and began to hoist herself up. After New Guinea, this was gonna be easy. "No offense, but you're not exactly my age anymore," said Carter, amused with herself. Grace squinted at Carter. Then she looked at the wet tree trunk, then up at the girl who was holding her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. Grace was more than confident she could just climb up the trunk, but having been messed with, she decided to show the girl a little something. Standing under the tree, she squatted, and then stood up, and then down and up again, and on the third time, she crouched down as far as she could, and throwing all her weight upward, arms reaching completely outstretched, she jumped as hard and as high as she possibly could, springing from the ground, and with both hands grasped the limb upon which the girl sat. With amusement and curiosity, the girl looked down at Grace dangling below by her hands, exposed feet swinging in the mist. 'What is this lady going to do now?' Shifting her weight, Grace swung herself forward and then back, and then forward again farther and back again farther, and forward again even more, and as she swung back, throwing her weight firmly, she simultaneously lifted herself upward and as she rose parallel to the limb pushed down on it forcefully and with a quick twist of her hips- 'plop'- set herself down right next to the little girl. "I 'know' how to climb a tree," Grace said. "Impressive," said the little girl as she raised an eyebrow. Grace grinned, proud of herself.

Were you sure about me? Did you know my response before you asked?” “I wasn’t sure; I held my breath when I started talking to you about working together. I thought I knew—hoped I knew—what your response would be.” Nate started shuffling the papers on the table. “Then things became complicated …” Time to shut up. Jesus. Her toes started wiggling again. “And the other,” said Dominika, “was that part of the operation, my recruitment?” Nate’s upper lip was a little wet, and the papers were sticking to his hands. “What do you mean ‘the other’?” said Nate. “What do you suppose I mean?” said Dominika. “When we made love.” “What do you think, Domi?” said Nate. “Do you remember what I said to you in Estonia before you crossed the bridge back to Russia? I said—” “You said we didn’t have time for you to tell me you are sorry for what you said to me, no time to tell me what I meant to you as a woman, as a lover, as a partner, no time to tell me how much you will miss me.” Silence and the sound of a car horn on the street below. Dominika looked down at her hands in her lap. “Have I remembered correctly?” she said softly. “How lucky for us, on the eve of our meeting with Jamshidi, that your well-known memory hasn’t failed you,” said Nate. He stopped gathering the papers and looked into her eyes. “I meant what I said.” Her mouth twitched, suppressing a smile, or perhaps some other emotion. “Well, it is good to be working together again,” she said quickly. The bubble popped; they both knew it. It was the only way.

the road there began with kindness. This philosophy informed his actions toward Cadence in those first weeks. Unlike some of the others, who mistook Cadence’s cold and closed-off ways for pretentiousness, Sully saw only fear. When she bolted her eyes to the ground and wrapped her bony arms around herself, he saw someone who wanted to evade attention. When she countered a person’s questions with monosyllabic replies, he saw someone who was overly conscientious about what escaped her lips. To act otherwise would mean to draw someone’s ire. What really cemented his suspicions was what happened one Saturday, when he and Spencer were cleaning out the house’s rain gutters. Sully was perched on the coarse, flagstone shingles, using a garden spade to excavate the debris (leaves and twigs from a week of thunderstorms) and sending it all down below where Spencer waited, stretching open the mouth of a trash bag. Most of the debris landed everywhere but inside the bag, but as Spencer wasn’t fond of

With a quiet pause, he let his hand come to rest just below the triangle of blond curls that concealed her most tender flesh. "Cade?" she said in a strained voice. "Close your eyes," he commanded. "Close your eyes and let me please you." "But you have... you do." "Good. Then let me please you more." Parting her, he eased a finger inside and began to stroke. She arched, inadvertently driving him even further inside. Her body responded, sending down a rush of wetness that made his caresses that much easier, that much more inviting. As he'd asked, she let her eyelids flutter closed, her head rolling against the sheets, while need coiled hot as a brand through her belly and between her legs. Unable to govern her reaction, her breath came in fast, little pants, her legs parting as he continued his deep inner massage. Leaning up, he caught her mouth in a slow, ravishing kiss, tangling his tongue with hers in an imitation of what he was doing to her below. She gave a muffled cry when he added another finger, filling her in a way that drove her right to the edge. A few strokes later a swirling flick of his thumb sent her hurtling over, her fingers clenching in his hair as she shook with release. But he wasn't done, stoking her desire with deep, open-mouthed kisses that made her moan, his fingers building her need once more so that she could do nothing but yearn, held utterly in his thrall until he finally took mercy and sent her flying yet again.

That night he dreamed of the feast Ned Stark had thrown when King Robert came to Winterfell. The hall rang with music and laughter, though the cold winds were rising outside. At first it was all wine and roast meat, and Theon was making japes and eyeing the serving girls and having himself a fine time … until he noticed that the room was growing darker. The music did not seem so jolly then; he heard discords and strange silences, and notes that hung in the air bleeding. Suddenly the wine turned bitter in his mouth, and when he looked up from his cup he saw that he was dining with the dead. King Robert sat with his guts spilling out on the table from the great gash in his belly, and Lord Eddard was headless beside him. Corpses lined the benches below, grey-brown flesh sloughing off their bones as they raised their cups to toast, worms crawling in and out of the holes that were their eyes. He knew them, every one; Jory Cassel and Fat Tom, Porther and Cayn and Hullen the master of horse, and all the others who had ridden south to King’s Landing never to return. Mikken and Chayle sat together, one dripping blood and the other water. Benfred Tallhart and his Wild Hares filled most of a table. The miller’s wife was there as well, and Farlen, even the wildling Theon had killed in the wolfswood the day he had saved Bran’s life. But there were others with faces he had never known in life, faces he had seen only in stone. The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. Her brother Brandon stood beside her, and their father Lord Rickard just behind. Along the walls figures half-seen moved through the shadows, pale shades with long grim faces. The sight of them sent fear shivering through Theon sharp as a knife. And then the tall doors opened with a crash, and a freezing gale blew down the hall, and Robb came walking out of the night. Grey Wind stalked beside, eyes burning, and man and wolf alike bled from half a hundred savage wounds.

sinew that holds him together. Our lips press and mold, mingling, taking, begging . . . Desperate. Beck’s tongue runs against my bottom lip, eliciting a moan from deep within me, lighting a fire so hot, so wild, my hands start to travel up his neck to his cheeks where I grip him, positioning his head so when I open my mouth, I can expertly dive my tongue onto his. He groans, his lap shifting against mine now, his hard-on pressing against my wet and throbbing center. I match his rocking, using my position on his lap to take advantage of his length I can feel through his board shorts. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen, but God, am I happy it has. Maybe I really should live in the moment, maybe I should take advantage of the opportunity, maybe I should… “Woo, yeah, get it on!” Zoey screams from below us, immediately shooting me off Beck’s lap and into the rail behind me, causing me to lose my balance. With cat-like reflexes, Beck catches my arm and steadies me, his eyes aware but heady with lust, his breathing as erratic as mine. “Don’t let us disturb you,” Zoey calls out once again. “Just taking a midnight stroll.” “Yup, that’s great.” I give her a thumbs up with one hand as the other is holding on to Beck, our eyes never breaking contact. “Have a good night, you

Ava?” “Yeah?” she murmurs, her mouth pressed to my neck. I pull her closer. “Promise not to tell anyone about the whole sleeping with a basketball thing?” She laughs but doesn’t pull away. Her lips skim along my jaw, stop just below my ear. “But then the whole flashing my boobs to the AV guys so they’d broadcast it at the next game would be for nothing.” I grunt when she bites down on my earlobe and bring my hand higher up her leg. “Don’t fucking joke.” Then I pull away, capture her mouth with mine, kissing her with a possessiveness I didn’t know was in me. She giggles into my mouth. “I’m not playing, Ava.” She just laughs harder.