Burned Karen Marie Moning Quotes

The entire time I'm burning in Hell, I'll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I'd condemn myself again and again. - Cian MacKeltar

Fire isn’t good or bad. It just burns.

Sex either blows your fucking mind, or it’s not good enough.

Burns from dropped matches, Ms. Lane? Matches one might have dropped while flirting with a pernicious Fae, Ms. Lane? Have you any idea the value of this rug?” I didn’t think his nostrils could flare any wider. His eyes were black flame. “Pernicious? Good grief, is English your second language? Third?” Only someone who’d learned English from a dictionary would use such a word. “Fifth,” he snarled. “Answer me.

Temptation isn’t a sin that you triumph over once, completely and then you’re free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say your prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows exactly how you take it.

Women have been repeating the same mistake since time began: falling for a man’s potential. We rarely see it the same way, and even more rarely care to achieve it.

Good night, Lisa. Sleep with the angels." Her eyes stung from quick tears. It had been her mother's nightly benediction: Sleep with the angels. But then he added words her mother never had: "Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.

If you can't fuck it, eat it or use it for a weapon--kill it.

Had he stood outside my door as I'd stood outside his, fists at his sides, lips drawn back? Did it have him as bad as it had me? Was it eating at him, gnawing at him with the same sharp vicious little teeth that wouldn't let me sleep? Yes, it was. I could see the rage of insatiable uninvited lust in every line of that dark, stoic face that had once been too subtly etched for me to read. I wasn't the only one lying awake at night, fevered with memories, tossing, turning, soaking my sheets, burning up--not for Fae sex, but him, damn it all to hell, him.

I’m obsessed and addicted and ripped-down-raw in love with Jericho Barrons.

Don't celebrate yet, Ms. Lane. Don't believe anything is dead until you've burned it, poked around in its ashes, and then waited a day or two to see if anything rises from them.

What I know, brother, is you break every goddamned rule for Mac.” “Back at you, Ry. Difference is, I’ll help you do it.” “Lor has never been Pri-ya.” Ryodan shakes his head in disgust. “The princess can’t turn us. Son of a bitch, Mac’s ass is—” “Mine,” Barrons says flatly. “You will never go there. You have a problem with Mac, you work it out with me. I am her shield, I am her second fucking skin.

Don't lose yourself to anger. It's gasoline. You can burn it as fuel, or you can use it to torch everything you care about and end up standing on a scorched battlefield, with everybody dead, even you-only your body doesn't have the good grace to quit breathing

I told you, Ms. Lane, never believe anything is dead-" "- I know, I know, until you've 'burned it, poked around in its ashes, and then waited a day or two to see if anything rises from them.

You told me i was your world. It wasn't me. I was an animal." My heart pounded. My cheeks burned. You never wanted it to end. "Why are you being such a jackass, slamming me in the face with my own humiliation?" Humilation? That's what you call this? He forced a more detailed reminder on me. I swallowed. Yes, I certainly remembered that. "I was out of my mind. I‘d never have done it otherwise." Really, his dark eyes mocked, and in them I was demanding more, telling him I wanted it to always be this way. I remembered what he'd replied: that one day I would wonder if it was possible to hate him more.

I want to tell her revenge is a devil you don’t want to worship. In destroying your enemy you become it.

I’ll give you a choice. Kill me.” “By definition ‘choice’ mandates a minimum of two possible avenues of action.” “I wasn’t done. Or kiss me. But do one or the other. Before I do one or the other to you.

You are what you are. Find a way to live with it.

Ryodan says softly, “Holy strawberries, Dani, we’re in a jam.” I look at him like he’s sprouted two heads. Holy strawberries? In a jam? Even Barrons looks stumped. He continues, “But don’t worry. Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods—you really butchered that one, by the way—I’ve got it in the bag. How about this one: holy borrowing bibliophile, let’s book.

Feelings, emotions - they are neither right nor wrong. They cannot be assigned a value. Feelings *are*. By labeling a feeling wrong, you force yourself to ignore that feeling. And what you most need is to feel it, let it burn through you, then get on with life.

I have no desire to sleep with you. I want to fuck you. And there is no such thing as perfectly good sex.  If it’s “perfectly good,” I mock in falsetto, “he should be shot in the head and put out of everyone’s misery. Sex either blows your fucking mind, or it’s not good enough. You want me to blow your fucking mind, Ms. Lane? Come on.  Do it.  Be a big girl.

Whatever happened to the good old days when books just got along, cozied up together on bookshelves, hanging out, waiting to be read?

I may not have saved you but I fucking avenged you.

A woman who’s lived in a cage all her life. And hates it. Bored in there, aren’t you. Waiting for life to happen. And when it finally does, it steals from you what you loved most. So take back. Explode. Lash out. Blow up

I didn’t want to hide the memory from you. I wanted to cram it down your goddamn throat. I wanted to force you to face it, to want it, to want me, to be willing to fight for what was possible between us with the same single-minded devotion as you fucked. Well, Ms. Lane, you’ve got your precious memory back. Will you throw me away now?

Life is a gift. You fight to keep it. You never quit. Never.

Ryodan says softly, “Holy strawberries, Dani, we’re in a jam.

I have found there to be little distance between the unlatching of a chain and the spreading of a woman’s legs. As if they can never unbar only a single entrance. It’s a disease called hope. Women suffer from it greatly.

I didn’t say, You are such a stuffy asshole. And he didn’t say, If you ever burn one of my quarter-of-a-million dollar rugs again I’ll take it out of your hide, and I didn’t say, Oh, honey, wouldn’t you like to? And he didn’t say Grow up, Ms. Lane, I don’t take little girls to my bed, and I didn’t say I wouldn’t go there if it was the only safe place from the Lord Master in all of Dublin.

I could see the rage of insatiable uninvited lust in every line of that dark, stoic face that had once been too subtly etched for me to read.I wasn't the only one lying awake at night, fevered with memories, tossing, turning, soaking my sheets, burning up--not for Fae sex, but him, damn it all to hell, him.

There aren’t many sins in my bible. Giving up is the greatest one of all.

I wake up every day with a single imperative: live. By any means necessary. The only way Death will ever get his slimy bastard hands on me is over my dead body.

Hate eats the hater.

Does she, like most women, lose a part of her soul in sex? Leave it lying there for the taking? Fuck.

I see how he feels about his world and I want to be one of the parts he prizes. I want to be worth fighting for. Worth the same kind of effort he puts into the things that matter to him. Like Dani.” "I don’t tell her no human matters to the boss like Dani.

Actions talk. Words are worthless. You think to discover in me a vein of vulnerability, a marbling of sensitivity glimpsed only by you because you’re special, so you can proclaim, “Look, Barrons’ torturous past has made him a monster but only because he’s suffered so much. It’s understandable that he lives by no law but his own—a violent, bloody, conscienceless law—but the healing power of my love will restore his demolished humanity!” Restore means to return a thing that was taken. Mine was not.

Lust is a thing of the blood. Doesn't need head or heart.

I’m a moth to his flame and it frightens me how willingly I’d burn my wings off for him. Destroy the world. Follow him to Hell. It’s scary to feel like you can’t breathe without someone.

Sometimes when really bad things happen, you put them in a box and never look at them again because they’ll cost you the rest of your life. Some wounds never heal. You excise the savaged flesh and become the next thing.

Little testy tonight?” “That woman’s boobs do not belong in your face.” “It’s not as if I can see yours at the moment.” “Well, you’re damn well going to feel them. Soon.” “One hopes,” he murmurs.

She was a fool. She wept like a helpless child that night at Chester’s while the entire club watched. Not because you broke her finger or threatened her but because you were alive and she was that happy to see you. She was always happy to see you. She lit up inside. You lost her. You let her be lost.

What no one tells you is that when someone you love dies, you lose them twice. Once to death, the second time to acceptance, and you don’t walk that long, dark passage between the two alone. Grief takes every shuffling, unwilling step with you, offering a seductive bouquet of memories that can only blossom south of sanity. You can stay there, nose buried in the petals of the past. But you’re never really alive again.

Your heels are damaging my rug. It’s an eighty-thousand-dollar rug.” I say, “You like me in heels. Money doesn’t signify anymore. And at least I’m not burning holes in it.” “A wiser woman wouldn’t remind me of that time. I’m still pissed about it.

He breaks off and looks at Ryodan. “I think we better show her. Telling her doesn’t seem to be working. I thought you said she was smart.” “I took Barrons’s word for it.” “Apparently he was misinformed,” Dancer says.

Where are you? Touch me.” I slip my hand into his, and for a moment he just stands there, looking down at where I am, then he closes his eyes and laces strong fingers with mine. I hear exactly what he’s not saying in them: You better bring your ass back to me, woman. I reply with mine, Always. He laughs softly then somehow finds my face and kisses me, light and fast, and I taste him on my lips, need him again, hard and fast and soon.

He moves in, standing close without touching. He doesn’t need to. I sometimes think our atoms are so glad to see each other that they send little messengers back and forth, ferrying desire, strength, and love between the islands we are.

I’ve always known what you need. Someone to rage at who’s strong enough to take all the pain and fury you have to dish out until you’ve burned it out of your system and nothing is left but a pile of ashes from which the Phoenix rises. Kid, woman, whatever the hell you are—I want to see you rise. Even if you have to hate me.

In bed, I steal moments of tenderness when sex has finally exhausted me to the point where I’m too bone weary to fret anymore about the enormous capacity for evil that’s taken up squatter’s rights inside me. I touch him, put all those things I don’t say into my hands as I trace the red and black tattoos on his skin, the sharp planes and hollows of his face, bury my hands in his dark hair. He watches me in silence when I do, eyes dark, unfathomable. I sometimes wake up to find he’s pulled me close to him and is holding me, spooned into my back with his face in my hair, and those hands that don’t speak like mine don’t speak move over my skin and tell me I’m cherished, honored, seen.

She threw her head back and laughed. The kid fucking laughed, eyes shining. Like there was no greater adventure she could possibly be on. Like life was turning out to be the most exhilarating, fantastic roller coaster ride she could ever have imagined. Fuck the pain. Fuck the misery. In the middle of the hopeless, brutal hell her short existence on this earth had been, that girl laughed. You don't snuff out a life like that. You honor it. You take measures to protect it, even from itself when necessary, and keep it alive.

There are ledgers. Those I kill. Those I reward." "There are legends. You used to be one." "I am a legend." "Dani's a legend. Not you." "This Dani appears to matter to you." "Always." "Perhaps you had a funny way of showing it.

But we have to— No we don’t. But we can’t— Yes we can. But she doesn’t— She’ll figure it out. But it’s— Not your fault and not your problem. But I’m the one— Bloody hell, Ms. Lane, how many “buts” are you going to throw at me besides the only one I want?

The currency of life is passion, and as with any coin, it has two sides: pleasure, pain, joy, sorrow. Impossible to slip a single side of that coin in your pocket. You take all or nothing." "Perhaps we are alike, you and I, and I prefer my pockets empty." "My pockets are far from empty.

Fuck, I think. Just that. A multitude of various fucks all in one great big clusterfuck. As in: I am fucked if I want this … this … newborn imbecile. And she is so fucked if I take her. And fuck if I’m going to walk away.

She's cold as ice." "You used to worry she'd get herself killed before she managed to grow up," Barrons says. "Moot point now." "She's fucking beautiful." Barrons studies him a moment then says, "Old enough for you." "That's not why I watched over her." "Bullshit. We all saw the woman she could become. Just didn't think she'd do it so quickly." "I wanted her to have—Ah, fuck, it doesn't matter." "The childhood she missed. It's gone. Adapt.

Churches crack me up. They're like money, a conspiracy of faith. Like everyone agreed to believe that not only is there a God, but he comes down and checks on folks, so long as they hang in certain places, put up alters, burn lots of candles and incense, and perform sit-stand-kneel and other wacky rituals that'd make a coven of witches not look OCD.

Do I love him? Yes. Is he perfect? No. Am I? No. Will I leave him? No. Okay, that’s resolved. Time for a nap.

Fact: you can never know another person completely. Fact: you are born alone and die alone. Fact: there is no such thing as safety. Only vigilance, determination to survive, and a willingness to be ruthless about it. Fact: love is not perfect. Fact: neither am I.

Life fucks you anonymously. It doesn't want to know your name, doesn't give a shit about your station. The terrain never stops shifting. One minute you think you've got the world by the balls, the next minute you don't know where the fuck the world's balls are.

I tasted your blood. I know your fucking soul.

I know why I’m obsessed with her. She’s the innocence I’ve lost. As I was going dark, she was getting nothing but brighter.

I have studied humans for a small eternity. Intent infuses their every movement. Road maps to their inner navigation, plastered all over their skin. Born to be slaves.

You would deceive me for a single kiss.” “I would raze worlds for a single kiss.” “Try saving one, for far more than that.

I know a simple truth: mercy killing doesn’t hold one fucking ounce of mercy for those that live.

There are currently three places to obtain food in Dublin, where the prices vary according to whim: Chester’s, the Fae, and the black market. If you ask me, they’re all black. Of course nobody does ask me because nobody sees me because I lay low all the time and I’ve got a boyfriend who isn’t much for talking. I snort. I just thought of Jericho Barrons as my “boyfriend.” I doubt that cataclysm was ever a boy and he certainly can’t be called friendly. It’s official. I’m losing it.

Nothing touches her. To be touched is weakness.

Beginnings are fragile things.

Bloody hell, Ms. Lane, how many “buts” are you going to throw at me besides the only one I want? He rakes a hungry gaze over my ass and I shiver.

love doesn’t die just because the person does,

The things I could teach her … if she could survive them.

I want a girl with a mind like a diamond …

And Barrons is Mac’s as much as something like him is ever anyone’s,

Time will scar my wound and I’ll emerge from my fugue tougher, if not healed.

She kisses him, lips parted, slow and sexy, lightly touching his lips with her tongue, offering wonders that would rock his world, while delivering nothing. Open mouthed, seductive, warm, inviting and … dangerous. Even I can feel the explosive sexual energy held in check behind her bare feather of a touch. She’s making sure he feels it, slapping him in the face with all she could offer—but isn’t.

The only thing that keeps us rooted in the past is our refusal to embrace the present. Dude, you gotta hug it with both arms and legs and hold on tight! The present is all we've got. That's why they call it a present!

By the time you work your way down the hierarchy to a brunette, you got yourself a woman who knows who she is, likes it enough that she ain’t gonna change, and is probably gonna try to change you, if push comes to shove. Pushy, that’s what brunettes are. Even the dainty, fragile-looking ones.

The White Mansion isn't boring, lass. Never boring. It's the grand demesne the Unseelie King built for his concubine. It's a living, breathing love story, testament to the brightest passion that ever burned between our races. You can follow the scenes through if you've time enough and are willing to risk getting lost for a few centuries.

Don’t lose yourself in anger, Mac. It’s gasoline. You can burn it as fuel, or you can use it to torch everything you care about and end up standing on a scorched battlefield, with everybody dead, even you - only your body doesn’t have the good grace to quit breathing.

One minute you think you’ve got the world by the balls, the next minute you don’t know where the fuck the world’s balls are.” “Sure I do,” I say irritably. “Right next to the world’s big fat hairy asshole, upon which I seem to be stuck in superglue lately, waiting for it to have its next case of explosive diarrhea.

She waited, thinking you were different from those who used and betrayed her. She believed you would find her, come charging to her rescue. That belief was as misplaced as the monsters we faced were deadly. The day came she finally lost her faith in you, and I was there as I’ve always been there when she needed me.

Unpredictable, high-tempered, happy on her own, and nearly untamable, she was a challenge to seduce. It hadn’t helped that he was broody, arrogant, selfish, and a god. She didn’t want a soul mate, she told him. And she certainly didn’t want one with wings and an attitude problem.

Mac draws up short to keep from slamming into Barrons and her blonde hair swings back over her shoulder, brushing his face as it goes and my hearing is so good I catch the rasp of it chafing the shadow stubble on his jaw, then one of his hands grazes her breast and his eyes narrow when he looks at what he touched in a hungry way I want a man to look at me like one day and, as they continue to recover from the near-collision, their bodies move in a graceful dance of impeccable awareness of precisely where the other is at all times that is unity, symbiosis, partnership I only dream of, wolves that chose to pack up and hunt together, soldiers who will always have each other’s back no matter what, no sin, no transgression too great, ‘cause don’t we all transgress sometimes and it fecking slays me, because once I got a little taste of what that was like and it was heaven and they’re so beautiful standing there, the best of the best, the strongest of the strong that they practically glow to me, on fire with all I ever wanted in my life—a place to belong and someone to belong there with.

The point is the three of you are dysfunctional, volatile, inefficient, and in my way.

What happens when a sheepdog gets bit by a wolf?" "Duh. It becomes a wolf." "No. It becomes a sheepdog that fights with the lawlessness and savagery of a wolf.

My need for sex seems directly proportionate to how much emotion I repress, and I’m repressing violently today.

I hate it when people throw big sweeping generalizations at you that you can’t even begin to interpret.

You can kill but don’t cuss. Break any rule necessary to save the world but don’t watch porn or even think about having sex.

You can’t do damage control dead.

Surrounded by alpha males that know more magic than all the teachers at Hogwarts, I’m about to ask who’s going to do what to get us through the gate, when it becomes a moot point.

Sometimes the most heroic action you can take looks a lot like inaction to the rest of the world. Sometimes the hardest, longest walk is the one the white-hat takes offstage.

She's chiffon and satin ribbons. I'm raw meat and razor blades.

I have lived behind walls that have made me alone

I’m restless, bored, and invisible. A dangerous thing for any woman to be.

It’s not what Ryodan does,” Jo says slowly. “It’s more what he is.” Her eyes take on a serious sheen. “He’s like, unbelievably brilliant, ten steps ahead of everyone else all the time.” Bullshit. He’s not that smart. I beat him at Triad. Once. About ten thousand years ago.

A man steps out. Strong. Brilliant. Controlled. Predator. Unbreakable. He's everything I admire plus things I can't even put into words. I crush on Jericho Barrons violently. My brain almost shuts down every time I see him and that's a lot of gray matter to stupefy. Used to be, if I couldn't fall asleep I'd fantasize all kinds of ways I'd impress Barrons by killing monsters or saying something really smart or saving the world, and he'd see me as a grown up woman and I'd glow just from the look on his face. But then Ryodan began popping into my fantasies like he had some kind of business being there, and he'd look all, well...like...Ryodan and he'd laugh and do that husky groan thing he did on level four, so I terminated that happy little exercise in somnolence. Now I count sheep. Lately even those buggers look like Ryodan with clear, cold eyes and some weird kind of hypnotic hold on me. Fecker. I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to figure out a way to kill him, permanent-like just to get him out of my head.

I never avoid battle. Tuck tail and run isn’t in my blood. Problem is, I only know two ways to fight: kill clean or kill messy—both of which involve killing unless I’m up against that feck Ryodan who can pluck me from hyperspeed and kick my ass ten ways to Tuesday.

Temptation isn’t a vice you triumph over once, completely, and then you’re free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows just the way you take it, heavy on the sin.

Her brain has more muscles than her body, and less sense. Her passion for life pushes her limbs further than they were meant to go. She's going to burn herself to ash if she doesn't find someone or something that takes her all the way down to ground zero and recharges her.

He growls, “That fuck is dead. I burned what was left of him, poked around in the ashes, and waited to see if anything rose. It didn’t. I ate them.” I burst out laughing. “You did not eat Cruce’s ashes.” “The fuck I didn’t.

Don’t make me hunt you, Princess,” Ryodan warns softly. “You’ll become my sole target, my obsession, my compulsion, my undying homicidal fantasy, the object of my every fucking thought and inclination, and the more time I have to contemplate what I’m going to do to you when I find you—

I know who the fuck you are," he clips the words out coldly. "You're the only one that doesn't. Dani could have anticipated the Hag's movements. You could not. Jada.

Fear of the power you believe someone or something has over you is nothing but a jail cell you choose to walk into.

The devil is in the details. So, sometimes, is salvation.

You will most certainly scream. I promise you that.

But being small was so much more complicated than being God.

He will concede for her. Always only for her.

A woman is an occasion. My dick rises to it.

That’s different. I’m the exception. To a lot of things.

It wasn’t an ‘event.’ It was a motherfucking revelation.

Fuck, I think. Just that. A multitude of various fucks all in one great big clusterfuck.

I don’t smile. My smiles don’t make people relax.

Perspective is a funny thing. You think your back is to the wall, then something worse corners you, and the first threat looks puny in comparison.

I thought I was in Hell. Then I found out what Hell really was.

Ignoring it makes it irrelevant. No man wants his nudity to be irrelevant.

giving her a chance to fly.” “They’re my wings.” “It’s her sky. You were made, not born. It’s Dani’s life.

You will never go there. You have a problem with Mac, you work it out with me. I am her shield, I am her second F***ing skin".

Only humans kill with hate. When you kill, you must kill like an animal.

Kiss me as if you remember me. Inspire this wild god as once you did. Incite poetry and fire with your passion and perhaps I’ll find a way.

He had so many ambitions. She had but one. To love.

Sometimes the things we think will set us free … only make more chains. You either wear them or break them, and I … well, I don’t want to wear them.

You had no right.” “Ah, the morally outraged cry of the weak: You’re not ‘allowed’ to do that. One is allowed to do anything one can get away with. Only when you understand that will you know your place in this world. And your power. Might is right.

I hate sentences that begin with my name followed by the claim—indubitably erroneous—that the speaker knows something about me. Those kinds of sentences rank right up there with the ones that begin with You know what your problem is? That’s always a doozy. Talk about a trick question. Nothing worth hearing ever follows that preface.

Am I being persecuted?” He smiles faintly. “If only it were that personal. Life fucks you anonymously. It doesn’t want to know your name, doesn’t give a shit about your station. The terrain never stops shifting. One minute you think you’ve got the world by the balls, the next minute you don’t know where the fuck the world’s balls are.

But when you fight evil every day, stare it in the face, engage it, learn to think like it, you face a choice:Be defeated by the limits of your own morality, or summon a beast in yourself that obeys none.

I said, my phone." I stand at the threshold and look in. The princess has her back to me, and Lor is beyond noticing anything. Ryodan and Barrons are another matter. They're too observant by far. There is also the small matter of the enormous possessiveness I feel where Barrons is concerned. I step inside and place my palm on the interior panel. Two males roar in unison. "Ms. Lane, you will not close-" "Mac, you will give me my f*ucking-" The door hisses closed behind me.

Her eyes are green, angry. Her nipples are hard. Lust is absurd. It strikes in the strangest places at the oddest times. She doesn’t even realize she’s feeling it. She’s erected a barricade of propriety and lies between us. I despise the type of woman she is. I loathe her soft pink innocence. My body doesn’t concur. I wonder why her? Why not, say, a streetlamp, for all we have in common? She’s chiffon and satin ribbons. I’m raw meat and razor blades. I have never been drawn to my opposite. I like what I am.

Ryodan finished filling the gas tank, opens the door, and gets back in. "Ow! If you sit on me one more time." I growl at him, "I'm going to kill you." "Good luck with that. Don't fucking move every time I get out. You're on my side of the seat again." "Watch out for my indent," I say crossly. "Hummer, Mac. Nothing causes indents. Except grenades." "I have several of those," Jada says. "Persist with your pointless bickering, I'll share one. Pin out." I ignore her. "I'm cramped. I need to stretch." "So, get out when I do." "I'm afraid you'll leave me behind since you can't see me." "I'd leave you behind if I could see you." "Christ, would the two of you just shut up?" Dageus growls. You've been at it for hours. I think I have a headache.

It was my crime, too. I may not have been there to see it, but I’ve seen it in my head every fucking day since.” “I was the one that got raped.” “I was the one that failed to save you.” “And because you blamed yourself—” “I wasn’t the only one blaming me.” “I didn’t blame you for not saving me,” I growl. It’s nobody’s responsibility to save me but mine.” “You blamed me for letting them live.

Wrong on that score. And efficiency is no guarantee of survival. Nor is intellect. What it takes to be the last one standing is an unquenchable hunger to live. He who wants it the most wins. It takes fire, willingness to burn down to your motherfucking core.

In fishing for information, one might advocate the use of interrogatories." Ryodan laughs. "Ah, Dani, there you are. You can run, but you can't hide." "If by that you mean that this Dani person to whom you so erroneously and tediously refer also remarked upon your deliberate omission of proper punctuation as a psychological tactic intended to subtle coerce, the logical conclusion is that multiple women find your methods transparent.

Why have you always cared so much about these tiny worlds?” “Why have you never?” He had once. When she’d cared about him. He’d made himself small for her and walked in her manner, tending small things. But being small was so much more complicated than being God.

Fact: you can never know another person completely. Fact: you are born alone and die alone. Fact: there is no such thing as safety. Only vigilance, determination to survive, and a willingness to be ruthless about it. Fact: love is not perfect. Fact: neither am I.

Pushy, that’s what brunettes are. Even the dainty, fragile-looking ones.

Self-pity is wasted emotion. It merely prolongs whatever trauma you suffered by keeping it alive in your head. Dude, you survived it. Move on.

I don’t like you either. But my dick is hard and you’re wet—

She lives at my discretion. I can take her breath. I can give it back.

He won’t have sex with me if he’s hungry. I have my theories about why.

Best way to stay out from under a microscope is to keep turning it around on the person trying to view you through it.

You only know who you are in opposition to something, what you choose to fight for and against. The rest doesn’t matter.

Everything is negotiable if the correct pressure is applied.

You can’t amp up my sex drive. It’s already over the top.

Solitude and inaction are unraveling me right down to the core.

Her hair is a hot mess around her face, just the way I like it—bed-head always makes me want to fuck. Then again, pretty much everything does.

Love. You can only be broken without it.

I am the law.” “Apparently. Heil.” I click my heels together and salute.

It’s unnecessary to understand how an animal became rabid to put it down,

There are legends. You used to be one.” She says coolly, “I am legend.

Why do they always ask for words? Why do they ever believe them?

I wanted to watch her save the world, and feel on top of it.

No man wants to sleep with a woman. He wants to fuck her. And nobody forces me to do shit.

Tap the Skull and Crossbones app.

And, although you think the memory of the battle won will be a pleasure—if it is a pleasure, you’ve lost the war.

Dude, you gotta hug it with both arms and legs and hold on tight! The present is all we’ve got. That’s why they call it a present!

If you believe nothing else I tell you, my queen, believe my pain. Consider the cause.

You came to Dublin, avenging angel, and what’s the first thing you did? Fucked the devil. Oops, shit, eh?

Study the terrain. If you can’t move yourself, find something that moves the world.

Then come back to earth and sleep with your devil, who would burn in hell for one night in your arms.

Pretty, pink Barbie fucks hard and raw like an animal. Her head is thrown back, spine arched, she’s oblivious to rules, to moral order, to all but inner imperatives. And I wonder: could she live like she fucks?

I’ll be a straitjacketed bookworm burrowed into the binding of an insane, homicidal book, staring helplessly out from the pages of my own life, as they’re writ by someone else, and I’d commit atrocities that would damn a saint’s soul.

I will rue for all eternity every moment of suffering I’ve caused you. The entire time I’m burning in Hell, I’ll regret each tear I made you weep. But if Hell were the price for twenty days with you, I’d condemn myself again and again.

Master to slave: when he says “Fuck me,” my body softens and I get wet. It’s visceral. Inescapable. I love the way he says “Fuck me,” as if his body will explode if I don’t touch him, slam down on him and take him inside me, meld our flesh together in that place we both find the only peace we ever know. Out of bed, we’re a storm. In bed, we find the eye.

Ms. Lane.”Barrons’ voice is deep, touched with that strange Old World accent and mildly pissed off. Jericho Barrons is often mildly pissed off. I think he crawled from the swamp that way, chafed either by some condition in it, out of it, or maybe just the general mass incompetence he encountered in both places. He’s the most controlled, capable man I’ve ever known. After all we’ve been through together, he still calls me Ms. Lane, with one exception: When I’m in his bed. Or on the floor, or some other place where I’ve temporarily lost my mind and become convinced I can’t breathe without him inside me this very instant. Then the things he calls me are varied and nobody’s business but mine. I reply: “Barrons,” without inflection. I’ve learned a few things in our time together. Distance is frequently the only intimacy he’ll tolerate. Suits me. I’ve got my own demons. Besides I don’t believe good relationships come from living inside each other’s pockets. I believe divorce comes from that. I admire the animal grace with which he enters the room and moves toward me. He prefers dark colors, the better to slide in and out of the night, or a room, unnoticed except for whatever he’s left behind that you may or may not discover for some time, like, say a tattoo on the back of one’s skull. “What are you doing?” “Reading,” I say nonchalantly, rubbing the tattoo on the back of my skull. I angle the volume so he can’t see the cover. If he sees what I’m reading, he’ll know I’m looking for something. If he realizes how bad it’s gotten, and what I’m thinking about doing, he’ll try to stop me. He circles behind me, looks over my shoulder at the thick vellum of the ancient manuscript. “In the first tongue?” “Is that what it is?” I feign innocence. He knows precisely which cells in my body are innocent and which are thoroughly corrupted. He’s responsible for most of the corrupted ones. One corner of his mouth ticks up and I see the glint of beast behind his eyes, a feral crimson backlight, bloodstaining the whites. It turns me on. Barrons makes me feel violently, electrically sexual and alive. I’d march into hell beside him. But I will not let him march into hell beside me. And there’s no doubt that’s where I’m going. I thought I was strong, a heroine. I thought I was the victor. The enemy got inside my head and tried to seduce me with lies. It’s easy to walk away from lies. Power is another thing. Temptation isn’t a sin that you triumph over once, completely and then you’re free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say your prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows exactly how you take it. He skirts the Chesterfield sofa and stands over me. “Looking for something, Ms. Lane?” I’m eye level with his belt but that’s not where my gaze gets stuck and suddenly my mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow and I know I’m going to want to. I’m Pri-ya for this man. I hate it. I love it. I can’t escape it. I reach for his belt buckle. The manuscript slides from my lap, forgotten. Along with everything else but this moment, this man. “I just found it,” I tell him.

Nope,” she managed. “No other questions.” Eleven centuries of captivity. Hung on his hated enemy’s study wall. Eleven centuries of not touching. Not eating. Not loving. Had he had anyone to talk to? Her face must have betrayed her thoughts, for he startled her by saying softly, “ ’Tis no longer of consequence, lass, but thank you for the compassion. ’Tis nigh over. Seventeen more days, Jessica. That’s all.” For some reason his words brought a sudden hot burn of tears to the backs of her eyes. Not only hadn’t eleven centuries turned him into a monster, he was trying to soothe her, to make her feel better about his imprisonment. “You weep for me, woman?” She turned away. “It’s been a long day. Hell, it’s been a long week.” “Jessica.” Her name was a soft command. She disobeyed it, staring out the window at the rolling hills. “Jessica, look at me.” Eyes bright with unshed tears, she whipped her head around and glared at him. “I weep for you, okay?” she snapped. “For eleven centuries stuck in there. Can I start driving again or do you need something else?” He smiled faintly, raised his hand, and splayed his palm against the inside of the silvery glass. Without an ounce of conscious thought, her hand rose to meet his, aligning on the cool silver, palm to palm, finger to finger, thumb to thumb. And though she felt only a cold hardness beneath her palm, the gesture made something go all warm and soft in her heart. Neither of them spoke or moved for a moment.

Bloody hell, she wants respect. Which I’m all about giving. I respect them the entire time they’re sharing my bed and I treat them great when they’re not, flirting them up, telling them how beautiful they are, while pointing them at the next man to help them get over me.

They changed me. Before the rape, I was good, genuinely never had a mean thought. If I hurt someone, it was by accident and I felt bad about it. But when they were done with me, there was something new inside me: something ruthless and feral and beyond law that hungered to be the one perpetrating the savagery, because when you are the savage, no one messes with you. I’d wanted to be bad. It’s safer to be bad.

Lust is absurd. It strikes in the strangest places at the oddest times. She doesn’t even realize she’s feeling it. She’s erected a barricade of propriety and lies between us. I despise the type of woman she is. I loathe her soft pink innocence. My body doesn’t concur. I wonder why her?

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

There are things that can break you, he’d said. I almost laughed. He had no idea the thing that had broken me most completely was my belief that Barrons was dead. One look at Lor’s eyes and I decided I would wait until Barrons was back before pressing any issues with him. “You think Barrons has a weakness for me,” I said. “That’s what worries you.” “It is forbidden.” “He despises me. He thinks I slept with Darroc, remember?” “He cares that you slept with Darroc.” “He cared that I burned his rug, too. He gets a little pissy about those things he likes to think of as his property.” “You two drive me bug-fuck.

Women enjoy doing things they excel at, praise guarantees repeat performances, every repeat performance is more practice for the woman, which guarantees the next man even better head. Given how long I’ve been at this, and on how many continents, I’m pretty sure I’ve single-handedly improved the quality of head around the world.

Love? Can I even feel it anymore? I’ve hated everyone and everything around me since the moment I began to change. I ran from those who cared about me. I concede it’s possible my hatred hastened the changes, fed the wrong things, starved the right ones. But love? To feel it here and now? I’m not sure it’s even possible. Och, but of course it is.

As long as women walk this earth, I’ll be a happy man. If they ever get wiped out, I’m done.

After an eternity of grief and regret, he held the only thing he’d ever wanted as much as he wanted to be God. A second chance.

Joy, that elusive, priceless commodity, was once again his.

Vows, like wishes, are dangerous things. Precision matters.

These are my rapists, the ones that turned me inside out, ripped my mind from my body and shredded it. They are also, unfortunately, hot as hell.

I have no desire to sleep with you. I want to fuck you. And there is no such thing as perfectly good sex. If it’s ‘perfectly good,’ 

Her eyes are different. Wary, guarded, tinged with that human emotion I despise the most: regret.

Wishes aren’t horses and I don’t get to ride.

Knowledge is power.

Is there worse than insane?

One thing I do know is things can always get worse, most often at the precise moment you’ve decided they can’t.

Really, how much of a relationship can she think they’re having when he’s still “selecting” her every morning?

Life is short. At the buffet of it, who doesn’t want the best dessert?

All good coups begin with the deposing of the current leader.

I have enormous respect for our military men and women, the everyday heroes who provide the security the rest of us enjoy. I don’t like them in front of that door.

When you live as long as we do, you find yourself in bed with women you watched get born. It’s weird and not at the same time.

Next thing I know I’m hiking that sweet, short skirt up over her sweet round ass, breaking my own rules, gonna screw a brunette, on the highway to Hell.

Familiar routine is balm to a fragmented soul.

I think you’re beautiful and smart and talented and deserve a man that can feel with something besides his dick.

I like women. I want them to feel good. It’s practically been my mission in life.

Lines are thin. So easy to cross. Impossible to uncross.

We justify our heartless calls by our commitment to one day defeat all our enemies so the people can live the remainder of their days in peace and prosperity. We’ve become politicians.

feel like we’re taking a bad trip down a yellow brick road, but what waits for us behind that curtain is no charlatan, rather an enormously powerful, staggeringly dangerous wizard of chaos.

I always get them to call me whatever I want. I’m always in control. Isn’t much I like more than a beautiful woman tied to my bed while I make her come till she passes out. So what’s my problem?

I despised the world because I used to know who I was, and I used to be good, with no bad in me, or at least that’s what I thought and there really is a degree of bliss and charmed innocence in ignorance.

Ahhhh! I fucking hate that phrase. I don’t make love. I fuck. That’s it. Plain and simple. Fuck. Clearly defined. No strings attached. As in rut and grunt and get my rocks off. I’m the caveman. I’m the sexual barbarian.

Turn back time to half-past innocence. But that clock’s lying on its side, hour hand spinning wildly, in a dirty Dublin alley near a gold makeup pouch half concealed by trash, and an address carved in stone by a dying woman. Broken.

Sexual excitement alters the lines of her body, fuses it into new lines against mine. A woman’s spine changes when she wants to fuck, a subtle, supple shifting at the base, a sharper curve at that hollow where back meets ass. Breasts tighten and lift, the slant of jaw changes as the mouth prepares and muscles draw tight. I have studied humans for a small eternity. Intent infuses their every movement. Road maps to their inner navigation, plastered all over their skin. Born to be slaves.

Churces crack me up. They're like money, a conspiracy of faith. Like everyone agreed to believe not only is there a God, but he comes down and checks on folks, so long as they hang in certain places, put up altars, burn lots of candles and incense, and perform sit-stand-kneel and other wacky rituals that'd make a coven of witches look not OCD. Then to further complicate it, some folks perform rituals, subset A, and others folks perform rituals, subset B, C,or D, and so on into an infinity of denominations, and call themselves different things then deny everyone's elses right to heaven if they're not performing the same rituals. Dude. Weird. I figure if there is a God, he or she isn't paying attention to what we build or if follow some elaborate rules, but copping a ride on our shoulders, watching what we do every day.Seing if we took this great big adventure called life and did anything interesting with it. I figure that the folks that are the most interesting get to go to heaven. I mean, if I was God, that's who I would want there with me. I also figure being eternally happy would be eternally boring so I try not to be too interesting, even though it's hard for me. I would rather be a superhero in hell, kicking all kinds of demon ass, than an angel in heaven, waiting around with a beatific smile on my face, playing a pansy harp all day.

I’ll never forget the crippling headaches Grandpa suffered, the nausea from chemo and radiation. I watched Daddy wrestle with decision after decision, ultimately withholding IV antibiotics to treat the pneumonia that took Grandpa more quickly and far more gently. Barrons is voicing the legitimate question of anyone who’s ever agreed not to resuscitate, to cease life-sustaining measures for a loved one, to accept a Stage 4 cancer patient’s decision to refuse more chemo, or euthanize a beloved pet. Throughout the caretaker experience, your loved one’s presence is intense and exquisitely poignant and painful, then all the sudden they’re gone and you discover their absence is even more intense and exquisitely poignant and painful. You don’t know how to walk or breathe when they’re no longer there. And how could you? Your world revolved around them.

Which mirror now, Ms. Lane?” He glanced around the white room, scanning the ten mirrors. “Fourth from the left. Jericho.” I was sick of him calling me Ms. Lane. I picked myself up off the white floor. Once again the Silver had spit me out with entirely too much enthusiasm, and I didn’t even have the stones on me. I didn’t have anything but the spear in my holster, a protein bar, two flashlights, and a bottle of Unseelie in my pockets. “You don’t have the right to call me Jericho.” “Why? Because we haven’t been intimate enough? I’ve had sex with you in every possible position, killed you, fed you my blood in the hopes that it would bring you back to life, crammed Unseelie into your stomach, and tried to rearrange your guts. I’d say that’s pretty personal. How much more intimate do we have to get for you to feel comfortable with me calling you Jericho? Jericho.” I expected him to pounce on the sex-in-every-possible-position comment, but he only said. “You fed me your—” I pushed into the mirror, cutting him off. Like the first one, it resisted me, then grabbed me and squirted me out on the other side. His voice preceded his arrival. “You bloody fool, do you never stop to consider the consequences of your actions?” He barreled out of the mirror behind me. “Of course I do,” I said coolly. “There’s always plenty of time to consider the consequences. After I’ve screwed up.” “Funny girl, aren’t you, Ms. Lane?” “Sure am. Jericho. It’s Mac. I’m Mac. No more fake formality between us. Get with the program or get the hell out of here.” His dark eyes flared. “Big talk. Ms. Lane. Try to enforce it.” Challenge burned in his gaze. I sauntered toward him. He watched me coldly and I was reminded of the other night, when I’d pretended to be coming on to him, because I was angry. He thought I was doing it again. I wasn’t. Being in the White Mansion with him was doing something strange to me. Unraveling all my inhibitions, as if these walls had no tolerance for lies, or within them there was no need.