Foot Rub Quotes

Okay. Let's see what we've got." He lifted up her foot and said, "Well, what we've got here is a freakin' boat." Really?" She slammed her heel against the side of his face, snapping his head to one side. "How big are they now, Mitch?" Rubbing the abused side of his face, "Dainty little elf feet?" "Exactly.

The trouble with chronic pain is that it is so easy to become accustomed to it, both mentally and physically. At first it's absolutely agonizing; it's the only thing you think about, like a rock in your shoe that rubs your foot raw with every step. Then the constant rubbing, the pain and the limp all become part of the status quo, the occasional stabbing pain just a reminder. You are so set to endure, hunched against it - and when it starts to ease, you don't really notice, until the absence washes over you like a balm.

I walked over to Drake and stomped on his foot. Hard. "What will I give you to help me? What will I give you?" He stood on one leg rubbing his foot, grinning a grin so steamy, it almost melted my underwear. "I never doubted you would defeat her. You are my mate. You could do no less." I pointed a finger at him. "You are too arrogant for your own good. I officially de-mate you. Go away. I never want to see you again. Except maybe tonight. Naked. Your place. But after that, no more.

The smell of it. The feel of it." He rubbed one hand up and down the stained sheath of his sword, making a faint swishing sound. "War is honest. There's no lying to it. You don't have to say sorry here. Don't have to hide. You cannot. If you die? So what? You die among friends. Among worthy foes. You die looking the Great Leveller in the eye. If you live? Well, lad that's living, isn't it? A man isn't truly alive until he's facing death." Whirrun stamped his foot into the sod. "I love war!

Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone shakes from the ripple of a thousand butterflies inside a single stomach. Somewhere someone is packing their bags to see the world with someone else. Somewhere someone is reaching through the most terrifying few feet of space to hold the hand of someone else. Somewhere someone is watching someone else’s chest rise and fall with the breath of slumber. Somewhere someone is pouring ink like blood onto pages fighting to say the truth that has no words. Somewhere someone is waiting patient but exhausted to just be with someone else. Somewhere someone is opening their eyes to a sunrise in someplace they have never seen. Somewhere someone is pulling out the petals twisting the apple stem picking up the heads up penny rubbing the rabbits foot knocking on wood throwing coins into fountains hunting for the only clover with only 4 leaves skipping over the cracks snapping the wishbone crossing their fingers blowing out the candles sending dandelion seeds into the air ushering eyelashes off their thumbs finding the first star and waiting for 11:11 on their clock to spend their wishes on someone else. Somewhere someone is saying goodbye but somewhere someone else is saying hello. Somewhere someone is sharing their first or their last kiss with their or no longer their someone else. Somewhere someone is wondering if how they feel is how the other they feels about them and if both theys could ever become a they together. Somewhere someone is the decoder ring to all of the great mysteries of life for someone else. Somewhere someone is the treasure map. Somewhere someone thinks they love someone else exactly like I love you. Somewhere someone is wrong.

Willow's eyes flew to his, startled. They stared at each other. Her foot felt small under his hand; he rubbed it lightly with his thumb, feeling the silky heat of her skin, his pulse hammering through his veins. He felt like he was falling. All he could see was her. She looked closed to tears. "Alex--" Leaning across the corner of the table, he cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm. With a sob, Willow returned the kiss, throwing her arms around his neck. He opened his mouth, tasting her; felt her hair tumble down around his hands. Happiness burst through him, exploding through his chest. Willow. Oh, God. Willow.

I, too, stood on the sacred image. For a moment this foot was on his face. It was on the face of the man who has been ever in my thoughts, on the face that was before me on the mountains, in my wanderings, in prison, on the best and most beautiful face that any man can ever know, on the face of him whom I have always longed to love. Even now that face is looking at me with eyes of pity from the plaque rubbed flat by many feet. « Trample ! » said those compassionate eyes. « Trample ! Your foot suffers in pain ; it must suffer like all the feet that have stepped on this plaque. But that pain alone is enough. I understand your pain and your suffering. It is for that reason that I am here. » « Lord, I resented your silence. » « I was not silent. I suffered beside you. »

We need a man for this shit,” Grace said as I struggled with my keys. “We need men for sex and foot rubs,” I replied. “We can carry our own furniture.” “In

He began rubbing my foot again. "We'll fly out at four on Friday. Don't bother packing, I want you naked as much as possible next weekend.

Let me,” he offered. Elide was stunned enough that she indeed let him take the tin from her grip, and watched in silence as Lorcan dipped his fingers into the ointment. Then began rubbing it into her ankle. His thumb met the spot on her ankle where bone ground against bone. Elide let out a groan. He carefully, with near-reverence it seemed, began easing the ache away. These hands had slaughtered their way across kingdoms. Bore the faint scars to prove it. And yet he held her foot as if it were a small bird, as if it were something … holy.

The next year, when he’d won first prize for spelling and was given a wooden pencil-case whose sliding top doubled as a ruler, Mrs Wilson had rubbed the top of his head and praised him, as though he was one of her own. ‘You’re a credit to yourself,’ she’d told him. And for a whole day or more, Furlong had gone around feeling a foot taller, believing, in his heart, that he mattered as much as any other child.

Rubbing a clit to completion and sawing off someone’s foot seemed to use all the same muscles.

No one had told her this would happen, that her girlishness would give way to the solid force of wifehood, motherhood. The choices available were all imperfect. If you chose to be with someone, you often wanted to be alone. If you chose to be alone, you often felt the unbearable need for another body - not necessarily for sex, but just to rub your foot, to sit across the table, to drop his things around the room in a way that was maddening but still served as a reminder that he was there.

Ellie, my darling, please explain to me why the office has been flooded with calls about, and I quote"--she crooked her fingers in the air--"a vicious vampire on the loose, a crazy knife-wielding maniac, and oh, this one's my favorite--an assassin carrying a gun!" "I can explain." Sara folded her arms and tapped one fashionably clad foot. "Explain why you flashed not only a knife but a gun? I hope to God you didn't actually use either of them without authoriation because if the VPA gets ahold of it, we're screwed." Elena rubbed the back of her neck. "Exigent circumstances. He was trying to make me his bed buddy. I declined. He gave chase." Ranson chocked back what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "Why did you say no? It's been a dry spell of what, forever?" She threw him a dirty look before returning her gaze to Sara. "You know I'd never have considered using the gun otherwise." Sara heldup a hand. "How, exactly, did you 'decline' his offer?" "By slitting his throat.

Awww, look at him, G, he’s so precious when he’s sleeping.” “Like an angel.” “A really slutty angel.” “Wait—do angels even get laid? And if so, are heaven orgasms a million times better than earth orgasms? I bet yes.” “Uh-doy. Where do you think rainbows come from? Whenever you see a rainbow, that means an angel just came.” “Ah. Makes sense. Sort of like how whenever a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.” “Exactly like that.” I crank one eye open and direct it toward the doorway. “I can hear you, you know.” My annoyed voice puts an end to the most bizarre conversation I’ve ever heard. “Oh good, you’re up,” Logan says. “Of course I’m up,” I grumble, rubbing my eyes. “How am I supposed to sleep when you two fucktards are standing at the foot of my bed talking about angels blowing their loads?” Garrett snickers. “Like I’m the first one to ever wonder about that.” “Trust me, you are.

Of course I’m up,” I grumble, rubbing my eyes. “How am I supposed to sleep when you two fucktards are standing at the foot of my bed talking about angels blowing their loads?” Garrett snickers. “Like I’m the first one to ever wonder about that.

On Realizing He Was Starting to Shrink Due to Old Age “I’m five foot eleven! I used to be six feet, goddamn it. Boy, going bald and shitting infrequently ain’t enough for God, huh? Gotta rub it in, I guess.

One time I took my knife and sliced off the end of a hog’s nose, just like a piece of salami. The hog went crazy for a few seconds. Then it sat there looking kind of stupid. So I took a handful of salt and rubbed it on the wound. Now that hog really went nuts. It was my way of taking out frustration. Another time, there was a live hog in the pit. It hadn’t done anything wrong, wasn’t even running around. It was just alive. I took a three-foot chunk of pipe and I literally beat that hog to death. It was like I started hitting the hog and I couldn’t stop. And when I finally did stop, I’d expended all this energy and frustration, and I’m thinking what in God’s sweet name did I do.

Coconut,” I say. “You always smell coconut-y.” Then, because it’s dark in the van, and because I’m wiped out from all the panic and my guard is down, I add, “You always smell good.” “Sex Wax.” “What?” I sit up a little straighter. He reaches down to the floorboard and tosses me what looks like a plastic-wrapped bar of soap. I hold it up to the window to see the label in the streetlight. “Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax,” I read. “You rub it on the deck of your board,” he explains. “For traction. You know, so you don’t slip off while you’re surfing.” I sniff it. That’s the stuff, all right. “I bet your feet smell heavenly.” “You don’t have a foot fetish thing, do you?” he asks, voice playful. “I didn’t before, but now? Who knows.” The tires of the van veer off the road onto the gravelly shoulder, and he cuts the wheel sharply to steer back onto the pavement. “Oops.” We chuckle, both embarrassed. I toss the wax onto the floorboard. “Well, another mystery solved

APPROACH Rain is falling. Winter approaches. I drive towards it. In the slow rain. In the semi-darkness. Cello music is playing in the car. The deep sad sound of the cello. It almost swamps me. Routine endeavours to swamp me. The everyday paying of bills. But I paint men walking in a city of icebergs and crystal. Some of the icebergs are red. I paint a woman swimming in green wavy water. Surrounded by desert mesas. Bright orange in the sunlight. With darker orange for shadows. I paint two people. With purple and pink and yellow and blue circles overlapping the boundaries of their bodies. Dancing. Life is not ordinary. When I see you tonight I will press my lips to your eyelids. Each one in turn. I will rub my fingertips over the skin on the back of your hands and around your wrists. I will sigh. I will growl. I will whinny. I will gallop into your smile. One sharp foot after the other.

Slowly the lights of the torches in front of Merry flicked and went out, and he was walking in a darkness; and he thought: ‘This is a tunnel leading to a tomb; there we shall stay forever.’ But suddenly into his dream there fell a living voice. ‘Well, Merry! Thank goodness I have found you!’ He looked up and the mist before his eyes cleared a little. There was Pippin! They were face to face in a narrow lane, but for themselves it was empty. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Where is the king?’ He said. ‘And Eowyn?’ Then he stumbled and sat down on a doorstep and began to weep again. ‘They must have gone up into the Citadel,’ said Pippin. ‘I think you must have fallen asleep on your feet and taken the wrong turning. When we found out you were not with them, Gandalf sent me to look for you. Poor old Merry! How glad I am to see you again! But you are worn out, and I won’t bother you with any talk. But tell me, are you hurt, or wounded?’ ‘No,’ said Merry. ‘Well, no, I don’t think so. But I can’t use my right arm, Pippin, not since I stabbed him. And my sword burned away like a piece of wood.’ Pippin’s face was anxious. ‘Well, you had better come with me as quick as you can,’ he said. ‘I wish I could carry you. You aren’t fit to walk any further. They shouldn’t have let you walk at all; but you must forgive them. So many dreadful things have happened in the City, Merry, that one poor hobbit coming in from battle is easily overlooked.’ ‘It’s not always a misfortune being overlooked,’ said Merry. ‘I was overlooked just now by—no, no, I can’t speak of it. Help me, Pippin! It’s all going dark again, and my arm is so cold.’ ‘Lean on me, Merry lad!” said Pippin. ‘Come now. Foot by foot. It’s not far.’ ‘Are you going to bury me?’ said Merry. ‘No, indeed!’ said Pippin, trying to sound cheerful, though his heart was wrung with fear and pity. ‘No, we are going to the Houses of Healing.

That looks cozy," I said in a timid voice. He turned at the sound and-taking in my appearance-immediately spit hot chocolate all over. "What?" I demanded. With an obvious effort to compose himself, he forced his lips into a frown and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. "Breathtaking." I raised an eyebrow,and his lips started to quiver, and then there was no stopping him. The laughter came in waves. "Well,that's not exactly the reaction I was going for," I said. "Isn't it?" he said, gasping for breath. I put my hand on my hip and tapped my foot as he inhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. "Finished?" I asked. He shook his head. "I love you." "I'm sorry?" "You heard me." He stood and walked toward me. I glanced down at my sweats,and then back at his face. "Did you not notice my getup?" He halved the distance between us. "Oh yeah. I noticed," he said,like it was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen. His lips curled up into a smile. "Okay,so that's not the reaction I was going for either," I said,taking a small step backward as he closed the gap between us. He grabbed my hands in his and his grin disappeared. "Becks.I think I know what you're worried about,but I meant what I said.I love you. And I would never push you." My entire body turned red. "But don't you mythological higher beings-" I tried to remember how Jules had put it-"need...the...um..." Jack looked confused,and then he chuckled. "Please don't even try to finish that sentence.

He sat on the edge of my bed. He didn't say anything at first, just stared at my toenails. I curled them under instinctively and immediately was worried that I'd messed up my painting job. I let them uncurl. Only one was marred. I used my thumb to rub most of the polish off of it and then I stared at my foot, which suddenly looked so vulnerable and imperfect with the one toe ringed in hot pink polish but bare on the inside of the nail. Like I'd started but had forgotten to finish being beautiful.

And she finally told me what makes me so special. That I'm the perfect blend of Trylle and Vittra. I'm the ultimate bloodline." "And you didn't believe me when I said you were special." That was Finn's attempt at a joke, and he smiled ever so slightly. "I guess you were right." I pulled down my hair, which had gotten messy from lying on it, and ran my fingers through it. "How are you taking that?" Finn asked, coming closer to the foot of my bed. He stopped by the bedpost and absently touched my satin bedding. "Being the chosen one for both sides in an epic troll battle?" "If anybody can handle it,you can," he reassured me. I looked up at him, and his eyes betrayed some of the warmth he felt for me. I wanted to throw myself into his arms and feel them wrap around me, protecting me like granite. To kiss his temple and cheeks,to feel his stubble rubbing against my skin. Despite how badly I wanted that-I wanted it so much I ached-I knew that I had to become a great Princess, which meant that I had to use some restraint. Even if the restraint killed me.

You silly soldier,' she said, rubbing the palm of her right hand (scorched by the heat of the barrel) against the side of her wedding dress, 'you have shot me in the foot.

I’d love a foot rub and to be politely railed into the new year if I’m being honest,

I lick my lips as his teeth nibble on my earlobe. Between my muscles melting under his touch, my blood tingling with the teasing of my ear and the way my foot rubs against his calf, my thoughts become hazy. My shirt rides up and Isaiah rubs his thumb in small circles on the bare skin of my stomach. The sensation causes me to arch my back and Isaiah groans as I kiss his neck. I like these feelings. Actually, I more than like them. They’re addicting, and I love how every little thing I do causes Isaiah to kiss and touch me more. He rolls and I move with him. Our tangled legs become unraveled as my thighs fall open, accepting his weight. Isaiah’s body over mine is heavier than I would have imagined, but it’s a weight I craved without knowing it. Isaiah kisses up my neck and when his lips meet mine again, he rocks his hips. Suddenly very aware parts of him are touching very aware parts of me, and my head falls to the side as a new sensation spikes through my body.

I danced on light boxer’s feet over to Barrons. “Punch me.” “Don’t be absurd.” “Come on, punch me, Barrons.” “I’m not punching you.” “I said, punch--Ow!” He’d decked me. Bones vibrating, my head snapped back. And forward again. I shook it. No pain. I laughed. “I’m amazing! Look at me! I hardly even felt it.” I danced from foot to foot, feigning punches at him. “Come on. Punch me again.” My blood felt electrified, my body impervious to all injury. Barrons was shaking his head. I punched him in the jaw and his head snapped back. When it came back down his expression said I suffer you to live. “Happy now?” “Did it hurt?” “No.” “Can I try again?” “Buy yourself a punching bag.” “Fight me, Barrons. I need to know how strong I am.” He rubbed his jaw. “You’re strong,” he said dryly.

I always want you, and you know how fighting gets my blood up, but did it cross my mind that I’d be literally rubbing his nose in it? Yes. Better he lose his illusions, fast, when it comes to you. But would I have acted any differently if we were alone? Of course not. I can’t get enough of you.” “This isn’t going to be easy,” I grumbled as we headed toward the exit. Bones shrugged. “Nothing worthwhile ever is.

Septimus had no need to untie Spit Fyre as the dragon had already chewed his way through the rope. They followed Aunt Zelda and Jenna out the side door at the foot of the turret and down to the Palace Gate. Aunt Zelda kept up a brisk pace. Showing a surprising knowledge of the Castle’s narrow alleyways and sideslips, she hurtled along. Oncoming pedestrians were taken aback at the sight of the large patchwork tent approaching them at full speed. They flattened themselves against the walls, and, as the tent passed by with the Princess, the ExtraOrdinary Apprentice and a feral-looking boy with bandaged hands—not to mention a dragon—in its wake, people rubbed their eyes in disbelief.

Ha! Listen, this guy walks into a bar, with a shopping bag, right? He sits down, puts the bag on the bar. Something in the bag is moving, and the bartender says ‘Hey, buddy, no animals in here’. You with me, Jones?” “Yah.” “The guy is looking real unhappy, totally down in the dumps, he reaches in the bag. He pulls out a brass lantern, then a small piano, a little stool, and finally a little guy in a tuxedo, about a foot tall. The little guy sits on the stool and starts playing the piano. Playing the piano, right?” “Yah. Got, it.” “Bartender says,” Williams’ grasp on a handhold slipped for a heart-stopping moment before the suit gloves restored their sticky grip. He could see the problem was some sort of fluid leaking from the access hatch above had coated the handhold. He moved his hand to the left to avoid the slippery fluid, and continued climbing down. “Bartender says, ‘That’s amazing, where’d you get him?’ Guy points to the lamp. ‘Magic genie granted me a wish, But he don’t hear so well-’ Before the guy can stop him, the bartender grabs the lamp, rubs it and shouts ‘I want a million bucks!’. POOF! The bar is filled with ducks! Ducks everywhere, under the tables, in the street outside, feathers flying all over the place. The bartender says ‘What the hell?’ So the guy says ‘I told you the genie don’t hear so well. You really think I asked for a twelve inch pianist?

A change in direction was required. The story you finished was perhaps never the one you began. Yes! He would take charge of his life anew, binding his breaking selves together. Those changes in himself that he sought, he himself would initiate and make them. No more of this miasmic, absent drift. How had he ever persuaded himself that his money-mad burg would rescue him all by itself, this Gotham in which Jokers and Penguins were running riot with no Batman (or even Robin) to frustrate their schemes, this Metropolis built of Kryptonite in which no Superman dared set foot, where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness, where people lived such polished lives that the great rough truths of raw existence had been rubbed and buffed away, and in which human souls had wandered so separately for so long that they barely remembered how to touch; this city whose fabled electricity powered the electric fences that were being erected between men and men, and men and women, too? Rome did not fall because her armies weakened but because Romans forgot what being Roman meant. Might this new Rome actually be more provincial than its provinces; might these new Romans have forgotten what and how to value, or had they never known? Were all empires so undeserving, or was this one particularly crass? Was nobody in all this bustling endeavor and material plenitude engaged, any longer, on the deep quarry-work of the mind and heart? O Dream-America, was civilization's quest to end in obesity and trivia, at Roy Rogers and Planet Hollywood, in USA Today and on E!; or in million-dollar-game-show greed or fly-on-the-wall voyeurism; or in the eternal confessional booth of Ricki and Oprah and Jerry, whose guests murdered each other after the show; or in a spurt of gross-out dumb-and-dumber comedies designed for young people who sat in darkness howling their ignorance at the silver screen; or even at the unattainable tables of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Ducasse? What of the search for the hidden keys that unlock the doors of exaltation? Who demolished the City on the Hill and put in its place a row of electric chairs, those dealers in death's democracy, where everyone, the innocent, the mentally deficient, the guilty, could come to die side by side? Who paved Paradise and put up a parking lot? Who settled for George W. Gush's boredom and Al Bore's gush? Who let Charlton Heston out of his cage and then asked why children were getting shot? What, America, of the Grail? O ye Yankee Galahads, ye Hoosier Lancelots, O Parsifals of the stockyards, what of the Table Round? He felt a flood bursting in him and did not hold back. Yes, it had seduced him, America; yes, its brilliance aroused him, and its vast potency too, and he was compromised by this seduction. What he opposed in it he must also attack in himself. It made him want what it promised and eternally withheld. Everyone was an American now, or at least Americanized: Indians, Uzbeks, Japanese, Lilliputians, all. America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire, and ball. Even anti-Americanism was Americanism in disguise, conceding, as it did, that America was the only game in town and the matter of America the only business at hand; and so, like everyone, Malik Solanka now walked its high corridors cap in hand, a supplicant at its feast; but that did not mean he could not look it in the eye. Arthur had fallen, Excalibur was lost and dark Mordred was king. Beside him on the throne of Camelot sat the queen, his sister, the witch Morgan le Fay.

I understand Mike is sad about replacing Jennifer, but we all have to do things that make us sad. Holly asks me to do things that make me sad all the time. Like taking the dogs for a walk or giving her a foot rub. Do I complain about it? Sure, but do I do it anyway? No, but I pay my taxes.

Redneck alarm,” Charlie told her. You couldn’t step foot in the Holler without a hundred dogs howling your arrival. The deeper in you went, the more young white men you’d see standing on their front porches, one hand holding their cell phone and the other under their shirt rubbing their belly.

As Adrian hurried past the Senate House he noticed two old men standing outside Bowes and Bowes. He put an extra spring in his step, a thing he often did when walking near elderly. He imagined old people would look at his athletic bounce with a misty longing for their own youth. Not that he was trying to show off or rub salt into the wounds of the infirm, he really believed he was offering a service, an opportunity for nostalgia, like whistling the theme tune from Happidrome or spinning a Diablo. He skipped past them with carefree ease, missed his footing and fell to the ground with a thump. One of the old men helped him up.

Shelton pushed Ben lightly. “Remember when you couldn’t flare without losing your temper? So Hi kicked you from behind to get you mad, and you threw him in the ocean?” Ben snorted. “He deserved it.” “I was providing a service,” Hi protested. “I recall Tory once trying to eat a mouse.” I pinched my nose. “Ugh, don’t remind me.” Ella giggled. “One time Cole lost his flare while carrying a boulder. It pinned his leg for an hour.” Then everyone had a story. Our funeral became a wake. The mood lifted as we swapped flare stories. It was cathartic. A way to say good-bye. I caught Ben smiling at me. “I remember when Tory sniffed that mound of bird crap in the old lighthouse. I thought she’d vomit on the spot.” Chance laughed. “I knew she was too clever. Always with a trick up her sleeve.” The boys glanced at each other. Their smiles faded. Something passed between them. Abruptly, both looked at me. I could see a question in their eyes. A resolve to see something through. They talked. Oh God, they talked about me. They’re going to make me choose. In a flash of dread, I realized I could delay this no longer. With another jolt, I realized I didn’t need to. There was no point putting it off. There was also no decision to make. My eyes met a dark, intense pair staring back earnestly. Longingly. Fearfully. I smiled. Even as my heart pounded. Before anyone spoke, I stepped forward, legs shaking so badly I worried I might fall. But my second foot successfully followed the first. I walked over to Ben’s side. Slipped my hand inside his. Squeezed for dear life. Ben’s eyes widened. He gasped quietly, his chest rising and falling. I met his startled gaze. Smiled through my blushes. A goofy smile split Ben’s face, one I’d never seen before. His fingers crushed mine. No decision to make. Tearing my eyes from Ben, I looked at Chance, found him watching me with a glum expression. Then he sighed, a wry smile twisting his lips. Chance nodded slightly. Not one word spoken. Volumes exchanged. The silence stretched, like a living breathing force. Finally, Hi cleared his throat. “Um.” My face burned scarlet as I remembered our audience. Ella was gaping at me, a delighted grin on her face. Shelton looked like he might turn and run. Hi was rubbing the back of his neck, his face twisted in an uncomfortable grimace. Still no one said a word. This was the most painful moment of my life. “So . . .” Hi drummed his thighs, eyes fixed to the pavement. “Right. A lot just happened there. Weirdly without anyone talking, but, um, yeah.

Frankie,I noticed as I flipped the mic up to its normal position, was staring at me through narrowed eyes, clapping so slowly that I could actually measure the silence in between beats. I felt about three inches tall as I stepped off the stage. ~~~ "...and went down like a rock.Bam." "Oh,man. What did you do?" "What could I do?" I shrugged. "I hopped up, took a bow, and ran. I was late to meet you." Alex was gently rubbing my bare knee. I'd rolled up my jeans to show him the bruise already blossoming there. "I would have caught you," he said, fingers sliding to the inside of my leg and making my insides feel like jelly. "Not likely, O Gallant One.The stage is only a foot high." "I gotta see this place sometime.

Abruptly, Lara found herself flat on her back, her chair having been yanked out from under her with a quick jerk of her sister’s foot under the table. “You are such a bitch,” Lara muttered, rubbing the back of her head while Cresta and Bronwyn laughed. Sarhina circled the table, then bent down so that they were nose to nose. “I’m in charge, Your Majesty. Understood?

Her womb from her body. Separation. Her clitoris from her vulva. Cleaving. Desire from her body. We were told that bodies rising to heaven lose their vulvas, their ovaries, wombs, that her body in resurrection becomes a male body. The Divine Image from woman, severing, immortality from the garden, exile, the golden calf split, birth, sorrow, suffering. We were told that the blood of a woman after childbirth conveys uncleanness. That if a woman's uterus is detached and falls to the ground, that she is unclean. Her body from the sacred. Spirit from flesh. We were told that if a woman has an issue and that issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be impure for seven days. The impure from the pure. The defiled from the holy. And whoever touches her, we heard, was also impure. Spirit from matter. And we were told that if our garments are stained we are unclean back to the time we can remember seeing our garments unstained, that we must rub seven substances over these stains, and immerse our soiled garments. Separation. The clean from the unclean. The decaying, the putrid, the polluted, the fetid, the eroded, waste, defecation, from the unchanging. The changing from the sacred. We heard it spoken that if a grave is plowed up in a field so that the bones of the dead are lost in the soil of the field, this soil conveys uncleanness. That if a member is severed from a corpse, this too conveys uncleanness, even an olive pit's bulk of flesh. That if marrow is left in a bone there is uncleanness. And of the place where we gathered to weep near the graveyard, we heard that planting and sowing were forbidden since our grieving may have tempted unclean flesh to the soil. And we learned that the dead body must be separated from the city. Death from the city. Wilderness from the city. Wildness from the city. The Cemetery. The Garden. The Zoological Garden. We were told that a wolf circled the walls of the city. That he ate little children. That he ate women. That he lured us away from the city with his tricks. That he was a seducer and he feasted on the flesh of the foolish, and the blood of the errant and sinful stained the snow under his jaws. The errant from the city. The ghetto. The ghetto of Jews. The ghetto of Moors. The quarter of prostitutes. The ghetto of blacks. The neighborhood of lesbians. The prison. The witch house. The underworld. The underground. The sewer. Space Divided. The inch. The foot. The mile. The boundary. The border. The nation. The promised land. The chosen ones.

God, but he was beautiful. After a time, Jackson lifted his free hand and slowly ran a finger under the length of her scar—from the space between her right eyebrow and nose, up her forehead, then repeating the path from under her right ear, up to the outside corner of her right eye. She didn’t speak, her breath unsteady from watching him, from feeling the gentle weight of his finger against her face. The circuit complete, he gently rested his palm on her cheek and began tracing the scar once more—this time with his thumb on the new skin. Under the gentle weight of his thumb, her skin felt tingly. Like a foot that had fallen asleep and was 90 percent awake again. Oh. Oh. She could feel it. She could feel it. Her whole body tensed at the sensation. His gaze moved from her skin to her eyes. His palm still rested on her cheek, and his thumb rubbed lightly back and forth against the actual scar line. “Go out with me,” he said. “We are out.” Her voice came out as husky as his, like they were in a crowded library, not alone on the beach. “Out out. Friday night, after you play.” He smiled, leaning in a little closer. “We’ll toast the standing ovation.” She frowned at this reminder. “More like drink away my sorrows.” “Or that.” He leaned closer and said again, “Go out with me.

Lazily...possessively he ran a hand down her back. "Mmm, again," Shelby murmured. With a quiet laugh, Alan stroked up and down until she was ready to purr. "Shelby..." She gave another sigh as an answer and snuggled closer. "Shelby,there's something warm and fluffy under my feet." "Mmm-hmm." "If it's your cat, he's not breathing." "MacGregor." He kissed the top of her head. "What?" She gave a muffled laugh against his shoulder. "MacGregor," she repeated. "My pig." There was silence for a moment while he tried to digest this. "I beg your pardon?" The dry serious tone had more laughter bubbling up. Would she ever be able to face a day without hearing it? "Oh, say that again.I love it." Because she had to see his face, Shelby found the energy to lean across him and grope for the matches on the nightstand. Skin rubbed distractedly against skin while she struck one and lit a candle. "MacGregor," she said, giving Alan a quick kiss before she gestured to the foot of the bed. Alan studied the smiling porcine face. "You named a stuffed purple pig after me?" "Alan, is that any way to talk about our child?" His eyes shifted to hers in an expression so masculine and ironic, she collapsed on his chest in a fit of giggles. "I put him there because he was supposed to be the only MacGregor who charmed his way into my bed." "Really." Alan tugged on her hair until she lifted her face, full of amusement and fun,to his. "Is that what I dd?" "You knew damn well I wouldn't be able to resist balloons and rainbows foever.

His thumb rubbed over her knee, and Priss wondered if he was aware of doing it, if he did it on purpose to turn her on, or if it was extension of the thoughts she saw flickering across his face. “Trace . . .” “It occurs to me that I didn’t see a single freckle on you. Not on your face.” He gave her a quick, level look. “And not on your body.” “Yeah, so?” “That’s kind of curious, don’t you think, given the color of your hair?” Priss lifted his hand and dropped it over next to him. “Okay, first off, hands to yourself. Got it?” He said nothing, but she saw the corner of his mouth tilt up in the slightest of smiles. “Secondly, did you happen to notice that my brows and lashes are a darker brown without a hint of red?” “Meaning?” “Meaning I’m not like other redheads who are . . .” Her face heated. “Red all over.” “Yeah?” He glanced at her lap meaningfully. “Do tell.” Priss punched him in the shoulder. “I don’t like what you’re thinking.” “You don’t know what I’m thinking.” And with another provoking grin, “Do you?” Like she’d say it out loud? No way. Priss crossed her arms. “If you were hinting that you think I dye my hair, I don’t. Everything on me is natural.” “We’ll see.” “No, we will not see a damn thing!” Under his breath, Trace said, “I damn near saw today. If I’d moved a foot closer for a better look—” “Stop it!” Priss felt heat throbbing in her face, and she hated it. “And that reminds me. I want you to delete that damned picture.” “Not a chance. Seeing you in that getup was a trophy moment for me.

Are you falling asleep before midnight?" Cassie leaned over the edge of the couch to look at Jack. He was stretched out on the floor, his head resting against a pillow near the center of the couch, his eyes closed. She was now wide awake and headache free. He wasn't in so good a shape. "The new year is eighteen minutes away." "Come kiss me awake in seventeen minutes." She blinked at that lazy suggestion, gave a quick grin, and dropped Benji on his chest. He opened one eye to look up at her as he settled his hand lightly on the kitten. "That's a no?" She smiled. She was looking forward to dating him, but she was smart enough to know he'd value more what he had to work at. He sighed. "That was a no. How much longer am I going to be on the fence with you?" "Is that a rhetorical question or do you want an answer?" If this was the right relationship God had for her future, time taken now would improve it, not hurt it. She was ready to admit she was tired of being alone. He scratched Benji under the chin and the kitten curled up on his chest and batted a paw at his hand. "Rhetorical. I'd hate to get my hopes up." She leaned her chin against her hand, looking down at him. "I like you, Jack." "You just figured that out?" "I'll like you more when you catch my mouse." "The only way we are going to catch T.J. is to turn this place into a cheese factory and help her get so fat and slow that she can no longer run and hide." Or you could move your left hand about three inches to the right right and catch her." Jack opened one eye and glanced toward his left. The white mouse was sitting motionless beside the plate he had set down earlier. "Let her have the cheeseburger. You put mustard on it." "You're horrible." He smiled. "I'm serious." "So am I." Jack leaned over, caught Cassie's foot, and tumbled her to the floor. "Oops." "That wasn't fair. You scared my mouse." Jack set the kitten on the floor. "Benji, go get her mouse." The kitten took off after it. "You're teaching her to be a mouser." "Working on it. Come here. You owe me a kiss for the new year." "Do I?" She reached over to the bowl of chocolates on the table and unwrapped a kiss. She popped the chocolate kiss into his mouth. "I called your bluff." He smiled and rubbed his hand across her forearm braced against his chest. "That will last me until next year." She glanced at the muted television. "That's two minutes away." "Two minutes to put this year behind us." He slid one arm behind his head, adjusting the pillow. She patted his chest with her hand. "That shouldn't take long." She felt him laugh. "It ended up being a very good year," she offered. "Next year will be even better." "Really? Promise?" "Absolutely." He reached behind her ear and a gold coin reappeared. "What do you think? Heads you say yes when I ask you out, tails you say no?" She grinned at the idea. "Are you cheating again?" She took the coin. "This one isn't edible," she realized, disappointed. And then she turned it over. "A real two-headed coin?" "A rare find." He smiled. "Like you." "That sounds like a bit of honey." "I'm good at being mushy." "Oh, really?" He glanced over her shoulder. "Turn up the TV. There's the countdown." She grabbed for the remote and hit the wrong button. The TV came on full volume just as the fireworks went off. Benji went racing past them spooked by the noise to dive under the collar of the jacket Jack had tossed on the floor. The white mouse scurried to run into the jacket sleeve. "Tell me I didn't see what I think I just did." "I won't tell you," Jack agreed, amused. He watched the jacket move and raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to rescue the kitten or the mouse?

...Here, let me see. Stop rubbing it so I can -" He wicks his hand away from his eye just as I lean, and his elbow collides with the side of my face, hard enough that I'm knocked sideways. I try to grab the bedpost, but my hands are so slippery that Islide right off, and crash to the floor, my head connecting painfully with the corner of the drawer I left open. The bottle of oil falls off the edge and shatters into a soupy, amber pool. "What happened! Are you alright?" Percy's got one eye open but blinking frantically, hand extended blindly to me. "I'm fine!" I touch the back of my head, and it comes back damp and red. "No, wait, I'm bleeding." "You're bleeding!?" He yelps. "It's fine! " "It's clearly not if you're bleeding." I can feel a trickle down the back of my neck, and I clap a hand against it, like I can force the blood to stay inside me if I just press tightly enough. "It's fine!" My wrist is wet, and I look just as a drizzle of blood courses down my arm into the crook of my elbow. "God, this is really bleeding!" My vision swims, and when I reach to steady myself I put my hand straight into the oily puddle of lineament, and I crash backward onto the floor. Percy tries to come to my aid, but with one eye closed, he misjudges were he places his foot and steps on me. I screech and he slips and he slips, one leg tangled up in the sheets, and then suddenly the bedroom door bangs opens and there's Scipio. I scream and Percy screams and Scipio lets loud a horrified gurgle, and then Felicity appears behind him in the doorway, claps her hands over her eyes, tries to run with her hands still covered, and slips in one of the dripping puddles we left on the stairs. Her feet go out from under her, and she lands flat on her back at the top of the stairs, hands still valiantly clapped over her eyes, which rather ruins it all.

Finally,” the other man sighed impatiently. “Really, the two of you are quite tiresome. First, she shows up instead of you, then you come early. I told you midnight-can neither of you read? Nice frock, by the way,” he sneered, turning to stomp toward the door. “You have a little over six hours until midnight. Enjoy them. The shall be the last you have together.” “Bastard,” Charlie hissed as the door closed behind him, then turned to look down at Radcliffe with concern. “Are you all right?” “Aye,” Radcliffe sighed, sitting up with her help and peering around, his hand moving automatically to rub his aching temple. “Mayhap you should stay lying down for a bit,” Charlie murmured anxiously, but he shook his head and forced himself to his feet where he swayed woozily. “I do not have that luxury. I have to figure out a way to get us out of here.” “I shall do that, you just rest,” she insisted, taking his arm to steady him. “Nay. I-“ “Dammit Radcliffe, I am wearing the breeches now. Sit down before you fall down,” she snapped. “You are wearing the breeches? What the devil is that supposed to mean?” “Whatever you want it to, now just sit down.” Charlie gave her husband a gentle push that made him drop weakly onto the foot of the bed.

At Sea Oak there's no sea and no oak, just a hundred subsidized apartments and a rear view of FedEx. Min and Jade are feeding their babies while watching How My Child Died Violently. Min's my sister. Jade's our cousin. How My Child Died Violently is hosted by Matt Merton, a six-foot-five blond who's always giving the parents shoulder rubs and telling them they've been sainted by pain. Today's show features a ten-year-old who killed a five-year-old for refusing to join his gang. The ten-year-old strangled the five-year-old with a jump rope, filled his mouth with baseball cards, then locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn't come out until his parents agreed to take him to FunTimeZone, where he confessed, then dove screaming into a mesh cage full of plastic balls. The audience is shrieking threats at the parents of the killer while the parents of the victim urge restraint and forgiveness to such an extent that finally the audience starts shrieking threats at them too. Then it's a commercial.

Blanchette stared toward the room in which Rankin’s future had been diverted. Yes, he could’ve made it, all right, Blanchette thought. Not with his next breath or two, but by the time he was fifty, fifty-five. It was up to someone else now. The end of his cigar had a thumb of ash on it, so Blanchette flicked it on the rug, then rubbed it in with his foot. He looked

The perfectionist in her wanted to be sure he'd done it correctly, so she took a cautious step toward the edge of the roof, only to get here foot caught in the gauze. Cade jerked up on the roll, just as she stepped down. The fabric slipped between her legs. Up her thighs, all the way to her crotch. She froze. Her eyes went wide. Embarrassment colored her cheeks. "Grace?" Cade's voice was deep, amused, questioning. He gave the webbing a tug, attempting to pull it free. Instead it rubbed intimately, at the crease between her sex and thigh. His gaze on her groin, he gave a second slow pull. His eyes darkened. A muscle jerked in his jaw. His nostrils flared. He rolled his shoulders and released the tautness of the gauze. The clearing of his throat cut the tension, the silence. "Snared in a spider's web," he joked, lightening the moment.

Hymn to Mercury : Continued 11. ... Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat, He in his sacred crib deposited The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain's head, Revolving in his mind some subtle feat Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might Devise in the lone season of dun night. 12. Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has Driven steeds and chariot—the child meanwhile strode O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows, Where the immortal oxen of the God Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows, And safely stalled in a remote abode.— The archer Argicide, elate and proud, Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud. 13. He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way, But, being ever mindful of his craft, Backward and forward drove he them astray, So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft; His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray, And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs, And bound them in a lump with withy twigs. 14. And on his feet he tied these sandals light, The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight, Like a man hastening on some distant way, He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight; But an old man perceived the infant pass Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass. 15. The old man stood dressing his sunny vine: 'Halloo! old fellow with the crooked shoulder! You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine Methinks even you must grow a little older: Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine, As you would 'scape what might appal a bolder— Seeing, see not—and hearing, hear not—and— If you have understanding—understand.' 16. So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast; O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell, And flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed; Till the black night divine, which favouring fell Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast Wakened the world to work, and from her cell Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime Into her watch-tower just began to climb. 17. Now to Alpheus he had driven all The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun; They came unwearied to the lofty stall And to the water-troughs which ever run Through the fresh fields—and when with rushgrass tall, Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one Had pastured been, the great God made them move Towards the stall in a collected drove. 18. A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped, And having soon conceived the mystery Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped The bark, and rubbed them in his palms;—on high Suddenly forth the burning vapour leaped And the divine child saw delightedly.— Mercury first found out for human weal Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel. 19. And fine dry logs and roots innumerous He gathered in a delve upon the ground— And kindled them—and instantaneous The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around: And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound, Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud, Close to the fire—such might was in the God. 20. And on the earth upon their backs he threw The panting beasts, and rolled them o'er and o'er, And bored their lives out. Without more ado He cut up fat and flesh, and down before The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two, Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.

You can't keep working here. It's not safe for you anymore." His words were flat, spoken as if they pained him. "Not safe?" Her eyes were glued to him, but there was no alarm for her safety in her voice. "You're seventeen now, Becky." Irritation laced his words. His arms crossed in front of his chest. He leaned back against the table, one booted foot across the other. "You're not a young girl anymore. You can't keep coming here, being alone with me." "You won't--you won't hurt me. You're the sheriff." Distress slid through her. She had to keep coming here. It was the only way she could see him every day. The only way she had of taking care of him, being with him. Her hands rubbed down her apron in turbulence. The sliding movement pulled her apron and dress down. The material of her bodice tightened next to the soft curves of her breasts. Her breathing was palpable. "I didn't say I would hurt you, sweetheart.

The light dimmed. The sky through the windows turned emerald. It was the first green storm of the season, and as Kestrel heard the wind pummel the house, she knew that Arin was wrong. He had wanted to punish her for months now. Hadn’t she bought him? Didn’t she own him? This was his revenge. That was all. The rain drove nails against the windowpanes. The room grew almost black. Kestrel heard Arin’s voice again in her mind and felt suddenly broken. Even if she didn’t doubt her feelings for Enai, there had been truth in his words. She didn’t notice him return. This storm was loud, the room was dark. She sucked in her breath when she realized he stood next to her. For the first time, it occurred to her to be afraid of him. But he merely struck a match and touched it to the wick of a lamp. He was soaked with rain. His skin glittered with it. When she looked at him, he flinched. “Kestrel.” He sighed. He rubbed a hand through his wet hair. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.” “You meant it.” “Yes, but--” Arin looked weary and confused. “I would have been angry if you did not weep for her.” He held out the hand that rested at his side in the shadows, and for an uncertain moment Kestrel thought he would touch her. But he was only offering something on his uplifted palm. “This was in her cottage,” he said. It was a braid of Kestrel’s hair. She took it carefully; even so, her smallest finger brushed his wet palm. His hand instantly fell. She considered the braid, turning the bright ring in her fingers. She knew that it didn’t choose sides between her truth and Arin’s. It wasn’t proof of Enai’s love. Yet it was a comfort. “I should go,” Arin said, though he didn’t move. Kestrel looked at his face glowing in the lamplight. She became aware that she was close enough to him that her bare foot rested on the damp edge of carpet where Arin stood, seeping rainwater. A shiver traveled up her skin. Kestrel stepped back. “Yes,” she said. “You should.

Yelena, wake up.” Leif shook my shoulder. I peered at him through heavy eyes. He placed the lantern on the table. “You’re the one who set the schedule. Come on.” He pulled the blanket off me. “Most commanders don’t take a turn guarding the troops. They get a good night’s sleep so they can make the right decisions in the morning.” I sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing my eyes. “I’m not a commander and we’re not a troop.” “I disagree. You’ve been leading the way. You’re the one who knowswhat you’re doing.” “I—” Leif put his fingers on my lips. “Don’t say it. I like—no—need to believe that you know what you’re doing. Makes it so much easier to follow your instructions, especially when I’m acting as bait for a fifty-foot-long snake.” “Fine. I have things well in hand. I don’t need much sleep because I have all the steps we need to take already planned out. Happy now?” “Yes.” Leif stretched out on his bed. I picked up the lantern. “Sweet dreams.” “They will be now.

Ren.” Constantine hunched over me. Flashes of light illuminated the air around him. Blood ran down his face and there was a singed quality to the skin around his neck. He was warm. He had my cheeks in his hands and his hands were warm, thumbs rubbing circles into my skin. “Ren.” I felt my left foot twist under the force of another stray spell. He frantically pulled a shield around us and magic seared over the split skin of my midsection. “Where are your shields? Where did you go? Why can't I feel you?” I put my hand over his. “You are warm.” I touched my elbow in the arm that no longer worked. “This was you.” There was a look on his face that I tried to objectively parse through the haze of disconnected reality—shock, anguish, terror, rage. I watched a myriad of expressions pass over his features. The pain of them seemed worse than that of my broken bones. Why would someone seek feelings? His forehead pressed against mine, as if he could no longer bare to see whatever was showing in my eyes.

Elsewhere that same day, sleet covered the dead grass outside a modest lavender home in the northern village of Oščadnica like bits of confetti. The piercing wind picked up, keeping afloat a host of identical LSNS flags, green cloth dancing under the murky winter sky. Within the thirty-person crowd, greetings all around. ‘At guard,’ they said to one another, saluting coyly, using a fascist phrase that was popular under Tiso’s rule. The green-clad audience former rows and stood with folded hands over their laps, as local LSNS František Drozd placed a multicolored wreath of flowers at the foot of the home where Tiso once lived. Drozd broke the momentary silence and welcomed the crowd. As the Sunday morning mass concluded across the street, churchgoers poured out of the church. A handful of them—dressed smartly in church digs—joined the procession. A gaggle of police officers stood next to their cars in the adjacent parking lot, rubbing their gloved hands together to stay warm, boredom sketched across their faces.

Having perfected his arrangements, he would get my pipe, and, lighting it, would hand it to me. Often he was obliged to strike a light for the occasion, and as the mode he adopted was entirely different from what I had ever seen or heard of before I will describe it. A straight, dry, and partly decayed stick of the Hibiscus, about six feet in length, and half as many inches in diameter, with a small, bit of wood not more than a foot long, and scarcely an inch wide, is as invariably to be met with in every house in Typee as a box of lucifer matches in the corner of a kitchen cupboard at home. The islander, placing the larger stick obliquely against some object, with one end elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, mounts astride of it like an urchin about to gallop off upon a cane, and then grasping the smaller one firmly in both hands, he rubs its pointed end slowly up and down the extent of a few inches on the principal stick, until at last he makes a narrow groove in the wood, with an abrupt termination at the point furthest from him, where all the dusty particles which the friction creates are accumulated in a little heap. At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens his pace, and waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously along the smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing rapidity, the perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches the climax of his effort, he pants and gasps for breath, and his eyes almost start from their sockets with the violence of his exertions. This is the critical stage of the operation; all his previous labours are vain if he cannot sustain the rapidity of the movement until the reluctant spark is produced. Suddenly he stops, becoming perfectly motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller stick, which is pressed convulsively against the further end of the channel among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced through and through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling to escape from his clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke curls spirally into the air, the heap of dusty particles glows with fire, and Kory-Kory, almost breathless, dismounts from his steed.

Mr. Grayson was just…explaining the workings of the ship.” She attempted to tug her hand from Gray’s grasp, shooting him a pained look when he refused to relinquish his prize. Gray said smoothly, “Actually, we were discussing debts. Miss Turner still owes me her fare, and I-“ “And I told you, you’ll have it today.” Beneath that abomination of a skirt wrapped about his leg, she planted her heel atop his booted toe and transferred all her weight onto it. Firmly. Once again, Gray regretted trading his old, sturdy boots for these foppish monstrosities. Her little pointed heel bit straight through the thin leather. With a tight grimace, Gray released her hand. He’d been about to say, and I have her handkerchief to return. But just for that, he wouldn’t. “Good afternoon, then.” A sweet smile graced her face as she stomped down on his foot again, harder. Then she turned and flounced away. He made an amused face at Jonas. “I think she likes me.” “In my cabin, Gray.” Gray gritted his teeth and followed Joss down the hatch. Whether he liked being Gray’s half brother or not, Joss was damn lucky right now that he was. Gray wouldn’t have suffered that supercilious command for any bond weaker than blood. “You gave me your word, Gray.” “Did I? And what word was that?” Joss tossed his hat on the wood-framed bed and stripped off his greatcoat with agitated movements. “You know damn well what I mean. You said you wouldn’t pursue Miss Turner. Now you’re kissing her hand and making a spectacle in front of the whole ship. Bailey’s already taking bets from the sailors as to how many days it’ll take you to bed her.” “Really?” Gray rubbed the back of his neck. “I hope he’s giving even odds on three. Two, if you’ll send young Davy up the mast again. That got her quite excited.” Joss glared at him. “Need I remind you that this was your idea? You wanted a respectable merchant vessel. I’m trying to command it as such, but that’ll be a bit difficult if you intend to stage a bawdy-house revue on deck every forenoon.” Gray smiled as Joss slung himself into the captain’s chair. “Be careful, Joss. I do believe you nearly made a joke. People might get the idea you have a sense of humor.” “I don’t see anything humorous about this. This isn’t a pleasure cruise around the Mediterranean.

Kaz had never been able to dodge the horror of that night in the Ketterdam harbor, the memory of his brother’s corpse clutched tight in his arms as he told himself to kick a little harder, to take one more breath, stay afloat, stay alive. He’d found his way to shore, devoted himself to the vengeance he and his brother were owed. But the nightmare refused to fade. Kaz had been sure it would get easier. He would stop having to think twice before he shook a hand or was forced into close quarters. Instead, things got so bad he could barely brush up against someone on the street without finding himself once more in the harbor. He was on the Reaper’s Barge and death was all around him. He was kicking through the water, clinging to the slippery bloat of Jordie’s flesh, too frightened of drowning to let go. The situation had gotten dangerous. When Gorka once got too drunk to stand at the Blue Paradise, Kaz and Teapot had to carry him home. Six blocks they hauled him, Gorka’s weight shifting back and forth, slumping against Kaz in a sickening press of skin and stink, then flopping onto Teapot, freeing Kaz briefly—though he could still feel the rub of the man’s hairy arm against the back of his neck. Later, Teapot had found Kaz huddled in a lavatory, shaking and covered in sweat. He’d pleaded food poisoning, teeth chattering as he jammed his foot against the door to keep Teapot out. He could not be touched again or he would lose his mind completely. The next day he’d bought his first pair of gloves—cheap black things that bled dye whenever they got wet. Weakness was lethal in the Barrel. People could smell it on you like blood, and if Kaz was going to bring Pekka Rollins to his knees, he couldn’t afford any more nights trembling on a bathroom floor. Kaz never answered questions about the gloves, never responded to taunts. He just wore them, day in and day out, peeling them off only when he was alone. He told himself it was a temporary measure. But that didn’t stop him from remastering every bit of sleight of hand wearing them, learning to shuffle and work a deck even more deftly than he could barehanded. The gloves held back the waters, kept him from drowning when memories of that night threatened to drag him under. When he pulled them on, it felt like he was arming himself, and they were better than a knife or a gun. 

The silence of the apartment pressed on Ithan. He’d never lived on his own. He’d always had the constant chaos and closeness of the Den, the insanity of his college dorm, or the hotels he’d stayed at with the CCU sunball team. This place might as well have been another planet. He rubbed at his chest, as if it’d erase the tightness. He’d known precisely why he’d disobeyed Sabine’s order this spring when Bryce had screamed for help. The sound of her pleading had been unbearable. And when she’d mentioned children at risk, something had exploded in his brain. He had no regrets about what he’d done. But could he endure its consequences? Not the beating—he could weather that shit any day. But being here, alone, adrift… He hadn’t felt like this since Connor and the others had died. Since he’d walked away from his sunball team and stopped answering their calls. He had no idea what the Hel he’d do now. Perhaps the answer wasn’t some big, life-altering thing. Maybe it could be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other. That’s how you wound up following someone like Amelie, a voice that sounded an awful lot like Connor growled. Make better choices this time, pup. Assess. Decide what you want. But for now…one foot in front of the other. He could do that. If just for today.

Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned. I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.” “But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then. I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.” The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.” “You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too. “Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—” “You weren’t thinking.” She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—” “The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.” She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.” “Do I… want to know where you’re itching?” “Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.” I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever. “He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.” “You know you can come stay with us if you want.” She made a noise. “I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.” She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.” And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too. “Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—” Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?” “I don’t know why.” “Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving. “Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?” Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.” “Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—” “Goddammit, Diana—” I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!” “Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.

The camera does a close-up on the girl who can miraculously see again. It cuts to the mother-in-law, then to the clueless husband. All at once, the credits run. “Maldito sea!” Lila shoves the coffee table with her foot. “We have to wait to see that hussy get what’s coming?” “Please. You know what’s coming.” I rub perfume on my wrists and sniff. It’s better than sour milk, and it reminds me of fancy department stores where I can only browse. I stuff a few samples in my pocket. “It’s going to end the way all the novelas end. Everybody happy.” She shoos away my idea like it’s a bad smell. “So what? Nobody gets happy the same way. That’s what’s interesting.

By the way, I’ve been wondering—what would my Grey’s Anatomy nickname be?” “You already have one, remember? You’re my very own Hotshot Doc.” He frowns. “But there has to be a ‘Mc’ in front of it.” “Okay then, how about Dr. McGivesHisPregnantWifeFootRubs?” “Doesn’t roll off the tongue.” “Okay…Dr. McPassesThePopcorn?” “You see how that doesn’t work, right? It has to be pithy.” I tap my chin. “Oh okay, yeah. I’ve got one now. Hear me out.” “All right.” “Are you listening?” “Yeah.” “Dr. Mc…” After a long pause, he finally asks, “You don’t have one do you?” “The good ones are already taken!” He laughs and tugs me closer. “Okay, you’re right. Let’s just stick with Hotshot.

Have you had any recollections from your past? Anything at all?” “No,” he muttered. “Nothing.” “Nothing?” Jared’s head snapped up. “Nothing.” he bit out. He took a deep breath, flashed his psychiatrist an apologetic grimace before continuing, “I mean, sometimes I might get a feeling, I would be in the middle of doing something and a random thought or feeling might jump into my head. But it’s gone before I can even begin to decipher it.” “These random thoughts,” Dr Kathleen asked. “Can you tell me what they are?” She gently pressed, “If you can remember that is. You’ve not mentioned this in any of our previous sessions.” Jared shrugged and slumped back against the couch. “I don’t know. It’s only been a recent...development. Unimportant things. Silly things. Erm. Last week, Simone and I were visiting my parents, and we went out for a meal at this new Japanese restaurant close to where they live.” He rubbed his hands together and began to tap his right foot over the carpeted floor. “I don’t like sushi, I’ll eat it if I have to but I’m not a fan. We were all there and they had their meals, I had mine,” Jared scowled at Dr Kathleen. “And for the life of me I kept thinking…feeling there was something important about it, about sushi.” He stopped rubbing his hands over each other to clasp his knees. “Sushi meant something – something important and I don’t know why.” A low, mocking laugh came from the bottom of his throat. “Or my brain could just be fucking with me.

You’re the one who didn’t keep his word. And speaking of your word and its dubious worth, don’t change the subject. I saw the looks you and Miss Turner were exchanging. The lady goes bright pink every time you speak to her. For God’s sake, you put food on her plate without even asking.” “And where’s the crime in that?” Gray was genuinely curious to hear the answer. He hadn’t forgotten that shocked look she’d given him. “Come on, Gray. You know very well one doesn’t take such a liberty with a mere acquaintance. It’s…it’s intimate. The two of you are intimate. Don’t deny it.” “I do deny it. It isn’t true.” Gray took another swig from his flask and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Damn it, Joss. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to trust me. I gave you my word. I’ve kept it.” And it was the truth, Gray told himself. Yes, he’d touched her tonight, but he’d never pledged not to touch her. He had kept his word. He hadn’t bedded her. He hadn’t kissed her. God, what he wouldn’t give just to kiss her… He rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest. That same ache lingered there-the same sharp tug he’d felt when she’d brought her foot down on his and pursed her lips into a silent plea. Please, she’d said. Don’t. As if she appealed to his conscience. His conscience. Where would the girl have gathered such a notion, that he possessed a conscience? Certainly not form his treatment of her. A bitter laugh rumbled through his chest, and Joss shot him a skeptical look. “Believe me, I’ve scarcely spoken to the girl in weeks. You can’t know the lengths I’ve gone to, avoiding her. And it isn’t easy, because she won’t stay put in her cabin, now will she? No, she has to go all over the ship, flirting with the crew, tacking her little pictures in every corner of the boat, taking tea in the galley with Gabriel. I can’t help but see her. And I can see she’s too damn thin. She needs to eat; I put food on her plate. There’s nothing more to it than that.” Joss said nothing, just stared at him as though he’d grown a second head. “Damn it, what now? Don’t you believe me?” “I believe what you’re saying,” his brother said slowly. “I just can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Gray folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “And what are you hearing?” “I wondered why you’d done all this…the dinner. Now I know.” “You know what?” Gray was growing exasperated. Most of all, because he didn’t know. “You care for this girl.” Joss cocked his head. “You care for her. Don’t you?” “Care for her.” Joss’s expression was smug. “Don’t you?” The idea was too preposterous to entertain, but Gray perked with inspiration. “Say I did care for her. Would you release me from that promise? If my answer is yes, can I pursue her?” Joss shook his head. “If the answer is yes, you can-and should-wait one more week. It’s not as though she’ll vanish the moment we make harbor. If the answer is yes, you’ll agree she deserves that much.” Wrong, Gray thought, sinking back into a chair.

Nope.' He grabs my hand and places it over his heart. 'I already know the truth. We’re dating.' His eyebrows waggle. 'Exclusively.' 'Gross.' 'Do you want to wear my letterman’s jacket?' 'I’m going to vomit.' '“Should I buy you a corsage?' 'Seriously. Gagging.' 'Okay, no corsage.' He laughs. 'Just the matching tattoos, then?' 'Seriously.' I fight the urge to stomp my foot. 'Let it go, Parker. Let it go.' 'Hey, Elsa, don’t quote Frozen to me unless you’re prepared to listen to the entire soundtrack in my car on the way to Seaport.' I stare up at him. 'I’m not sure whether I should be disturbed or turned on by the fact that you know all the words to Let It Go.' He grins. 'Definitely turned on.' 'Downloaded in your iTunes library, no doubt.' I shake my head. 'This is nearly as disturbing as the time I learned the song A Whole New World from Aladdin is a metaphor for mind-blowing sex.' 'I’m sorry, what?' 'I can open your eyes? Lead you wonder by wonder? Over, sideways, and under?' I snort. 'Come on. That’s basically soft-core porn.' 'Thank you, Zoe, for ruining a beloved Disney classic for me.' 'Anytime.' 'For the record…' He trails off. I wince, anticipating the worst. 'What?' 'I’ll take you on my magic carpet ride any time you want, snookums.' 'Pass.' 'So, that’s a no on rubbing my lamp then?' 'You know, I think I’ll just find my own way to Nate’s…' I turn and start walking to the elevator. 'Oh, come on.' Parker twines his fingers with mine and pushes the call button, humming under his breath. 'I’m a genie in a bottle, baby, gotta rub—' 'AH!' I stare at him in horror as the elevator arrives. 'So help me god if you start singing vintage Christina Aguilera lyrics right now, I will murder you with my bare hands.

My Father mapped out the perfect blueprint for how to treat a woman. He caters hand and foot to my Mother. Even showers that love onto my sister. He never had to tell me how to treat my woman because his actions spoke louder. Did I cling to my woman? Absolutely. Being up under soft melanin skin pleased me. You want to read a book? Cool, what story we reading? Wanna go shopping? Take my card if you promise to model everything for me. Those females at work bothering you? Let’s get animated in the mirror and act like we about to tag team. Your period on? Baby, want me to rub your belly? You need me to get those diaper looking pads with the wings? How about some lemon ginger tea? What are your dreams? You want to sell weave? Let’s catch a flight to China or India and figure out how we can become wholesalers. You wanna make cute Snapchat filter videos? What filter do you want? Are they not liking your pics? Fine. I’ll blast you all over my page. Your Mother threatening to kick you out. Where you wanna move? Better yet, move in with me. Just focus on school and building your brand. I got everything else. You got finals coming up. Pick a tutor. Heck, can I pay for the answers to the quiz? You think those stretch marks make you unattractive? Come here and let me show you how much I appreciate your stripes of glitter. Do you want to go to Dr. Miami? Absolutely not. We going to the gym. Gym grown not silicone. We are working out together. Go ahead and hashtag us as #baegoals #coupleswhoworkouttogetherstaytogether. You want to switch the hair and get a tapered cut? Let me call my barber and see when we can go. Stressing and worrying? You keep hearing whispers while you’re sleeping? Nah bae, that’s not a ghost. That’s me praying for you.

Why would you do that with me? A simple kiss was enough. What could you be thinking?" "What indeed." He pushed a hand through his hair, more than a little offended at her accusatory tone. "I'm male. You rubbed your... femaleness all over me. I didn't think. I reacted." "You reacted." "Yes." "To..." She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "To me." "It is a natural response. Aren't you a scientist? Then you should understand. Any red-blooded man would react to such stimulus." She stepped back. She dipped her chin and peered at him over her spectacles. "So you find me stimulating." "That's not what I-" He bit off the rest of that sentence. The only way to end a nonsensical conversation was to simply cease talking. Colin drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He closed his eyes briefly. And then he opened them and looked at her. Really looked at her, as though for the first time. He saw thick, dark hair a man could gather by the fistful. Prim spectacles, perched on a gently sloped nose. Behind the lenses, wide-set eyes- dark and intelligent. And that mouth. That ripe, pouting, sensual mouth. He let his gaze drift down her form. There was a wicked thrill to knowing lushness smoldered beneath that modest sprigged muslin gown. To having felt her shape, scouting and chartering her body with all the nerve endings of his own. Their bodies had met. More than that. They'd grown acquainted. Nothing more would come from it, of course. Colin had rules for himself, and as for her... she didn't even liked him, or pretend to. But she showed up in the middle of the night, hatching schemes that skirted the line between academic logic and reckless adventure. She started kisses she had no notion how to continue. Taken all together, she was simply... A surprise. A fresh, bracing gust of the unexpected, for good or ill. "Perhaps," he said cautiously, "I do find you stimulating.

I always had trouble with the feet of Jón the First, or Pre-Jón, as I called him later. He would frequently put them in front of me in the evening and tell me to take off his socks and rub his toes, soles, heels and calves. It was quite impossible for me to love these Icelandic men's feet that were shaped like birch stumps, hard and chunky, and screaming white as the wood when the bark is stripped from it. Yes, and as cold and damp, too. The toes had horny nails that resembled dead buds in a frosty spring. Nor can I forget the smell, for malodorous feet were very common in the post-war years when men wore nylon socks and practically slept in their shoes. How was it possible to love these Icelandic men? Who belched at the meal table and farted constantly. After four Icelandic husbands and a whole load of casual lovers I had become a vrai connaisseur of flatulence, could describe its species and varieties in the way that a wine-taster knows his wines. The howling backfire, the load, the gas bomb and the Luftwaffe were names I used most. The coffee belch and the silencer were also well-known quantities, but the worst were the date farts, a speciality of Bæring of Westfjord. Icelandic men don’t know how to behave: they never have and never will, but they are generally good fun. At least, Icelandic women think so. They seem to come with this inner emergency box, filled with humour and irony, which they always carry around with them and can open for useful items if things get too rough, and it must be a hereditary gift of the generations. Anyone who loses their way in the mountains and gets snowed in or spends the whole weekend stuck in a lift can always open this special Icelandic emergency box and get out of the situation with a good story. After wandering the world and living on the Continent I had long tired of well-behaved, fart-free gentlemen who opened the door and paid the bills but never had a story to tell and were either completely asexual or demanded skin-burning action until the morning light. Swiss watch salesmen who only knew of “sechs” as their wake-up hour, or hairy French apes who always required their twelve rounds of screwing after the six-course meal. I suppose I liked German men the best. They were a suitable mixture of belching northerner and cultivated southerner, of orderly westerner and crazy easterner, but in the post-war years they were of course broken men. There was little you could do with them except try to put them right first. And who had the time for that? Londoners are positive and jolly, but their famous irony struck me as mechanical and wearisome in the long run. As if that irony machine had eaten away their real essence. The French machine, on the other hand, is fuelled by seriousness alone, and the Frogs can drive you beyond the limit when they get going with their philosophical noun-dropping. The Italian worships every woman like a queen until he gets her home, when she suddenly turns into a slut. The Yank is one hell of a guy who thinks big: he always wants to take you the moon. At the same time, however, he is as smug and petty as the meanest seamstress, and has a fit if someone eats his peanut butter sandwich aboard the space shuttle. I found Russians interesting. In fact they were the most Icelandic of all: drank every glass to the bottom and threw themselves into any jollity, knew countless stories and never talked seriously unless at the bottom of the bottle, when they began to wail for their mother who lived a thousand miles away but came on foot to bring them their clean laundry once a month. They were completely crazy and were better athletes in bed than my dear countrymen, but in the end I had enough of all their pommel-horse routines. Nordic men are all as tactless as Icelanders. They get drunk over dinner, laugh loudly and fart, eventually start “singing” even in public restaurants where people have paid to escape the tumult of

She slipped into the shadows and waited, like a she-wolf, for her quarry. Bay caught her breath when Owen Blackthorne stepped into the cool night air. He was close enough to touch. His shaggy black hair looked rumpled, as though he’d shoved both hands through it in agitation. When he started to move off the porch, Bay reached out and grasped his sleeve. A second later she was slammed back against the wall, a powerful male hand at her throat choking her. She could feel the heat of him, the solid maleness of him. And panicked. She clawed at Owen’s flesh with her nails and drove her knee upward toward his genitals. Her thrust her upraised knee aside, and the full weight of his over-six-foot frame shoved hard against her from shoulders to thighs. Bay froze, staring up at him in mute horror. Her body trembled in shock. She tried to speak, but there was no air to be had beneath the crushing pressure of his grip on her throat. “What the hell . . .?” He released her throat and grabbed her arms to yank her into the narrow stream of light from the kitchen doorway. She gasped a breath of air, coughed, then gasped another, pressing a shaky hand to her injured throat. She wrenched to free herself, but he let her go without a struggle and took a wary step back. She rubbed her arms where he’d held her, wishing she’d approached him more directly. “What are you doing out here, Mizz Creed?” His voice was clipped but controlled. The violence she’d felt in his touch was still there in his eyes, which glittered with hostility. “It’s Dr. Creed,” she rasped, glaring back at him. He lifted a black brow. “Well, Dr. Creed.” She opened her mouth to say I need your help. But the words wouldn’t come. There was nothing wrong with her voice. She just hated the thought of asking a Blackthorne for anything. “I haven’t got all night,” he said. “There’s an emergency at the barn—” “Ruby’s foal has already been delivered safely,” she said. “I made up that story because I wanted to speak privately with you.

From another corner of neuroscience, we’re learning about a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Though there are more than fifty neurotransmitters (that we know of), scientists studying substance problems have given dopamine much of their attention. The brain’s reward system and pleasure centers—the areas most impacted by substance use and compulsive behaviors—have a high concentration of dopamine. Some brains have more of it than others, and some people have a capacity to enjoy a range of experiences more than others, owing to a combination of genetics and environment. The thing about dopamine is that it makes us feel really good. We tend to want more of it. It is naturally generated through ordinary, pleasurable activities like eating and sex, and it is the brain’s way of rewarding us—or nature’s way of rewarding the brain—for activities necessary to our survival, individually or as a species. It is the “mechanism by which ‘instinct’ is manifest.” Our brains arrange for dopamine levels to rise in anticipation and spike during a pleasurable activity to make sure we do it again. It helps focus our attention on all the cues that contributed to our exposure to whatever felt good (these eventually become triggers to use, as we explain later). Drugs and alcohol (and certain behaviors) turn on a gushing fire hose of dopamine in the brain, and we feel good, even euphoric. Dopamine produced by these artificial means, however, throws our pleasure and reward systems out of whack immediately. Flooding the brain repeatedly with dopamine has long-term effects and creates what’s known as tolerance—when we lose our ability to produce or absorb our own dopamine and need more and more of it artificially just to feel okay. Specifically, the brain compensates for the flood of dopamine by decreasing its own production of it or by desensitizing itself to the neurotransmitter by reducing the number of dopamine receptors, or both. The brain is just trying to keep a balance. The problem with the brain’s reduction in natural dopamine production is that when you take the substance or behavior out of the picture, there’s not enough dopamine in the brain to make you feel good. Without enough dopamine, there is no interest or pleasure. Then not only does the brain lose the pleasure associated with using, it might not be able to enjoy a sunset or a back rub, either. A lowered level of dopamine, combined with people’s longing for the rush of dopamine they got from using substances, contributes to “craving” states. Cravings are a physiological process associated with the brain’s struggle to regain its normal dopamine balance, and they can influence a decision to keep using a substance even when a person is experiencing negative consequences that matter to him and a strong desire to change. Depending on the length of time and quantities a person has been using, these craving states can be quite uncomfortable and compelling. The dopamine system can and does recover, starting as soon as we stop flooding it. But it takes time, and in the time between shutting off the artificial supply of dopamine and the brain’s rebuilding its natural resources, people tend to feel worse (before they feel better). On a deep, instinctual level, their brains are telling them that by stopping using, something is missing; something is wrong. This is a huge factor in relapse, despite good intentions and effort to change. Knowing this can help you and your loved one make it across this gap in brain reward systems.

Jasper’s boot tapped against the side of her foot. She met his gaze with raised brows. Look at me, he mouthed with darkened eyes. Did he not understand how difficult that was? Of course he didn’t. He did not feel overheated and confused when he looked at her. He didn’t struggle to understand why the act of pressing their lips together had created overwhelming feelings in other parts of the anatomy. Frustrated, she crossed her arms and looked at the passing carriages. The toe of his boot touched her ankle, then slid up along the back of her lower calf. Eliza froze. Her lungs seized, holding her breath. A shiver moved up her leg to unmentionable places. Wide-eyed, she glanced at him. Jasper winked. As indignation welled up within her, his tongue traced the curve of his lower lip in a slow, sensual glide. Her breath left her in a rush. Instantly and viscerally she recalled the feel of that talented tongue against her lips and in her mouth, thrusting deep and sure in imitation of a far more intimate act. Her breasts grew heavy and tender. The beat of her heart quickened and her skin tingled from her head to the place where his boot stroked her. It suddenly struck her that Jasper was deliberately arousing her. In the middle of the day. In the center of town. Seated inches away from two other people. His hand lifted to an unsecured button on his coat. Strong fingers grasped it, the pad of his thumb rubbing leisurely

They'd eaten dinner in bed, and Lindsay had accidentally dropped an edamame bean down her towel dress, which he'd needed to fish out. With his mouth, naturally. "Ohhh," she moaned again. Was she trying to kill him? "My dick is hard enough to hammer nails," he said, gritting his teeth. 'I could be a proper handyman now." She didn't seem to hear him. She was too busy moaning as he rubbed her foot, using one of the techniques he'd discovered using Google. This would be the end of him. When she shimmied a little to adjust her position, her towel dress split apart, and fuck, it was a beautiful view. Her skin was so dewy, but her nipples were tight buds... He could be a fairly patient man at times, but this was testing his limits. "That's it," he growled. "I'll do the other foot afterward." "After...?" A moment later, he was on top of her. He slipped his hand down her body, cupping her mound as his middle finger slid inside her. She made some noises that were even better than the ones she'd made earlier, and she certainly squirmed more than she had during the foot massage. He grinned down at her. "How does that feel? Am I hitting the right spot?" "Yeah, that's a good...spot," she said in a strangled voice. He thrust a finger inside her before bending down and bringing the peak of her nipple into his mouth. She jerked beneath him. "What about that spot?" he asked, raising his head. In response, she cupped the back of his head and brought it down to her other breast. He tugged the brownish pink tip into his mouth as he continued to pleasure her between her legs. "Ryan," she moaned, raking her nails over his back. He didn't care about anything but making her feel good right now. He slid down her body and circled his tongue over her clit before feasting on her. "Is that the right spot?" Her inarticulate response was certainly gratifying, and when he looked up, she shoved his head back down. He chuckled. It didn't take long before she was coming apart, bucking against his face, twisting the sheets in her hands. He moved up her body and kissed her slowly, reverently on the lips as he fumbled for a condom. When he finally managed to roll it on, his hands shaking, he positioned his erection at her entrance and pushed inside. Sex was different with her than with other women. Not that sex had been bad for him before, and not that his partners hadn't enjoyed themselves---he always made sure of it. But. This. This was something else entirely. She ran her foot over the back of his leg, and he groaned as he pumped inside her. Her lips were parted, and he needed to kiss them. So, he did. She met him greedily, and that spurred him on. He didn't move faster; rather, he moved deeper. Filling her up, pulling back... again and again... When he stopped kissing her, he watched every little change in her expression, and then her face contorted in the loveliest way, and she cried out.

SENSORY AVOIDERS – SENSORY DEFENSIVENESS “And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?” -Edgar Allen Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) Imagine a day inside Jenny’s skin. The morning alarm goes off and she startles, her heart races, her body tightens, her breathing quickens.  Her husband turns to get out of bed, grazing her foot, and she cringes, her bodily rhythms speed up another notch and her body tightens further. He sees that she seems annoyed about something and affectionately strokes her cheek. She bristles and, when he turns around, rubs where he touched her. She slowly arises to get out of bed, as she feels a bit dizzy, and quickly puts on her soft cotton house slippers, as the feel of the carpet makes her recoil, and walks into the bathroom. The bright lights her husband has left turned on assault her. Her eyes squint painfully. She quickly turns off the lights and turns on a small lamp on the sink counter. Her already overloaded system gets further destabilized. She starts to brush her teeth but the toothbrush is new and the bristles tickle her uncomfortably. She leans over to spit out the toothpaste and feels a sudden loss of balance and a surge of panic engulfs her. She steadies herself and turns on the shower. The soft spray of water from the showerhead feels like pelts of hail hitting her body. Her already stressed system is accelerating fast into overload. And her morning has only just begun!  She still has to figure out what clothes to put on, as most textures annoy her and feel uncomfortable on her body. She has to figure out what to eat for breakfast, as anything soft, mushy, or creamy repulses her. Worst of all, she has to figure out how to face the world outside that, for her, is like maneuvering through a sensory minefield. Jenny is an avoider or what is commonly known as sensory defensive (SD), a common mimicker of anxiety and panic. The sensory defensive feel too much, too soon and for too long, and experience the world as too loud, too bright, too fast and too tight, becoming easily distressed by everyday sensation

Jerzy was lying in their bed. It was a heavy clumsy thing made of small logs jointed together, but in this case that was all to the better. He had been tied hand and foot to the posts, and ropes were bound over his middle and under the whole bedframe. The ends of his toes were blackened and the nails were peeling off, and there were open sores across him where the ropes rubbed his body. He was pulling on them and making the noise, his tongue swollen and dark and almost filling his mouth, but he stopped when we came in. He lifted his head up and looked straight at me and smiled with his teeth bloody and his eyes stained yellow. He started to laugh. “Look at you,” he said, “little witch, look at you, look at you,” in an awful singsong voice jangling up and down. He jerked his body against the ropes so the whole bed jumped an inch across the floor towards me, while he grinned and grinned at me. “Come closer, come come come,” he sang, “little Agnieszka, come come come,” like the children’s song, horrible, the bed hopping across the floor one lurch at a time, while I pulled open my bag of potions with shaking hands, trying not to look at him. I had never been so close to anyone taken by the Wood before. Kasia kept her hands on my shoulders, standing straight and calm. I think if she hadn’t been there I would have run away.

swift glance to his watch, then sat down carefully on a low wall that edged a reed-choked dyke, and removed one of his trainers. ‘Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen . . .’ ‘You alright, mister?’ Oh perfect, perfect timing, young man! Ted looked up and blinked at the boy. ‘Sorry. Didn’t see you there. Yeah, I’m fine.’ He rubbed at his foot and winced. ‘Stone in my shoe, damned great blister. Must have

I was trying to do you a solid here. I rub your back — help you get your foot in the door with Behavioral. But instead of rubbing back, you keep fucking me in the ass.

I was trying to do you a solid here. I rub your back — help you get your foot in the door with Behavioral. But instead of rubbing back, you keep fucking me in the ass.” “That’s a delightful image, Cal. Thank you.

Because nothing is sexier to a woman than a man who is loving and sweet to her kids—and who gives the occasional foot rub.

there’s dozens of stories about some kid from our world falling into a different, magical one, being the chosen one or the close companion of the chosen one and saving the world, and then going home where they’re delighted to see their family again and have a new appreciation of their own life. but what about someone who didn’t miss it? what if you save the world and you’re given your medal and stripped of the magic you learned and put back in a world you never missed? and you’re furious. maybe you gave up a few years of your life. you have callouses and muscles and a few scars and maybe a missing eye or something. you definitely have some blood on your hands. you might have PTSD you can’t talk to anyone about. and suddenly you’re fifteen again, in a body that’s too soft and too short and too complete. you’re always cold because there’s no magic burning in your veins anymore, and even as you grow up the feeling of not fitting doesn’t go away because when you look in the mirror at eighteen you look all wrong: this is not what you’re supposed to look like at eighteen. the sky clouds and you rub at the phantom ache of injuries this body never received. you wake up screaming sometimes remembering the sorcerer who burnt your hand to ashes, or the final battle you almost didn’t make it through, or the moment you felt the magic in you go out. but here’s the thing: they took you and made you into a weapon that was determined enough and powerful enough to save a whole world. they can put you back where they found you but they can’t undo everything. and there’s this, too: the place between worlds clings to you. you can’t tease fire out of the air but you can feel the pull of the doorways all the time, although none of them so far go to your world. but you try to make it work for a decade, anyway. you’re dutiful. but one night you leave work late and for the thousandth time you catch yourself searching the sky for firebirds. and you break. of the three portals within five hundred miles, one is a howling, frozen wasteland and one is a deep violet void, but one opens into a misty forest that you step into and don’t look back. it’s not your world, but if you keep going long enough, you’ll get there. (and maybe much, much later, hundreds of worlds later, you climb through a window, or a door of woven branches int he middle a field, or push aside a curtain, and as you set foot on new land you feel the fire in your veins and sparks at your fingertips and finally, finally, you’re home)

It had taken Cyrus a while to come out of his shell. One of those “aw shucks, ma’am” kind of cowboys, he was so darned shy she thought she was going to have to throw herself on the floor at his boots for him to notice her. But once he had opened up a little, they’d started talking, joking around, getting to know each other. Before he left, they’d gone for a horseback ride through the snowy foothills up into the towering pines of the forest. It had been Cyrus’s idea. They’d ridden up into one of the four mountain ranges that surrounded the town of Gilt Edge – and the Cahill Ranch. It was when they’d stopped to admire the view from the mountaintop that overlooked the small western town that AJ had hoped Cyrus would kiss her. He sure looked as if he’d wanted to as they’d walked their horses to the edge of the overlook. The sun warming them while the breeze whispered through the boughs of the nearby snow-laden pines, it was one of those priceless Montana January days between snowstorms. That’s why Cyrus had said they should take advantage of the beautiful day before he left for Denver. Standing on a bared-off spot on the edge of the mountain, he’d reached over and taken her hand in his. “Beautiful,” he’d said. For a moment she thought he was talking about the view, but when she met his gaze she’d seen that he’d meant her. Her heart had begun to pound. This was it. This was what she’d been hoping for. He drew her closer. His mouth was just a breath away from hers – when his mare nudged him with her nose. She could laugh about it now. But if she hadn’t grabbed Cyrus he would have fallen down the mountainside. “She’s just jealous,” Cyrus had said of his horse as he’d rubbed the beast’s neck after getting his footing under himself again. But the moment had been lost. They’d saddled up and ridden back to Cahill Ranch. AJ still wanted that kiss more than anything.

He grunted, then he howled. I guess vinaigrette burns. Ha! I controlled the urge to grin. I leaped atop the dark, glossy table surface—and almost toppled to the floor when my foot caught the hem of my skirt. My amusement faded as I righted myself. I pitched three more platters at him in quick succession. As he rubbed his eyes, he tried to dodge each missile. He only managed to bump into his chair and trip on the edge of the carpet. While he lay there, unable to see, I paused to admire my handiwork. Noodles and vegetables dripped from his saturated clothing. My alien salad, I thought smugly.

Briette sighed. “I don’t think your intentions were bad, Sir Ansley. And in the end, you warned Calister of what the king planned to do. I simply have a favor to ask.” She smiled. “Which brings me to Calister.” Calister stiffened. “At your service, my lady.” Briette raised her voice so they would all hear. “At the castle, King Jarrod tried to have me arrested. Calister not only fended off the knights, he fought actually King Jarrod himself. A man nearly a foot taller and three times his weight. I have never seen such courage. Noble deeds deserve a noble reward, don’t you think? Calister… come here, please.” Calister crept toward her, uncertain. Briette carefully extracted the long sword she wore at her side. “I must ask you to kneel before me.” “Kneel?” Calister looked confused, then his eyes popped with understanding. “Oh!” He dropped to one knee. Briette lifted the sword and touched the flat of it to his shoulder. “Calister, do swear that you will honor and defend the kingdom of Runa under Princess Maelyn?” “I will,” said Calister. “That you will defend truth and justice, and strive to protect those weaker than yourself?” “I will,” said Calister. “And that you will uphold the noble ideals of chivalry to the benefit of your good name and the greater glory of our land?” “I will,” said Calister. Briette smiled. “Then, by the power invested in me, I now dub you Sir Calister, a knight of Runa Realm. Quite possibly the youngest knight this kingdom has ever known. You may rise.” Calister stood, blinking hard to hold back tears. “Th-thank you, my lady. I – I promise to be a faithful knight, and….” His face crumpled and he fell against Briette and squeezed her tightly. “Thank you, my lady!” “Bree. I am always Bree to you,” she said, returning the hug. She could see the servants over his shoulder. Rupy sobbed openly, Sir Ansley beamed with pride, Old Shivey nodded her head, and Havi wore a crooked smile. The duke, however, remained hard and impassive, his eyes turned away. Calister released her and wiped his eyes. Briette turned back to the group. “I will send for Calister in a few days. We shall make arrangements for him to be transferred to Lumen Fortress where he will continue his training with the knights there. Sir Ansley, I will rely on you to check on him regularly and see that he is progressing in his studies. Can you do this?” “Of course I can! Gladly!” said Sir Ansley. “Thank you. His lost hand is but a minor setback and I intend to have equipment made that will compensate for it. And please continue taking him to visit his mother. I’m sure she will be very proud of him.” Calister smiled, his face red. He rubbed his eyes again and laughed at himself. “I’m sorry, a knight shouldn’t cry.” “The good ones do.” Briette grinned and held out the sword. “Here. Take this as my gift to you. And wear it proudly! I’m sure you will have many adventures, Sir Calister.” Calister clasped the sword and bowed grandly. “I will strive to be worthy of this honor, my lady Bree.” “Oh, he’s adorable!” Miriella cried. Maelyn’s smile was more reserved. Briette hadn’t told her that she would knight a fourteen-year-old

can right here,” Marge replied and looked inside. “The thing is empty.” Celeste smiled at the sight of Marge finally trapping a paper between her oversized colorful mitts. “Thank you, Suzy Homemaker. All you need is an apron.” While we hurried to search the room, the doorbell rang. Drat. The three of us froze. We had every right to be here and I was getting tired of explaining that to Alex. I was hoping we’d be gone before he showed up at the door. We headed to the landing to see Deborah peeking out the window. She nodded when she saw us. “Yes, I’m afraid it’s him,” she whispered. I knew what was coming next: a mournful look from Alex, along with a little speech about interference with an important police investigation. Could we get in trouble? What were exactly the rules when we were working in a private home and hired by the homeowner? I’d promised him I’d be careful. But surely we had every right to be here, working for our client. The gig was up in any case. Alex had surely seen Marge’s car out front. “Let’s hurry to the couch,” I said, keeping my voice very low. “Then he might think that we’re only here to talk and to consult with Deborah.” “Quick, let’s go,” Celeste said. “Deborah, could you hold off for just a second before you let him in?” Deborah scowled. “I don’t really want to let him in at all. He’s a looker, but obnoxious. You take your time. He can cool his heels and wait.” Celeste wasn’t taking any chances. “Go!” she said, touching me on the back since I was closest to the stairs. Things moved quickly from that point. As I tended to do at the most important times, I tripped and fell flat on my face. Thankfully, my glasses stayed on. I’d nearly made it safely down the stairs when my foot got caught on the carpet. Marge and Celeste were right behind me, almost flying in their haste. We ended up in one big pile in front of a frowning Deborah. “And you’re sure that you’re detectives?” she asked doubtfully. “The real official thing,” Marge squeaked, rubbing her shoulder with the bright orange oven mitt. We limped to the couch as Deborah headed to the door. I heard a familiar voice as she let him in, and we arranged ourselves oh so casually on the couch, as if we’d been there all along. Alex wasn’t pleased at all. He and Deborah were both scowling as they walked into the room. And for all the unpleasantness, we hadn’t found a thing. Operation Search the Office Before Alex had not been a success. Chapter Seven Despite the pain in my left knee (and the tight quarters on the loveseat), I tried to look the part of an innocent working woman who’d come to talk – and only talk – to a client in distress. “What are you three up to?” Alex gave us a

Carter’s gaze hoods at the sound, and he works the spot harder. “Cara said you needed a foot rub. So I’m giving you a foot rub.

Dave took a deep breath, walked back to get a run-up, then turned and ran along the bridge with Carl in his arms. When he reached the gap, he leaped forward across the hole. One foot landed on the other side, but the other foot was still dangling in midair. Dave began to fall backward until Alex rushed forward and grabbed his nose. “ARRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!” Dave screamed. Alex pulled Dave up onto the bridge by his nose. It hurt so much, but at least he’d made it to the other side. He carefully put Carl down on the stairs and then rubbed his sore nose. “Thank goodness for your enormous nose, Dave,” said Alex. “It really came in handy.” “Yeah,” said Dave, rubbing his sore nose. “Thank goodness.

Each of those relationships ended because the love I gave was considered too hard… too suffocating. My father mapped out the perfect blueprint for how to treat a woman. He caters hand and foot to my mother. Even showers that love onto my sister. He never had to tell me how to treat my woman because his actions spoke louder. Did I cling to my woman? Absolutely. Being up under soft melanin skin pleased me. You want to read a book. Cool, what story we reading? Wanna go shopping? Take my card if you promise to model everything for me. Those heffas at work bothering you? Let’s get animated in the mirror and act like we about to tag team. Your period on? Baby, want me to rub your belly? You need me to get those diaper looking pads with the wings? How about some lemon ginger tea? What are your dreams? You want to sell weave? Let’s catch a flight to China or India and figure out how we can become wholesalers. You wanna make cute snapchat filter videos? What filter do you want? Are they not liking your pics? Fine. I’ll blast you all over my page. Your mother threatening to kick you out. Where you wanna move? Better yet, move in with me. Just focus on school and building your brand. I got everything else. You got finals coming up. Pick a tutor. Heck, can I pay for the answers to the quiz? You think those stretch marks make you unattractive? Come here and let me show you how much I appreciate your stripes of glitter. Do you want to go to Dr. Miami? Absolutely not. We going to the gym. Gym grown not silicone. We are working out together. Go ahead and hashtag us as #baegoals #coupleswhoworkouttogetherstaytogether. You want to switch the hair and get a tapered cut? Let me call my barber and see when we can go. Stressing and worrying? You keep hearing whispers while your sleeping? Nah bae, that’s not a ghost. That’s me praying for you. There are no stipulations with me. I gave it all. I had to. It was a part of my DNA. I needed to give the love I had in me unconditionally.

Their owners returned to Philadelphia each fall, leaving the resort a ghost town. Samuel Richards realized that mass-oriented facilities had to be developed before Atlantic City could become a major resort and a permanent community. From Richards’ perspective, more working-class visitors from Philadelphia were needed to spur growth. These visitors would only come if railroad fares cost less. For several years Samuel Richards tried, without success, to sell his ideas to the other shareholders of the Camden-Atlantic Railroad. He believed that greater profits could be made by reducing fares, which would increase the volume of patrons. A majority of the board of directors disagreed. Finally in 1875, Richards lost patience with his fellow directors. Together with three allies, Richards resigned from the board of directors of the Camden-Atlantic Railroad and formed a second railway company of his own. Richards’ railroad was to be an efficient and cheaper narrow gauge line. The roadbed for the narrow gauge was easier to build than that of the first railroad. It had a 3½-foot gauge instead of the standard 4 feet 8½ inches, so labor and material would cost less. The prospect of a second railroad into Atlantic City divided the town. Jonathan Pitney had died six years earlier, but his dream of an exclusive watering hole persisted. Many didn’t want to see the type of development that Samuel Richards was encouraging, nor did they want to rub elbows with the working class of Philadelphia. A heated debate raged for months. Most of the residents were content with their island remaining a sleepy little beach village and wanted nothing to do with Philadelphia’s blue-collar tourists. But their opinions were irrelevant to Samuel Richards. As he had done 24 years earlier, Richards went to the state legislature and obtained another railroad charter. The Philadelphia-Atlantic City Railway Company was chartered in March 1876. The directors of the Camden-Atlantic were bitter at the loss of their monopoly and put every possible obstacle in Richards’ path. When he began construction in April 1877—simultaneously from both ends—the Camden-Atlantic directors refused to allow the construction machinery to be transported over its tracks or its cars to be used for shipment of supplies. The Baldwin Locomotive Works was forced to send its construction engine by water, around Cape May and up the seacoast; railroad ties were brought in by ships from Baltimore. Richards permitted nothing to stand in his way. He was determined to have his train running that summer. Construction was at a fever pitch, with crews of laborers working double shifts seven days a week. Fifty-four miles of railroad were completed in just 90 days. With the exception of rail lines built during a war, there had never been a railroad constructed at such speed. The first train of the Philadelphia-Atlantic City Railway Company arrived in the resort on July 7, 1877. Prior to Richards’ railroad,

The first half of your detention will be spent digging an eight foot deep hole in the meadow.” Darius stalked off with the other guys and I moved forward to collect my shovel. Orion scooped it up, holding it out for me. Before I took it he caught my hand, brushing his thumb across my palm and sending a shiver through me. He repeated the process on the other hand then pressed his index finger to his lips. “That'll stop your skin chaffing,” he whispered. I stared at him in complete surprise as he passed me the shovel and moved aside. “Thank you,” I said, confused as I stepped past him, making my way through the high grass and colourful array of meadow flowers as I walked toward the Heirs. The four of them had formed a circle and were already getting to work digging the hole. ... “Vega!” Orion beckoned me and I was grateful to put the shovel down. I was a little dizzy as I walked up to his high metal chair where he was sitting a few feet above my head. He now had a large umbrella set up over it and a flask of coffee in his hand which he'd apparently brought with him. His Atlas was propped on his knee and he looked like he was thoroughly enjoying his morning as he gazed down at my mud stained skin with a bright smile. Thanks to his magic, at least I didn't have any blisters on my hands. “Water.” Orion waved his hand and water gathered in the air before me, circling into a glistening sphere. Orion tossed me a cup and I caught it at the last second. The water dropped straight into it with a splash and I guzzled it down greedily, “That's favouritism, sir!” Caleb called. “You're right, how rude of me!” Orion shouted back, lifting a hand and a torrential waterfall poured down on all of the heirs. Max crowed like a cockerel, pounding his chest, seemingly spurred on by the downpour. The others didn't seem quite as happy as the water continued to fall down on them. A laugh rushed from my throat and Orion threw me a wink. “So I'm having a little trouble, Miss Vega.” “With what, sir?” “Telling you apart from your sister,” he said in a low voice that I imagined only I could hear through the torrential storm he was still casting over the Heirs. “And you never did answer my question. Blue or green?” A smile twisted up my lips and I shrugged, deciding to leave him in continued suspense over that question, walking back to join the group. “I want an answer by sundown,” he called after me and my grin grew even wider. ... “Shut the fuck up!” Orion shouted. “I'm trying to concentrate here.” “Watching porn again, sir?” Seth shot at him with a smirk. “Yeah, your mom's really improved since the last edition,” he answered without missing a beat and Seth's face dropped into a scowl as a laugh tore from my throat. “Do you know who is always watching porn?” Max chipped in. “You?” the three other guys answered in unison. They all burst out laughing and I fought the urge to join in. “Hilarious,” Max said dryly. “I meant Washer. He snuck off in class the other day to rub one out.” “Useless. Well up you go then,” he said and I moved toward the ladder, taking hold of the first rung. Orion stepped up close behind me and his fingers brushed my waist, barely perceptible but I felt it everywhere. It scored a line of goosebumps across my back and a heavenly shiver fluttered up my spine. Heated air pushed under my clothes, drying them out almost instantly. “Thank you,” I whispered for the second time today. What’s gotten into him? He took hold of the ladder either side of my hands. “Up,” he breathed against my cheek and hot wax seemed to pour down each of my legs, making it almost impossible to move. But somehow, I managed it.

I can't save everyone, especially not someone who isn't willing to save themselves.' 'Damn, Xaden,' Garrick rubs the bridge of his nose. 'Way to give a pep talk.' 'If they need a fucking pep talk, then we both know they're not flying out of the quadrant on graduation day. Let's get real. I can hold their hands and make them a bunch of bullshit empty promises about everyone making it through if that helps them sleep, but in my experience, the truth is far more valuable.' He turns his head, and I can only assume he's looking at the panicked first-year. 'In war, people die. It's not glorious like the bards sing about, either. It's snapped necks and two-hundreds-foot falls. There's nothing romantic about scorched earth or the scent of sulphur. This'- he gestures back toward the citadel- 'isn't some fable where everyone makes it out alive. It's hard, cold, uncaring reality. Not everyone here is going to make it home... to whatever's left of our homes. And make no mistake, we are at war every time we step foot in the quadrant.' He leans forward slightly. 'So if you won't get your shirt together and fight to live, then no. You're not going to make it.

That’s why prayer matters—not as magic, like rubbing a rabbit’s foot. Prayer matters because when God is brought into the equation of life, something changes. Another possibility emerges.

I turned around and stumbled back home by foot, pressing my hand against my face, trying to breathe her in from the time she’d rubbed my fingers against her collarbone in the elevator. Her scent was gone.

Theraplay, a technique developed by Ann M. Jernberg (Jernberg and Booth 2010), focuses on meeting the child’s earlier unmet dependency needs through a playful format structured to empower the therapist and parent to provide the needed nurturing. Its goal is to enhance attachment, self-esteem, trust in others, and joyful engagement. Theraplay replicates natural, healthy interaction between parents and young children through structured play. One or more of the following elements are incorporated into all of the structured play activities: structure, challenge, nurture, intrusion/engagement, and playfulness. Structure involves the therapist and/or parent being in charge. Activities are selected that are challenging and therefore enhance self-esteem. Intrusive activities are selected which require child involvement and offer adventure, variety, stimulation, and a fresh view of life, allowing a child to understand that surprises can be fun and new experiences enjoyable. Sessions always include soothing, calming, quieting, caretaking activities such as foot rubs that make the world feel safe, predictable, warm, and secure, and provide the child with evidence that the adult provides comfort and stability.

How do you know this is Paige?” I ask, pretty sure this is another fantasy. It’s one thing to have Dad’s tracking device. It’s another to actually be tracking Paige, considering she needs to have the transmitter on her. “The devil tells me.” She lowers her head, looking troubled. “If I promise him certain things,” she mumbles. “Okay.” I rub my forehead, trying to be patient. There’s a certain art to getting information out of my mom. You need one foot in reality and one foot in her world to get a better picture of what she’s talking about. “How does the devil know where Paige is?” She looks up at me as if I’d asked the dumbest question in the world. “The transmitter, of course.

She grabbed a brush and stroked Blue’s neck. He nudged her with his big head wanting more. Caught up rubbing down Blue, she didn’t hear Jack come in behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. Jenna jumped and almost lost her footing. Ever protective, Jack steadied her by wrapping his arms around her and drawing her back to his chest. His voice came out low and husky at her ear. “It’s me. Leave my horse alone and come to bed with me.” She leaned into him, savored his warmth and strength wrapped around her. “You scared me. I’m all wound up about tomorrow. I thought a little exercise would help me sleep.” Blue shifted and nudged Jack’s shoulder. “I think your horse is jealous.” Jenna gave Jack a sweet smile over her shoulder. “Yeah, well he can join the club. So far, Sam and Ben fit into that category, too. They both think I don’t deserve you. I’m sure they’re plotting to steal you away from me.” “No way,” she said, astonished and embarrassed. She turned in his arms and placed her hands on his chest. “Sam’s convinced he can get you to leave with him. He doesn’t even mind the babies are mine, because, well, technically we have the same DNA, so no one can prove they aren’t his.” “Good lord. Is this what you guys talk about while you’re watching ball games and drinking beer?” “Nah, mostly he and Ben talk about how they’ll get rid of me and hide my body.” “Stop it. That’s not funny. Besides, that’d be hard to do these days with all the guards. Three are watching us right now.” “Not us, you. They’re plotting how they can get rid of me and still keep an eye on you at the same time.” “All right, that’s enough. Take me to bed and claim me as yours.” “I’ve already done that, it doesn’t seem to convince anyone. They still want you for their own.” -Jack & Jenna

Rancorous ivy. On the other side of the wall, at the edge of the river, the sand burned. The river lay afire. Kingfishers fell like spots across the eyes and laughter was yellow. Every Sunday Omensetter strolled by the river with his wife, his daughters, and his dog. They came by wagon, spoke to people who were off to church, and while Furber preached, they sprawled in the gravel and trailed their feet in the water. Lucy Omensetter lay her swollen body on a flat rock. Furber felt the sun lapping at her ears. It was like a rising blush, and his hands trembled when he held them out to make the bars of the cross. May the Lord bless you and keep you . . . He closed his eyes, drifting off. They would see how moved he was, how intense and sincere he was. Cause His light to shine upon you . . . He would find the footprints of the dog and imprint of their bodies. All the days of your life . . . The brazen parade of her infected person. Watchman. Rainbows like rings of oil around her. Watchman. Shouldn’t we be? I spy you, Fatty, behind the tree. He wanted to rub the memory from his eyes. Glittering. Beads of water stood on her skin and drop fled into drop until they broke and ran, the streaks finally fading. Her navel was inside out—sweet spot where Zeus had tied her. She was so white and glistening, so . . . pale, though darker about the eyes, the nipples dark. Open us to evil. He made a slit in his lids. Burn our hearts. Shawls of sunlight spilled over the backs of the pews. Nay-ked-nessss. The droplets gathered at the point of her elbow and hung there, the sac swelling until it fell and spattered on her foot. Nay . . . nay. To enclose her like the water of the creek had closed her. Nay . . . Proper body for a lover. Joy to be a stone. Please, the peep-watch is over. Please hurry now. Hurry. Get out of my church.

JENNA SMILED WHEN Easy walked into the bedroom, carrying what appeared to be half the refrigerator on a bowing cookie sheet. How much more sweet could he be? He glanced between her and Sara like he was unsure what to do next. Jenna pulled the covers back so the surface would be flat and patted the bed next to her. “Put it anywhere.” Easy set the makeshift tray down and rubbed a hand over his head. “I tried to think of things that would be gentle on your stomach,” he said in a low voice. “But if you want something different—” “No, this looks perfect.” Her gaze settled on a tall glass of . . . She gasped. “You made me a milk shake?” At that, Sara patted her on the knee. “Okay, I’m gonna go. Let me know if you need anything?” “Oh, uh, Shane was making you all something to eat,” Easy said. Sara smiled. “Good timing. This is making me hungry,” she said, gesturing to the tray. Jenna grabbed up the milk shake and hugged the glass against her chest. “Get your own.” Holding up her hands in surrender, Sara smiled. “All yours. Besides, Nick and Jeremy have the world’s biggest sweet tooths. There’s an endless supply of ice cream downstairs. I’m not even joking. So there’s more where that came from.” She squeezed Easy’s arm. “You know where to find me if you need me,” she said. And then they were alone. Jenna was glad. Not because having Easy here warded off her panic and fear but because she just wanted to be with him. She fished a spoon out from between two plates and took a taste of her treat. Freaking heaven. “Oh, my God,” she said, scooping another big bite. “This is so good. I can’t believe you made me a milk shake.” Even when her father had been alive, no one was really taking care of Jenna. So maybe Easy’s thoughtfulness wouldn’t have been so earthshaking to someone else, but to her, it meant everything. She peered up at him, which made her realize he was still standing. Crisscrossing her legs, she pointed at the foot of the bed. “Come sit down. Some of this has to be for you, right?” “Yeah,” Easy said. “You sure this is okay?” “It’s great, really. I can’t even remember the last time I ate, so this is like filet mignon and Maine lobster rolled into one. Seriously.” She exchanged the milk shake for the bowl of soup, and the warm, salty broth tasted every bit as good. They ate in companionable silence for a while, then he asked, “So, what are you studying in school?” “International business,” Jenna said around a spoonful of soup. “I always wanted to travel.” And, to put it more plainly, she’d always wanted to get the hell out of here. “Sounds ambitious,” Easy said. “Did you have to learn languages?” Jenna nodded. “I minored in Spanish, and I’ve taken some French, too. What I’d really like to learn is Chinese since there are so many new markets opening up there. But I’ve heard it’s really hard. Do you speak any other languages?” Wiping his mouth with a napkin, Easy nodded. “Hablo español, árabe, y Dari.” Grinning, Jenna reached for her bagel. She’d thought him hard to resist just being his usual sexy, thoughtful, protective self. If he was going to throw speaking to her in a foreign language into the mix, she’d be a goner. “What is Dari?” “One of the main languages in Afghanistan,” he said. “Oh. Guess that makes sense. Are Arabic and Dari hard to learn?” “Yeah. Where I grew up in Philly, there were a lot of Hispanic kids, so Spanish was like a second language. But coming to languages as an adult about kicked my ass. Cultural training is a big part of Special Forces training, though. We’re not out there just trying to win battles, but hearts and minds, too. . .” He frowned. “Or, we were, anyway.

Rubbing a clit to completion and sawing off someone’s foot seemed to use all the same muscles. It

It would take a good amount of work, a considerable amount of patience, and an unfathomable amount of foot rubs, but in the end—at least for a while—they lived happily.

Though they were twins, it was easy to tell the brothers apart. Twin Kindred always came in diametrically opposing pairs of light and dark. The light twin, Lock, had sandy blond hair and eyes the color of melted chocolate. He also had a more optimistic view of life in general than his brother. Of the two of them, Kat found him much easier to tolerate. He was nicer than Deep, for one thing, and she could actually have a conversation with him that didn’t turn into an argument. His feelings were easier to deal with, too. Though Lock’s desire for her was loud inside her head, it was nothing like the deafening blast of lust she felt from his brother whenever he got too close. Deep, the dark twin, had hair so black it almost had blue highlights and eyes the color of a night without stars. They seemed to burn when they looked at her, making Kat feel naked and vulnerable—feelings she didn’t care for a bit. She had enough body issues from having been plus-sized her entire life without an irritating alien male adding to them, thank-you-very-much. The big warrior had rubbed her the wrong way from the moment she’d met him—both literally and figuratively, since he couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself when the three of them did a joining. Of the brothers, Lock was shorter by about an inch. But since both of them were over six foot six and extremely muscular, it didn’t make much difference. They were both huge as far as Kat was concerned—physically, and emotionally. She should know—she’d had the two of them tramping around inside her head for the better part of a month. The

Throw me the ball,” I say. Sam looks at me like I’m nuts, so I say, “What? Are you afraid to play with a girl?” He smiles and hurls the ball at me. I take off running with it cradled in my arm. Logan runs after me, but I’m faster than any of them expected. Just before I reach the bench Matt’s sitting on, Logan snakes an arm around my waist, swinging me around. While he holds me tightly, Sam wrestles the ball from me. “That’s cheating!” I scream. “Cheating is allowed!” Sam yells back. “In whose rule book?” I ask, stamping my foot. “What rule book?” Matt says with a chuckle. He hefts himself to his feet. “Me and you against them?” he says. He grins at me. “We can take them any day,” I say, throwing my arms around him. He squeezes me gently and sets me away from him. He rubs my head, messing my hair all up. Logan runs down the field, and I chase him. He turns to catch the ball Sam throws, and as soon as he has it, I tackle him. I hit him as hard as I can. He stumbles with me holding his shirt until I can wrap around his legs. He goes down like a big oak tree falling. He lies on his stomach, but he’s smiling at me. I climb on his back and sit on him, plucking the ball from his grip. I hold it in the air and cheer, flailing my feet wildly. He lets me sit there on top of him for a minute as his breath heaves in and out under me. But then he upends me. He rolls me under him. “You cheated,” he says. His hands hold my wrists in a strong grip. “There’s no rule book, remember?” I giggle when he tickles beneath my ribs. “Stop!” I cry. He looks into my eyes. “I think I might be falling in love with you,” he says softly. My breath catches. “Yeah, me too,” I say. He smiles and gets to his feet, tugging me up beside him. His face is flushed, and he’s grinning. “If you two are done playing lovey-dovey,” Matt yells, “we have a game to win.” He waggles his eyebrows at me.

Brrr,” Nic complained, her voice drifting across the darkness. “It’s so cold. Do you have a spare bearskin over there?” An image of naked limbs on a bear skin rug flashed through his mind. He cleared his throat. “I thought you were asleep.” “I dozed for a bit. My boots were killing me, so I took them off. Now my feet are cold, and that makes me uncomfortable and cranky.” Gabe hesitated a moment before saying, “Well, we can’t have cranky. Scoot them over here. I’ll rub your feet for you.” “God bless you, Gabe Callahan.” She whipped her legs out from beneath her covers and set them in his lap. She wore thin trouser socks, and when he took her right foot between his hands, he sucked in a breath. “You have ice cubes for feet.” “I told you so.” He tugged off her sock and began rubbing her bare, freezing foot. While he tried to keep his touch clinical and his thoughts impersonal, he couldn’t help noticing her foot’s slender width, the graceful arch of her instep, the softness of her skin. It was the most personal touch he’d shared with a woman in months, and damn his soul, he enjoyed it. While he massaged her right foot, her left foot crept up and rested on his thigh, inches from his torso. Inches from his erection. He should put her ice cubes right on his crotch, but he settled for the next best thing. He tugged his shirttail from his jeans and yanked her sock off her left foot. “Look, don’t take this personally. Consider it payback for doctoring my scratches that day.” He took both her feet and tucked them against his belly, sucking in an audible breath. It truly was like putting ice on his stomach. “Whoa. Have you no circulation in your feet whatsoever?” “Oh, you feel good, Callahan,” she purred. “How can you be so warm? Are you hiding a heater or something?” A heater? Was that a come-on? Or was she just clueless? He wished he could see her expression to help him judge. Wryly he replied, “Or something.” Gabe