Flex Body Quotes

Strength is not in the body, it’s in the mind. It doesn’t lie in flexing your muscles and crushing those who oppose you. It lies in being the last one standing. By any means. At any cost.

Be like a branch of a tree; flex your body to face 'wind of sorrow'; flex little harder to dance in the 'wind of happiness'.

And as for romance? Well, I want that too. I want to fall asleep next to you, 100 times a night, so I can know you 100 times better before we hit the day light. And despite all of this, I also want amnesia so I can relive each kiss with a perfect newness that leaves me smashed in the arms of rapture. I want the sky to fracture under the impossible weight of an apology because I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I want so much. I'm sorry that I'm using "I'm sorry" as a crutch to lean on for so long but if you sing me that song of sweet logic again then I promise to make the effort to stand on my own. There is a reason that our hearts are more like a muscle and less like a bone. I've known so many people who've have grown up flexing in front of mirrors and falling for their own reflection as if that's adequate but that's bullshit. Because we only get now until the time we go and if they've only got time to love themselves then nobody is going to be around to hear the sound of their heartbeat echo. So lady, don't expect an apology when I tell you I'm only held together by a heart that pumps blue, it's the strongest muscle in my body and I'm flexing it for you

I’m so sorry to disappoint you,” she said, breathing hard. “But it would take far more than that to scare me.” A quick flex of his arms, and their bodies collided. And he whispered, just as his mouth fell on hers, “God, I was hoping you’d say that.

I arched my back and flexed my hips experimentally...once...twice...a third time. It really was true what they said about riding a bike. My body remembered this just as quickly.

There is something about seeing someone from behind, something about the way people walk away, that I've always found unnervingly intimate. Maybe it's because the back of the body isn't on guard the way the front is - the slouch of the shoulders and the flex in the back muscles, that's the most honest you'll ever see a person.

Hannah, I can't answer what I don't know," he said through stiff lips. "What do you want me to say? Do I want to fuck you? Yes. Oh my god, I" -- his eyes closed briefly, those fisherman's hands flexing on the steering wheel-- "I want you underneath me so bad that I can't lie in bed without already feeling you there. I've never even had you, and your body haunts mine.

Catalina,” Grandma Frida called out behind me. “When you’re done cutting up the body, call me. I’ll help you hide it.” I turned and looked at her. Grandma flexed her arm. “Ride or die.

Mouthbreathing, it turns out, changes the physical body and transforms airways, all for the worse. Inhaling air through the mouth decreases pressure, which causes the soft tissues in the back of the mouth to become loose and flex inward, creating less space and making breathing more difficult. Mouthbreathing begets more mouthbreathing.

My outsides are precise and unreliable. The illusion of self is increasingly purposeful. A sort of erasure. Inside of me, a flex. A fervor. I feel invented.

She raised the long glass and peered back down at the harbor, at the passengers disembarking, but the image was blurry. Reluctantly, she released his hand. It felt like a promise, and she didn’t want to let go. She adjusted the lens, and her gaze caught on two figures moving down the gangplank. Their steps were graceful, their posture straight as knife blades. They moved like Suli acrobats. She drew in a sharp breath. Everything in her focused like the lens of the long glass. Her mind refused the image before her. This could not be real. It was an illusion, a false reflection, a lie made in rainbow-hued glass. She would breathe again and it would shatter. She reached for Kaz’s sleeve. She was going to fall. He had his arm around her, holding her up. Her mind split. Half of her was aware of his bare fingers on her sleeve, his dilated pupils, the brace of his body around hers. The other half was still trying to understand what she was seeing. His dark brows knitted together. “I wasn’t sure. Should I not have—” She could barely hear him over the clamor in her heart. “How?” she said, her voice raw and strange with unshed tears. “How did you find them?” “A favor, from Sturmhond. He sent out scouts. As part of our deal. If it was a mistake—” “No,” she said as the tears spilled over at last. “It was not a mistake.” “Of course, if something had gone wrong during the job, they’d be coming to retrieve your corpse.” Inej choked out a laugh. “Just let me have this.” She righted herself, her balance returning. Had she really thought the world didn’t change? She was a fool. The world was made of miracles, unexpected earthquakes, storms that came from nowhere and might reshape a continent. The boy beside her. The future before her. Anything was possible. Now Inej was shaking, her hands pressed to her mouth, watching them move up the dock toward the quay. She started forward, then turned back to Kaz. “Come with me,” she said. “Come meet them.” Kaz nodded as if steeling himself, flexed his fingers once more. “Wait,” he said. The burn of his voice was rougher than usual. “Is my tie straight?” Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair. “That’s the laugh,” he murmured, but she was already setting off down the quay, her feet barely touching the ground. “Mama!” she called out. “Papa!” Inej saw them turn, saw her mother grip her father’s arm. They were running toward her. Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.

But “am” doesn’t seem right either. To “be” a body suggests that you are only a body. You are meat and some blood. You are hard bones and flexing cartilage. You are tangled veins and skin. Is that all, though?

In his books, Dr. Alexander Lowen put into words the anguish I could not describe. He explained how a repressed experience was converted into a physical symptom. Intense sexual energy that had not been resolved or discharged would be forced into muscles, causing chronic muscular tensions. Finally, someone understood my pain…at least that one. Chronic muscular tension may not sound like a big deal but I have lived in a body primed for lifting a car. The muscles never let go. Even when I awaken, they are flexed to the max. It’s called “muscular armoring.

YOU RECOGNIZE THE TENSION BETWEEN “I AM A BODY” AND “I have a body,” but you are unable to resolve it. “Have” implies that this body is just a possession, that it can be lost or thrown away. That you can do without it. It implies, perhaps, that someone else could have your body and that your body would be not your own. That it would belong to another. That doesn’t feel quite right. But “am” doesn’t seem right either. To “be” a body suggests that you are only a body. You are meat and some blood. You are hard bones and flexing cartilage. You are tangled veins and skin. Is that all, though?

It is the first time I haven’t fought the feeling, haven’t tried to control it with closed eyes or a redirection of my mind. Instead I embrace it, flexing my hands around the shaking steering wheel, celebrating the release of dark energy as it spreads through my body.

(...) the small of his back slick with sweat, the surprisingly soft hair brushing my body when he took control. And moved over me. "Stop it", Pritkin grated, his voice somehow cutting through the fog. But he didn't let go. I suppose he was afraid to, because a Pythia or one of her senior initiates could shift without him if there was no contact. But that left us stuck together, and that was becoming really, really- Awesome, my body piped up enthusiastically. "I told you, cut it out!" Pritkin said, sounding pissed. "You first," I snarled, snapping my eyes open to glare at him, because he wasn't exactly helping. Of course, neither did that. He must have been jogging, probably his usual early morning ten-mile warm-up before coming to torture me. At least, I assumed that was why the rock-hard abs were outlined by a damp khaki T-shirt, the thin old sweatpants were clinging in all the right places, and the sleeves of the hoodie had been pushed to his elbows, showing the flexing muscles in his forearms. And then there were those hands and those eyes and that mouth... I shivered again, a full-on shudder this time, and he cursed. But that didn't seem to matter. Because it had come out like a growl, and my body liked that, too. My hips shifted automatically, pressing us together, and I gave a little gasp because it felt so good. And then gasped again when I was abruptly released.

Whatever. If I don’t get off, then you don’t get off either. You’ll be suffering as much as I will.” He drops my shoe onto the floor and arches his brow at me. “Is that right?” “Yes,” I state with a clipped tone. My other shoe gets tossed over his shoulder, but I don’t care where because all my attention is drawn down to his hands as he works his cock free and begins stroking it. I gasp and reach out for it, my mouth watering at the sight. “Oh, my God. Let me do that.” “No.” He lets his khakis slide down to mid-thigh as he stares at my body, his hand working his glorious cock. I’ve never seen Reese jerk off before, and I’m kicking myself for never requesting that he do it in front of me. This is insanely hot, probably one of the hottest things to witness. His upper body is flexed completely, every muscle bulging out at me, screaming for my hands. And then there’s his cock.

What is it? For God’s sake, what is it about me you find so intolerable? So wretchedly unbearable you can’t even stand to be in the same room?” He muttered an oath. “Stop provoking me. You won’t like the answer.” “I want to hear it anyhow.” He plunged one hand into her hair, startling a gasp from her lips. Strong fingers curled to cup the back of her head. His eyes searched her face, and every nerve ending in her body crackled with tension. The sinking sun threw a last flare of red-orange light between them, setting the moment ablaze. “It’s this.” With a flex of his arm, he pulled her into a kiss. And he kissed her the way he did everything. Intensely, and with quiet force. His lips pressed firm against hers, demanding a response.

I poisoned my skin,” Genya said harshly, “my lips. So that every time he touched me—” She shuddered slightly and glanced at David. “Every time he kissed me, he took sickness into his body.” She clenched her fists. “He brought this on himself.” “But the poison would have affected you too,” Nikolai said. “I had to purge it from my skin, then heal the burns the lye would leave. Every single time.” Her fists clenched. “It was well worth it.” Nikolai rubbed a hand over his mouth. "Did he force you?" Genya nodded once. A muscle in Nikolai's jaw ticked.” -//- She held up her hands, warding us off. “I don’t want your pity,” she said ferociously. Her voice was raw, wild. We stood there helplessly. “You don’t understand.” She covered her face with her hands. “None of you do.” “Genya—” David tried. “Don’t you dare,” she said roughly, tears welling up again. “You never looked at me twice before I was like this, before I was broken. Now I’m just something for you to fix.” I was desperate for words to soothe her, but before I could find any, David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried. David furrowed his brow. “I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.

He (Tristan) pushed her onto her back and braced his arms on either side of her shoulders as he ranged his body over hers, nudging his cock against her in the most intimate way possible. With the slightest flex, he’d be buried inside her—without a condom. And she didn’t even possess the strength to tell him no.

Miss Finch, it’s not wise for officers to quarter in the same house with an unmarried gentlewoman. Have a care for your reputation, if your father does not.” “Have a care for my reputation?” She had to laugh. Then she lowered her voice. “This, from the man who flattened me in the road and kissed me without leave?” “Precisely.” His eyes darkened. His meaning washed over her in a wave of hot, sensual awareness. Surely he wasn’t implying… No. He wasn’t implying at all. Those hard jade eyes were giving her a straightforward message, and he underscored it with a slight flex of his massive arms: I am every bit as dangerous as you suppose. If not more so. “Take your kind invitation and run home with it. When soldiers and maids live under the same roof, things happen. And if you happened to find yourself under me again…” His hungry gaze raked her body. “You wouldn’t escape so easily.” She gasped. “You are a beast.” “Just a man, Miss Finch. Just a man.

I'll tell you what's most important of all. It's this." He flexed those barrel-like biceps, drawing her body flush against a solid wall of muscle and heat. "Not women, not men, but what lies between two people who want each other more than air. You can argue with me all you want, but you can't fight this. I know you feel it." -Bram to Susanna

It happens so seldom; I must catch and keep this slender yearning, a rare beetle in a jam-jar trap. But mustering will is not the same as wanting. I lie in the garden and think about all the footsteps between my body on the grass and my pencil-case and notebook on the table in the sun room. All the muscles I have to flex and relax to get myself there.

As I stand at the edge of the pit, searching for his body amongst all the others, I am slightly frightened by the violent clashes. It seems almost savagery, the way they throw themselves into each other. As I continue to watch, unable to look away, drawn in by their angry and troubled release I see him. His body is sweating, his muscles are flexed and his face holds an expression of pain mixed with pleasure. In that moment I realize their is so much I don't know about the man I am falling in love with and my fear of him excites me.

His eyes took on a different color. It was a subtle shift, a flex, like a man stepping out from the shade of a tree into sunlight on a cloudy day.

Aaron flexed his legs and leaned his elbows on his knees. “More than that. He turned me into his own personal project. He had this kid with potential for becoming everything he had dreamed of, right at home. And he had the tools and the experience to make that possible. There was no room for failure. He worked hard on turning me into this flawless football machine, which he had carefully assembled together since the moment my legs were strong enough to run after a ball and my hands were large enough to hold one.” Aaron paused. He was facing the gloomy street in front of us, and I could see how his profile turned hard. “We both worked on that. And for the longest time, I thrived in it.” I found myself shifting closer to him until my arm and shoulder were completely flush against him. “How did that change?” I asked, letting my body lean a little on Aaron’s side. “When did you stop enjoying playing?

Then his lungs seemed to open up again, each breath going deeper than the one before. His sneakers (not blinding white Adidas, just ratty old Pumas) seemed to shed the lead coating they had gained. His previous lightness of body came rushing back. It was what Milly had called the following wind, and what pros like McComb no doubt called the runner's high. Scott preferred that. He remembered that day in his yard, flexing his knees, leaping, and catching the branch of the tree. He remembered running up and down the bandstand steps. He remembered dancing across the kitchen floor as Stevie Wonder sang "Superstition." This was the same. Not a wind, not even a high, exactly, but an elevation. A sense that you had gone beyond yourself and could go farther still.

I think you two are secretly friends,” I joked, as Vidrol shoved Vale to the side to avoid a rotten piece of wood jutting from the wall. Vale shoved him back. I assumed in thanks. “Me and that pampered prince?” Vale scoffed derisively. “Not in your lifetime.” “I only associate with nonpsychotic individuals,” Vidrol agreed. “You only associate with pussy,” Vale shot back. “I haven’t associated with pussy in such a long time, I’m basically as nonperforming as you are. I might as well get a hut in the woods and start wearing unflattering robes and waxing on about how everyone’s fate belongs to the water while I howl at the moon with the rest of my weird-ass sector.” “Everything flatters me,” Vale responded calmly. “And I performed to the hilt inside the very body you went celibate for, so I can understand why you now strive to be like me.

God, he was massaging every pleasure zone inside me, making my body bend and fold and flex to his every movement. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t do anything but scream for him to keep fucking me. Finally, when

Well", he drawled."You do know what they say about guitarrists. I think nimbleness beats ball grabbing and body tackling any day of the week." And then he flexed his long, slender fingers, and the implications sent my brain into overdrive.

All great shows, she told me when I was little (and still learning to flex the tiny muscles in my esophagus), depend on the most ordinary objects. We can be a weary, cynical lot—we grow old and see only what suits us, and what is marvelous can often pass us by. A kitchen knife. A bulb of glass. A human body. That something so common should be so surprising—why, we forget it. We take it for granted. We assume that our sight is reliable, that our deeds are straightforward, that our words have one meaning. But life is uncommon and strange; it is full of intricacies and odd, confounding turns. So onstage we remind them just how extraordinary the ordinary can be. This, she said, is the tiger in the grass. It’s the wonder that hides in plain sight, the secret life that flourishes just beyond the screen. For you are not showing them a hoax or a trick, just a new way of seeing what’s already in front of them. This, she told me, is your mark on the world. This is the story that you tell.

Which didn't explain why Brant remained outside with Elizabeth, even when he started to suffer from heatstroke. Or maybe heatstroke was only the excuse he used for what happened next. With one eye pinned on Elizabeth, he stripped off his shirt, something he rarely did, and proceeded to perform feats of strength. He moved large rocks for no good reason, grunting as if he were leg-pressing a good five hundred pounds. He welded hedge clippers like Edward Scissorhands. And hoed like a lumberjack bent on clearing the Sierras. It was heatstroke. It had to be. There was no other way to explain a thirty-eight-year-old man flexing and posing for a woman like some goddamned body builder in a competition. And the worst part about it was she didn't even pay him the slightest bit of attention.

Just when she was about to scream with frustration he flexed his hips and slid inside her. Her body welcomed him as he buried himself to the hilt. She let out a broken little sob, almost tearful over how good it felt to be filled by him, how hard and thick and hot he felt inside her. He started to move, and within seconds she’d found his rhythm. Every clumsy sexual encounter she’d ever had, every second of self-consciousness over her body or her own needs, every doubt she’d ever experienced went out the window as she gave herself over to the moment.

I had a dream, and I needed to go back and find out for sure if something—someone—was there.” When she glanced up, Violet saw the muscles in his jaw flex. “So?” he asked though clenched teeth. “Did you? Find something, I mean?” Violet’s cheek was getting sore from where her teeth were ripping it apart. “N-no,” she stammered. “I mean, kind of.” “Well, shit, Violet, what’s that’s supposed to mean?” “It means there’s someone locked inside one of those gigantic shipping containers down on the docks. But I couldn’t get inside, so I still don’t know for sure. I mean, not in any way I can prove.” Jay jumped up from his chair. It was more than he could take. “Are you telling me you went down to the shipyards before it was even light out? In the middle of the night? All by yourself?” Violet smiled then. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help herself; she felt the corners of her mouth twitching upward before she could stop them. She was never going to get used to this, his worrying about her. “Yeah,” she challenged, taking a step toward him. “Something like that.” She walked to where he was standing, barely containing his frustration. She didn’t try to hide her grin. She put her palms against his chest and could feel his heart beating wildly. “You think you’re gonna be okay? Do you need to sit down? Do you want me to get you a cup of tea or something?” “Hell, Violet, it’s not funny.

Delilah cried out, lifting her head. The only truth that mattered right now was how much she needed him. Powerful thighs flexed against her own as he began to move. He reached for her, pulling her up, against his chest, his hands clasping her breasts, mouth open on the back of her neck. He drew hard, pumping up into her relentlessly, meeting her rocking motion back to him. Her head fell back on his shoulder, her own hands latching over his. Their fingers wove together, their bodies moving as if they’d been lovers for years. As if they’d been made for each other.

The competition physique should be as much pure lean mass as possible, with any excess body fat stripped away. As the saying goes, “You can’t flex fat.” But fat on your body makes you feel bigger than you actually are, and this sense of being bigger is psychologically satisfying to most bodybuilders.

How much are you lifting?” “Seven hundred.” Alrighty then. I will just stand over here, out of your way, and hope you don’t remember my promise to kick your ass. He grinned. “Wanna spot me?” “No thanks. How about I just scream verbal encouragements at you?” I took a deep breath and barked. “No pain, no gain! That pain is just weakness leaving your body! Come on! Push! Push! Make that weight your bitch!” He cracked up. The weight stopped, perilously close to his chest, while he shook with laughter. I stepped up and grabbed the bar. It put me into an incredibly compromising position, since his head was really close to my thighs and the area directly above them, but I didn’t want to explain to a rabid Pack how I was responsible for the Beast Lord crushing his chest with a weight bar. I put my back into it. There was no way in hell I could ever pull it up without him pushing. The bar crept up very slowly. “Curran, stop playing and lift.” I looked down and saw him looking straight at me. He had a smile on his face. The sight of me puffing and straining apparently amused him to no end. He raised the bar up and slid it into the twin forks on the side of the bench. I beat a hasty retreat, putting a few feet between him and me. He sat, pulled his shirt off, and used it to wipe the sweat off his chest. Slowly. Flexing a bit for my benefit. I turned around and looked at the scenery. Having a streak of drool hang from my mouth would seriously cramp my style. Besides, if he full-out flexed, I would probably faint. Or jump off the building.

There is something about seeing someone from behind, something about the way people walk away, that I've found unnervingly intimate. Maybe it's because the back of the body isn't on guard the way the front is-the slouch of the shoulders and the flex in the back muscles, that's the most honest you'll ever see a person.

There is something about seeing someone from behind, something about the way people walk away, that I’ve always found unnervingly intimate. Maybe it’s because the back of the body isn’t on guard the way the front is—the slouch of the shoulders and the flex in the back muscles, that’s the most honest you’ll ever see a person.

Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and pu the far side of the ruined ranks in a piping of boneflutes and dropping down off the sides of their mounts with one heel hung in the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, riding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged trot like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, head, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows.

There is something about seeing someone from behind, something about the way people walk away, that I've always found unnervingly intimate. Maybe it's because the back of the body isn't on guard the way the front is - the slouch of the shoulders and the flex in the back muscles, that's the most honest you'll ever see a person.

Figure it out, Luna. I don’t wanna be sixty when you decide.” I pressed my lips together. Don’t do it, Luna. Everything is not fine and dandy. Don’t do it. Don’t— Let it go. Let it— I didn’t. “So I have… two years… before then?” I whispered, grimacing at the joke that I shouldn’t have made so that we could focus on the serious topic of our conversation. So I could hold on to the distance I was supposed to put between us because he was my boss. What I got was silence. Freaking silence. The sigh that came out of him reminded me of what I figured a hot air balloon would sound like if it deflated. “I should’ve fired you the other day.” I sucked in a breath, and my entire upper body turned to him. He was smirking. He thought he was being funny. He was… joking. These mocking, laughing eyes I had never seen before slid over to me, and the second they spotted my expression, they changed. My name came out a grumble. “I was playing.” Sure, he’d been. His mouth went so tight, it was edged in white. “I was messing with you,” he insisted, seriously. He was messing with me. Those long fingers flexed again. “You that mad at me?” he asked. “I’m not mad at you.” “Upset with me?” I didn’t look at him as I said, “No.” I wasn’t. I wasn’t. “I just…” What could I say? “You don’t ever joke around with me. I’m just surprised.” I started to crack my knuckles but stopped. “Okay, maybe I am a little upset with you, but I’m almost over it.” Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him glance at me again, and I could barely hear his voice when he spoke again. “I joke around outside of work,” he said softly. I wasn’t going to overthink it. Did that come out defensively, or was it my imagination? “That’s good.” I was such a sucker. I really was.

He slammed his cup down. Coffee splashed over the rim and puddled around the base. “What on earth gave you the idea I want space? I want you here. With me. All the time. I want to come home and hear the shower running and get excited because I know you’re in it. I want to struggle every morning to get up and go to the gym because I hate the idea of leaving your warm body behind in bed. I want to hear a key turn in the lock and feel contented knowing you’re home. I don’t want fucking space, Harper.” Harper laughed. “What’s funny?” “I didn’t mean space. I meant space, like closet space, a drawer in the bedroom, part of the counter in the bathroom.” Trent’s mouth twitched, a slight smile making its way to his lips. “Like a compromise. A commitment that I want more. I seem to recall you telling me in the car about something being a step in the right direction to a goal we both agreed on. Well, I want all those things you just said, with you, eventually. And if we start to leave things at each other’s places, it’s a step, right?” Trent reached up, flexing his delicious tattooed bicep, and scratched the side of his head. Without speaking, he leapt to his feet, grabbing Harper and pulling her into a fireman’s lift. “Trent,” she squealed, kicking her feet to get free. “What are you doing?” He slapped her butt playfully and laughed as he carried her down the hallway. Reaching the bedroom, Trent threw her onto the bed. “We’re doing space. Today, right now.” He started pulling open his drawers, looking inside each one before pulling stuff out of the top drawer and dividing it between the others. “Okay, this is for your underwear. I need to see bras, panties, and whatever other girly shit you have in here before the end of the day.” Like a panther on the prowl, Trent launched himself at the bed, grabbing her ankle and pulling her to the edge of the bed before sweeping her into his arms to walk to the bathroom. He perched her on the corner of the vanity, where his stuff was spread across the two sinks. “Pick one.” “Pick one what?” “Sink. Which do you want?” “You’re giving me a whole sink? Wait … stop…” Trent grabbed her and started tickling her. Harper didn’t recognize the girly giggles that escaped her. Pointing to the sink farthest away from the door, she watched as he pushed his toothbrush, toothpaste, and styling products to the other side of the vanity. He did the same thing with the vanity drawers and created some space under the sink. “I expect to see toothbrush, toothpaste, your shampoo, and whatever it is that makes you smell like vanilla in here.” “You like the vanilla?” It never ceased to surprise her, the details he remembered. Turning, he grabbed her cheeks in both hands and kissed her hard. He trailed kisses behind her ear and inhaled deeply before returning to face her. “Absolutely. I fucking love vanilla,” he murmured against her lips before kissing her again, softly this time. “Oh and I’d better see a box of tampons too.” “Oh my goodness, you are beyond!” Harper blushed furiously. “I want you for so much more than just sex, Harper.

I started to pull it up. I stopped. He arched an eyebrow at me, like a challenge. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” My face grew hot. “Right,” I muttered. “Just… no ideas, okay?” He laughed, but I didn’t think it was at me. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. Not really.” I was almost insulted. I was proud of my body. I was strong. I was young. I was capable of providing for my— Fuck. He wiped his eyes. “No, oh god, get that wounded look off your face. Christ.” He took a deep breath. “I’m ace.” I frowned. “What’s that?” “Asexual.” “Oh. Oh.” I scrunched up my face. “Like… really?” Now he was laughing at me. “Like, really.” “How did that work?” I blanched. “Holy shit, ignore me. Seriously, don’t think you need to explain—” “If that’s what you want,” he said, and that was it. I scowled at him. He smiled at me. I lasted a few more seconds. “Are you sure?” “I am,” he said simply. “But.” I waved my hand in the direction of my neck and the scar on it that extended near my shoulder. “And. Like. You know.” He laughed again. I thought I even heard Ox snorting outside the door. “We made it work. It’s not that I’m repulsed by sex or anything. It’s just not everything to me. There’s more to us than physical intimacy. Or there was.” “Oh.” I bit the inside of my cheek, but the words came out in a rush. “And I was okay with that?” “You were,” he said, and his voice took on a wistful tone that made me feel like I was intruding. “We made it work because we… well.” Blue. The room filled with blue. It was smothering. I wanted to go to him. It was like a pull. Toward what, I didn’t know. Instead I pulled off my shirt and let it fall to the floor. “You can stop flexing,” he said, the blue fading slightly. “I’m not.” “Really,” he said. “So your pecs usually bounce up and down like that normally? That’s something you should probably get checked out.” He looked me up and down, but there was no stink of arousal coming from him. Instead, it was warm, like a heavy blanket on a winter day. “You’re bigger than you were. Harder.” “I’m… sorry?” I wasn’t sorry at all. He shook his head. “It looks good on you.

Consequently, [Terayama Shuuji] often played the buffoon to his more serious colleagues, as he did in a July, 1970, dialogue with Mishima Yukio . . . At one point, [Terayama] laughingly suggested to the very earnest Mishima that Tenjou Sajiki might sponsor a one-man show in which Mishima would demonstrate his famous ability to flex his carefully sculpted upper-body muscles. Mishima refused to be angered by this obvious lack of respect.

The basic process of climbing a mountain was therapeutic, almost cathartic. There was the simple act of walking into the woods and away from the world. Then there was the climb itself, where the body worked: muscles flexed and released, lungs rose and fell, the heart beat. It was as if the complications in my life were breaking down and the only thing I cared about was the next place I'd put my foot or finding something to hold to pull myself up. After all that work to get to the summit came that views from the top. The failed Catholic in me saw it as a spiritual journey, much like the ones any holy man had made in leaving behind society. Christ, Buddha, Muhammad - they all did it, and they came back with clarity. For me the climb was my confession, working out the troubles of my past. Sitting on top was communion. On each hike I allowed myself to be pulled apart and then put back together again.

Yeah, yeah, cum inside me, fucking fill my hole!” Ty started really flexing his ass muscles, milking my dick. He reached behind me and gripped my ass, pulling me closer to him. I pumped a few more times, then my body went rigid as my cock shot one long rope of cum inside his ass. I quaked over and over as more cum erupted from my balls, splashing his guts. “Ahhh, arrggg… fuuuck!” I shivered as I finished my orgasm. It was intense and my cock was still hard inside him afterwards.

Lying awake, listening to the nocturnal sounds of machines and murmurings, I composed my list of physical desires: to feel the ground under my feet, to have the muscles in my legs flex, to feel the weight of the rest of my body, to put one foot in front of the other. I tried to block out the fact that I still couldn’t even place my feet on the floor, that they would not do the things I wanted them to. They just fell down, like two tiny sandbags tumbling out of a wheelbarrow. It was as if they had lost all connection to me.

Daniel's wings were concealed, but he must have sensed her eyeing the place where they unfurled from his shoulders. "When everything is in order, we'll fly wherever we have to go to stop Lucifer. Until then it's better to stay low to the ground." "Okay," Luce said. "Race you to the other side?" Her breath frosted the air. "You know I'd beat you." "True." He slipped an arm around her waist, warming her. "Maybe we'd better take the boat, then. Protect my famous pride." She watched him unmoor a small metal rowboat from a boat slip. The soft light on the water made her think back to the day they'd raced across the secret lake at Sword & Cross. His skin had glistened as they had pulled themselves up to the flat rock in the center to catch their breath, then had lain on the sun-warmed stone, letting the day's heat dry their bodies. She'd barely known Daniel then-she hadn't known he was an angel-and already she'd been dangerously in love with him. "We used to swim together in my lifetime in Tahiti, didn't we?" she asked, surprised to remember another time she'd seen Daniel's hair glisten with water. Daniel stared at her and she knew how much it meant to him finally to be able to share some of his memories of their past. He looked so moved that Luce thought he might cry. Instead he kissed her forehead tenderly and said, "You beat me all those times, too, Lulu." They didn't talk much as Daniel rowed. It was enough for Luce to watch the way his muscles strained and flexed each time he dragged back, hearing the oars dip into and out of the cold water, breathing in the brine of the ocean.

God saw Hansen tighten his chokehold on Day and he could see his lover fighting to breathe. Day’s ears and neck were bright red. His lips were turning a darker color as his body was deprived of oxygen. Hansen pressed the barrel in deeper and yelled. “Two minutes and fifteen seconds before I get to zero and I provide the great state of Georgia the luxury of one less narc.” God’s mind exploded at the thought of not having Day in a world he lived in. He looked into his partner’s glistening eyes and saw he was turning blue and possibly getting ready to faint. Day was still looking at him, looking into God’s green eyes. No, no, no! He’s saying good-bye. God closed his eyes and released a loud, gut-wrenching growl cutting off the SWAT leader’s negotiations. “Godfrey, get yourself under control,” his captain said while grabbing for him. God jerked himself away from the hold and stepped forward, his angry eyes boring into Hansen’s dark ones. Hansen stared at him as if God was crazy. Little did he know God was at that moment. “Godfrey, get back here and stand down. That’s an order, Detective!” his captain barked. God’s large hands clenched at his sides fighting not to pull out his weapons. He ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. “Do you have any idea of the shit storm you’re about to bring down on your life,” God spoke with a menacing snarl while his large frame shook with fury. “In your arms you hold the only thing in this world that means anything to me. The man that you are pointing a gun at is my only purpose for living. You are threating to kill the only person in this world that gives a fuck about me.” God took two more steps forward and was vaguely aware of the complete silence surrounding him. Hansen’s finger hovered shakily over the trigger as he took two large steps back with Day still tight against his chest. God growled again and he saw a shade of fear ghost over Hansen’s sweaty face. “If you kill that man, I swear on everything that is holy, I will track you to the ends of the earth, killing and destroying any and everything you hold dear. I will take everything from you and leave you alive to suffer through it. I will bestow upon you the same misery that you have given to me.” Hansen shook his head and inched closer to the door behind him. “Stay back,” he yelled again but this time the demand lacked the courage and venom he exhibited before. “You kill that man, and you’ll have no idea of the monster you will create. Have you ever met a man with no heart…no conscience…no soul…no purpose?” God rumbled, his voice at least twelve octaves lower than the already deep baritone. God yanked his Desert Eagle from his holster in a flash and cocked the hammer back chambering the first round. Hansen stumbled back again, his eyes gone wide with fear. God’s entire body instinctually flexed every muscle in his body and it felt like the large vein in his neck might rupture. His body burned like he had a sweltering fever and he knew his wrath had him a brilliant shade of red. “I’m asking you a goddamn question, Hansen! No soul! No conscience! I’m asking you have you ever met the devil!” God’s thunderous voice practically rattled the glass in the hanger. “If you kill the man I love, you better make your peace with God, because I’m gonna meet your soul in hell.” His voice boomed.

We should break up,” she says. “I’m a disaster. I’ll fuck everything up. I always fuck it up.” Her voice is distressed and she looks like she’s on her way to hyperventilating. “And you’ll leave. Everyone leaves. And I don’t know what I’m doing.” “You can’t break up with me. We’re not dating,” I reply calmly and cross over to her, taking her hand so she’ll stop twisting the hell out of her hair. “Oh.” She exhales in an audible puff as she tilts her head back to look at me. She swallows. “I can’t?” “Nope.” “Then what are we doing? Why are you so nice to me? You’re always so freaking nice to me, Boyd. And attentive. And good in bed. And—” “We’re just Chloe-and-Boyding.” I cut her off before she gets any more worked up. “Chloe-and-Boyding?” “Yes,” I say then brush my lips along the shell of her ear. “Trust me, Chloe.” I give her a gentle push back, because I’m not above distracting her with sex. Not one bit. I lie on the bed beside her and pull her to me. “And you can’t go when there are so many fucks I haven’t given you yet, Chloe. I’d like to give you all the fucks.” “All the fucks?” The tension eases from her body and her eyes flare, but in excitement instead of panic. “All of them. The bossy fuck.” I slip my hand under the hem of her shirt and lift it up and over her head. “The rough fuck.” She lifts her hips as I grip the waistband of her leggings and tug. “The shower fuck.” She sucks in a breath at that and swallows. “So many fucks, Chloe.” I brush my lips against her ear. “The dirty talk fuck. The ass play fuck,” I whisper. “Do you want to miss any of those?” “No.” She shakes her head and flexes her hips against me, already looking to move this forward. “I want all the fucks.” “Good. Then we’re on the same page. Take off your bra.

We lunged for each other at the same time and collided, crazy with need and starving for a taste. Warnings and alarms wailed in my mind, but I shut them down. Screw it. I wanted him. He found my mouth. The thrust of his tongue against mine made my head spin. He tasted like heaven. I kissed him back, nipping, licking, melting against him. It felt so good . . . His lips traced a fiery line from my mouth to the corner of my jaw and down my neck. My whole body sang in warm liquid triumph. His voice was a ragged whisper in my ear. “Only if you want to . . . Say no, and I’ll stop.” “No,” I whispered to see if he would do it. Curran pulled back. His eyes were pure need, raw and barely under control. He swallowed. “Okay.” It was the most erotic thing I had ever seen. I reached for him and slid my hand up his chest, feeling the taut muscle. He caught my hand and kissed my palm gently. Heated, tightly controlled want shone in his eyes. I pulled my fingers free, pushed from the wall, and kissed his throat just under the jaw. This was bliss. There was no hope for me. He growled, closing his eyes. “What are you doing?” “Pulling on Death’s whiskers,” I murmured, letting my tongue play over his skin, rough with stubble. He smelled divine, clean and male. My hands slid up his biceps. His muscles tensed under the light pressure of my fingers. He was trying very, very hard to stand still and I almost laughed. All those times when he’d called me “baby” . . . Revenge was sweet. “Is that a yes or a no?” he asked. I slid against him and nipped his bottom lip. “I’ll take it as a yes.” The steel muscles of his arms flexed under my hands. He grabbed me, hoisted me up onto him, and kissed me, thrusting into my mouth with his tongue in a hot, slick rhythm, greedy and eager. I threw my arms around his neck. His right hand grasped my hair, his left cupped my butt and pushed me closer against him, his erection a hard, hot length across my lap. Finally— “Let me in,” Derek growled at the door. Go away. The guard said something. Curran’s hand found my breast and caressed the nipple, sending an electric shock through my skin, threatening to melt me . . . “Yes,” Derek snarled. “I’m a member of the damn team. Ask them.” “Curran,” I whispered. “Curran!” He snarled and kept going. The door swung open. I hit him on the back of the neck. He submerged. Help. I’ve drowned the Beast Lord.

For a delicious second, her passage resisted his intrusion. She was slick with arousal but it had been over a year since she'd taken a man into her body and her intimate muscles defied the incursion. He pushed again with a confidence that took her breath away, flexed his hips, and settled into her full length. She gasped at the joining, so much richer and more intense than her vivid lonely dreams. He groaned her name and buried his head in her shoulder. Her body took time to adjust to his size and weight after so long without him. He stretched her inner passage and her muscles clenched around him.

You are a thoughtless person with no consideration for the feelings of others. Your best quality is someday you’re gonna die. If you were a planet in the solar system among millions of beautiful heavenly bodies, you’d still choose to revolve around yourself. If every day was Christmas, you’d give yourself 366 gifts, two on your birthday. If you thought about looking into your soul to become a better person, you’d change your mind because there’s no mirror attached and you couldn’t admire your face or flexed muscles. If rulers could measure a man’s character, you’d be a centimeter. And if you ever again decide to call me a name, next time try Liz.

Some nights, sitting among ferns far from the garden, watching headlights creep down 101 in the distance, he clamps his palms over his ears and tries to imagine what it must be like. He shuts his eyes, tries to quiet himself. For a moment he thinks he has it; a kind of void, a nothingness, an oblivion. But it doesn't--it cannot--last; there is always noise, the flux and murmur of his body's machinery, a hum in his head. His heart beats and flexes in its cage. His body, in those moments, sounds to him like an orchestra, a rock band, an entire prison of inmates crowded into one cell. What must it be like not to hear that? To never know even the whisper of your own pulse?

Gideon was quickly checking through her muscular structure and then weaving very gently into the complexities of her reproductive system. Suddenly Legna cried out again, her hands hitting his chest and grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, her entire body trembling from head to toe. This time Gideon gave the reaction his full attention. He looked into her wide eyes, the pupils dilating as he watched. Her mouth formed a soft, silent circle of surprise. “What are you doing?” she asked, her breath falling short and quick. “Nothing,” he insisted, his expression reflecting his baffled thoughts. “Merely continuing the exam. What are you feeling?” Legna couldn’t put the sensation into words. Her entire body felt as if it were pooling liquid fire, like magma dripping through her, centering under the hand he had just splayed over her lower belly. So, being the empath she was, she described it in the only way she could with any efficiency and effectiveness. She sent the sensations to him, deeply, firmly, without preparation or permission, exactly the way she had received them. In an instant, Gideon went from being in control of a neutral examination to an internal thermonuclear flashpoint of arousal that literally took his breath away. His hand flexed on her belly, crushing the silk of her dress within his fist. “Legna!” he cried hoarsely. “What are you doing?” She didn’t even seem aware of him, her eyes sliding closed and her head falling back as she tried to gulp in oxygen. His eyes slid down over her and he saw the flush and rigidity of erogenous heat building with incredible speed beneath her skin. And as it built in her, it built in him. She had created a loop between them, a locked cycle that started nowhere, ended nowhere. All it did was spill through and through them. “Stop,” he commanded, his voice rough and desperate as he tried to clear his mind and control the impulses surging through him. “Legna, stop this!” Legna dropped her head forward, her eyes flicking open and upward until she was gazing at him from under her lashes with the volatile, predatory gaze of a cat. A cat in heat.

Damn it, Jacob, I’m freezing my butt off.” “I came as fast as I could, considering I thought it would be wise to walk the last few yards.” Isabella whirled around, her smiling face lighting up the silvery night with more ease than the fullest of moons. She leapt up into his embrace, eagerly drinking in his body heat and affection. “I can see it now. ‘Daddy, tell me about your wedding day.’ ‘Well, son,’” she mocked, deepening her voice to his timbre and reflecting his accent uncannily, “’The first words out of your mother’s mouth were I’m freezing my butt off!’” “Very romantic, don’t you think?” he teased. “So, you think it will be a boy, then? Our first child?” “Well, I’m fifty percent sure.” “Wise odds. Come, little flower, I intend to marry you before the hour is up.” With that, he scooped her off her feet and carried her high against his chest. “Unfortunately, we are going to have to do this hike the hard way.” “As Legna tells it, that’s what you’re supposed to do.” “Yeah, well, I assure you a great many grooms have fudged that a little.” He reached to tuck her chilled face into the warm crook of his neck. “Surely the guests would know. It takes longer to walk than it does to fly . . . or whatever . . . out of the woods.” “This is true, little flower. But passing time in the solitude of the woods is not necessarily a difficult task for a man and woman about to be married.” “Jacob!” she gasped, laughing. “Some traditions are not necessarily publicized,” he teased. “You people are outrageous.” “Mmm, and if I had the ability to turn to dust right now, would you tell me no if I asked to . . . pass time with you?” Isabella shivered, but it was the warmth of his whisper and intent, not the cold, that made her do so. “Have I ever said no to you?” “No, but now would be a good time to start, or we will be late to our own wedding,” he chuckled. “How about no . . . for now?” she asked silkily, pressing her lips to the column on his neck beneath his long, loose hair. His fingers flexed on her flesh, his arms drawing her tighter to himself. He tried to concentrate on where he was putting his feet. “If that is going to be your response, Bella, then I suggest you stop teasing me with that wicked little mouth of yours before I trip and land us both in the dirt.” “Okay,” she agreed, her tongue touching his pulse. “Bella . . .” “Jacob, I want to spend the entire night making love to you,” she murmured. Jacob stopped in his tracks, taking a moment to catch his breath. “Okay, why is it I always thought it was the groom who was supposed to be having lewd thoughts about the wedding night while the bride took the ceremony more seriously?” “You started it,” she reminded him, laughing softly. “I am begging you, Isabella, to allow me to leave these woods with a little of my dignity intact.” He sighed deeply, turning his head to brush his face over her hair. “It does not take much effort from you to turn me inside out and rouse my hunger for you. If there is much more of your wanton taunting, you will be flushed warm and rosy by the time we reach that altar, and our guests will not have to be Mind Demons in order to figure out why.” “I’m sorry, you’re right.” She turned her face away from his neck. Jacob resumed his ritual walk for all of thirty seconds before he stopped again. “Bella . . .” he warned dangerously. “I’m sorry! It just popped into my head!” “What am I getting myself into?” he asked aloud, sighing dramatically as he resumed his pace. “Well, in about an hour, I hope it will be me.

I couldn't stop picturing you naked and wet." "If you knew the things you've done in my imagination..." "I touched myself while thinking of you." He groaned against her lips. "Jesus Christ, that's one of them." She whimpered in protest as his fingers withdrew from her body. He slid his hands to her bottom and lifted her off her feet, carrying her across the room, to where a floor-length mirror in a thick gilded frame stood propped against the wall. It must have been too heavy to move. He spun her to face it, positioning himself behind her. Their gazes locked in the mirrored reflection. His eyes were dark, fierce, demanding. "Show me." He yanked her skirts to her waist- frock, petticoat, chemise, and all- exposing her completely. "Show me how you touched yourself." Penny's heartbeat stalled. The gruff command both scandalized and excited her. With a rough flex of his arms, he hauled her to him. His erection throbbed against the small of her back. "Show me." Penny stared into the mirror. A bolder, naughtier version of herself gazed back. She placed a hand on her belly and eased it downward, until her fingertips disappeared into a thatch of amber curls. She hesitated, holding her breath. "More," he demanded. "I want to see you." His gruffness aroused her, but she wasn't intimidated. With him, she knew she was safe. She raised her free arm above her head, clasping his neck for balance and resting her head against his chest. He wrapped his arm about her torso, holding her tight and pinning her lifted skirts at the waist. Her joints softened, and her thighs fell slightly apart. "That's it. Spread yourself for me. Let me see." The woman in the mirror did as she was told, sending her fingers downward to part the pink, swollen folds of her sex. A single fingertip settled over the sensitive bud at the crest, circling gently. His ragged breath warmed her ear. "God, you're beautiful." She stared at the reflection, transfixed by the eroticism of the image within. She felt like a woman in a boudoir painting, flushed with desire and unashamed of her body's curves and shadows. Aware of the power she held, even in her vulnerable, naked state. As her excitement mounted, she strummed faster. She was panting, arching her back.

It bounded from the line of trees directly ahead. This was his first real sight of the spirit and the breath stuck in his throat. Its black fur rippled as muscles bunched, flexed and powered the sleek animal towards him. Front legs reached forward, claws extended to dig into the soft ground as its body compressed. Back arching upwards as the rear legs caught up with the front and gathered their strength, propelling the cat forward again. The panther ate up the ground between the forest and Zhou. As it closed, he could see the yellow iris surrounding the deep, black, circular pupil. Either side of its snout, whiskers sprouted, sensing the movement of air, and its mouth parted to reveal two, long, sharp canine teeth rising from its bottom jaw.

Shockers take six months of training and still occasionally kill their users. Why did you implant them in the first place?” “Because you kidnapped me.” “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” “Mr. Rogan.” My voice frosted over. “What I put into my body is my business.” Okay, that didn’t sound right. I gave up and marched out the doors into the sunlight. That was so dumb. Sure, try your magic sex touch on me, what could happen? My whole body was still keyed up, wrapped up in want and anticipation. I had completely embarrassed myself. If I could fall through the floor, I would. “Nevada,” he said behind me. His voice rolled over me, tinted with command and enticing, promising things I really wanted. You’re a professional. Act like one. I gathered all of my will and made myself sound calm. “Yes?” He caught up with me. “We need to talk about this.” “There is nothing to discuss,” I told him. “My body had an involuntary response to your magic.” I nodded at the poster for Crash and Burn II on the wall of the mall, with Leif Magnusson flexing with two guns while wrapped in flames. “If Leif showed up in the middle of this parking lot, my body would have an involuntary response to his presence as well. It doesn’t mean I would act on it.” Mad Rogan gave Leif a dismissive glance and turned back to me. “They say admitting that you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.” He was changing his tactics. Not going to work. “You know what my problem is? My problem is a homicidal pyrokinetic Prime whom I have to bring back to his narcissistic family.” We crossed the road to the long parking lot. Grassy dividers punctuated by small trees sectioned the lot into lanes, and Mad Rogan had parked toward the end of the lane, by the exit ramp. “One school of thought says the best way to handle an issue like this is exposure therapy,” Mad Rogan said. “For example, if you’re terrified of snakes, repeated handling of them will cure it.” Aha. “I’m not handling your snake.” He grinned. “Baby, you couldn’t handle my snake.” It finally sank in. Mad Rogan, the Huracan, had just made a pass at me. After he casually almost strangled a woman in public. I texted to Bern, “Need pickup at Galeria IV.” Getting into Rogan’s car was out of the question.

Do you have a piece of paper I could write on?” I jump up too fast. “Sure. Just one? Do you—of course you need something to write with. Sorry. Here.” I grab him a paper from my deskdrawer and one of my myriad pencils, and he uses the first Children of Hypnos book as a flat surface to write on. When I’m sure he’s writing something for me to read right now, I say, “I thought you only needed to do that when other people were around?” He etches one careful line after the next. He frowns, shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s . . . tough to say things. Certain things.” His voice is hardly a whisper. I sit down beside him again, but his big hand blocks my view of the words. He stops writing, leaves the paper there, and stares. Then he hands it to me and looks the other direction. Can I kiss you? “Um,” is a delightfully complex word. “Um” means “I want to say something but don’t know what it is,” and also “You have caught me off guard,” and also “Am I dreaming right now? Someone please slap me.” I say “um,” then. Wallace’s entire head-neck region is already flushed with color, but the “um” darkens it a few shades, and goddammit, he was nervous about asking me and I made it worse. What good is “um” when I should say “YES PLEASE NOW”? Except there’s no way I’m going to say “YES PLEASE NOW” because I feel like my body is one big wired time bomb of organs and if Wallace so much as brushes my hand, I’m going to jump out of my own skin and run screaming from the house. I’ll like it too much. Out of control. No good. I say, “Can I borrow that pencil?” He hands me the pencil, again without looking. Yes, but not right now. I know it sounds weird. Sorry. I don’t think it’ll go well if I know it’s coming. I will definitely freak out and punch you in the face or scream bloody murder or something like that. Surprising me with it would probably work better. I am giving you permission to surprise me with a kiss. This is a formal invitation for surprise kisses. I don’t like writing the word “kiss.” It makes my skin crawl. Sorry. It’s weird. I’m weird. Sorry. I hope that doesn’t make you regret asking. I hand the paper and pencil back. He reads it over, then writes: No regret. I can do surprises. That’s it. That’s it? Shit. Now he’s going to try to surprise me with a kiss. At some point. Later today? Tomorrow? A week from now? What if he never does it and I spend the rest of the time we hang out wondering if he will? What have I done? This was a terrible idea. I’m going to vomit. “Be right back,” I say, and run to the bathroom to curl up on the floor. Just for like five minutes. Then I go back to my room and sit down beside Wallace. As I’m moving myself into position, his hand falls over mine, and I don’t actually jump out of my skin. My control shakes for a moment, but I turn in to it, and everything smooths out. I flip my hand over. He flexes his fingers so I can fit mine in the spaces between. And we sit there, shoulder to shoulder, with our hands resting on the bed between us. It’s not so bad

Loulou broke free from Zeus to come toward us but stopped abruptly when Priest stepped in front of me, blocking her way. They stared each other down, my big sister and my beloved psycho, communicating in the way of alphas, without words using only intense body language. Slowly, Priest pulled me by the wrist to his side, then deliberately wrapped his big hand around the back of my neck under my hair to anchor me to him. “She’s mine,” he said slowly, each word barely leashed with aggression. Loulou mimicked him, cocking her head and narrowing her eyes. Her hip cocked to the side as she folded her arms across her chest and arched a brow. “And you’re hers?” He shrugged one shoulder casually, but the hand on my neck flexed in spasm. “Whatever there is of me to have.

Blake Hartt, if you touch me, your skin must be bare. Do you understand?” Livia looked into his green eyes. They seemed confused, but he nodded. Livia wished she’d worn something more romantic, but no matter. This wasn’t about clothes; it was about skin. She kicked off her sneakers and stepped away from him. Come get me, Livia said with her eyes. She pulled off her sweatpants and felt the cool air snap at her skin. She walked further and stopped in the center of the clearing next to the miraculous saplings. She now stood right where they’d been before when they’d failed. She took her jacket off and let it fall. She created a trail of clothes like little stepping stones to hope. Livia had always been shy about her body. But she could do this here, now. She was asking so much of him. She pulled her sweatshirt off and stood in her bra and panties. She shook a little from the cold and the risk. She willed him to take the chance as well. He hadn’t moved, just stood squeezing the handle of the cheerful umbrella and watching Livia like she was walking a tightrope without a net. Livia reached behind her and unlatched her bra. She added it to her trail of clothes. Blake flexed and closed a gloved hand. Livia slipped off her white panties. Now she was here—nude for him—if he could bring himself to walk across the meadow. She shivered and fought the need to cover her chilly skin. Blake kept his eyes on hers, not yet indulging in the sight before him. “You’re cold,” he said softly. Livia nodded. “I’m cold and alone out here.” I will stay put. I will not cry. Come to me. Come to me. And he did. He made slow, steady progress until he stood in front of her.

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you, I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,) I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems, Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems, Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears, Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids, Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges, Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition, Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue, Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest, Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones, Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails, Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side, Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone, Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root, Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above, Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg, Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel; All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female, The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean, The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame, Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity, Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman, The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings, The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud, Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming, Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening, The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes, The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair, The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body, The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out, The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees, The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones, The exquisite realization of health; O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!

Don't look at me like that." "Like what?" I arch an eyebrow. His gaze flashes to mine. "Like you're thinking about the sparring gym last night." "Well, now that you mention it." My tongue flicks over my lower lip, remembering how his hips pinned mine to the mat after everyone had left for the night. How close we both came to giving in to the pulsing need between us. His jaw flexes, and his grip tightens on his fork. "Seriously. I can't think when you look at me like that." "You're the one with the ridiculous rule about not falling for each other," I remind him. "You're still looking." He forces his attention back to his plate. "You make it hard to look away." I miss his mouth on my skin, the feel of his body pressed against mine. I miss the look on his face when he watched me come undone. But I miss the feeling of him curled around me in sleep more. "I'm over here keeping my hands and memories to myself because you asked me to, and you're fucking me with your eyes. That's not playing fair." "Told you to stop staring." There's laughter in his voice, but his face is as expressionless as ever. I tap my fork on my plate in pure frustration. You know what. Fuck this. Two can play at this game. "If you'd just man up and admit there's something between us, I would strip down to my skin so you could see every single inch of me. And once I had you begging, I'd drop down to my knees, undo those flight leathers you're wearing, and wrap my lips around—" Xaden chokes. Every head in the dining hall turns his way, and Garrick pounds on his back until Xaden waves him off, taking a drink of his water. I grin, which earns me about six looks of confusion from our table and one set of rolled eyes from Liam. "You're going to be the death of me

No direct evidence yet documents Earth’s tidal cycles more than a billion years ago, but we can be confident that 4.5 billion years ago things were a lot wilder. Not only did Earth have five-hour days, but the nearby Moon was much, much faster in its close orbit, as well. The Moon took only eighty-four hours—three and a half modern days—to go around Earth. With Earth spinning so fast and the Moon orbiting so fast, the familiar cycle of new Moon, waxing Moon, full Moon, and waning Moon played out in frenetic fast-forward: every few five-hour days saw a new lunar phase. Lots of consequences follow from this truth, some less benign than others. With such a big lunar obstruction in the sky and such rapid orbital motions, eclipses would have been frequent events. A total solar eclipse would have occurred every eighty-four hours at virtually every new Moon, when the Moon was positioned between Earth and the Sun. For some few minutes, sunlight would have been completely blocked, while the stars and planets suddenly popped out against a black sky, and the Moon’s fiery volcanoes and magma oceans stood out starkly red against the black lunar disk. Total lunar eclipses occurred regularly as well, almost every forty-two hours later, like clockwork. During every full Moon, when Earth lies right between the Sun and the Moon, Earth’s big shadow would have completely obscured the giant face of the bright shining Moon. Once again the stars and planets would have suddenly popped out against a black sky, as the Moon’s volcanoes put on their ruddy show. Monster tides were a far more violent consequence of the Moon’s initial proximity. Had both Earth and the Moon been perfectly rigid solid bodies, they would appear today much as they did 4.5 billion years ago: 15,000 miles apart with rapid rotational and orbital motions and frequent eclipses. But Earth and the Moon are not rigid. Their rocks can flex and bend; especially when molten, they swell and recede with the tides. The young Moon, at a distance of 15,000 miles, exerted tremendous tidal forces on Earth’s rocks, even as Earth exerted an equal and opposite gravitational force on the largely molten lunar landscape. It’s difficult to imagine the immense magma tides that resulted. Every few hours Earth’s largely molten rocky surface may have bulged a mile or more outward toward the Moon, generating tremendous internal friction, adding more heat and thus keeping the surface molten far longer than on an isolated planet. And Earth’s gravity returned the favor, bulging the Earth-facing side of the Moon outward, deforming our satellite out of perfect roundness.

Society’s structure exists to maintain the power and wealth of a few privileged persons. A person must resist society’s attempts to bully him or her into living a diminished life of a conformist. I must be wary that my defining character is neither effaced nor compromised and rebuff men of weaker temperament attempting to repress my uninhibited joy for life. I need to demonstrate the inventive spirit of an opportunistic doer. I will allow myself to run wild in the eyes of the world of watchers and establish a lifestyle that allows the physical body room to flex its fibrous muscles. I shall live in a manner that enables the mind the opportunity to construct a secure shelter that encourages mental and spiritual exploration. I aspire to establish a workable balance between retreating to my private cave to seek solace and striking meaningful engagements with the larger world.

Mag Rogan and I stood on the edge of a cliff. Below us, the ground plunged so far down that it was as if the planet itself had ended at our feet. The wind tugged at my hair. He was wearing those dark pants again and nothing else. The hard muscle corded his torso, fueled by an overpowering, almost savage strength. Not the mindless brutality of a common thug or the cruel power of an animal, but an intelligent, stubborn, human strength. It was everywhere: in the set of his broad shoulders, in the turn of his head on a muscular neck, in the tilt of his square jaw. He turned to me and his whole body tightened, the muscles flexing and hardening, his hands ready to grip and crush, his eyes alert, missing nothing, and blazing with the brilliant electric blue of magic. I could picture him getting his sword and walking alone onto the drawbridge to defend his castle against a horde of invaders with that exact look on his face. He was terrifying, and I wanted to run my hands down that chest and feel the hard ridges of his abs. I was some special kind of idiot. Magic roiled about him, ferocious and alive, a pet monster with vicious teeth. He moved toward me, bringing it with him. “Tell me about Adam Pierce.” I reached over and put my hand on his chest. His skin was burning hot. The muscle tensed under my fingers. An eager electric shiver ran through me. I wanted to lean against that chest and kiss the underside of that jaw, tasting his sweat on my tongue. I wanted him to like it. “What happened to the boy?” I asked. “The one who destroyed a city in Mexico? Is he still inside?” “Nevada!” My mother’s voice cut through my dreams like a knife. I sat straight up in my bed. Okay. I was either way more messed up inside, or Mad Rogan was a strong projector and could shoot images straight into my mind. Either way was bad. What happened to the boy . . . I needed to have my head examined.

Caleb!” I gasped. “What are you doing?” “Told you I wouldn’t let you make a mess. Gonna use my mouth on you. I’m going to suck you off, and swallow everything you’ve got.” A wave of burning hot lust shot down my spine. I flexed my hips upward, because I just had to. Caleb yanked down my underwear and moved, until he was kneeling over my body. And before I could even prepare myself, he’d bent his head down to lap his tongue against my cockhead. My shout of approval could probably be heard all over Nebraska. A big hand grasped the base of my shaft. Then, he began to bathe my dick in kisses. Wet, sloppy kisses everywhere. My hips began shaking with excitement. “Oh, Caleb. I can’t…” He opened his mouth and sucked me down. I never felt anything so amazing in my life. His mouth was tight and wet all around me. He gave a good hard suck. Just one. And then I was coming. And Caleb was swallowing. My whole body shook with joy. Caleb moaned and he cupped my balls in one hand and I’d forgotten to breathe for entirely too long…

Lillian felt her pulse begin to thunder, her breath mingling in rapid puffs with his. She remembered the hard planes of his body brushing lightly over hers as they had made love, the consummate fit between them, the sliding flex of muscle and sinew beneath her hands. Her skin tingled with the memory of his touch, and the clever explorations of his mouth and fingers that had reduced her to shivering need. No wonder he was so cool and cerebral during the day— he saved all his sensuality for bedtime. Stirred by his closeness, she caught at his wrists. There was still much they had to discuss… issues too important for either of them to ignore. “Marcus,” she said breathlessly, “don’t. Not just now. It only muddles things further, and—” “For me it makes everything clear.” His hands slid to either side of her face, cradling her cheeks with yearning gentleness. His eyes were so much darker than her own, with only the faintest glimmer of deepest amber to betray that they were not black but brown. “Kiss me,” he whispered, and his mouth found hers, catching at her top lip and then the lower, in nuzzling half-open caresses that sent rich quivers of response all the way down to her toes.

Nude Descending a Soapbox It was hard to take her seriously. The issues were real I know But so was the show of thigh the smooth swagger of hips the ripple of tender tissue as it flexed and unflexed before the listening eye. She had a point to make strong arguments too but she had curves that flashed into the afternoon light and a bend in her back that took three beats out of the heart's every four. She aroused with her conviction entertained with her wit and reasoned soundly but as the nude stepped down from her soapbox the utterance of her flesh the parlance of her posture the two pronouncements of her breasts spoke with a diction that was far more convincing than any jargon rhetorical. In the end it was the appeal of the succulent spaces that shaped her ankles that lasted and left one believing that no lifetime would be wasted in pursuit of her out-takes on a quest for the mysteries of and beyond her flesh. Sometimes the only available hold is language. The body begs translation of what words approximate because the meaning of things said and unsaid like the line of her neck is exactly what renders one satisfied and speechless.

There was also a package wrapped in pale blue paper and tied with a matching ribbon. Picking up a small folded note that had been tucked under the ribbon, Beatrix read: A gift for your wedding night, darling Bea. This gown was made by the most fashionable modiste in London. It is rather different from the ones you usually wear, but it will be very pleasing to a bridegroom. Trust me about this. -Poppy Holding the nightgown up, Beatrix saw that it was made of black gossamer and fastened with tiny jet buttons. Since the only nightgowns she had ever worn had been of modest white cambric or muslin, this was rather shocking. However, if it was what husbands liked... After removing her corset and her other underpinnings, Beatrix drew the gown over her head and let a slither over her body in a cool, silky drift. The thin fabric draped closely over her shoulders and torso and buttoned at the waist before flowing to the ground in transparent panels. A side slit went up to her hip, exposing her leg when she moved. And her back was shockingly exposed, the gown dipping low against her spine. Pulling the pins and combs from her hair, she dropped them into the muslin bag in the trunk. Tentatively she emerged from behind the screen. Christopher had just finished pouring two glasses of champagne. He turned toward her and froze, except for his gaze, which traveled over her in a burning sweep. "My God," he muttered, and drained his champagne. Setting the empty glass aside, he gripped the other as if he were afraid it might slip through his fingers. "Do you like my nightgown?" Beatrix asked. Christopher nodded, not taking his gaze from her. "Where's the rest of it?" "This was all I could find." Unable to resist teasing him, Beatrix twisted and tried to see the back view. "I wonder if I put it on backward..." "Let me see." As she turned to reveal the naked line of her back, Christopher drew in a harsh breath. Although Beatrix heard him mumble a curse, she didn't take offense, deducing that Poppy had been right about the nightgown. And when he drained the second glass of champagne, forgetting that it was hers, Beatrix sternly repressed a grin. She went to the bed and climbed onto the mattress, relishing the billowy softness of its quilts and linens. Reclining on her side, she made no attempt to cover her exposed leg as the gossamer fabric fell open to her hip. Christopher came to her, stripping off his shirt along the way. The sight of him, all that flexing muscle and sun-glazed skin, was breathtaking. He was a beautiful man, a scarred Apollo, a dream lover. And he was hers.

Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and up the far side of the ruined ranks in a piping of boneflutes and dropping down off the sides of their mounts with one heel hung in the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, riding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged trot like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, heads, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows.

Doan be scared, bébé,” he rasped with a brief kiss to my lips. “I’m goan to take care of you.” Staring down into my eyes, he began prodding deeper. “I’ve wanted you for so long.” And deeper. “My God, woman!” When he was all the way in, a strangled groan burst from his chest. Pain. I just stifled a wince, far from enamored with this. Voice gone hoarse, he said, “You’re mine now, Evangeline. No one else’s.” He must be right—because Death’s presence had disappeared completely. Jack held himself still, murmuring, “Doan hurt, doan hurt.” “It’s getting better.” “Ready for more?” I nodded. Then regretted it. Pain. Between gritted teeth, he said, “Evie, I got to touch you, got to kiss you. Or you woan like this.” A bead of sweat dropped from his forehead onto my neck, tickling its way down to my collarbone. “O-okay.” Still inside me, he raised himself up on his knees, his damp chest flexing. His hands covered me, cupped, kneaded, his thumbs rubbing. When I started arching my back for more, his body moved. And it was . . . Rapture. “Jack! Yes!” In a strained tone, he said, “God almighty—I am home, Evangeline.” Another thrust had me soaring. “Finally found the place . . . I’m supposed to be.” He leaned down, delivering scorching kisses up my neck and down to my br**sts, bringing me closer and closer to a just-out-of-reach peak. Each time he rocked over me, I sensed a barely harnessed aggression in him. Between panting breaths, I said, “Don’t hold back! You don’t have to with me.” I lightly grazed my nails over his back, spurring him until he was taking me with all his might—growling with need as I moaned. Pleasure built and built . . . broke free . . . wicked bliss seized me, seized him. As I cried out uncontrollably, he yelled, “À moi, Evangeline!” Mine. “Yes, Jack, yes. . . .” Then after-shudders. A final moan. A last groan. As his weight sank heavily over me, I ran my hands up and down his back, wanting him to know how much I loved that. How much I loved him. He raised himself up on his forearms, cheeks flushed, lids heavy with satisfaction. “I knew it would be like this.” His voice was even more hoarse. “I knew from the first moment I saw you.” Stroking my hair, he started kissing my face, pressing his lips to my jaw, my forehead, the tip of my nose. “I am home, Evie Greene,” he repeated between kisses. I never wanted him to stop. He’d been an amazing lover, but his afterplay? He was adoring. “The first priest I find, I’m goan to marry you. I’m all in, peekôn.” His kisses grew more and more heated. Against my lips, he rasped, “How come I can’t ever get enough of you?

To her astonishment, he did not bear her to the floor, but lifted her in his arms instead, so that her legs wrapped around his waist. He held her weight easily, bracing her against the wall for balance, one arm protecting her from the roughness of the plaster. Her eyes widened as she felt the hard, blunt shape of his sex nudging, probing, sliding easily inside her. She was filled, impaled, her body open and helpless against the heavy intrusion. Gasping in pleasure, she clutched at the backs of his shoulders, her fingers clinging into the soft wool of his coat. It felt strangely erotic to be clasped against his fully clothed body, her bare skin tingling from the abrasion of fabric. Hungering for a taste of his skin, she tugged at his black stock and buried her mouth against the damp side of his neck. "Do you love me?" he smattered, deliberately allowing her weight to press downward, forcing her even harder onto his stiff erection. "Yes... oh, Grant..." She arched and cried out as pleasure crested inside her, spreading through her in deep, rolling waves. "Tell me," he said harshly, moving in deeper, slower thrusts that drove straight into the core of her body. She writhed, her legs flexing as she felt the ebbing sensation build again. "I love you," she gasped. "Love you... love you..." The words sent him over the dizzying edge of rapture, and he drove inside her with a groan, all his senses dissolving in blissful release.

Dragging his lips down between her thighs, Kev rooted in the hot silk of her, finding the delicate blunt point of her clitoris, using the velvet flat of his tongue to paint and caress. She clutched his head more tightly and sobbed his name, the throaty sound exciting him. When the responsive movements of her hips took on a regular rhythm, he pulled his mouth from her and pushed her knees wide and apart. He took an eternity to ease into the lush clenching flesh. Fully seated, he wrapped his arms around her, securing her against his body. She wriggled, urging him to thrust, but he held still and fast and pressed his mouth to her ear, and whispered that he would make her come just like this, he would stay hard inside her as long as it took. Her ear turned scarlet, and she tightened and throbbed around him. "Please, move," she whispered, and he gently said no. "Please, move, please..." No. But after a while he began to flex his hips in a subtle rhythm. She whimpered and trembled as he drove into her, nudging deeper, relentless in his restraint. The climax broke over her finally, tearing low cries from her lips, bringing wild shudders to the surface. Kev was quiet, experiencing a release so acute and paralyzing that it robbed him of all sound. Her slender body pulled at him, milked him, enclosed him in delicate heat. The pleasure was so great it caused an unfamiliar stinging in his eyes and nose, and that shook him to his foundations.

humans have dozens of additional adaptations in our muscles and bones for endurance running whose traces first appear in fossils of H. erectus. Most of these features allow us to use our legs like giant springs to jump efficiently from one leg to another in a manner totally different from walking, which uses the legs like pendulums. As figure 7 shows, when your foot hits the ground during a run, your hips, knees, and ankles flex during the first half of stance, causing your center of mass to drop, thus stretching many of the muscles and tendons in your legs.43 When these tissues stretch, they store up elastic energy, which they release while recoiling during the second half of stance, helping you jump into the air. In fact, a running human’s legs store and release energy so efficiently that running is only about 30 to 50 percent more costly than walking in the endurance-speed range. What’s more, these springs are so effective that they make the cost of human endurance running (but not sprinting) independent of speed: it costs the same number of calories to run five miles at a pace of either 7 or 10 minutes per mile, a phenomenon many people find counterintuitive.44 Since running uses the legs like springs, some of our most important adaptations for running are literally springs. One key spring is the dome-shaped arch of the foot, which develops from the way ligaments and muscles bind together the foot’s bones as children start to walk and run. As discussed

Closing the door, she turned back to him, taking in the long, muscled length of him on the bed, staring at her. Waiting for her. Perfection. He was perfect, and she was bare before him, bathed in candlelight. She was instantly embarrassed- somehow more embarrassed than she had been that night in his office, when she'd touched herself under his careful guidance. At least then she'd been wearing a corset. Stockings. Tonight, she wore nothing. She was all flaws, each one highlighted by his perfection. He watched her for a long moment before extending one muscled arm, palm up, an irresistible invitation. She went to him without hesitation, and he rolled to his back, pulling her over his lovely, lean chest, staring up at her intently. She covered her breasts in a wave of nerves and trepidation. "When you look at me like that... it's too much." He did not look away. "How do I look at you?" "I don't know what it is... but I feel as though you can see into me. As though, if you could, you would consume me." "It's want, love. Desire like nothing I've never experienced. I'm fairly shaking with it. Come here." The demand was impossible to resist, carrying with it the promise of pleasure beyond her dreams. She went. When she was close enough to touch, he lifted one hand, stroking his fingers along hers where they hid her breasts from view. "I tremble with need for you, Pippa. Please, love, let me see you." The request was raw and wretched, and she couldn't deny him, slowly moving her hands to settle them on his chest, fingers splayed wide across the crisp auburn hair that dusted his skin. She was distracted by that hair, the play of it over muscle- the way it narrowed to a lovely dark line across his flat stomach. He lay still as she touched him, his muscles firm and perfect. "You're so beautiful," she whispered, fingers stroking down his arms to his wrists. His gaze narrowed on her. "I am happy you approve, my lady." She smiled. "Oh I do, my lord. You are a remarkable specimen." White teeth flashed again as she gained her courage, retracing her touch, over his forearms, marveling in the feel of him, reciting from memory, "flexor digitorium superficialis, flexor capri radialis..." along his upper arms, "biceps brachii, tricipitis brachii..." over his shoulders, loving the way his muscles tensed and flexed beneath her touch, "deltoideus..." and down his chest, "subscapularis... pectoralis major..." She stilled, brushing her fingers over the curve of that muscle, the landscape of him... the valleys of his body. He sucked in a breath as her fingers ran over the flat discs of his nipples, arching up to her touch, and she stilled, reveling in her power. He enjoyed her touch. He wanted it. She repeated the stroke, this time with her thumbs. He hissed his pleasure, one wide hand falling to the inside of her knee, sending a river of heat through her. "Don't stop now, love. This is the most effective seduction I've ever experienced.

For one, mad instant, she thought he planned to kiss her, but instead, he ducked under her chin and nuzzled against her shoulder at the site where her pulse pounded so furiously. A shiver of excitement tore through her, and she swallowed a baffled squeal that could have been either delight or indignation. His lips were heated and soft, and he tenderly kissed against her nape then, to her astonishment, he licked across her skin. She jumped then twirled away, only to end up facing the mirror, with him behind her, and she assessed the two of them, evaluating the differences: his tall to her short, bronzed to fair, brawn to lean. Boldly, he settled his hands on her hips and snuggled her backside against him, and she was assailed by an array of unique anatomical impressions. As though she'd been searching for this man all her life and had finally found him, she ignited with sensation, every pore alert and animated, and her nipples tightened painfully, poking at the towel. The knave immediately noticed how they'd peaked. "I can't wait to have my mouth on you." The declaration kindled cryptic messages, and restlessly, she scrambled to flee---from the unusual fleshly perturbation and from him---but because of their positions, he merely nestled her close and flexed against her. His groin stroked across her bottom in a manner she'd never presumed a man might attempt with a woman. There was a solid ridge along his abdomen that dug into her buttocks, and her traitorous body reacted by squirming to get nearer to it. He appreciated her participation and gripped her firmly, flexing again.

The company was now come to a halt and the first shots were fired and the grey riflesmoke rolled through the dust as the lancers breached their ranks. The kid's horse sank beneath him with a long pneumatic sigh. He had already fired his rifle and now he sat on the ground and fumbled with his shotpouch. A man near him sat with an arrow hanging out of his neck. He was bent slightly as if in prayer. The kid would have reached for the bloody hoop-iron point but then he saw that the man wore another arrow in his breast to the fletching and he was dead. Everywhere there were horses down and men scrambling and he saw a man who sat charging his rifle while blood ran from his ears and he saw men and he saw men with their revolvers disassembled trying to fit the fit the spare loaded cylinders they carried and he saw men kneeling who tilted and clasped their shadows on the ground and he saw men lanced and caught up by the hair and scalped standing and he saw the horses of war trample down the fallen and a little whitefaced pony with one clouded eye leaned out of the murk and snapped at him like a dog and was gone. Among the wounded some seemed dumb and without understanding and some were pale through the masks of dust and some had fouled themselves or tottered brokenly onto the spears of the savages. Now driving in a wild frieze of headlong horses with eyes walled and teeth cropped and naked riders with clusters of arrows clenched in their jaws and their shields winking in the dust and up the far side of the ruined ranks in a pipping of boneflutes and dropping down off the side of their mounts with one heel hung in the the withers strap and their short bows flexing beneath the outstretched necks of the ponies until they had circled the company and cut their ranks in two and then rising up again like funhouse figures, some with nightmare faces painted on their breasts, ridding down the unhorsed Saxons and spearing and clubbing them and leaping from their mounts with knives and running about on the ground with a peculiar bandylegged like creatures driven to alien forms of locomotion and stripping the clothes from the dead and seizing them up by the hair and passing their blades about the skulls of the living and the dead alike and snatching aloft the bloody wigs and hacking and chopping at the naked bodies, ripping off limbs, heads, gutting the strange white torsos and holding up great handfuls of viscera, genitals, some of the savages so slathered up with gore they might have rolled in it like dogs and some who fell upon the dying and sodomized them with loud cries to their fellows. And now the horses of the dead came pounding out of the smoke and dust and circled with flapping leather and wild manes and eyes whited with fear like the eyes of the blind and some were feathered with arrows and some lanced through and stumbling and vomiting blood as they wheeled across the killing ground and clattered from sight again. Dust stanched the wet and naked heads of the scalped who with the fringe of hair beneath their wounds and tonsured to the bone now lay like maimed and naked monks in the bloodsoaked dust and everywhere the dying groaned and gibbered and horses lay screaming

Why not say that the meaning and purpose of the sexual powers is pleasure? Certainly sex is pleasurable, but there is nothing distinctive about that. In various ways and degrees, the exercise of every voluntary power is pleasurable. It is pleasurable to eat, pleasurable to breath, even pleasurable to flex the muscles of the leg. The problem is that eating is pleasurable even if I am eating too much, breathing is pleasurable even if I am sniffing glue, flexing the muscles of the leg is pleasurable even if I am kicking the dog. For a criterion of when it is good to enjoy each pleasure, one must look beyond the fact that it is a pleasure. Consider an analogy between sex and eating. The purpose of eating is to take in nutrition, but eating is pleasurable, so suppose that we were to say that the purpose of eating is pleasure, too. Then it would seem that any way of eating that gives pleasure is good, whether it is suitable for nutrition or not. Certain ancient Romans are said to have thought this way. To prolong the pleasure of their feasts, they purged between courses. I hope it is not difficult to recognize that such behavior is disordered. The more general point I am trying to make is that although we find pleasure in exercising our sexual powers, pleasure is not their purpose; it only provides a motive for using these powers, and a dangerous one, too, which may at times conflict with their true purposes and steer us wrong. Besides, to think of pleasure as the purpose of intercourse is to treat our bodies merely as tools for sending agreeable sensations to our minds. They are of inestimably greater dignity than that, for they are part of what we are.

The moment before the gun goes off is always the most silent. Your world is quiet, but it is not calm. The runners around you bounce and flex and relax, flex and relax. They slap their faces for motivation, they look to the sky and mumble prayers to God. The coaches shout instructions and the teammates cheer as do the fans in the stands, but you cannot hear because you are somewhere else, somewhere deep inside, preparing your body to deal with the coming pain, the breath sucked from you, your limbs on fire and the voices that won't let you stop. They say keep moving, it gets better, it will be better if you can only break through this pain. They say there's another life after this torture, a new level, just keep breathing. Then the gunshot and your body no longer belongs to you. Yes, you are there, you are present but you are no longer in control. Whatever happens from this point happens and all you can do, all you must do now is breathe, keep breathing, don't lose your nerve, don't choke, no matter how much it hurts, don't stop breathing otherwise it will all be over before it's time. They cheer for me. I can't breathe. Harvard isn't going to know what hit them, I hear. I can't breathe. We are the champions, I hear, we are the champions, they sing around me. I can't breathe. Your personal best by a long shot. That's Coach Erickson's voice. That's my boy. It's my father. It's like I'm dying, trying to hold on. My body says oh no, and my knees buckle but so many arms are around me, they hold me up. The voices they say breathe, keep breathing. They bring me water, they bring me something sweet and then they lay me down in the soft grass where I feel the blades against my tingling skin.

A slow smile curved his lips. “Lillian, I’ve wanted you every moment since I first held you in my arms. And it has nothing to do with your damned perfume. However”— he inhaled the scent one last time before replacing the tiny stopper—“ I do know what the secret ingredient is.” Lillian stared at him with wide eyes. “You do not!” “I do,” he said smugly. “What a know-all,” Lillian exclaimed with laughing annoyance. “Perhaps you’re guessing at it, but I assure you that if I can’t figure out what it is, you certainly couldn’t—” “I know conclusively what it is,” he informed her. “Tell me, then.” “No. I think I’ll let you discover it on your own.” “Tell me!” She pounced on him eagerly, thumping him hard on the chest with her fists. Most men would have been driven back by the solid blows, but he only laughed and held his ground. “Westcliff, if you don’t tell me this instant, I’ll—” “Torture me? Sorry, that won’t work. I’m too accustomed to it by now.” Lifting her with shocking ease, he tossed her onto the bed like a sack of potatoes. Before she could move an inch, he was on top of her, purring and laughing as she wrestled him with all her might. “I’ll make you give in!” She hooked a leg around his and shoved hard at his left shoulder. The childhood years of fighting with her boisterous brothers had taught her a few tricks. However, Marcus countered every move easily, his body a mass of steely, flexing muscles. He was very agile, and surprisingly heavy. “You’re no challenge at all,” he teased, allowing her to roll atop him briefly. As she sought to pin him, he twisted and levered himself over her once more. “Don’t say that’s your best effort?” “Cocky bastard,” Lillian muttered, renewing her efforts. “I could win… if I didn’t have a gown on…” “Your wish may yet be granted,” he replied, smiling down at her.

Moving with infinite reluctance, Westcliff gingerly put his arms around her. The escalation of Lillian’s heartbeat seemed to drive the air from her lungs. One of his broad hands settled between her tense shoulder blades, while the other pressed at the small of her back. He touched her with undue care, as if she were made of some volatile substance. And as he brought her body gently against his, her blood turned to liquid fire. Her hands fluttered in search of a resting place until her palms grazed the back of his coat. Flattening her palms on either side of his spine, she felt the flex of hard muscle even through the layers of silk-lined broadcloth and linen. “Is this what you were asking for?” he murmured, his low voice at her ear. Lillian’s toes curled inside her slippers as his hot breath tickled her hairline. She responded with a wordless nod, feeling crestfallen and mortified as she realized that she had lost her gamble. Westcliff was going to show her how easy it was to release her, and then he would forever afterward subject her to ruthless mockery. “You can let me go now,” she whispered, her mouth twisting in self-derision. But Westcliff didn’t move. His dark head dropped a little lower, and he drew in a breath that wasn’t quite steady. Lillian perceived that he was taking in the scent of her throat…absorbing it with slow but ever-increasing greed, as if he were an addict inhaling lungfuls of narcotic smoke. The perfume, she thought in bemusement. So it hadn’t been her imagination. It was working its magic again. But why did Westcliff seem to be the only man to respond to it? Why— Her thoughts were scattered as the pressure of his hands increased, causing her to shiver and arch. “Damn it,” Westcliff whispered savagely. Before she quite knew what was happening, he had pushed her up against a nearby wall. His fiercely accusing gaze moved from her dazed eyes to her parted lips, his silent struggle lasting another burning second, until he suddenly gave in with a curse and brought their mouths together with an impatient tug.

She squirmed with delight, making him groan. Her wriggling must test him. Some devil made her move again. "Jesus, Grace," he gritted out. "You try my limits." "I hope so," she purred. He felt so wonderful inside her. As if he supplied part of her that she only realized now she'd lacked. She bent her knees and tilted her hips so he went deeper. She ran her hands down the tense muscles of his back. He flexed under her touch. "That felt good," she said breathlessly. "Do it again." "If I start, I won't stop." his voice was rough. "Start." She shifted again and felt him shudder. "Grace," he grated out. He withdrew, then plunged into her. Her nails sank into his back and her womb clenched in welcome. With deliberate slowness, he set the familiar rhythm. Except none of this was familiar. Every time he settled in her body, he forged an emotional connection that nothing could sever. On and on he went. Possession. Release. Possession. Release. Every thrust another link in the chain that bound her to him. Eventually his inhuman control fractured and he drove into her faster, more wildly. With every thrust, her excitement built. It echoed how she'd felt when he kissed her between the legs. That had been wonderful, astounding.But this was more powerful. Because he was with her. He pounded into her as though he meant to crush her. She didn't care. She never wanted this spiraling feeling to end. The storm swirled her higher and higher. Ecstasy poised her on a knife edge. She cried out and rose to meet him. He changed the angle of his penetration and went even deeper. The pleasure edged close to pain. She tensed as he pressed hard inside her. Then her womb opened and she took all of him. Her inner muscles convulsed into spasms of delight and she screamed. Violent rapture flung her against the doors of heaven itself. She was lost in a hot, dark world where nothing existed except Matthew. All she could do was hold him and prayed she survived. Through the tempest that blasted her, he reached his climax. He groaned and convulsed in her arms. For this moment, he was unequivocally hers and she reveled in the possession.

A tearing agony went through Lillian’s right thigh, and she would have stumbled to the ground had it not been for the support of his arm around her back. “Oh, damn it,” she said shakily, clutching at her thigh. A twisting spasm in her thigh muscle caused her to groan through her clenched teeth. “Damn, damn—” “What is it?” St. Vincent asked, swiftly lowering her to the path. “A leg cramp?” “Yes…” Pale and shaking, Lillian caught at her leg, while her face contorted with agony. “Oh God, it hurts!” He bent over her, frowning with concern. His quiet voice was threaded with urgency. “Miss Bowman…would it be possible for you to temporarily ignore everything you’ve heard about my reputation? Just long enough for me to help you?” Squinting at his face, Lillian saw nothing but an honest desire to relieve her pain, and she nodded. “Good girl,” he murmured, and gathered her writhing body into a half-sitting position. He talked swiftly to distract her, while his hand slipped beneath her skirts with gentle expertise. “It will take just a moment. I hope to God that no one happens along to see this—it looks more than a bit incriminating. And it’s doubtful that they would accept the traditional but somewhat overused leg-cramp excuse—” “I don’t care,” she gasped. “Just make it go away.” She felt St. Vincent’s hand slide lightly up her leg, the warmth of his skin sinking through the thin fabric of her knickers as he searched for the knotting, twitching muscle. “Here we are. Hold your breath, darling.” Obeying, Lillian felt him roll his palm strongly over the muscle. She nearly yelped at the burst of searing fire in her leg, and then suddenly it eased, leaving her weak with relief. Relaxing back against his arm, Lillian let out a long breath. “Thank you. That’s much better.” A faint smile crossed his lips as he deftly tugged her skirts back over her legs. “My pleasure.” “That never happened to me before,” she murmured, flexing her leg cautiously. “No doubt it was a repercussion from your exploit in the sidesaddle. You must have strained a muscle.” “Yes, I did.” Color burnished her cheeks as she forced herself to admit, “I’m not used to jumping on sidesaddle— I’ve only done it astride.” His smile widened slowly. “How interesting,” he murmured. “Clearly my experiences with American girls have been entirely too limited. I didn’t realize you were so delightfully colorful.” “I’m more colorful than most,” she told him sheepishly, and he grinned. -Lillian & Sebastian St. Vincent

She said, “Why can’t you see that people care for you?” She said, “I care for you.” “I know that you care. But…” He searched her face. “Anyone would, for a friend.” “You’re more than a friend.” “On the battlefield, you stayed--” “Of course I did.” “You have a strong sense of honor. You always have. I think you think you owe me something.” “I stayed because I love you.” He flinched and looked away. “You don’t mean that.” “Yes, I do.” The night outside seemed to swell against the tent. The lamp smelled like a hot stone. His face slowly opened. He touched her hand as it pressed against his heart. His caress was light, secret, almost unsure of her knuckles, the thin tendons as strong as bone. She felt him become sure. There was no sound when he kissed her. None when she unthreaded the ties of his shirt and found his skin. He grasped her dagger belt, flexed his fingers once around the leather, then simply held on. He whispered something into her mouth that was almost a word. It lost its shape, became something else. He let go. She heard the brush of linen as he drew the shirt over his head, his fingertips grazing the tent’s sloped ceiling as if for balance. His ribs were bound with gauze, his body marked by scars. Old ones, badly healed and raised. Others, pink and fresh. His shoulders bore pale gouges; they looked like sets of claws, almost deliberate, like tattoos. Curious, she touched them. He bit his lip. “That hurts?” “No.” “What is this? What happened?” “I’ll tell you,” he said. “Later.” His hand strayed over her shirt, which was eastern, as Arin’s was, with no collar. Threadbare in places. Frayed at the neck. He worried the cloth there, rubbing it between fingers and thumb. Then he drew her shirt open, and she felt as if reality had grown larger and tremulous: a drop of water on the point of a pin. “Kestrel…I’ve never--” She whispered that this was new for her, too. There was a long pause. “Are you certain you want--” “Yes.” “Because…” “Arin.” “Maybe you--” “Arin.” She laughed, and then so did he, aware that they’d already found the bed. Words had fallen away. Maybe the words lay on the earth, nestled among clothes, curled into the undone dagger belt. Maybe later, language would be recovered and pieced together. Made to make sense. But not now. Now there was touch and taste and sound. When he eased into her, she was glad for the burning lamp, the fuzzy glow of it on his skin. The way it showed the black fall of his wet hair, the flesh and scars that made him. She didn’t look away.

His shining skin drew my attention and I became enslaved to the need to explore every inch of his flesh. His body brought on an ache in me I hadn't known for a long time. Since my ex had dumped me after I'd given him my virginity, I hadn't done more than fool around with guys. The desire to go further had never really risen again. Not until Orion. And I had never, in all my life, wanted anyone like I wanted him. His beard had been trimmed even shorter for the party, revealing the powerful cut of his jaw and that divine dimple in his cheek. He'd brought me here, alone, cordoning me off from the world. And the blazing intensity in his gaze made me hope that maybe he was about to drop the teacher act for one night and admit he was drawn to me too. He glanced above us and his brow furrowed heavily. “Up there are a thousand reasons why we can't be together.” I swallowed thickly, goosebumps rushing along my skin in response to his words. I pressed my back to the cool tiles of the pool and the goosebumps spread deeper, evoking a shiver across my body. “I'm bound by so many rules I could waste the rest of your evening telling you them,” he said. “Skip them then, sir.” A smile played around my mouth as a thrill danced in my chest. He moved closer and rested his hands either side of me on the wall. “I think the time for sirs and professors is over, don't you?” No answer came from my lips, but my body gave it to him as I reached out and did the one thing I'd dreamed about the most since this all-consuming crush had first started. I brushed my fingers across the stubble on his jaw, resting my thumb over the dimple in his cheek, feeling the tiny rivet in his skin. The distance parting us suddenly felt like too much; the air was racing over my exposed flesh, chilling me to the core. I needed the heat of his hands, the red hot press of his stomach and chest. “Lance,” I breathed and his pupils dilated as I met his gaze. He devoured the space between us and I experienced pure sin as his mouth crushed against mine. It was gunpowder meeting fire and the result was an all-consuming blaze which burned me up from the inside out. A desperate noise escaped me that would have made me blush if I’d had any scrap of self-awareness left. But that was all it took for him to slam into me full force, hitching my legs up around his waist so fast it made my head spin. My hands finally got their deepest wish and roamed down the plains of all that gloriously golden skin. But it wasn't enough just to feel the flex of his muscles, I needed more and I took it by scratching against his beautiful shell, wanting to break beneath flesh and bone and burrow my way deeper. I need more. (Darcy)

When an ovulating woman offers herself to you, she's the choicest morsel on the planet. Her nipples are already sharp, her labia already swollen, her spine already undulating. Her skin is damp and she pants. If you touch the center of her forehead with your thumb she isn't thinking about her head—she isn't thinking at all, she's imagining, believing, willing your hand to lift and turn and curve, cup the back of her head. She's living in a reality where the hand will have no choice but to slide down that soft, flexing muscle valley of the spine to the flare of strong hips, where the other hand joins the first to hold both hip bones, immobilize them against the side of the counter, so that you can touch the base of her throat gently with your lips and she will whimper and writhe and let the muscles in her legs go, but she won't fall, because you have her. She'll be feeling this as though it's already happening, knowing absolutely that it will, because every cell is alive and crying out, Fill me, love me, cherish me, be tender, but, oh God, be sure. She wants you to want her. And when her pupils expand like that, as though you have dropped black ink into a saucer of cool blue water, and her head tips just a little, as though she's gone blind or has had a terrible shock or maybe just too much to drink, to her she is crying in a great voice, Fuck me, right here, right now against the kitchen counter, because I want you wrist-deep inside me. I hunger, I burn, I need. It doesn't matter if you are tired, or unsure, if your stomach is hard with dread at not being forgiven. If you allow yourself one moment's distraction—a microsecond's break in eye contact, a slight shift in weight—she knows, and that knowledge is a punch in the gut. She will back up a step and search your face, and she'll feel embarrassed—a fool or a whore—at offering so blatantly what you're not interested in, and her fine sense of being queen of the world will shiver and break like a glass shield hit by a mace, and fall around her in dust. Oh, it will still sparkle, because sex is magic, but she will be standing there naked, and you will be a monster, and the next time she feels her womb quiver and clench she'll hesitate, which will confuse you, even on a day when there is no dread, no uncertainty, and that singing sureness between you will dissolve and very slowly begin to sicken and die. The body knows. I listened to the deep message—but carefully, because at some point the deep message also must be a conscious message. Active, not just passive, agreement. I took her hand and guided the wok back down to the gas burner. Yes, her body still said, yes. I turned off the gas, but slowly, and now she reached for me.

Jackaby was still engrossed in his examination when I came back inside. “Books. Books. Just books,” he was muttering. Jenny was hovering by the window. I joined her. “How did you manage it, by the way?” I asked. “All those Bibles, all across town? It is a remarkable feat.” “It looks more impressive than it is,” she said, still not meeting my eyes. “I borrowed Jackaby’s special satchel, the one that holds anything. The whole pile took just one trip. The real trick was keeping myself solid all the way home. That’s the bit I’m really proud of—” She turned to face me. “Oh, Abigail, it was amazing. People saw me!” “People saw you?” “I was in disguise, of course. I wore my long coat and gloves, and I had that floppy white hat on, so they didn’t see much, but still—people saw me and they didn’t gasp or make a scene. Someone even mumbled Good day to me as I was crossing the footbridge! It was exhilarating! I have never been so excited to have somebody see me—actually see me—and not care at all!” She glanced at Jackaby. “Although you would think I would be used to it by now.” “Jenny, that is absolutely amazing!” I said. “It is, isn’t it?” she said wistfully. “Just a little bit, at least? Oh, Abigail, I’m exhausted, I’m not ashamed to tell you. I had planned on setting my spoils out in nice triumphant rows when I got back, but it was all I could do to hold myself intact by then. Solidity is sort of like flexing a muscle, except the muscle is in your mind, and your mind is really just an abstract concept. I was basically flexing my entire body into existence the whole way home. But did it merit so much as a Good job, Jenny from that infuriating man?” Jackaby surfaced from his perusal and looked up at last. His cloud gray eyes found focus on Jenny. From his expression, I couldn’t tell if he had been following our conversation or not. “Completely unexceptional,” he said. “Nothing at all in this batch. We will need to scrutinize them more closely, of course, just to be sure. Oh, and Miss Cavanaugh . . .” She raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You performed . . . quite adequately,” he said, “despite expectations.” Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it again. Her face fluttered through a series of potential reactions. Finally she just threw up her hands and vanished from sight with a muffled whuph of air closing into the space where she suddenly wasn’t. “What in heaven’s name was all that?” said Jackaby. “Exquisite frustration, I believe, sir.” “Ah. Right.” He slumped into the desk chair and began to fidget absently with the spine of one of the Bibles. “Miss Cavanaugh is a singular and exceptional spirit, you know.” “Only a suggestion, sir, but that is precisely the sort of thing you might consider saying when she is still present and corporeal.

Holy gallnipper, how long till we hit the magic trail? It’s gloomier than my own funeral I here.” Camille adjusted the bag’s rope and looked at Ira. “Don’t even joke about that.” Since the moment they’d entered the forest, she’d felt like something was listening. Like they’d woken some sleeping creature, and now it followed them with silent cunning. The deafening chants had not returned to pierce her eardrums, but danger still felt close. A few paces ahead of her, Oscar peeled away another cobweb, the octagonal spinning so massive Camille didn’t even want to imagine the size of the spider that had created it. “Mate, you got a stomach made of iron,” Ira said. A flash of orange and black swept in front of Camille’s eyes and she felt an odd tug on her dress. She looked down and froze. A spider with a body the size of her first flexed its hairy legs on her skirt. It started to scuttle up. Her scream echoed through the forest as she swiped the spider off. It hit the marshy ground and scampered under a log. Oscar grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. “Did it bite you?” She shook her head, arms and legs stiff with fear. “I’ve never seen one so bloody big,” Ira said, running past the log as though the spider would leap out at him. Oscar started walking again, his hand on the small of her back. She exhaled with more than one kind of relief. He was at least still concerned for her. As they started to pick up their pace, another black critter swung down from a nearby tree. Camille say it flying toward them, but her warning shout was too slow. The spider landed on Oscar’s shoulder, fat and furry and swift as its legs darted up his neck. Oscar shouted an obscenity as he whacked the giant from his skin. Camille heard it thud against the leafy forest floor. Unfazed, the spider quickly sprang to its finger-length legs and darted toward her boot. Her shrieks echoed again as it leaped onto her hem. With his foot, Ira knocked the spider back to the ground, and before it could bounce back up, Oscar smashed it with a stick. The squashed giant oozed yellow-and-green blood onto the marshy ground. Camille gagged and tasted her breakfast oats in the back of her mouth. “What in all wrath are those monsters?” Ira panted as he twisted around, looking for more. Camille looked up to the trees to try and spot any others that might be descending from glossy webbing. Terror paralyzed her as her eyes landed on a colony of glistening webs in the treetops. An endless number of black dots massed above their heads, dangling from tree limbs. Oscar and Ira followed her horrified stare. “Run,” Oscar whispered. Camille sprinted forward, her skin and scalp tingling with imaginary spider legs. The bag of provisions slammed against her back, tugging at her neck, but she didn’t care. They didn’t slow down until the gigantic spiderwebs grew sparse and the squawk of birds took over.

A whimper escaped her as he slid low between her thighs, his head bending to the swollen place he had been tormenting with his fingers. He put his mouth on her, licking along the delicate, salty strait, spreading her with his thumbs. She tried to sit bolt-upright, but fell back against the pillows as he found what he wanted, his tongue strong and wet. She was spread beneath him like a pagan sacrifice, illuminated by the daylight that now flooded the room. Merripen worshipped her with hot, glassy licks, savoring the taste of her pleasured flesh. Moaning, she closed her legs around his head, and he turned deliberately to nibble and lick at one pale inner thigh, then the other. Feasting on her. Wanting everything. Win curled her fingers desperately in his hair, lost to shame as she guided him back, her body arching wordlessly...here, please, more, more, now...and she groaned as he fastened his mouth over her with a fast, flicking rhythm. Pleasure seized her, wrenching an astonished cry from her, holding her stiff and paralyzed for excruciating seconds. Every movement and measure and pulse of the universe had distilled to the compelling, slippery heat, riveted there on that crucial place, and then it all released, the feeling and tension shattering exquisitely, and she was racked with hard, blissful shudders. Win relaxed helplessly as the spasms faded. She was filled with glowing weariness, a sense of peace too pervasive to allow movement. Merripen let go of her just long enough to undress completely. Naked and aroused, he came back to her. He gathered her up with brute, masculine need, settling over her. She lifted her arms to him with a drowsy murmur. His back was tough and sleek beneath her fingers, the muscles twitching eagerly at her touch. His head descended, his shaven cheek rasping against hers. She met his power with utter surrender, flexing her knees and tilting her hips to cradle him. He pushed gently at first. The innocent flesh resisted, smarting at the intrusion. He thrust more strongly and Win caught her breath at the burning pain of his entrance. Too much of him, too hard, too deep. She writhed in reaction, and he buried himself heavily and pinned her down, gasping for her to be still, telling her to wait, he wouldn't move, it would be better. They both stilled, breathing hard. "Should I stop?" Merripen whispered raggedly, his face taut. Even now in this flash point of need, he was concerned for her. Understanding what it had cost him to ask, how much he needed her, Win was overwhelmed with love. "Don't even think of stopping now," she whispered back. Reaching down his lean flanks, she stroked him in shy encouragement. He groaned and began to move, his entire body trembling as he pressed within her. Although every thrust caused a sharp burn where they were joined, Win tried to pull him even deeper. The feeling of having him inside her went far beyond the pain or pleasure. It was necessary.

I don’t know what to say.” My voice was raspy. “You don’t have to say anything. The medics already cleaned and took care of these.” “No,” I said, still holding on to his hand. “I don’t know how to thank you for saving my life. Again.” “Stop thanking me,” he ground out. “I have to,” I said, looking straight into his eyes. “If you hadn’t been there…” My sentence trailed away. We both knew what would’ve happened. “But I was,” he said softly. “About that…” I began, wetting my lips. “Why were you there?” “I needed to talk to you about something.” “What?” He withdrew his hand, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans and pulling out a folded piece of paper. “About this.” It was a plain white piece of paper, the kind that anyone would use in a printer. I unfolded it, noticing there was some kind of writing on the inside. When I got to the last fold, I glanced up at Holt who was wearing a very grim expression. Clearly, whatever this was wasn’t good. I pulled it open and stared down, my brain not really comprehending what it saw. I had to read the line over three times before I really got what it was saying. My stomach clenched. My hands trembled slightly. You should have let her die. “Where did you get this?” I finally asked. “It was on my truck when I left work earlier tonight.” The paper fluttered to the floor slowly, joining the towel by my feet. “So you got this before the fire tonight?” “Yes. It’s the reason I came looking for you.” “You didn’t say that.” “I figured you were dealing with enough at the moment.” “Did you tell the police?” He shook his head slowly. “But why?” “I wanted to talk to you first. See if you knew what it meant.” “It means someone wants me dead!” I shouted. My voice seemed to echo through the hallway. “You’re not going to die,” he growled. “I shouldn’t have come here,” I said, looking frantically around. “I need to go.” I spun around to rush into the living room, but the towel was tangled around my feet and I tripped, falling toward the floor. Holt caught me around the waist, pulling me back so I was up against the solid wall of his body. The heat of him was delicious and it radiated around my fear-chilled body. “You’re not going anywhere,” he rumbled in my ear. I struggled against him, but it was stupid. He outweighed me by a hundred pounds, easily, and was likely a foot taller than me. If he didn’t want to let me go, then I was pretty much stuck in his embrace. I slumped against him. “I’m putting you in danger by being here.” “You’re in more danger when I’m not around.” I couldn’t stop my snort. “There goes that ego of yours again.” His chuckle vibrated my ear. Chill bumps raced over my scalp. “All I’m saying is that clearly this guy is a pyro. My job is fire. You’re better off here than alone.” “But what about you?” “You let me worry about me.” I tried to wiggle out of his embrace so I could look at him. He only loosened his hold enough to allow me to spin in his arms. I had to tip my head back so I could stare up at him. “Do you have a death wish?” “I’m not going to die. Especially since life just got a hell of a lot more interesting.” His fingers flexed against my hip.

Sadly not. I can only feel the depth of your power, the strength of it. And you’re strong. Once you learn to harness it, I have the feeling that I won’t be able to take an ounce of it from you without permission.” My mouth slipped into a smile and her gaze dropped to trace the movement, making my dick get all kinds of hopeful ideas. “Can you just get this over with? I have a lot of studying to do.” She tilted her chin in the angriest offering I'd ever seen but that wasn't going to cut it today.What would it even take for her to want me to bite her? I'd have given a whole lot to hear her beg me for it that was for sure. “Don’t you want to hear my proposition, Tory?” I asked in a seductive tone as I shifted closer to her, wanting to feel the heat of her body against mine. “I can’t imagine anything that you could offer me to make me a willing participant in your dinner schedule,” she deadpanned. “There may be one thing,” I said, teasing her, tempting her. Her eyes lit angrily and I could tell she was about to start cursing me or something equally aggressive, so I took a final step forward, caught her chin between my fingers and pressed my mouth to hers. Tory sucked in a breath of surprise and I slid my tongue between the opening in her lips, kissing her roughly and dominating her mouth in a demand for her to give in to me. She raised her hands to my chest, palms flat against my pecs and for a moment I was sure she was going to shove me back with either her strength or her magic. But then the moment passed and instead of fighting, she surrendered, her hands caressing instead of pushing me away, tongue moving with mine and lips devouring. And she tasted so fucking sweet. I groaned deep in the back of my throat as I dropped my hands to her waist and walked her backwards until her ass hit the desk there. I lifted her up easily, parting her thighs as I stepped between them and my cock throbbed as I drove it against her panties, stealing a little friction and loving the way she arched into the movement like she was aching for more of me. Her hands banded around my neck and she pulled me closer, kissing me hard and heatedly as her hips flexed and she ground herself against my solid cock I moved my hand to her knee, tracing a line along the top of her long socks with my thumb before shifting it up her silken skin. Tory kissed me harder, her fingers pushing through my hair as she moaned between brushes of our tongues as I kept moving my hand higher, half expecting her to stop me while my heart thundered harder for every second where she didn't. I pushed my fingers beneath her skirt and she moaned again, her other leg hooking around my ass and dragging me nearer in a demand I was more than willing to give in to. I grinned against her lips, loving how quickly she'd fallen to my desire, but the moment I did, she sucked my bottom lip between her teeth and bit down hard to remind me of exactly what kind of animal she was. I jerked back before she could spill my blood, laughing at the fire in her and pausing with my hand almost grazing her panties and the temptation of what lay beneath them. “Why?” she asked breathlessly, suspicion colouring her green eyes and making me want to offer her the truth. “You can just take what you want from me. So why kiss me?” (Caleb pov)

Tell me what happened.” “He was here,” I said, hoarse. “He lit the can on fire and took the extinguisher nearby. I ran to the back to get the other and he pushed one of the shelves over on me.” The muscles in Holt’s jaw clenched and flexed beneath the stubble that lined his face. “Do you ever shave?” I wondered out loud. He smiled and rubbed at the gruffness. “I just trim it.” I nodded. “Do you like it?” he asked. Once again, I touched him, brazenly running my hand along his jaw. It was soft and rough at the same time—the perfect balance. “Yeah, I do.” “Good to know,” he said, taking my hand, linking our fingers together, and then his face grew serious again. “Obviously, I avoided the shelf.” “Did you get a look at his face?” I cringed at the hopefulness in his voice. “No,” I admitted. “I tried, but he kicked me.” His eyes went murderous. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. “He. Kicked. You,” he ground out, making each word into a pointed sentence. This time I kept my mouth shut. “Where?” he demanded. I wasn’t going to reply, but his eyes narrowed and I knew he would eventually make me tell him. I was going to have to tell the cops anyway. Weariness floated over me at the thought of enduring yet another one of their hours-long interrogations. I lifted my wrist, the bandage just dangling from the area now, not covering or protecting a thing. The waves of hatred that rolled off him made me sincerely glad that all that emotion wasn’t directed at me. He stared at my delicately injured skin (some of it had gotten torn in the struggle and was slick with some sort of puss… Eww, gross), and I kind of thought the top of his head might explode. I was going to reassure him that I was okay, but the police rushed inside, followed closely behind by a medic with a first aid kit. “She needs medical attention,” Holt barked, authority ringing through his tone. The medic hurried to comply, slamming down his kit and springing it open. Holt dropped his hand onto the man’s shoulder and squeezed. “Bryant, I don’t even want to see a flick of pain cross her face when you touch her.” Bryant looked at me and swallowed thickly. “Yes, Chief.” “Chief?” I said, looking up at Holt. “I’ll be right back,” he said to me in a much gentler tone and then moved away. Bryant was fumbling with his supplies, Holt’s words clearly making him nervous. “Relax.” I tried to soothe him. “He’s just on edge about what happened. I’m fine. I promise to smile the whole time you fix me up.” “But it’s going to hurt,” he blurted apologetically. “Yeah, I know. Just do it. I’ll be fine.” That seemed to calm him a little, and he got to work. It did hurt. Incredibly. I felt Holt’s stare and I glanced up, giving him a fake smile. He rolled his eyes and turned back to one of the officers. “Hey,” I said to the medic. “Why did you call him chief?” He gave me a quizzical look. “Arkain’s the Wilmington Fire Chief.” My eyes jerked back to Holt where he stood talking to the police force and the firefighters that responded to the call. His firefighters. “I didn’t realize,” I murmured. Bryant nodded. “I guess I can understand that. He’s a humble guy. Doesn’t like to throw his position around.” I made a sound of agreement as he applied something to my wrist that made my entire body jerk. I bit down on my lip to keep from crying out. “I’m sorry!” he said a little too loudly. Holt stiffened and he turned, looking at me over his shoulder. I blinked back the tears that flooded my eyes and waved at him with my free hand. He said a few more words to the men standing around him and then he left them, coming to stand over poor Bryant. I never realized how intimidating he was when he wanted to be.

This water is greatly valued,” Kassandra said. “Event today, we bring ewers of it to the temples for blessings.” She looked at him again, a bit anxiously, he thought, but as before the impression was swiftly gone. Bending, she cupped her palm, caught sparkling drops of water and drank. The liquid slipped down her throat, cool, clear and incredibly pure. She drank a little more and felt the tension easing from her body, little by little, almost imperceptibly at first, but gathering in strength with each passing moment. “Why don’t you try it?” she suggested and stood aside so that he could do so. As Royce bent to catch the water in his hand, Kassandra almost reached out to stop him but drew back at the last moment. He was a strong man, it would still be his voice. The water was merely…encouragement. From time immemorial, Akoran husbands and wives had enjoyed a goblet of the water taken from the buried temple on their wedding night. Years later, old couples basking in the sun would remember it fondly and share secret looks of tender passion. Of course, it was also possible that the water did nothing and all was mere legend. She wanted to believe that, for it eased her conscience, but the heat seeping through her made her uncertain. She stared at Royce as he drank, watching the ripple of the water ease down his throat. He was such a beautiful man, so perfectly formed in body and mind. The memory of him on the field at the Games, on horseback wearing only a kilt, his powerful muscles flexing as he threw the javelin, haunted her dreams. Ever since then, she had been living in a nightmare. Atreus…the danger to Akora…her own death the price to save both family and home…all seemed to close around her until she could scarcely breathe. Until the moment when she emerged from her desperate, futile quest for vision to see in Royce’s beloved face the future for which she yearned with all her heart. A future that in all likelihood was impossible. That being the case, was it so terribly wrong to steal a little happiness in the fleeting present?

She wanted to feel his hands and his mouth all over her, wanted him inside her, wanted to be so close she couldn’t tell where one of them ended and the other began. She felt as if she had morphed into someone else, some wild creature she didn’t even know. As if her body were some alien, newly unearthed part of her that she could no longer control. She didn’t notice when he slid her jeans and pink satin panties down over her hips, but roused a little when he dragged a small foil packet out of the wallet in his hip pocket and tore it open. She caught the sound of his zipper sliding down. A hand she didn’t recognize as her own reached out for him, wrapped around the thick, heavy weight of his sex, held him while he slid on the condom, then guided him between her parted legs. “God, Charity…” With a single deep thrust, Call buried himself inside her. The moment he did, she started to come. “Christ.” His muscles went rigid. In some vague corner of her mind, she realized he was fighting for control. Charity cried out his name and clung to his neck, unable to believe how quickly she had reached her peak. She knew the moment he gave up his struggle to hold himself back, felt him begin to move, felt the deep thrust and drag of his shaft against the walls of her passage. She felt the power of the man above her and the deep, saturating pleasure as a second climax shook her. Beneath her hands, hard muscle tightened and Call groaned. The sinews in his hips flexed and moved as he pumped himself inside her, then came with incredible force, his body going rigid, his shoulders glowing with a sheen of perspiration. For long seconds, neither of them moved. The only sound in the forest was the wind luffing through the trees, their labored breathing, and the soft thud of their heartbeats.

You needn’t have come to Hampshire in such a hurry.” “The threat of lawyers and Chancery Court impressed me with the need for haste,” he said darkly. Perhaps her telegram had been a bit dramatic. “I wasn’t really going to bring layers into it. I only wanted to gain your attention.” His reply was soft. “You always have my attention.” Kathleen wasn’t certain how to take his meaning. Before she could ask, the latch of the bathroom door clicked. The wood panels trembled as someone began to push his way in. Kathleen’s eyes flew open. She wedged her hands against the door, her nerves stinging in horror. A violent splash erupted behind her as Devon leaped from the bathtub and flattened a hand on the door to keep it from opening farther. His other hand slid around her to cover her mouth. That was unnecessary--Kathleen couldn’t have made a sound to save her life. She quivered in every limb at the feel of the large, steaming male at her back. “Sir?” came the valet’s puzzled voice. “Confound it, have you forgotten how to knock?” Devon demanded. “Don’t burst into a room unless it’s to tell me that the house is on fire.” Distantly Kathleen wondered if she might swoon. She was fairly certain that Lady Berwick would have expected it of her in such circumstances. Unfortunately her mind remained intractably awake. She swayed, her balance uncertain, and his body automatically compensated, hard muscles flexing to support her. He was pressed all along her, hot water seeping through the back of her riding habit. With every breath, she dew in the scents of soap and heat. Her heart faltered between every beat, too weak, too fast. Dizzily she focused on the large hand braced against the door. His skin was faintly tawny, the kind that would brown easily in the sun. One of his knuckles was scraped and raw--from lifting the carriage wheel, she guessed. The nails were short and scrupulously clean, but ink stains lingered in faint shadows on the sides of two fingers. “I beg your pardon, my lord,” the valet said. With an overdone respect that hinted at sarcasm, he added, “I’ve never known you to be modest before.” “I’m an aristocrat now,” Devon said. “We prefer not to flaunt our assets.

I had this awareness of Elly, this pleasant, physical recognition of her, which made me conscious of my own body whenever we talked. Like in those TV movies when there's a kid inside a robot moving levers to make the robot arms extend and the robot knees flex, and things go pretty smoothly until the kid gets nervous and pulls the wrong lever and the knee comes up for a handshake and the fingers open when they're supposed to close. It's like there's a second self inside your regular self and it's constantly going, "Now take the ice cubes from Elly. Now smile." It's a perpetual monologue inside your head, which is why it can be hard to make conversation with the girl you're actually talking to.

He shifted over her, redistributing his weight. He was so hard all over, pressing against her soft flesh. His muscled chest flattened her breasts. His knee wedged her thighs apart. And then that hard, eagerly thrusting organ she'd brazenly observed and admired last night... he pressed it against her sex. Pleasure rocketed through her. Intense. Consuming. Like nothing she'd ever known. She moaned, deeply and lustily. Because she wanted more. More of his hardness, his heat. More of this enticing friction rubbing her through that cool, smooth linen. He gave her just what she craved. He set a rhythm, slow and steady, rocking against her as he kissed her throat and nuzzled her linen-sheathed breasts. "Yes?" he prompted, sucking her earlobe into his mouth. "Yes." "More?" "More." "Tell me with your hands now. Hold fast to me. Move with me." She clung to him, shameless, sliding her hands around his shoulders. Her arousal only climbed as she felt the flex and strain of his muscles beneath her palms. He was laboring so hard, and for her. All for her. She loved feeling the strength in his body as he moved over her, rubbed against her. Again and again and again. Soon, he had her moaning with every delicious stroke. The louder she called to him, the more resounding his response. The mattress joined the erotic symphony, creaking in time with his strong, rhythmic thrusts.