I Love Lifting Weights Quotes

All right, then,” she snapped, “do as you please! Perhaps afterward we could manage a coherent discussion.” Twisting beneath him, she flopped onto her stomach. Christopher went still. After a long hesitation, she heard him ask in a far more normal voice, “What are you doing?” “I’m making it easier for you,” came her defiant reply. “Go on, start ravishing.” Another silence. Then, “Why are you facing downward?” “Because that’s how it’s done.” Beatrix twisted to look at him over her shoulder. A twinge of uncertainty caused her to ask, “Isn’t it?” His face was blank. “Has no one ever told you?” “No, but I’ve read about it.” Christopher rolled off her, relieving her of his weight. He wore an odd expression as he asked, “From what books?” “Veterinary manuals. And of course, I’ve observed the squirrels in springtime, and farm animals and-” She was interrupted as Christopher cleared his throat loudly, and again. Darting a confused glance at him, she realized that he was trying to choke back amusement. Beatrix began to feel indignant. Her first time in a bed with a man, and he was laughing. “Look here,” she said in a businesslike manner, “I’ve read about the mating habits of over two dozen species, and with the exception of snails, whose genitalia is on their necks, they all—” She broke off and frowned. “Why are you laughing at me? Christopher had collapsed, overcome with hilarity. As he lifted his head and saw her affronted expression, he struggled manfully with another outburst. “Beatrix. I’m . . . I’m not laughing at you.” “You are!” “No I’m not. It’s just . . .” He swiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and a few more chuckles escaped. “Squirrels . . .” “Well, it may be humorous to you, but it’s a very serious matter to the squirrels.

I don’t know what trials I’m about to face. But I do know one thing as I feel the weight of this last secret lift from my soul. The show can’t start until you jump.

I love you,” I whispered into his suit. My words had life, and weight, and a pulse. I said them again. “I love you, Dad. I love you. I love you. I love you.” He lifted me up like I was a little girl, spinning me in place and burying his nose in my hair. Tears rolled down our faces. The pen bled the last of its ink, marking this page in our lives forever in my father’s office. I knew, with certainty that made my heart swell, that he was not going to replace that carpet. He was going to look at it every day, remember the day it had happened, and cherish it. “I love you, too, baby girl.

On day one of the drive, I saw my first dome sky. The world was so flat that I could see the level horizon all around me and the sky looked like a dome. Skies like that will give you perspective when nothing else will. The second day, a tumbleweed blew across the interstate. I’m in a western movie, I said to myself, laughing. I found it so much easier to laugh now that this weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

You won’t stop until you have all of me, will you? My body, my blood, my trust…and still you want more.” He knew of what I spoke and his reply was immediate. “I want your heart the most. Above all else. You’re exactly right, I won’t stop until I have it.” Tears began to slide down my cheeks, because I couldn’t hold the truth back anymore. I didn’t know how I’d managed to hold it back this long. “You have it already. So now you can stop.” His whole body stilled. “You mean that?” Uncertainty but also growing emotion filled his eyes as they bore into mine. I nodded, mouth too dry to speak. “Say it. I need to hear the words. Tell me.” I licked my lips and cleared my throat. It took three times, but finally my voice returned. “I love you, Bones.” A weight seemed to lift from me I hadn’t known was there. Funny how much I’d feared something that shouldn’t have frightened me at all. “Again.” He started to smile, and a beautiful, pure joy filled up the emptiness I’d carried my entire life. “I love you.” He kissed my forehead, cheeks, eyelids, and chin, feather-soft brushes that had the impact of a locomotive. “Once more.” The request was muffled by his mouth on mine and I breathed the words into him. “I love you.” Bones kissed me until my head reeled and everything tilted even though I was lying flat. He only paused long enough to whisper onto my lips, “It was well worth the wait.

I hate being fat. I hate the way people look at me, or don't. I hate being a joke; I hate the disorienting limbo between too visible and invisible; I hate the way that complete strangers waste my life out of supposed concern for my death. I hate knowing that if I did die of a condition that correlates with weight, a certain subset of people would feel their prejudices validated, and some would outright celebrate. I also love being fat. The breadth of my shoulders makes me feel safe. I am unassailable. I intimidate. I am a polar icebreaker. I walk and climb and lift things, I can open your jar, I can absorb blows - literal and metaphorical - meant for other women, smaller woman, breakable women women who need me. My bones feel like iron - heavy, but strong. I used to say that being fat in our culture was like drowning (in hate, in blame, in your own tissue), but lately I think it's more like burning. After three decades in the fire, my iron bones are steel.

When I opened my eyes, I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with outstretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver. But I did not fall. From nape to heel I discovered myself bound to earth. I felt a sort of appeasement in surrendering to it my weight. Gravitation had become as sovereign as love. The earth, I felt, was supporting my back, sustaining me, lifting me up, transporting me through the immense void of night.

He lifted his head and looked down at me, his dark eyes flashing with intensity. “Say it again.” I swallowed as his hands pressed mine into the door. I looked into his eyes and said, “I love you.” “Again,” he growled, his voice quiet, his eyes dark. He leaned his weight more heavily onto his palms and his body, into me, his throat moving around a swallow as he watched me. “I love you, Wes Bennett,” I confessed, wondering how I’d ever thought it was possible to deny this. “I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love you.

His vulnerability allowed me to let my guard down, and gently and methodically, he tore apart my well-constructed dam. Waves of tender feelings were lapping over the top and slipping through the cracks. The feelings flooded through and spilled into me. It was frightening opening myself up to feel love for someone again. My heart pounded hard and thudded audibly in my chest. I was sure he could hear it. Ren’s expression changed as he watched my face. His look of sadness was replaced by one of concern for me. What was the next step? What should I do? What do I say? How do I share what I’m feeling? I remembered watching romance movies with my mom, and our favorite saying was “shut up and kiss her already!” We’d both get frustrated when the hero or heroine wouldn’t do what was so obvious to the two of us, and as soon as a tense, romantic moment occurred, we’d both repeat our mantra. I could hear my mom’s humor-filled voice in my mind giving me the same advice: “Kells, shut up and kiss him already!” So, I got a grip on myself, and before I changed my mind, I leaned over and kissed him. He froze. He didn’t kiss me back. He didn’t push me away. He just stopped…moving. I pulled back, saw the shock on his face, and instantly regretted my boldness. I stood up and walked away, embarrassed. I wanted to put some distance between us as I frantically tried to rebuild the walls around my heart. I heard him move. He slid his hand under my elbow and turned me around. I couldn’t look at him. I just stared at his bare feet. He put a finger under my chin and tried to nudge my head up, but I still refused to meet his gaze. “Kelsey. Look at me.” Lifting my eyes, they traveled from his feet to a white button in the middle of his shirt. “Look at me.” My eyes continued their journey. They drifted past the golden-bronze skin of his chest, his throat, and then settled on his beautiful face. His cobalt blue eyes searched mine, questioning. He took a step closer. My breath hitched in my throat. Reaching out a hand, he slid it around my waist slowly. His other hand cupped my chin. Still watching my face, he placed his palm lightly on my cheek and traced the arch of my cheekbone with his thumb. The touch was sweet, hesitant, and careful, the way you might try to touch a frightened doe. His face was full of wonder and awareness. I quivered. He paused just a moment more, then smiled tenderly, dipped is head, and brushed his lips lightly against mine. He kissed me softly, tentatively, just a mere whisper of a kiss. His other hand slid down to my waist too. I timidly touched his arms with my fingertips. He was warm, and his skin was smooth. He gently pulled me closer and pressed me lightly against his chest. I gripped his arms. He sighed with pleasure, and deepened the kiss. I melted into him. How was I breathing? His summery sandalwood scent surrounded me. Everywhere he touched me, I felt tingly and alive. I clutched his arms fervently. His lips never leaving mine, Ren took both of my arms and wrapped them, one by one, around his neck. Then he trailed one of his hands down my bare arm to my waist while the other slid into my hair. Before I realized what he was planning to do, he picked me up with one arm and crushed me to his chest. I have no idea how long we kissed. It felt like a mere second, and it also felt like forever. My bare feet were dangling several inches from the floor. He was holding all my body weight easily with one arm. I buried my fingers into his hair and felt a rumble in his chest. It was similar to the purring sound he made as a tiger. After that, all coherent thought fled and time stopped.

Cauldron save me," she began whispering, her voice lovely and even-like music. "Mother hold me," she went on, reciting a prayer similar to one I'd heard once before, when Tamlin eased the passing of that lesser faerie who'd died in the foyer. Another of Amarantha's victims. "Guide me to you." I was unable to raise my dagger, unable to take the step that would close the distance between us. "Let me pass through the gates; let me smell that immortal land of milk and honey." Silent tears slide down my face and neck, where they dampened the filthy collar of my tunic. As she spoke, I knew I would be forever barred from that immortal land. I knew that whatever Mother she meant would never embrace me. In saving Tamlin, I was to damn myself. I couldn't do this-couldn't lift that dagger again. "Let me fear no evil," she breathed, staring at me-into me, into the soul that was cleaving itself apart."Let me feel no pain." A sob broke from my lips. "I'm sorry," I moaned. "Let me enter eternity," She breathed. I wept as I understood. Kill me now, she was saying. Do it fast. Don't make it hurt. Kill me now. Her bronze eyes were steady, if not sorrowful. Infinitely, infinitely worse than the pleading of the dead faerie beside her. I couldn't do it. But she held my gaze-held my gaze and nodded. As I lifted the ash dagger, something inside me fractured so completely that there would be no hope of ever repairing it. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times I might try to paint her face.” As I lifted the ash dagger, something inside me fractured so completely that there would be no hope of ever repairing it. No matter how many years passed, no matter how many times I might try to paint her face. More faeries wailed now-her kinsmen and friends. The dagger was a weight in my hand-my hand, shining and coated with the blood of the first faerie. It would be more honorable to refuse-to die, rather than murder innocents. But... but... "Let me enter eternity," she repeated, lifting her chin. "Fear no evil," she whispered-just for me. "Feel no pain." I gripped her delicate, bony shoulder and drove the dagger into her heart. She gasped, and blood spilled onto the ground like a splattering of rain. Her eyes were closed when I looked at her face again. She slumped to the floor and didn't move. I went somewhere far, far away from myself.

Season late, day late, sun just down, and the sky Cold gunmetal but with a wash of live rose, and she, From water the color of sky except where Her motion has fractured it to shivering splinters of silver, Rises. Stands on the raw grass. Against The new-curdling night of spruces, nakedness Glimmers and, at bosom and flank, drips With fluent silver. The man, Some ten strokes out, but now hanging Motionless in the gunmetal water, feet Cold with the coldness of depth, all History dissolving from him, is Nothing but an eye. Is an eye only. Sees The body that is marked by his use, and Time's, Rise, and in the abrupt and unsustaining element of air, Sway, lean, grapple the pond-bank. Sees How, with that posture of female awkwardness that is, And is the stab of, suddenly perceived grace, breasts bulge down in The pure curve of their weight and buttocks Moon up and, in swelling unity, Are silver and glimmer. Then The body is erect, she is herself, whatever Self she may be, and with an end of the towel grasped in each hand, Slowly draws it back and forth across back and buttocks, but With face lifted toward the high sky, where The over-wash of rose color now fails. Fails, though no star Yet throbs there. The towel, forgotten, Does not move now. The gaze Remains fixed on the sky. The body, Profiled against the darkness of spruces, seems To draw to itself, and condense in its whiteness, what light In the sky yet lingers or, from The metallic and abstract severity of water, lifts. The body, With the towel now trailing loose from one hand, is A white stalk from which the face flowers gravely toward the high sky. This moment is non-sequential and absolute, and admits Of no definition, for it Subsumes all other, and sequential, moments, by which Definition might be possible. The woman, Face yet raised, wraps, With a motion as though standing in sleep, The towel about her body, under her breasts, and, Holding it there hieratic as lost Egypt and erect, Moves up the path that, stair-steep, winds Into the clamber and tangle of growth. Beyond The lattice of dusk-dripping leaves, whiteness Dimly glimmers, goes. Glimmers and is gone, and the man, Suspended in his darkling medium, stares Upward where, though not visible, he knows She moves, and in his heart he cries out that, if only He had such strength, he would put his hand forth And maintain it over her to guard, in all Her out-goings and in-comings, from whatever Inclemency of sky or slur of the world's weather Might ever be. In his heart he cries out. Above Height of the spruce-night and heave of the far mountain, he sees The first star pulse into being. It gleams there. I do not know what promise it makes him.

I suddenly felt the weight lift off my shoulders as the whole world seemed wild and wonderful. I closed my eyes, holding my breath, trying to hold onto the moment. I wanted to forget that it wouldn't last forever. I wanted to forget that I couldn't be the wind. I wanted to forget that when the car stopped, I would be me and he would be him again.

and when a leaf falls from the climbing vines, you know, my love, what name is written on that leaf, a name that is yours and mine, our love name, a single being, the arrow that pierced winter, the invincible love, the fire of the days, a leaf that dropped upon my breast, a leaf from the tree of life that made a nest and sang, that put out roots, that gave flowers and fruits. And so you see, my love, how I move around the island, around the world, safe in the midst of spring, crazy with light in the cold, walking tranquil in the fire, lifting your petal weight in my arms as if I had never walked except with you, my heart, as if I could not walk except with you, as if I could not sing except when you sing.

Larissa's father was Vlad Dracul? Vlad Tepes? Vlad the fucking Impaler?" Tepes translated meant "the Impaler," something Connor clearly knew. "Yeah." Surprising him, Connor let out a loud laugh. "Man I bet her family just loved that she mated with a shifter." A weight on Aiden's chest lifted at his Alpha's reaction. "You have no idea.

Lilichka! (Instead of a letter)" Tobacco smoke eats the air away. The room,-- a chapter from Kruchenykh's Inferno. Recall,-- by the window, that day, I caressed you ecstatically, with fervor. Here you sit now, with your heart in iron armor. In a day, you'll scold me perhaps and tell me to leave. Frenzied, the trembling arm in the gloomy parlor will hardly be able to fit the sleeve. I'll rush out and hurl my body into the street,-- distraught, lashed by despair and sadness. There's no need for this, my darling, my sweet. Let's part tonight and end this madness. Either way, my love is an arduous weight, hanging on you wherever you flee. Let me bellow out in the final complaint all of my heartbroken misery. A laboring bull, if he had enough, will leave and find cool water to lie in. But for me, there's no sea except for your love,-- from which even tears won't earn me some quiet. If an elephant wants to relax, he'll lie, pompous, outside in the sun-baked dune, Except for your love, there's no sun in the sky and I don't even know where you are and with whom. If you thus tormented another poet, he would trade in his love for money and fame. But nothing sounds as precious to me as the ringing sound of your darling name. I won't drink poison, or jump to demise, or pull the trigger to take my own life. Except for your eyes, no blade can control me, no sharpened knife. Tomorrow you'll forget that it was I who crowned you, who burned out the blossoming soul with love and the days will form a whirling carnival that will ruffle my manuscripts and lift them above... Will the dry autumn leaves of my sentences cause you to pause, breathing hard? Let me pave a path with the final tenderness for your footsteps as you depart. (1916)

I am not that strong but my words are more powerful than I am. My soul is drowning under the weight of my own insecurities, my heart is often broken and my mind desperately struggles for the right words, often failing, but I hope that the words that I write with a vulnerable heart are strong enough to lift your spirit, awaken your consciousness and push you to the edge of your greatness.

Wanting his mind on other matters, she deliiberately challenged his statement. "You don't know so much about me. There was a man once. He was crazy about me." She tried to look wordly. "Absolutely crazy for me." His answering laughter was warm against her neck, her throat. His lips touched the skin over her pulse and skimmed lightly up to her ear. "Are you, by any chance, referring to that foppish boy with the orange hair and spiked collar? Dragon something?" Savannah gasped and pulled away to glare at im. "How could you possibly know about him? I dated him last year." Gregori nuzzled her neck, inhaling her fragrance, his hand sliding over her shoulder, moving gently over her satin skin to take possession of her breast. "He wore boots and rode a Harley." His breath came out in a rush as his palm cupped the soft weight, his thumb brushing her nipple into a hard peak. The feel of his large hand-so strong, so warm and possessive on her-sent heat curling through her body. Desire rose sharply. He was seducing her with tenderness. Savannah didn't want it to happen. Her body felt better, but the soreness was there to remind her where this could all lead. Her hand caught at his wrist. "How did you find out about Dragon?" she asked, desperate to distract him, to distract herself. How could he make her body burn for his when she was so afraid of him, of having sex with him? "Making love," he corrected, his voice husky, caressing, betraying the ease with which his mind moved like a shadow through hers."And to answer your question, I live in you, can touch you whenever I wish.I knew about all of them. Every damn one." He growled the worrds, and her breath caught in her throat. "He was the only one you thought of kissing." His mouth touched hers. Gently. Lightly. Returned for more. Coaxing, teasing, until she opened to him. He stole her breath, her reason, whirling her into a world of feeling.Bright colors and white-hot heat, the room falling away until there was only his broad shoulders,strong arms, hard body, and perfect,perfect mouth. When he lifted his head, Savannah nearly pulled him back to her.He watched her face,her eyes cloudy with desire, her lips so beautiful, bereft of his. "Do you have any idea how beautiful you are, Savannah? There is such beauty in your soul,I can see it shining in your eyes." She touched his face, her palm molding his strong jaw. Why couldn't she resist his hungry eyes? "I think you're casting a spell over me. I can't remember what we were talking about." Gregori smiled. "Kissing." His teeth nibbled gently at her chin. "Specifically,your wanting to kiss that orange-bearded imbecile." "I wanted to kiss every one of them," she lied indignantly. "No,you did not.You were hoping that silly fop would wipe my taste from your mouth for all eternity." His hand stroked back the fall of hair around her face.He feathered kisses along the delicate line of her jaw. "It would not have worked,you know.As I recall,he seemed to have a problem getting close to you." Her eyes smoldered dangerously. "Did you have anything to do with his allergies?" She had wanted someone, anyone,to wipe Gregori's taste from her mouth,her soul. He raised his voice an octave. "Oh, Savannah, I just have to taste your lips," he mimicked. Then he went into a sneezing fit. "You haven't ridden until you've ridden on a Harley,baby." He sneezed, coughed, and gagged in perfect imitation. Savannah pushed his arm, forgetting for a moment her bruised fist. When it hurt, she yelped and glared accusingly at him. "It was you doing all that to him! That poor man-you damaged his ego for life. Each time he touched me, he had a sneezing fit." Gregori raised an eyebrow, completely unrepentant. "Technically,he did not lay a hand on you.He sneezed before he could get that close.

Halfway to the house Stan stopped and turned to Jane. He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her toward him. "I'm glad we're going steady," he whispered. "So am I." In spite of the reassuring weight of his bracelet on her wrist, Jane suddenly felt shy. It seemed strange to be so close to Stan, to feel his crisp clean shirt against her cheek. She could not look up at him. Gently Stan lifted her face to his. "You're my girl," he whispered. -Fifteen

There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in. I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back ... And to be honest: I wasn’t really angry. Not anymore. I had left my anger somewhere long ago. Put it down on a park bench and walked away. And yet. It had been so long, I didn’t know any other way of being. One day I woke up and said to myself: It’s not too late. The first days were strange. I had to practice smiling in front of the mirror. But it came back to me. It was as if a weight had been lifted. I let go, and something let go of me.

He paused, then, I behind him, arms locked around the powerful ribs, fingers caressing him. To lie with him, to lie with him, burning forgetful in the delicious animal fire. Locked first upright, thighs ground together, shuddering, mouth to mouth, breast to breast, legs enmeshed, then lying full length, with the good heavy weight of body upon body, arching, undulating, blind, growing together, force fighting force: to kill? To drive into burning dark of oblivion? To lose identity? Not love, this, quite. But something else rather. A refined hedonism. Hedonism: because of the blind sucking mouthing fingering quest for physical gratification. Refined: because of the desire to stimulate another in return, not being quite only concerned for self alone, but mostly so. An easy end to arguments on the mouth: a warm meeting of mouths, tongues quivering, licking, tasting. An easy substitute for bad slashing with angry hating teeth and nails and voice: the curious musical tempo of hands lifting under breasts, caressing throat, shoulders, knees, thighs. And giving up to the corrosive black whirlpool of mutual necessary destruction. - Once there is the first kiss, then the cycle becomes inevitable. Training, conditioning, make a hunger burn in breasts and secrete fluid in vagina, driving blindly for destruction. What is it but destruction? Some mystic desire to beat to sensual annihilation - to snuff out one’s identity on the identity of the other - a mingling and mangling of identities? A death of one? Or both? A devouring and subordination? No, no. A polarization rather - a balance of two integrities, changing, electrically, one with the other, yet with centers of coolness, like stars. And there it is: when asked what role I will plan to fill, I say “What do you mean role? I plan not to step into a part on marrying - but to go on living as an intelligent mature human being, growing and learning as I always have. No shift, no radical change in life habits.” Never will there be a circle, signifying me and my operations, confined solely to home, other womenfolk, and community service, enclosed in the larger worldly circle of my mate, who brings home from his periphery of contact with the world the tales only of vicarious experience to me.

How were you naive enough to think you and Yash had a chance?" Naina said. "Because truth has to..." "... count for something," Yash and India said together. India spun toward him. And there it was, the endless peace of her gaze. Breath whooshed out of him, weight lifted off his shoulders. "Because love has to count for something." He took a step closer, and her body sagged, mirroring all the relief he was feeling. "I breathe differently when she's around. I feel... I feel alive in ways I never have.

Elephants command attention. But their size is not what makes the heart skip a beat. It's how they walk with the world's weight on their shoulders, sensitive, noble, their hearts pulsing and as wide open as the great grey leaves that are their ears. MoFos used to say that an elephant never forgets and until this very moment, I hadn't understood what that really meant. An elephant's memories don't reside in organ or skin or bone. They live closer to tree time than we do, and their memories reside in the soul of their species, which dwarfs them in size, is untouchable, and lives on forever to honor every story. They carry stories from generations back, as far as when their ancestors wore fur coats, That is why, when you are close to an elephant, you feel so deeply. If they so choose, they have the ability to hold your sadness so you may safely sit in the lonely seat of loss, still hopeful and full of love. Their great secret is that they know everything is a tide—not a black tide, but the natural breath of life—in and out, in and out, and to be with them is to know this too, And here they were, suddenly lifting the weight of our sadness for us, carrying it in the curl of their trunks. We all sat together in our loss, not dwelling, but remembering. For an elephant never forgets,

Evie stayed, however, the silence spinning out until it seemed that the pounding of his heart must be audible. “Do you want to know what I think, Sebastian?” she finally asked. It took every particle of his will to keep his voice controlled. “Not particularly.” “I think that if I leave this room, you’re going to ring that bell again. But no matter how many times you ring, or how often I come running, you’ll never bring yourself to tell me what you really want.” Sebastian slitted his eyes open…a mistake. Her face was very close, her soft mouth only inches from his. “At the moment, all I want is some peace,” he grumbled. “So if you don’t mind—” Her lips touched his, warm silk and sweetness, and he felt the dizzying brush of her tongue. A floodgate of desire opened, and he was drowning in undiluted pleasure, more powerful than anything he had known before. He lifted his hands as if to push her head away, but instead his trembling fingers curved around her skull, holding her to him. The fiery curls of her hair were compressed beneath his palms as he kissed her with ravenous urgency, his tongue searching the winsome delight of her mouth. Sebastian was mortified to discover that he was gasping like an untried boy when Evie ended the kiss. Her lips were rosy and damp, her freckles gleaming like gold dust against the deep pink of her cheeks. “I also think,” she said unevenly, “that you’re going to lose our bet.” Recalled to sanity by a flash of indignation, Sebastian scowled. “Do you think I’m in any condition to pursue other women? Unless you intend to bring someone to my bed, I’m hardly going to—” “You’re not going to lose the bet by sleeping with another woman,” Evie said. There was a glitter of deviltry in her eyes as she reached up to the neckline of her gown and deliberately began to unfasten the row of buttons. Her hands trembled just a little. “You’re going to lose it with me.” Sebastian watched incredulously as she stood and shed the dressing gown. She was naked, the tips of her breasts pointed and rosy in the cool air. She had lost weight, but her breasts were still round and lovely, and her hips still flared generously from the neat inward curves of her waist. As his gaze swept to the triangle of red hair between her thighs, a swell of acute lust rolled through him. He sounded shaken, even to his own ears. “You can’t make me lose the bet. That’s cheating.” “I never promised not to cheat,” Evie said cheerfully, shivering as she slipped beneath the covers with him. “Damn it, I’m not going to cooperate. I—” His breath hissed between his teeth as he felt the tender length of her body press against his side, the springy brush of her private curls on his hip as she slid one of her legs between his. He jerked his head away as she tried to kiss him. “I can’t…Evie…” His mind searched cagily for a way to dissuade her. “I’m too weak.” Ardent and determined, Evie grasped his head and turned his face to hers. “Poor darling,” she murmured, smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gentle with you.” “Evie,” he said hoarsely, aroused and infuriated and pleading, “I have to prove that I can last three months without—no, don’t do that. Damn you, Evie—

I love you, you know. The thought had escaped before I had a chance to rein it in. Henri caught his breath in his throat; the sombre weight in his chest lifting away like a pressure valve had been removed. He couldn't reply, certainly not with the two gate guards standing right next to him, but I felt his face relax into a smile.

My heart has been broken a million times by the same hand, yet I would let it happen a million times again if it meant it was by you. I was weaker than I thought / my heart sagging like the stems of uncut, unkempt flowers because of the sunlight you held in your faraway heart / Maybe you weren't mine to love / I think I'm falling The wallpaper above her bed frame was glued in my brain the way it was glued against her walls / I got so close to running my fingers against it / I wish I felt the confidence to tell you the truth, as strongly as I felt stubborn to hide it Do you hear that? That's my heart knocking against my chest at the sight of you / I've never heard anything more terrifying / how could you provide me air and suffocate me at the same time? Blue hydrangeas, pink tulips, red bleeding hearts / it's all you ever loved, but never yourself / I never understood why anyone spoke poorly of the color brown, it was a dream on you And that kiss... I think about it all the time / was it wrong of me to think of you when you were never mine? / I feel lucky to have had you, but dismayed to know what life is like without you Don't worry if the flowers pass, I'll be right there to plant you more / and when the soil grows old, I'll comfort it in the chaos of the storm Am I a ghost in your story? / because you look at me with conviction when I don't even know the crime I committed Burden me with your secrets / so I can carry the weight you're so fearful of letting go To be close to you was to be haunted by what I couldn't have and to be reminded of how much I truly wanted you / and I'd be lying if I said I never thought about where my hands would take me across your body Midnights and daydreaming hours of retracing steps to how we possibly got here / how did I ever let time pass this long without seeing you? / my heart was so full of our memories that painted my body like a scrapbook I tried to stop loving you, but along the way, you found your way into the sound of my laugh, the style of my writing, and the threads of my clothes / I would've gone down on my knees just to hear you say yes Neck stiff, legs weak, eyes set on what we could've looked like if you hadn't left / 'moving on' was a broken record that I never had the strength to lift the needle off of / If hearts were meant to love then why did mine feel so empty? / and suddenly, I fell Glances, gazes, eyes following places they shouldn't have seen / intimacy was to be seen by you; free falling was to be touched by you / there was no such thing as a crowded room where you stood She lives in between the pinks and yellows of the world / where a beautiful color is unknown to others / and when she speaks, I become a bee enthralled in a field of daisies

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

I usually enjoy setting up a new kitchen, but this has become a joyless and highly charged task. My mother and I each have our own set of kitchen boxes, which means that if there are two cheese graters between us, only one will make it into a cupboard. The other will be put back in a box or given to Goodwill. Each such little decision has the weight of a Middle East negotiation. While her kitchenware is serviceable, I’m a sucker for the high end: All-Clad saucepans and Emile Henry pie dishes. Before long, I’m shaking my head at pretty much everything my mother removes from her San Diego boxes. She takes each rejected item as a personal slight – which in fact it is. I begrudge her even her lightweight bowls, which she can lift easily with her injured hand. Here she is, a fragile old woman barely able to bend down as she peers into a low cupboard, looking for a place where she can share life with her grown daughter. At such a sight my heart should be big, but it’s small, so small that when I see her start stuffing her serving spoons into the same drawer as my own sturdy pieces, lovingly accumulated over the years, it makes me crazy. Suddenly I’m acting out decades of unvoiced anger about my mother’s parenting, which seems to be materializing in the form of her makeshift collection of kitchenware being unpacked into my drawers. When I became a mother myself, I developed a self-righteous sense of superiority to my mother: I was better than my mother, for having successfully picked myself up and dusted myself off, for never having lain in bed for days on end, too blotto to get my child off to school or even to know if it was a school day. By sheer force of will and strength of character, I believed, I had risen above all that she succumbed to and skirted all that I might have inherited. This, of course, is too obnoxiously smug to say in words. So I say it with flatware.

A familiar melody suddenly drifts through the little living room. It makes me freeze, and I don't know why. And then I hear the silky, sweet sound of Karen Carpenter's voice. "'Rainy Days and Mondays,'" Alex says. I can't find my voice. I just stare ahead, fighting back the tears. Alex sits down beside me. I know he senses that something's wrong. "I'm sorry," he says quickly. "If you don't like it, I'll turn it off." "No," I say. "No. Please don't." I wipe a tear from my eye, just as another spills onto my cheek. "My husband loved this song." I smile. "Which made him the only straight man on earth to love the Carpenters." Alex grins. "The only two straight men on earth." I smile again. For some reason, I feel someone has lifted a great weight from my shoulders, just for a moment. "James died on a Monday," I say. We sit there for a moment listening to the song together, each alone in our own thoughts, until Alex reaches over and takes my hand in his. I don't let go.

Is that what mourning is? The hole ripped through you by something—someone you thought would be in your life forever? I don't know. There are different types of loss, I guess. And they all carry their own weight, as though the earth has a special gravity for every individual loss. If loss has weight, then I guess joy is the ballast. The counterweight, the lightness that lifts you up. Maybe it's love. Maybe it's hope. Maybe a person needs to hold on to all those things so the grief doesn't sink you.

I think I’m drowning. But not into her blue eyes like I happily would. No, I’m sinking into the floor, letting it swallow me whole. I can hardly breathe under the crushing weight of Kitt’s words. My ears ring. My heart pounds. The command echoes in my skull, though I have no idea why he would want this. Why he would want her. Not now. Not after everything. I’m surrounded by the entire court and the only thing I can focus on is not falling to my knees beside her. Marriage. Marriage to someone who isn’t me. Marriage to someone I will spend the rest of my life serving. I’ll lose her forever while being forced to watch. I can’t even look at her. I’m a coward, morphing back into the monster I was when she found me. My vision is blurry, eyes fixed on the dais above. This is how I lose her. Not by death but by something just as binding. The command rings in my head. And to think I wasted so much time trying to hate her. To think I won’t have enough time to love her. My heart aches because every beat belongs to her. And I may never get to tell her that. Is this how she will remember me? Escorting her to this fate? Bound by duty alone? I could laugh. I could cry. I could burn this palace to the ground like I did her house, just for a chance to confess my love before the flames consumed me. Because I am bound to her very being. Hers until the day she realizes I don’t deserve to be. The king’s eyes are on me while mine are somewhere far away. Somewhere with her. A place where I am nothing and no one and happy being powerless, so long as she is beside me. My gaze falls from the fantasy, finding its way to her. This is not how I will remember us. Not as enemies or traitors or monsters, but as two people dancing in the dark, swaying beneath the stars. Her feet atop mine, her head on the heart that beats only for her. Just Pae and Kai. I step away from her kneeling form, masking every emotion with a blank stare. I’m leaving her to face him. Her future husband. I melt into the crowd, standing at a safe enough distance to prevent myself from stealing her away. This will be the rest of my life. Forced to love her from a distance. Mourn the loss of her each day. But I will. I will smother every emotion but the one that belongs to her. I will love her until I am incapable of the feeling. She is the torture I may not survive. Eagerly, she is my undoing. Her gaze lifts, meeting eyes that are not my own. Eyes of the man who gets to have her—if she allows it. She was supposed to be my forever. Now I’ll watch her become someone else’s. Because the beast doesn’t get the beauty.

But even though I loved being in water, I never enjoyed swim meets. It always seemed like they were imposing structure and stress on something that should have been freeing and fun. For example, going down a slide is awesome. But if you had to show up every day for slide practice at 7 A.M. and then compete against your best friend in slide competitions, while grown-ups screamed at you to slide better, until your friend won and you cried, slides would seem a lot less awesome. And yes, I cried after the 1994 breaststroke finals when the official said I lost even though technically I had a faster time. And yes, I was beaten by Steve Deppe. And yes, I just googled Steve Deppe and discovered he now runs a successful wealth management business in San Diego. And yes, his online corporate profile says, “As a former athlete, Steve continues to exercise daily, whether it’s lifting weights, running, swimming, or playing sports.” And yes, the fourth example he gave of “exercise” was “sports.” And yes, I just went out and bought goggles and a Speedo and went down to my local pool and didn’t leave until I “just went out and bought goggles and a Speedo and went down to my local pool and didn’t leave until I swam a hundred laps, hoping that would be more laps than Steve Deppe swam today. BUT REALLY, WHO EVEN CARES ANYMORE, RIGHT??? NOT ME!!! IT’S NOT A COMPETITION, EVEN THOUGH I’M NOT EVEN MARRIED YET AND STEVE IS ALREADY “THE PROUD FATHER OF HIS DAUGHTER, CAMRYN.” PLUS, HE’S “AN AVID SPORTS FAN, WHO NEVER MISSES HIS FAVORITE TV SHOW, SPORTSCENTER.” WE GET IT STEVE, YOU FUCKING LOVE SPORTS!” Anyway.

Do not think the weight of the world is not felt by me, Languoreth. It is only that I have learnt there is little we can do but trust,” she said. “We may fashion such things as might give us opportunities. For healing. For wheat to grow tall. For visions of what is yet to come. For love.” She lifted her blue eyes to mine. “But there is always a measure beyond our control. The wind and the weather. The stray pierce of an arrow. Sickness. Death. A wise woman realizes this. She keeps her heart as full in times of pain as she does in times of good fortune. This is because her heart is full with trust.

They Don't Love You Like I Love You" My mother said this to me long before Beyoncé lifted the lyrics from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and what my mother meant by Don’t stray was that she knew all about it—the way it feels to need someone to love you, someone not your kind, someone white, some one some many who live because so many of mine have not, and further, live on top of those of ours who don’t. I’ll say, say, say, I’ll say, say, say, What is the United States if not a clot of clouds? If not spilled milk? Or blood? If not the place we once were in the millions? America is Maps— Maps are ghosts: white and layered with people and places I see through. My mother has always known best, knew that I’d been begging for them, to lay my face against their white laps, to be held in something more than the loud light of their projectors of themselves they flicker—sepia or blue—all over my body. All this time, I thought my mother said, Wait, as in, Give them a little more time to know your worth, when really, she said, Weight, meaning heft, preparing me for the yoke of myself, the beast of my country’s burdens, which is less worse than my country’s plow. Yes, when my mother said, They don’t love you like I love you, she meant, Natalie, that doesn’t mean you aren’t good.

You gutted me, baby,” I croak in confession as my chest caves. “But I can’t say I don’t deserve it . . .” I falter, grunting through the pain consuming me. “You thrive on love, and I . . . we fucking starved your heart . . . we just left you here.” Crushed by the weight of that truth, I lift her hand and thread my fingers through hers. “We both know I didn’t deserve you . . . but you made me feel like I did . . . even if I wouldn’t fucking hold your hand,” I admit. “I was going to,” I sniff. “I was going to try to be that guy. I was that guy. I just . . .” I slide my thumb along hers, the burn unbearable. “I would give fucking anything for one more day. Just one.

The weight room is empty except for Peter. He’s at the bench press, lifting weights. When he sees me, he smiles. “Are you here to spot me?” He sits up and wipes sweat off his face with the collar of his T-shirt. My heart squeezes painfully. “I’m here to break up. To fake break up, I mean.” Peter does a double take. “Wait. What?” “There’s no need to keep it going. You got what you wanted, right? You saved face, and so did I. I talked to Josh, and everything’s back to normal with us again. And my sister will be home soon. So…mission accomplished.” Slowly he nods. “Yeah, I guess.” My heart is breaking even as I smile. “So okay, then.” With a flourish I whip our contract out of my bag. “Null and void. Both parties have hereby fulfilled their obligations to each other in perpetuity.” I’m just rattling off lawyer words. “You carry that around with you?” “Of course! Kitty’s such a snoop. She’d find it in two seconds.” I hold up the piece of paper, poised to rip it in half, but Peter grabs it from me. “Wait! What about the ski trip?” “What about it?” “You’re still coming, right?” I hadn’t thought of that. The only reason I was going to go was for Peter. I can’t go now. I can’t be a witness to Peter and Genevieve’s reunion, I just can’t. I want them to come back from the trip magically together again, and it will be like this whole thing was just something I dreamed up. “I’m not going to go.” His eyes widen. “Come on, Covey! Don’t bail on me now. We already signed up and gave the deposits and everything. Let’s just go, and have that be our final hurrah.” When I start to protest, Peter shakes his head. “You’re going, so take this contract back.” Peter refolds it and carefully puts it back in my bag. Why is it so hard to say no to him? Is this what it’s like to be in love with somebody?

This is the last word. Jesus always has the last word, and it is always a good last word. It is always about him and it always takes you by surprise with his love and acceptance. What is your response? John’s message is clear: worship him. What does worship him mean? It means everything. It means you turn away from the stagnant pools where you once drank. For the Samaritan woman, it meant she would align her lifestyle with his kingdom. In technical terms, she would repent. She would turn away from acts of death to receive living water, and she would love it. For the young man struggling with thoughts of same-sex attraction, it means that he says to Jesus, “You are not like anyone I have ever known. I trust you.” For the anorectic woman, it means that she no longer puts all her trust in her husband’s love but trusts in Jesus alone, who is the only one capable of bearing the weight of her tremendous emptiness and need.

The warm of his voice touched a quickness in her that left her fingers trembling as she raised the candle. “Will you light this please? I need it to find my way back.” He ignored her request and reached to take the lantern from the wall. “I’ll take you upstairs.” “It isn’t necessary,” she was quick to insist, afraid for more reasons than one. “I’d never forgive myself if some harm came to you down here,” he responded lightly. He lifted the lantern, casting its glow before them, and waited on her pleasure with amused patience. Erienne saw the challenge in his eyes and groaned inwardly. How could she refuse to pick up the gauntlet when she knew he would taunt her with his chiding humor if she did not? Adjusting the oversize coat about her shoulders, she rose to the bait against her better judgment and moved with him along the stony corridor. They were well past the bend when a sudden scurrying accompanied by strident squeaking came from the darkness. At the sound, Erienne stumbled back with a gasp, having an intense aversion for the rodents. In the next instant, the heel of her slipper caught on a rock lip, twisting her ankle and nearly sending her sprawling. Almost before the cry of pain was wrenched from her lips, Christopher’s arms were about her, and he used the excuse to bring her snugly against his own hard body. Embarrassed by the contact that brought bosom to chest and thigh to thigh and made her excruciatingly aware of his masculinity, Erienne pushed hurriedly away. She tried to walk again, anxious to be away, but when her weight came down on her ankle, a quick grimace touched her features. Christopher caught her reaction and, without so much as a murmured pardon, took the coat from her shoulders, pressed the lantern in her hand, and lifted her up in his arms. “You can’t take me upstairs!” she protested. “What if you’re seen?” The lights danced in his eyes as he met her astonished stare. “I’m beginning to think, madam, that you worry more about propriety than yourself. Most of the servants are in bed asleep.” “But what if Stuart comes?” she argued. “You said he’s on his way.” Christopher chuckled. “Meeting him now would be most interesting. He might even challenge me to a duel over your honor.” He raised a brow at her. “Would you be grieved if he wounded me?” “Don’t you realize a thing like that could happen?” she questioned, angry because he dismissed the possibility with flippant ease. “Don’t fret, my love,” he cajoled with a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “If I hear him coming, I’ll run, and as clumsy as he is, he’ll never be able to catch me.” He shifted her weight closer against him and smiled into her chiding stare. “I like the way you feel in my arms.” “Remember yourself, sir,” she admonished crisply, ignoring her leaping pulse. “I’m trying, madam. I’m really trying.” -Erienne & Christopher

swirl together and our breathing clashes, my hips are busy rubbing against his. My legs spread just about as wide as I can get, forcing my pussy to open like a flower and hug his dick tight. Pushing off his chest, I lift up, grab his dick, and slam myself home. I almost can’t hear the harsh bite of his breath over my scream. I feel the rings hitting a spot deep within me that will have me begging in no time. The one pressed tight against my clit has my vision going hazy. “Have . . . to . . . move,” he warns, and once again, I find myself rolled onto my back. He doesn’t even pause when he flips and pounds into me. His hips slap against mine, his balls make a loud, wet sound as they hit my skin, and his eyes flash something I wish to God I understood. “H-h-harder!” He slams deep and leans up on his knees causing his dick to slip out almost completely. His large hands grab my hips and bring my body half off the bed. With my head still on the bed, the rest of my body hovers under his control as he pulls back and gives me my wish. My legs are dead weight, my hands clench tightly in the sheets, and my eyes hold his. The look in his eyes combined with the hard hitting of his piercings, and the awe-inspiring thrusts is enough to have me screaming. Screaming, begging, and pleading. I have lost control of my body. It is locked tight and shattering into pieces. His hips pick up speed but then slightly slow down towards the end of my release. He brings my body back down to the mattress and rocks his hips, causing a few more aftershocks to roll through my body. “Do you like my cock? Do you like having me so deep in your body you won’t be able to walk tomorrow? The way your pussy is gripping my dick and your wetness is coating my balls, I would say you fucking love it.” I whimper and he smiles. This isn’t the attractive smile he gives the public, no . . . this smile is pure fucking sexy evil. “Going to fuck you raw.” He warns before making true to his words. When he finally grabs my hips and locks our pelvises together, I have come twice and lost track of reality.

Over the next month, when I’d wake up, my mind was filled with colors. The apartment began to feel less cavernous to me. One time I awoke to find my hair had been cut off, like a boy’s, and there were long blond hairs stuck to the inside of the toilet bowl. I imagined sitting on the toilet with a towel over my shoulders, Ping Xi standing above me, snipping away. In the mirror, I looked bold and sprightly. I thought I looked good. I wrote Post-it notes requesting fresh fruits, mineral water, grilled salmon from “a good Japanese restaurant.” I asked for a candle to burn while I bathed. During this period, my waking hours were spent gently, lovingly, growing reaccustomed to a feeling of cozy extravagance. I put on a little weight, and so when I lay down on the living room floor, my bones didn’t hurt. My face lost its mean edge. I asked for flowers. “Lilies.” “Birds of paradise.” “Daisies.” “A branch of catkins.” I jogged in place, did leg lifts, push-ups. It was easier and easier to pass the time between getting up and going down.

At the sight of his quizzical, kindly face - so sweet, so agreeable, so glad to see me - something wrenched deep in my chest. 'Richard' he said again, as if there were no one on earth he could possibly be so delighted to see. 'How are you?' 'Fine.' 'I'm just going over to North Hampden. Will you walk with me?' I looked at the innocent, happy face and thought: If only he knew. It would kill him. 'Julian, I'd love to, thanks,' I said. 'But I have to be getting home.' He looked at me closely. The concern in his eyes made me nearly sick with self-loathing. 'I see so little of you these days, Richard,' he said. 'I feel that you're becoming just a shadow in my life.' The benevolence, the spiritual calm, that radiated from him seemed so clear and true that, for a dizzying moment, I felt the darkness lift almost palpably from my heart. The relief was such that I almost broke down sobbing; but then, looking at him again, I felt the whole poisonous weight come crashing back down, full force. 'Are you sure you're all right?' He can never know. We can never tell him. 'Oh. Sure I am,' I said. 'I'm fine.

At the sight of his quizzical, kindly face - so sweet, so agreeable, so glad to see me - something wrenched deep in my chest. 'Richard' he said again, as if there were no one on earth he could possibly be so delighted to see. 'How are you?' 'Fine.' 'I'm just going over to North Hampden. Will you walk with me?' I looked at the innocent, happy face and thought: If only he knew. It would kill him. 'Julian, I'd love to, thanks,' I said. 'But I have to be getting home.' He looked at me closely. The concern in his eyes made me nearly sick with self-loathing. 'I see so little of you these days, Richard,' he said. 'I feel that you're becoming just a shadow in my life.' The benevolence, the spiritual calm, that radiated from him seemed so clear and true that, for a dizzying moment, I felt the darkness lift almost palpably from my heart. The relief was such that I almost broke down sobbing; but then, looking at him again, I felt the whole poisonous weight come crashing back down, full force. 'Are you sure you're all right?' He can never know. We can never tell him. 'Oh. Sure I am,' I said. 'I'm fine.

Hunter filled the opening in the privacy curtains. He wore green scrubs like the doctors and nurses who had scraped me off the pavement. For a split second I mistook him for an adorable doctor who looked a lot like Hunter. I knew it was Hunter when he gaped at me with a mixture of outrage and horror, his face pale, and demanded, “What did you do?” “Crossed the street,” I said. “Badly.” Wincing, I eased up from the gurney, putting my weight on my hand and my good hip. Only a few minutes had passed since they had brought me in, ascertained I wasn’t dying, and dumped me here. I still felt very shaky from the shock of being hit. But I didn’t want to face Hunter lying down. In two steps he bent over me and wrapped his arms around me. He was careful not to press on my hospital gown low against my back where the road rash was, but his touch on my shoulders radiated pain to the raw parts. I winced again. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” He let me go but hovered over me, placing his big hands on my shoulder blades. He was so close that the air felt hot between us. “What did you hurt?” “This is just where I skidded across the road.” I gestured behind my back and then flinched at the sting in my skin as I moved my arm. “How far down does it go?” My back felt cold as he lifted on flap of my paper gown and looked. I kept my head down, my red cheeks hidden. He was peering at my back where my skin was missing. What could be sexier? Even if the circumstances had been happier, I was wearing no makeup and I was sure my hair was matted from my scarf. There was no reason for my blood to heat as if we were on a date instead of a gurney. But my body did not listen to logic when it came to Hunter. He was no examining my wound. He was captivated by the sight of my lovely and unblemished bottom. I was a novelist. I could dream, couldn’t I? Lightly I asked, “Are you asking whether I have gravel embedded in my ass? By the grace of God, no.” Hunter let my gown go and stood up “The doc said the car hit your hip,” he insisted. “Is it broken?” I rolled on my side to face him. “It really hurts,” I said. “If it were broken, I think it would hurt worse.” He nodded. “When I broke my ribs, I couldn’t breathe.” “That’s because your ribs punctured your lung.” He pointed at me. “True.” Then he cocked his head to one side, blond hair falling into his eyes. “I’m surprised you remember that.

In ninety seconds they were naked and he was nibbling at her ear while his hand rubbed her pubic mat; but a saboteur was at work at his brain. 'I love you,' he thought, and it was not untrue because he loved all women now, knowing partially what sex was really all about, but he couldn't bring himself to say it because it was not totally true, either, since he loved Mavis more, much more. 'I'm awfully fond of you,' he almost said, but the absurdity of it stopped him. Her hand cupped his cock and found it limp; her eyes opened and looked into his enquiringly. He kissed her lips quickly and moved his hand lower, inserting a ringer until he found the clitoris. But even when her breathing got deeper, he did not respond as usual, and her hand began massaging his cock more desperately. He slid down, kissing nipples and bellybutton on the way, and began licking her clitoris. As soon as she came, he cupped her buttocks, lifted her pelvis, got his tongue into her vagina and forced another quick orgasm, immediately lowering her slightly again and beginning a very gentle and slow return in spiral fashion back to the clitoris. But still he was flaccid. 'Stop,' Stella breathed. 'Let me do you, baby.' George moved upward on the bed and hugged her. 'I love you,' he said, and suddenly it did not sound like a lie. Stella giggled and kissed his mouth briefly. 'It takes a lot to get those words out of you, doesn't it?' she said bemusedly. 'Honesty is the worst policy,' George said grimly. 'I was a child prodigy, you know? A freak. It was rugged. I had to have some defense, and somehow I picked honesty. I was always with older boys so I never won a fight. The only way I could feel superior, or escape total inferiority, was to be the most honest bastard on the planet earth.' 'So you can't say 'I love you' unless you mean it?' Stella laughed. 'You're probably the only man in America with that problem. If you could only be a woman for a while, baby! You can't imagine what liars most men are.' 'Oh, I've said it at times. When it was at least half true. But it always sounded like play-acting to me, and I felt it sounded that way to the woman, too. This time it just came out, perfectly natural, no effort.' 'That is something,' Stella grinned. 'And I can't let it go unrewarded.' Her black body slid downward and he enjoyed the esthetic effect as his eyes followed her— black on white, like the yinyang or the Sacred Chao—what was the psychoses of the white race that made this beauty seem ugly to most of them? Then her lips closed over his penis and he found that the words had loosened the knot: he was erect in a second. He closed his eyes to savor the sensation, then opened them to look down at her Afro hairdo, her serious dark face, his cock slipping back and forth between her lips. 'I love you,' he repeated, with even more conviction. 'Oh, Christ, Oh, Eris, oh baby baby, I love you!' He closed his eyes again, and let the Robot move his pelvis in response to her. 'Oh, stop,' he said, 'stop,' drawing her upward and turning her over, 'together,' he said, mounting her, 'together,' as her eyes closed when he entered her and then opened again for a moment meeting his in total tenderness, 'I love you, Stella, I love,' and he knew it was so far along that the weight wouldn't bother her, collapsing, using his arms to hug her, not supporting himself, belly to belly and breast to breast, her arms hugging him also and her voice saying, 'I love you, too, oh, I love you,' and moving with it, saying 'angel' and 'darling' and then saying nothing, the explosion and the light again permeating his whole body not just the penis, a passing through the mandala to the other side and a long sleep.

think I’m drowning. But not into her blue eyes like I happily would. No, I’m sinking into the oor, letting it swallow me whole. I can hardly breathe under the crushing weight of Kitt’s words. My ears ring. My heart pounds. The command echoes in my skull, though I have no idea why he would want this. Why he would want her. Not now. Not after everything. And yet, I still want her after everything. I’m surrounded by the entire court and the only thing I can focus on is not falling to my knees beside her. Marriage. Marriage to someone who isn’t me. Marriage to someone I will spend the rest of my life serving. I’ll lose her forever while being forced to watch. I can’t even look at her. I’m a coward, morphing back into the monster I was when she found me. My vision is blurry, eyes xed on the dais above. This is how I lose her. Not by death but by something just as binding. The command rings in my head. And to think I wasted so much time trying to hate her. To think I won’t have enough time to love her. My heart aches because every beat belongs to her. And I may never get to tell her that. Is this how she will remember me? Escorting her to this fate? Bound by duty alone? I could laugh. I could cry. I could burn this palace to the ground like I did her house, just for a chance to confess my love before the ames consumed me. Because I am bound to her very being. Hers until the day she realizes I don’t deserve to be. The king’s eyes are on me while mine are somewhere far away. Somewhere with her. A place where I am nothing and no one and happy being powerless, so long as she is beside me. My gaze falls from the fantasy, nding its way to her. This is not how I will remember us. Not as enemies or traitors or monsters, but as two people dancing in the dark, swaying beneath the stars. Her feet atop mine, her head on the heart that beats only for her. Just Pae and Kai. I step away from her kneeling form, masking every emotion with a blank stare. I’m leaving her to face him. Her future husband. I melt into the crowd, standing at a safe enough distance to prevent myself from stealing her away. This will be the rest of my life. Forced to love her from a distance. Mourn the loss of her each day. But I will. I will smother every emotion but the one that belongs to her. I will love her until I am incapable of the feeling. She is the torture I may not survive. Eagerly, she is my undoing. Her gaze lifts, meeting eyes that are not my own. Eyes of the man who gets to have her—if she allows it. She was supposed to be my forever. Now I’ll watch her become someone else’s. Because the beast doesn’t get the beauty.

Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he asked softly. Her long lashes fluttered, lifted, so that her violet eyes locked with his. A slow, fascinating smile curved her mouth. “Maybe, just a little.” She smoothed a line from his forehead. “I’ll be fine tonight. Do what you have to do and don’t worry about me.” “I would prefer that you slept for a while.” He shifted, eased his weight off her, surprised to find that he was still partially dressed. “That’s only because you have so much anger toward Romanov you don’t want me to know what you’re doing.” She propped herself up on one elbow so that her thick mane of silky hair spilled across her body, a thin veil over her breasts. His gut clenched hotly at the sight, his dark eyes going black with a sudden flare of desire. She laughed softly, the sound sultry in the night. “I think you could have sex all night and never be sated.” He bent down to taste temptation, his tongue bringing her nipple to a hard peak. “I would very much like to give it a try, sivamet--my love. I could lose myself in your body.” He nuzzled her gently, his hand trailing possessively down the curves of her body. Her fingers stroked through his thick hair. Her eyes held tenderness. “You think to protect Jacques by leaving him here with me as my bodyguard.” “You see too much.” “More than you know.

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

I opened the door with a smile on my face that soon melted when I saw his messy appearance. The doorframe held him up as he leaned all of his weight against it. Expressionless, bloodshot eyes stared back at me as he lifted his hand and ran it roughly down his unshaved face. His hair was disheveled and there was blood on the front of his shirt. Panic rose up as I took him in. I rushed to him and ran my fingers down his body, as I checked for injuries. “You’re bleeding! Oh my God, Devin! What happened? Are you OK?” “It’s not my blood,” he slurred. I took a better look at his gorgeous face. His unfocused eyes attempted to meet mine and it was then that the smell of liquor reached me. “You’re drunk?” “Abso-fucking-lutely.” He attempted to move toward me and almost fell over. I wrapped my arms around him and helped him into my apartment. Once we made it to the couch I let him collapse onto the cushion before I went straight to work on his clothes. I removed his blood-stained shirt first and threw it to the side. Quickly checked him over again just to be sure that he wasn’t injured somewhere. His skin felt cold and clammy against my fingertips. His knuckles were busted open, so I went to the bathroom and got a wet towel and the first aid kit. I cleaned his fingers then wrapped them up. I felt fingers in my hair and looked up to see a very drunk Devin staring back at me. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered as his heavy head fell against the back of my couch again. Shaking my head, I dropped onto my knees on the floor and removed his boots. Once I was done getting Devin out of his shoes, I went to the hallway closet and pulled out a blanket for him. When I got back to the couch, he was standing there looking back at me in all his tattooed, muscled glory. He was still leaning a bit to the side when his eyes locked on mine. “Come here,” he rasped. He looked as if he was about to crumble and I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or if something was really breaking him down. “Are you OK, baby?” I asked. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I love it when you call me baby.” I went to him and he groaned as I softly ran my hands up his chest and put my arms around his neck. On my tiptoes, I softly kissed the line of his neck and his chin. “Tell me what happened, Devin.” When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at me differently. The calm and collected Devin was gone and an anxiety-ridden shell of a man stood before me. His shoulders felt tense beneath my fingers and his eyes held a crazed demeanor. “I need you, Lilly.” He captured my face softly in his hands as he slurred the words. “Please tell me what happened?” “Make it go away, baby,” he whispered as he leaned in and started to kiss me. I let him as I melted against his body. He collapsed against the couch once more, but this time he took me with him. Not once did he break our kiss, and soon, I felt his velvet tongue against mine. I kissed him back and let my fingers play in the hair at the back of his neck. He broke the kiss and started down the side of my neck. “I need you, Lilly,” he repeated against my skin. “I’m here.” I bit at my bottom lip to stop myself from moaning. “Please, just make it all go away,” he drunkenly begged. “I don’t know what’s going on, but tell me what to do to make it better. I want to make it better, Devin.” I stopped him and stared into his eyes as I waited for his response. “Don’t leave me,” he said desperately. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’ll do whatever it takes to make it better.” I wanted to cry. He looked so hurt and afraid. It was strange to see such a strong, confident man so lost and unsure. He flipped me onto my back on the couch and crawled on top of me. His movements were less calculated—slower than usual. “I want you. I need to be inside you,” he said aggressively.

His mouth brushed over hers with kisses of soft fire. And as he possessed her, she gradually came to understand the pattern he was working within her… eight shallow thrusts, two deep… seven shallow, three deep… progressing until he finally gave her ten heavy, penetrating plunges. Lottie cried out with wrenching pleasure, her hips lifting against his sleek weight as she was filled with volatile sensation. When the burning delight had begun to fade, Nick altered their positions subtly, moving farther over her, nudging her knees wider, adjusting the angle of his sex. He thrust deeply, sealing their bodies together, and circled his hips in a slow, steady rhythm. “I can’t,” Lottie said breathlessly, realizing what he wanted, knowing that it was impossible. “Let me,” Nick whispered, tireless and wickedly adept as he continued the gentle circling, using his body to pleasure her. She was astonished by how quickly the heat rose again, her senses welcoming the patient stimulation, her sex turning slick and swollen as he moved inside her, over her, against her. “Oh… oh…” The sounds were torn from her throat as she reached another crest, her limbs jerking, her cheek pressed hard against his shoulder. And then he began the entire cycle again. Nine shallow, one deep… Lottie lost count of how many times he brought her to ecstasy, or how much time passed while he made love to her. He whispered in her ear… endearments… intimate praise… telling her how hard she made him… how sweet she felt around him… how much he wanted to satisfy her. He gave her more pleasure than it seemed possible to bear, until finally she begged him to stop, her body trembling with exhaustion. Nick complied with reluctance, pushing deep inside one last time, releasing his pent-up desire with a shuddering groan. Compulsively he kissed her again, as he withdrew from her sated body. Lottie barely had the strength to lift her hand, but she caught at his arm and murmured thickly, “Will you stay?” “Yes,” she heard him say. “Yes.” -Lottie & Nick

… The frayed and gritty edges of everyone’s world were being worried away by neighbors you’d never noticed until the air spilled over with the tragedy of their loss. The war had taken them or their children; killed them, lost them, torn off body parts, shipped them back brain-fried…. … Tales fell from hearts in heavy, wet tones of grief and confusion…. … Even when rare moments of relative calm and clarity crept briefly through our days, they crawled in with head hanging through that most familiar of all tunnels, our sense of loss. Each new friend seemed only to step in and announce himself with his last breath. Why hadn’t we loved him earlier when there had been more time? That overriding sense of loss was the dismal cloud through which you viewed the world. Dreading life’s relentless advance, but knowing your locks could never keep it out…. … As the late 60’s gave in and died, and I trudged through my first year as an art student in college, even the old folks were growing up. Their World War II glories clouded over. Someone had shot the president, his brother, and a great civil rights leader, dragging us all out of our warm, snuggly innocence. People seemed infested by life, burdened by the stifling weight of it, until we could only force shallow, labored breaths. Each new day was just an old one playing through again, a dust-laden August, a storm always riding right on top of you that never quite cut loose. It settled into your joints until they grew achy, too heavy to lift; tarring all hearts with a dark, heavy plaque. Days stuck together as walking and breathing grew tedious. Until even my bubbly sister couldn’t offer up a smile without a shadow lurking inside it. We trudged through life as our mighty nation killed our sons and broke our buddies, defending itself from skinny barefoot farmers with sticks, in rice swamps somewhere on the other side of existence, where you couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. Some lost tiny nowhere that hadn’t even existed when you’d been a kid; when the world had been innocent and untainted. Back when Father Knew Best, Beaver’s mom fed his dad all the answers, and Annie Oakley never had to shoot to kill…. - From “Entertaining Naked People

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

Matthew knew it was wrong the instant their lips met. Because nothing would ever equal the perfection of Daisy in his arms. He was ruined for life. God help him, he didn’t care. Her mouth was soft and hot, like sunshine, like the white blaze of a heartwood fire. She gasped as he touched her lower lip with the tip of his tongue. Slowly her hands came to his shoulders, and then he felt her fingers at the back of his head, sliding into his hair to keep him from pulling away. There wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening. Nothing could have made him stop. A tremor shook his fingers as he bracketed the exquisite line of her jaw in the open framework of his hand, gently angling her face upward. The flavor of her mouth, sweet and elusive, fueled a hunger that threatened to rage out of control… he searched the damp silk beyond her lips, deeper, harder, until she began to breathe in long sighs, her body molding against his. He let her feel how much stronger he was, how much heavier, one muscular arm clamped along her back, his feet spread to hold her between the powerful length of his thighs. Her upper half was bound in a laced and padded corset. He was almost overcome by a savage desire to tear away the stays and quilting and find the tender flesh beneath. Instead he sank his fingers into her pinned-up hair and tugged it backward until the weight of her head was cradled in his hand, and her pale throat was exposed. He searched for the pulse he had seen earlier, his lips dragging softly along the secret pathway of nerves beneath her skin. When he reached a senstive spot, he felt the vibration of her suppressed moan against his mouth. This was what it would be like to make love to her, he thought dazedly… the sweet shivering of her flesh as he entered her, the delicate chaos of her breath, the helpless sounds that rustled in her throat. Her skin, warm and female, scented like tea and talcum and a trace of salt. He found her mouth again, opened it, delving into wet silk, heat, and an intimate flavor that drove him mad. She should have struggled, but there was only yielding and more softness, driving him past all limits. He began to ravish her mouth with deep, twisting kisses, bringing her body rhythmically against his. He felt her legs part beneath her gown, his thigh fitting neatly between them. She squirmed with innocent desire, her face blooming with the color of late summer poppies. Had she understood exactly what he wanted from her, she would have done more than blush. She would have fainted on the spot. Lifting his mouth from hers, Matthew pressed his jaw against the side of her head. “I think,” he said raggedly, “this puts to rest any question of whether I find you desirable or not.

one priority. Just for a little while, I want the weight to be lifted off my shoulders.

People are confounded when a football player puts Bible verses in his eye black or kneels to pray in the end zone. To non-believers, it seems like a kind of spiritual flamboyance or pushy proselytizing when athletes publicly acknowledge God as the central pillar of their game plan. What these spectators rarely consider is why this spiritual orientation is so effective, on and off the field—why it works, and feeds on itself. Instead of “I’m the king of the world if I win, and a failure if I lose,” and the crushing pressure that entails, the spiritually rewired athlete’s internal logic is this: I’m a child of God; that’s my primary identity. God loves me regardless of what happens in this competition. God has given me these talents, these amazing gifts, and it’s my responsibility to use them as best I can, to perform and succeed to the utmost of my ability. But it’s not for personal glory, or to feed my towering ego. Rather, every burst of speed and power is a testament to a higher power whose love transcends any kind of earthly success. The competitive results are not part of that higher reality. But the effort is. The leap toward perfection of effort, a kinetic hymn, is a connection to God. It’s sacred, the way prayer is sacred. And at the same time it is exquisitely concrete. It has mass, speed, position, trajectory, in the now of a throw or a catch or a weight that needs to be lifted. It’s where physics meets the soul. This transcendent frame of reference doesn’t take away competitive pressure. But it takes away the emotional pressure that degrades performance and locks an athlete up. Faith eliminates a lot of psychic gear grinding and inefficiency. For a well-prepared, well-trained athlete, it’s a winning formula. And it was a winning formula for Rich Froning in July 2011.

each other’s ass, but I think the result would be the same . . . that I feel accepted. Loved. Enough. “I don’t know anyone else good enough for my baby sister,” Ross says, as emotional about this as I am. “Hey, I’m getting in on this action,” Courtney says, and suddenly, our hug becomes a three-way. “Take care of my boy, Court,” he tells her, and I can’t help but smile. Ross has always been a pivot point for us, the one who brought us together, and in a way, the one who kept us apart. But now that I know he’s not just okay with me and Court but is actually happy for us, it’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. No, like a truck, because that fucker was heavy. Violet joins in too. “Don’t make me cry. I don’t have time for lasagna and redoing my makeup.” Courtney reaches to a bowl on the counter and unwraps a piece of chocolate. “Open.” Violet does as commanded and eats the candy with that wiggle of happiness all women do when you feed them good food. “Just to be clear . . . we’re not telling Archie that you’re my brother,” Ross says as Violet heads back to her lasagna. “Agreed.” We fist bump on that, and I draw us back to the issue of the evening

Let’s choose joy and love. Let’s choose peace. And then once we’ve got it for ourselves, let’s spread it around. So, let go of trying to fit in. Let go of trying to please other people over yourself. You are an original creation. It’s okay to be whoever God created you to be. There’s nothing better than originality. When I let go of the old Tab, a weight was lifted. I thought, You mean to tell me all these years I was trying to fit in, trying to look and be and talk like other people, I was keeping myself from being free? Yep!

Perhaps it would only make sense to me that any changes you made in me would be useful to me!” “You will be pretty! And interesting to other dragons. And that is enough for any Elderling, let alone a human!” “Perhaps ‘pretty’ wings are enough for you, but if I must bear their weight and the inconvenience of having something growing out of my backbone, perhaps they should be useful. I have never understood why you don’t even try to use your wings. I see the other dragons stretching and working theirs. I’ve seen the silver almost lift himself from the water with his, and he began with a much more ungainly body and smaller wings than yours! You don’t try! I groom your wings and keep them clean. They’ve grown larger and stronger and you could try, but you don’t. All you do is tell me how lovely they are. And lovely they may be, but have you never considered trying to use them for what they are intended?” She could see the dragon’s fury build. She’d dared to criticize her, and Sintara could not tolerate even the implication that she was lazy or self-pitying or perhaps even just a bit…”Stupid.” Thymara said the word aloud. She had no idea what prompted her to do it. Perhaps simply to show Sintara that she’d gone too far and that her keeper would no longer be terrorized by her. How dare she put wings on her back when she could not even master the ones that had naturally on her own? The murmur of voices from the barge was growing louder. Thymara refused to even glance in that direction. She stood, her shirt clutched over her breasts, and faces the furiously spinning eyes of her dragon. Sintara was magnificent in her wrath. She lifted her head and opened her jaws wide, displaying the brightly colored poison sacs in her throat. She opened her wings wide, a reflexive display of size that the dragons often used in an attempt to remind one another of their relative sizes and strengths, and they spread like a magnificent stained-glass panels unfolding. For a moment, Thymara was dizzied by her glory and her glamour. She nearly fell to her knees before her dragon. Then she took a grip on herself and stood up to the blast of pure charisma that Sintara was radiating at her. “Yes. They are beautiful!” she shouted. “Beautiful and useless! As you are beautiful and useless!” A shudder passed over Thymara. She felt suddenly queasy and then realized what she had done. In a bizarre reaction to Sintara’s display, Thymara had spread her own wings. There were shouts of amazement from the keepers on the boat. Sintara was drawing breath. Her jaws were still wide, and Thymara stood rooted before her, watching her poison sacs swell. If the dragon chose to breathe venom on her, there would be no escape. She stood her ground, frozen with terror and fury. “Sintara!” The bellow came from Mercor. “Close your jaws and fold your wings! Do not harm your keeper for speaking truth to you!” “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Spit was trumpeting joyously. “Quiet, pest!” Ranculos roared at him. “Do not spray here! The drift will burn me! Blast your own keeper if you wish, Sintara, but spray me and I swear I will burn your wings as full of holes as rotting canvas!” This from small green Fente. The dragon reared onto her hind legs and spread her own wings in challenge. “Stop this madness!” Mercor bellowed again. “Sintara hurt not your keeper!” “She is mine, and I’ll do as I wish!” Sintara’s trumpet was a shrill whistle of anger. Despite herself, Thymara clapped her hands over her ears. Terror made her reckless. “I don’t care what you do to me! Look at what you’ve already done! You want to kill me? Go ahead, you stupid lizard. Someone else can clear the sucking insects from your eyes, take the leeches off your useless, beautiful wings. Go ahead, kill me!

I love you, too.” A weight lifted off my shoulders after saying the words I’d known were true for longer than I cared to admit. “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved. The only one I will ever love.

He bites back an anguished groan. “Mack! Don’t pull out, Mack!” I don’t know why or how I’ve come to this decision, but I mean it. Maybe it was holding Sammy today. Maybe it’s the fear that this will be the very last time I’ll be with Mack this way. Whatever the reason, I want all of him. All of him. I want him to come inside me. No matter what that might mean. He makes a broken sound, briefly pausing his carnal motion. “You sure?” “Yes. Yes please, Mack! Don’t pull out.” He lets out a low, soft groan that’s stretched out so long it gets choppy as his hips start moving again. He fucks me so hard my entire body jiggles, and he’s reached climax in less than a minute. His body works through the release clumsily. His hips roll as his cock spasms inside me. Then he’s coming in several hard spurts, filling me with his semen. It’s the first time he’s ever done that in all the years since we first got together. His hips keep jerking for a long time with each lingering aftershock. Then he collapses on top of me, all his weight collapsing. He buries his face in the crook of my shoulder. I wrap my arms around him. Hold him tight. After a minute, when his body finally starts to soften, I whisper, “I love you, Mack. You know that, right?” He makes a weird, rough sound. Almost like a sob. He doesn’t lift his head, but he presses a few kisses against my skin. It’s a long time before he can form any words. And when he does, they’re mumbled against my neck. “I love you too.

Shooting Stars It's late and I'm awake Staring at the wall Open up my window My head floats out the door No one else around And a shimmer takes my eye I lift my head I'm blinded by the sky Feel my weight in front Following the sound It moves away so fast I fall down to the ground I know there's more to come Jump back to my feet And I only see ahead of me Chasing down the street (down the street) Give my love to a shooting star But she moves so fast That I can't keep up I'm chasing I'm in love with a shooting star But she moves so fast When she falls then I'll be waiting Give my love to a shooting star But she moves so fast When she falls then I'll be waiting

Last chance,” he said in guttural voice. “Get out, or get in my bed.” “Is there a third option?” Beatrix asked weakly, her breast throbbing beneath his touch. For answer, Christopher picked her up with stunning ease and carried her to the bed. She was tossed to the mattress. Before she could move, he had straddled her, all that sleek golden power poised above her. “Wait,” Beatrix said. “Before you force yourself on me, I would like to have five minutes of rational conversation. Only five. Surely that’s not too much to ask.” His eyes were pitiless. “If you wanted rational conversation, you should have gone to another man. Your Mr. Chittering.” “Chickering,” Beatrix said, squirming beneath him. “And he’s not mine, and--” She swatted his hand away as he touched her breast again. “Stop that. I just want to--” Undeterred, he had gone for the button placket of her shirt. She scowled in exasperation. “All right, then,” she snapped, “do as you please! Perhaps afterward we could manage a coherent discussion.” Twisting beneath him, she flopped onto her stomach. Christopher went still. After a long hesitation, she heard him ask in a far more normal voice, “What are you doing?” “I’m making it easier for you,” came her defiant reply. “Go on, start ravishing.” Another silence. Then, “Why are you facing downward?” “Because that’s how it’s done.” Beatrix twisted to look at him over her shoulder. A twinge of uncertainty caused her to ask. “Isn’t it?” His face was blank. “Has no one ever told you?” “No, but I’ve read about it.” Christopher rolled off her, relieving her of his weight. He wore an odd expression as he asked, “From what books?” “Veterinary manuals. And of course, I’ve observed the squirrels in springtime, and farm animals, and--” She was interrupted as Christopher cleared his throat loudly, and again. Darting a confused glance at him, she realized that he was trying to choke back amusement. Beatrix began to feel indignant. Her first time in a bed with a man, and he was laughing. “Look here,” she said in a businesslike manner, “I’ve read about the mating habits of over two dozen species, and with the exception of snails, whose genitalia is on their necks, they all--” She broke off and frowned. “Why are you laughing at me?” Christopher had collapsed, overcome with hilarity. As he lifted his head and saw her affronted expression, he struggled manfully with another outburst. “Beatrix. I’m…I’m not laughing at you.” “You are!” “No I’m not. It’s just…” He swiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and a few more chuckles escaped. “Squirrels…” “Well, it may be humorous to you, but it’s a very serious matter to the squirrels.

That dog has been my companion for two years,” Christopher snapped. “The last thing I would subject him to is that bedlam of a household. He doesn’t need chaos. He doesn’t need noise and confusion--” He was interrupted by an explosion of wild barking, accompanied by an earsplitting metallic crash. Albert had come racing through the entrance hall and had crossed paths with a housemaid bearing a tray of polished silver flatware. Beatrix caught a glimpse of forks and spoons scattering to the doorway, just before she was thrown bodily to the receiving room floor. The impact robbed her of breath. Stunned, she found herself pinned to the carpet and covered by a heavy masculine weight. Dazedly she tried to take in the situation. Christopher had jumped on her. His arms were around her head…he had instinctively moved to shelter her with his own body. They lay together in a confusion of limbs and disheveled garments and panting breaths. Lifting his head, Christopher cast a wary glance at their surroundings. For a moment, the blank ferocity of his face frightened Beatrix. This, she realized, was how he had looked in battle. This was what his enemies had seen as he had cut them down. Albert rushed toward them, baying furiously. “No,” Beatrix said in a low tone, extending her arm to point at him. “Down.” The dog’s barking flattened into a growl, and he slowly lowered to the floor. His gaze didn’t move from his master. Beatrix turned her attention back to Christopher. He was gasping and swallowing, struggling to regain his wits. “Christopher,” she said carefully, but he didn’t seem to hear. At this moment, no words would reach him. She slid her arms around him, one at his shoulders, the other at his waist. He was a large man, superbly fit, his powerful body trembling. A feeling of searing tenderness swept through her, and she let her fingers stroke the rigid nape of his neck. Albert whined softly, watching the two of them. Beyond Christopher’s shoulder, Beatrix glimpsed the housemaid standing uncertainly at the doorway, stray forks clutched in her hand. Although Beatrix didn’t give a fig about appearances or scandal, she cared very much about shielding Christopher during a vulnerable moment. He would not want anyone to see him when he was not fully in command of himself. “Leave us,” she said quietly. “Yes, miss.” Gratefully the maid fled, closing the door behind her.

Another thing we loved to do was to catch June bugs and tie them to a string. I'm sure it was more fun for us than the poor weighted-down June bugs, but we had a ball flying what we called our “’lectric kites." You tried to get a real good fat June bug with a lot of lifting power. Sometimes you could just fantasize about him being able to lift you right off the ground to where you could soar up among the clouds and look down at the trees and the fields. That kind of blissful thought would sometimes come to a sudden halt when your June bug would sacrifice his leg in the name of freedom and buzz off across the pasture. In the blink of an eye you could go from being a kind of daring Smoky Mountain astronaut to being just a kid with a bug leg hanging from a piece of thread. I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all of those five-legged June bugs for those dreams, fleeting though they may have been.

Christopher went still. After a long hesitation, she heard him ask in a far more normal voice, “What are you doing?” “I’m making it easier for you,” came her defiant reply. “Go on, start ravishing.” Another silence. Then, “Why are you facing downward?” “Because that’s how it’s done.” Beatrix twisted to look at him over her shoulder. A twinge of uncertainty caused her to ask. “Isn’t it?” His face was blank. “Has no one ever told you?” “No, but I’ve read about it.” Christopher rolled off her, relieving her of his weight. He wore an odd expression as he asked, “From what books?” “Veterinary manuals. And of course, I’ve observed the squirrels in springtime, and farm animals, and--” She was interrupted as Christopher cleared his throat loudly, and again. Darting a confused glance at him, she realized that he was trying to choke back amusement. Beatrix began to feel indignant. Her first time in a bed with a man, and he was laughing. “Look here,” she said in a businesslike manner, “I’ve read about the mating habits of over two dozen species, and with the exception of snails, whose genitalia is on their necks, they all--” She broke off and frowned. “Why are you laughing at me?” Christopher had collapsed, overcome with hilarity. As he lifted his head and saw her affronted expression, he struggled manfully with another outburst. “Beatrix. I’m…I’m not laughing at you.” “You are!” “No I’m not. It’s just…” He swiped a tear from the corner of his eye, and a few more chuckles escaped. “Squirrels…” “Well, it may be humorous to you, but it’s a very serious matter to the squirrels.” That set him off again. In a display of rank insensitivity to the reproductive rights of small mammals, Christopher had buried his face in a pillow, his shoulders shaking. “What is so amusing about fornicating squirrels?” Beatrix asked irritably. By this time he had gone into near apoplexy. “No more,” he gasped. “Please.” “I gather it’s not the same for people,” Beatrix said with great dignity, inwardly mortified. “They don’t go about it the same way that animals do?” Fighting to control himself, Christopher rolled to face her. His eyes were brilliant with unspent laughter. “Yes. No. That is, they do, but…” “But you don’t prefer it that way?” Considering how to answer her, Christopher reached out to smooth her disheveled hair, which was falling out of its pins. “I do. I’m quite enthusiastic about it, actually. But it’s not right for your first time.” “Why not?” Christopher looked at her, a slow smile curving his lips. His voice deepened as he asked, “Shall I show you?” Beatrix was transfixed. Taking her stillness as assent, he pressed her back and moved over her slowly. He touched her with care, arranging her limbs, spreading them to receive him. A gasp escaped her as she felt his hips settle on hers. He was aroused, a thick pressure fitting against her intimately. Bracing some of his weight on his arms, he looked down into her reddening face. “This way,” he said, with the slightest nudge, “…is usually more pleasing to the lady.” The gentle movement sent a jolt of pleasure through her. Beatrix couldn’t speak, her senses filled with him, her hips catching a helpless arch. She looked up at the powerful surface of his chest, covered with a tantalizing fleece of bronze-gold hair. Christopher lowered further, his mouth hovering just over hers. “Front to front…I could kiss you the entire time. And the shape of you would cushion me so sweetly…like this…” His lips took hers and coaxed them open, wringing heat and delight from her yielding flesh. Beatrix shivered, her arms lifting around his neck. She felt him all along her body, his warmth and weight anchoring her.

Let me kiss you,” I begged, wishing there was something else I could do to ease him. I reached up and took those gorgeous cheekbones in my hands, bringing his mouth down to mine. My kisses were tender, brushing his soft lips with mine, licking into his sweet mouth. With gentle hands, I rubbed his arms and chest. I let my fingers sift down through the light hair on his belly, until I brushed his cock. “Oh,” he said into my mouth as I began to stroke him lightly. “Oh,” he said again as I grazed his nipple with my free hand, and tangled my tongue with his. I kissed him to say that everything was okay, no matter if we fucked or not. I kissed him to tell him how grateful I was that he loved me. So grateful. Josh shifted carefully. He adjusted the angle of his hips, and the effect was a bit of friction on my cock, which was still buried inside him. I couldn’t hold back my moan. It just felt so good. That seemed to make Josh feel brave. He put some weight on the headboard and experimented with lifting himself up my shaft. God in heaven, it was good. My kisses lost focus as Josh’s firm body slid up and then down my shaft. He tipped his hips further, then did it again. “Baby,” I breathed. But that’s all I said. Because speaking was beyond my capacity at the moment. Slowly, he thrusted again. And again. Each time he moved, I felt everything. His body hugged my cock in the most beautiful way. And his sweet breath brushed my face, his tongue skimmed my mouth. “It’s so…” I struggled to tell him how I was feeling. “…Hot inside you. So… intense. Are you all right?

I want to know I can pick up and go if I feel the need. If I’m feeling all done with what I’m doing, I want to be able to go do something else, somewhere else, soak in new scents, new scenery, new people, new challenges.” She smiled. She realized something else. “I miss the restlessness. The pull to head somewhere new, find something I’ve never seen, learn something I didn’t know.” “It’s comfortable, I would imagine,” he said. “And comforting. It’s what you know, what you understand. Makes you feel like you.” She nodded. “That’s exactly it.” It was a little overwhelming at times, how well he seemed to understand her, to get what she meant. But in the best possible way. “There’s one more part,” she said, finding the courage, knowing she needed to tell him the rest of it. “Of the all I want to have.” “Which is?” She lifted her head then, propped her chin on his chest, and looked into his beautiful blue eyes. “You.” The light that leaped into those eyes was almost startling in its fierceness. His hand stilled in her hair, his body seemed to vibrate a little, as if injected with a sudden shot of life. But he otherwise said nothing, didn’t move, didn’t roll her to her back and kiss her senseless. He just held her gaze and let her see everything her declaration made him feel. That emboldened her to go on, to give voice to the rest of it. “I want to go back to Cameroo, see everyone again, see if it feels the same, if it still calls to me like it did before.” She clung to his gaze. “Feel what it would be like to be there and be with you. Really with you.” She expected him to say something like he’d book her the next flight back, but instead he regarded her for a long moment, and she realized she was trembling by the time he spoke. “That’s a lot of all,” he said. She nodded, unable to say anything more. Then he surprised a gasp out of her by reaching for her and pulling her up on top of him, slowing rolling to his other side and tucking her under the shelter of his body. He slid his leg between hers, leveraged his weight on one forearm, and cupped her cheek in his free hand. He stared down so intently, so deeply into her eyes, she thought she might drown in all that deep, dark, bottomless blue. “Cooper,” she whispered, for once not having any idea what he was thinking. “Maybe there is a way to have it all,” he said, lowering his head to hers. “If you want me, Starfish, we’ll find that way.” “I do,” she said, the sudden prickle of tears surprising her, but it was such a huge rush finally to admit it, to tell him. To tell herself. “But--” “No buts,” he said, kissing the damp from the corner of one eye, then the other. “We’ll sort it out,” he said. “It’s what we do for the people we love.

Maybe there is a way to have it all,” he said, lowering his head to hers. “If you want me, Starfish, we’ll find that way.” “I do,” she said, the sudden prickle of tears surprising her, but it was such a huge rush finally to admit it, to tell him. To tell herself. “But--” “No buts,” he said, kissing the damp from the corner of one eye, then the other. “We’ll sort it out,” he said. “It’s what we do for the people we love.” If she hadn’t already been certain her heart had tipped his way, it was definitely in free fall now. She reached up, stroked his face. “What have I done to deserve you?” she asked, quite serious. “Why me?” “Because you’re made for me,” he replied. “I knew it from the moment I met you.” He leaned in, kissed the side of her jaw. “It’s not about earning or deserving. Everyone deserves to be loved.” He lifted his head, and the intensity of his gaze was matched by the slow slide of his beautiful, cocky, sexy-as-hell grin. “We just have to be smart enough to recognize our perfect match when we find it.” Her smile matched his, her heart bumping hard inside her chest. “Are you calling me a dummy?” “Not at all. I’m just saying that maybe some of us caught on a bit faster than others.” She tried to hook his ankle and roll him to his back but he was on to that move. “Now, now, my little pirate wench, the only one with a hook is me.” He rolled fully on top of her, then, bracing his weight even as he nudged her thighs apart. “My, my,” she teased, her heart full to bursting, “what a big…sword you have.” “All the better to pillage you with,” he murmured, lowering his head again. “I should tell you one more thing,” she whispered, making him lift his head a bit, an eyebrow raised in question. “I’m protected. Makes traveling easier when you know what will be happening when,” she explained. “So if you’re okay with, uh, keeping your sword there unsheathed, I’m okay with--” “Oh, aye, I’m very okay,” he said, eyes gleaming that much more brightly. “Good,” she sighed, then tipped her head back and arched up into him. “Please feel free to pillage away.

When the shot rang out, she jerked as if the ball had plowed into her own body. The blast echoed and reechoed, loud and reverberating, punctuating her worst fear with a cutting finality. Running, running. She saw only Hunter, sitting on his horse one second, beautiful and proud, then thrown forward, as if a mighty hand had slammed into his back. He pitched sideways off his horse. Falling, falling, forever falling. Hunter, shot. Loretta couldn’t think beyond that. The other Comanches were a blur. Hunter was her only reality, and the cold fingers of death were curling around him. The events of the last three months spun through her head like the acts in a play. Her fierce captor, her trusted friend, her gentle lover. She couldn’t lose him like this. “Hunter! Oh, please, dear God, not Hunter!” Loretta reached him and dropped to her knees, trying to gather him into her arms. Dead weight. She couldn’t lift him. Blood, everywhere blood. A tortured moan worked its way up her throat. Not Hunter. With a trembling hand, she cupped the side of his jaw, sobbing his name. This Comanche cannot change his face. She touched the scar that slashed his cheek, the lifeless lips that had so frequently whispered comfort to her. If her face was carved on his heart, his was carved on her soul. “Don’t die! Hunter, please, don’t die! I love you! Hunter--” A sob tore the words from her guts in ragged spurts. “I love--you. Nah-ich-ka, you hear? I love you! You can’t die and leave me. Please, don’t leave me!

So why deny ourselves… pleasure?” he whispered. Christina’s internal temperature soared. Her fear of him and her lust for him were fighting each other in her body—and lust, wanting, desire were suddenly winning. His hot words and his magnetic presence were wrapping themselves around her like a boa and squeezing the breath out of her. She was beginning to breathe harder—and faster—and she saw his eyes rivet to her chest as he watched her breasts underneath her blouse rising and falling to the rhythm of her increased breathing rate. “I… I think… you should go,” her voice came out in a breathy whisper. His gaze quickly came up to rest on her beautifully flushed face. “Okay, if that’s what you want.” “It is,” she breathed a sigh of relief at having him finally agree. “I’ll go then, but first let me at least give you this? I bought it just for you.” He held the diamond necklace out to her again. “Please?” Christina had been prepared to tell him ‘no’, but the soft, gentle way he had said the word ‘please’ did her in. He sounded like a little boy who had spent all day at school drawing a picture for the girl he liked and then she had rejected him and his gift. Okay—so she’d let him give her the necklace and then he’d leave. What harm was there in that? Bill took a few steps forward and Christina remained rooted to the spot. Slowly, he continued to approach her—as if she were a skittish colt who would bolt if he made any sudden moves. He reached her then—and stopped a foot away. Leisurely, he lifted the necklace and unclasped its opening. His slow, deliberate movements were mesmerizing Christina. Whether it was her fatigue at being up all night or her strong physical attraction to him or her love for him she didn’t know, but she was falling under his spell. Christina let her hands drop from her blouse, causing it to fall open and revealing her lacy pink bra. She then lifted her hair up off her neck and turned her back to him. She didn’t see him bridge the last few inches between them but she felt him. She saw his powerful arms come around from behind her and felt the weight of the cold, heavy necklace as he placed it around her neck. He snapped the clasp and from behind, he lowered his lips to her ears. “You look beautiful, my little spitfire,” he whispered and his breath erotically fanned the delicate insides of her ear. Christina briefly closed her eyes as she felt an intense longing for him shoot through her body. God—she wanted him so badly—and her lack of sleep had removed all her inhibitions, excuses, defenses and rationale against making love to him. Why hadn’t she wanted to make love with him before? She

about my No. 1 goal and decide which three things I’m going to do on this day to move closer toward reaching it. For example, at the time of this writing, my No. 1 goal is to deepen the love and intimacy in my marriage. Each morning I plan three things I can do to make sure that my wife feels loved, respected, and beautiful. When I get up, I put on a pot of coffee, and while it’s brewing, I do a series of stretches for about ten minutes—something I picked up from Dr. Oz. If you’ve lifted weights your whole life as I have, you get stiff. I realized that the only way I was going to incorporate more stretching into my life was to make it a routine. I had to figure out where in my schedule I could stick it in—and while the coffee’s brewing is as good a time as any. Once I’ve stretched and poured my cup, I sit in my comfy leather recliner, set my iPhone for thirty minutes (no more, no less), and read something positive and instructional. When the alarm sounds, I take my most important project and

Loretta reached him and dropped to her knees, trying to gather him into her arms. Dead weight. She couldn’t lift him. Blood, everywhere blood. A tortured moan worked its way up her throat. Not Hunter. With a trembling hand, she cupped the side of his jaw, sobbing his name. This Comanche cannot change his face. She touched the scar that slashed his cheek, the lifeless lips that had so frequently whispered comfort to her. If her face was carved on his heart, his was carved on her soul. “Don’t die! Hunter, please, don’t die! I love you! Hunter--” A sob tore the words from her guts in ragged spurts. “I love--you. Nah-ich-ka, you hear? I love you! You can’t die and leave me. Please, don’t leave me!

Loretta! Get back in the yard,” Rachel called. Loretta turned, hugging her waist, her body bent slightly to contain the sobs that tried to escape her. “Aunt Rachel, he’s leaving me. He’s leaving me!” Rachel came running. Wrapping both arms around Loretta, she cried, “Oh, honey…” “He’s leaving me!” Loretta once again threw back her head. “Hunter-rrr!” The cry carried on the wind, shrill and mournful. Suddenly he crested the hill, a lone figure on horseback, etched in black against the sky. For a moment Loretta thought she was imagining him because she had wanted him to return so badly. Then he lifted his arm in a silent tribute, saluting her as one warrior would another. Honoring her. Loretta jerked from Rachel’s grasp, staggering toward him, drinking in the sight of him. She wanted to be beside him. She had to make him understand that. He needn’t choose between her and his people. She had been wrong, so horribly wrong. “Hunter! Take me with you! I love you!” she called. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!” He remained there, his arm still lifted, for several heartbreaking seconds. Then he wheeled his stallion and disappeared from sight. Hollow-eyed, Loretta stared after him. She had asked him to choose, and she had lost. Her legs buckled under her weight, and she fell to her knees, the pain inside her so excruciating that she couldn’t breathe. “Hunter-rr-r!” The wind brushed her cheeks, catching his name and carrying it away from her. She crossed her arms over her breasts and sobbed, her gaze fixed on the rise. She would never again look at the horizon without seeing him outlined there.

Hunter! Take me with you! I love you!” she called. “I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it!” He remained there, his arm still lifted, for several heartbreaking seconds. Then he wheeled his stallion and disappeared from sight. Hollow-eyed, Loretta stared after him. She had asked him to choose, and she had lost. Her legs buckled under her weight, and she fell to her knees, the pain inside her so excruciating that she couldn’t breathe. “Hunter-rr-r!” The wind brushed her cheeks, catching his name and carrying it away from her. She crossed her arms over her breasts and sobbed, her gaze fixed on the rise. She would never again look at the horizon without seeing him outlined there.

I don’t want to die.” I say, defiantly. “Bright Side, what?” He’s confused. Of course he’s confused. No one starts a conversation like that. I repeat, “I don’t want to fucking die.” “Oh, shit, Bright Side.” I hear him take a deep breath, a primer for the conversationthat’s about to unfold. “Talk to me. What’s going on?” “I’m fucking dying, Gus. I don’t want to die. That’s what’s fucking going on.” I hit the steering wheel with my palms. “Goddammit!” I scream... Gus doesn’t deserve this, but I know he’ll deal with it better than anyone else would. “Calm down, dude. Where are you?” “I don’t know. I’m sitting in my car in a fucking parking garage in the middle of motherfucking Minneapolis, Minnesota.” That was hostile. “Are you by yourself?” “Yes,” I snap. “You’re not supposed to be driving while you’re on your pain meds.” I don’t want his fatherly tone. “I know that.” “Are you in danger or hurt?” I burst out laughing, surprised that I can’t even laugh without sounding angry. The question is absurd to me though. I’m dying. “Bright Side, shut up for a second and talk to me. Do I need to call 911? What the fuck is going on?” He sounds scared. I shake my head like he can see me. “No, no. I’m just ... I’m fucking mad, Gus. That’s all.” And at a loss for words because my mind is jumbled up into this bitter, resentful ball. I don’t know what else to say so I repeat myself. “I’m really fucking mad.” “Well shit, by all means, there’s plenty of room at my table for anger.” He gets it. That’s why I called him, after all. “I’ve been dishing out heaping servings of fury for the past month. I feel better knowing I’m not the only one in this whole debacle with some rage issues. So fire away. Fucking give it to me.” I do. An explosive, steady stream of expletives flows out of me. I’m cursing it all, shouting out questions, pounding the steering wheel, and wiping away hot, angry tears. Occasionally Gus joins in, yelling affirmations. Sometimes he waits for a pause on my part and takes his turn and sometimes he just steamrolls over the top of me... Eventually, my tears stop, and I’m able to take normal breaths. My throat feels tight and my head hurts a little, but I’m calm. On the other end of the line, Gus gets quiet, too. Silence falls between us... My voice is raspy when I decide to break the silence. “Gus?” “Yeah, Bright Side.” He sounds like himself again. Calm. “Thanks.” I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me. And now I need to apologize. “Sorry, dude.” He laughs. “No worries. You feel better?” I can actually smile now. “Yeah, I really do.” “Good, me too. I think we should’ve done this weeks ago.” “I think I should’ve done it months ago.” I mean it. It felt so good to let it all out. “Bright Side, you know I love you all happy and adorable in your little world of sunshine and rainbows, but you’re kinda hot when you’re angry. I dig aggressive chicks. And that was crazy aggressive.” He knows I’m going to say it, but I can’t help myself. “Whatever.” I even roll my eyes. “I think I’m gonna rename you Demon Seed.” “What? I show you my dark side and now I have to be the fucking antichrist? I don’t like that. Why can’t I just be Angry Bitch?” He laughs hard and my heart swellsbecause I haven’t heard this laugh out of Gus in a month. And I love this laugh. “Well dude, since it seems my therapysession has wrapped up, I’d better get going. I need to get home.” “Sure. Drive slowly and text me when you get there so I know you made it. And no more driving after this trip.” “Yes sir. I love you, Gus.” “Love you, too, Angry Bitch,” his voice low and dramatic. He pauses because he knows I’m not going to hang up to that. “I was just trying it out,” he says innocently.

We go back to our silent fishing, but I'm smiling the whole time. The tension has dimmed. Well, until Blake shoves Graham into the river. A gasp leaves me, my mouth hanging open as I watch my roommate sputter to the surface of the dirty water. I drop my fishing pole, frozen in place. My dad mutters, “What the hell?” Blake throws his head back and laughs like I have never seen nor heard him laugh before. The loud and hearty sound is cut off short when Graham comes barreling out of the water, his body aimed straight for him, his eyes daggers of retribution. He lunges for his brother, wrapping his arms around his stomach and heaving him toward the water. Blake stumbles back, landing on his rear just inside the water. The sound of jeans smacking into water is sharp. He swipes water out of his eyes as Graham smirks at him. “What is wrong with you two?” I demand, more annoyed than worried. They seem to be getting along, even if they are being brutish about it. Suddenly I have the attention of two wet men, twin calculating gleams in their eyes. Graham is closest, his steps slow and purposeful as he approaches me. “Don't even think about it.” I put my hands out in front of me to ward him off. His grin deepens as he reaches me. Water drips from his hair down his face to become one with his soggy clothes. “Don't think about what?” A glance over my shoulder tells me a tree, the first form of cover I think of, is too far away. Not one to give up, I move for it anyway, but a wet, strong hand grabs the back of my shirt and pulls me away from where I want to go until I am flush with a cold chest. Cold clothes; warm body, I should say. His skin is burning through the dampness of his shirt. “Graham, I swear, if you throw me in that water, I will never speak to you again.” His voice is low and close as he says, “You make it sound like that wouldn't be a good thing.” I haven't even finished my sound of incredulity before I am gathered into his arms, my arms unconsciously going around his neck to anchor me to him. His touch is gentle, his eyes are smiling. “I mean it. This won't be good for you.” “Oh, I don't know about that.” His arms swing out, and I tighten my hold on him, threatening him even as he is laughing at me. He does it again as we move closer to the water and I glare all my irk at him. “If I go, you go.” He tilts his head as he studies me. His voice is unnaturally sober as he tells me, “That's fine with me.” I don't have time to process that before he lets go of me. I hit the water, refusing to let go of his neck, and we both go under. Lucky for me, the water is only a couple feet deep. Unlucky for Graham, I twist around until I am straddling him, keeping him down with my weight so the only thing above water is his head. I give him a sweet smile. He doesn't return it. “Hi,” I purr. He grunts in response. “Fancy meeting you here.” “What can I say? Where you go, I follow.” I pat his cheek. “That's so sweet.” “I'm a sweet guy.” “So sweet,” I agree. “Hey! You're scaring the fish away.” This from Blake, who is now standing near my father. “The fish love me!” I declare, sweeping my arms out wide and losing my balance. I splash into the water, first laughing, and then choking as water goes down my throat. Graham lifts me out of the water by my shirt. “The weight of your arrogance obviously tipped you over.” “It was more like the air couldn't handle all my splendor.” Half of his mouth lifts. “Something like that.” “Fishing with the three of you is impossible,” Dad grumbles and stomps to the cooler, opening a can of soda and gulping it down

Catch me up. I had to stay late after class because I was busy sucking up to the TA,” Brian confessed. “Ellie has a cute freshman lab partner, Sasha’s tired of Victoria, and I sat next to Bo Randolph in biology.” I conveniently left out mention of the note. Three sighs of delight reverberated through the room at the mention of Bo’s name. “Bo looks like he’s sculpted from stone by some master and skin was stretched over the form. Unreal,” Sasha declared. “I’d love to see him in a life drawing class.” “The guns on that guy,” Brian concurred. “Where are all of you seeing him?” I asked, surprised at their distinct recall of Bo’s body. “I see him in the gym, lifting,” Brian said. “Yoga,” Sasha offered. “He does yoga?” My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “No, while I’m doing yoga, I see him working out. He’s like all muscle. Last semester’s yoga class at 5 P.M. was packed once word got out that he and his buddy Noah lifted weights there before dinner. It’s like a burlesque show. They start out with their shirts on and then slowly unveil the package as they get sweatier and sweatier,” Sasha explained. “Then, when they’re super hot and super sweaty, they’ll run their discarded shirts over their chests.

Now that she’d done her own tour she could see a little bit of the war in him, his familiarity with silences, his drive, a reconciled sorrow that lifted the corners of his mouth in a kind of mocking self-abnegation. The weight of being alive, being a victim of the killing you’ve done.

So she’ll be okay? She’s not going to die?” I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted from my chest. All of a sudden the light has returned to my life, and I can breathe again.  “No, son. It looks like she’s going to be just fine. She just needs to wake up. Why don’t you all go in and spend a few minutes with her before you head home for the night? We’ll call you if anything changes.

For instance, if a Black person is watching tv, instead of being bombarded by anti-Black images and messages hour after hour, they should be able to relax and be at peace in the knowledge that Black people control the media.  When their children go off to school in the morning, Black parents and other members of their community who provide love and support for their children, should be able to know that the teachers won’t be anti-Black and won’t fill their children’s heads with ideas that make them hate themselves or feel less worthy and less valuable.  The Black community should be confident that their children are being taught their history, their ideas (Black Thought), and are being told they are beautiful and good.  There shouldn’t be any worries about schoolmates of another race making their children feel inferior.  When they grow up and go to college, Black students should be confident that Black administrators and Black professors have created an environment and curriculum which encourages their entire educational development, not only providing skills for the workplace but nurturing their minds and their sense of community.  And when these students go out into the workplace, they should be confident that Black-controlled industries will be hiring them with Black managers in charge.  Racism will become a non-factor. Most significantly, when Black people have control over their community and have Black citizenship they won’t be forced to go through every day under the constant terror of being harassed, brutalized and killed by the police.  The psychological weight that would be lifted from them would be historic.  A new sense of energy and security could be channeled into self-affirmation and community-building.  I have little doubt that such a moment in history would lead to unprecedented strong race relations between citizens of this Black nation and whites in the current nation.  It’s almost impossible to have truly strong or positive race relations when one group is constantly required to bear the burden of oppression, and the other group feels the need to ignore or deny the existence of this oppression while also enforcing it.  The levels of tension and dishonesty are an enormous drain on everyone involved.  What a sweet and beautiful day it would be when Black people would simply not have to think about whites anymore.  In the same way that amerikans spend so little of our time thinking about Lithuanians or Norwegians.  And when you aren’t forced to think about someone, or forced to live the way they tell you to live, it’s a pleasure to get together and visit voluntarily.  Black people and Europeans on this continent (amerikans) would still talk to one another.  We might even still live in the same neighborhoods.  But the difference is that Black people would be their own people.  They would no longer be surrounded by the circle of whiteness.  The black dot on the white page: the exception to the rule.  White rule.  Black people would be a nation.  An entity unto themselves.  They would not be required to imagine themselves within the context of whiteness.  Their minds would be freed from the perpetual interpretation of every action and word (it seems even every thought) through whiteness.  Africans (Black people) would simply be Africans.  A people defined by their own terms, their identity neither within nor without the boundaries of whiteness.

He takes my hand and pulls me out of the room. Paul is in the lazy chair with Hayley in his lap, reading a book, and Sam and Pete are on one of the sofas. Matt is alone on the other, so I sit down beside him and lean into his shoulder. He reaches up to tousle my hair and smiles at me. “I’m glad you’re back, kid,” he says. I lean more heavily into him, and he lifts his arm to the back of the sofa so I can nestle into his side. I breathe him in. He’s so much softer than Logan. But the cancer took its toll. He’s lost weight, and he has dark shadows beneath his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?” I whisper to him. He looks down at me and tweaks my nose as Logan pulls my feet into his lap. I lay my head on Matt’s thigh and he leans down to whisper to me. “Quit worrying about me and enjoy being back.” His hand strokes absently down the length of my hair as someone presses “play” to start the movie. I love this gentle giant. The movie starts, and it’s not a thriller or a car chase. There’s no shooting. It’s a love story. My eyes well up with tears, and I scrub them on Matt’s leg. “There’s no place like home,” I say quietly.

Harper, wait up!” He caught my arm and spun me around so I was facing him. “You’re not even going to say hi now?” “Hi.” My voice cracked and I kept my eyes to the ground. Chase gently placed his hand under my chin and lifted until I was staring at him through unshed tears. “Baby what’s wrong?” God I didn’t want to hear him call me that. Memories of our times together flashed through my mind and my cheeks instantly filled with heat. “Nothing,” I cleared my throat and blinked back the tears, “it’s just allergies or something.” His look told me he wasn’t buying that, but didn’t push that subject further. Stepping back he hung his head and sighed roughly, shifting his weight a few times, “I haven’t seen you around my house much. I know you don’t want to be with me, but don’t feel like you can’t be there, I won’t bother you and Brandon.” “That’s not why I haven’t been there. I um, I broke up with him.” Chase’s head snapped up, “You did? When, why didn’t you tell me?” He was failing miserably at trying to hide his elated smile. “A little over a week ago. But it hurt me more than I could ever explain to do it, and I need time to get over that. I can’t just rush back to you because Brandon and I aren’t together anymore.” He cupped my cheeks and hunched down so he was almost eye level, “I love you, I’ll give you all the time you need. Unless. Unless you don’t want me anymore?” I pressed my face harder into his left hand and closed my eyes, inhaling his clean masculine scent. “I’ve told you, I will always love you Chase, but I’m still not sure you won’t eventually leave me. Because of that fear, I don’t know if I can be with you. And some things have changed since we talked last, you might change your mind about me altogether.” “That’s not possible.” I pulled his hands off my face and wrapped his tattooed arms around my shoulders. After placing a kiss on his throat I buried my head in his chest, “I wish that were true.” My life had drastically changed in such a short amount of time. For obvious reasons, I’d had to break up with Brandon and now Chase and I were going to have a baby. Because of the turn of events, I found myself wanting a life with Chase more and more, I wanted him to be there for me and his baby. Here, wrapped up in his strong arms, I could almost let myself believe it might happen. But Chase was about to graduate college, he was a tattoo artist and spent most of his mornings surfing. I couldn’t see him settling down with me and our baby. “It is Harper,” his voice cracked when he said my name, and tears started falling down his face, “I love you so damn much, why can’t you see that?” Oh

And at that moment Charles's thoughts raced back to the time he'd lain blind and helpless in Sylvanus Leighton's house, with only Amy to look after him in his days of darkest despair.  He recalled how many moments they'd shared together, how much they'd come to mean to each other, and a huge knot of emotion closed the back of his throat as the full magnitude of his love for this woman nearly crushed him beneath its weight.  He could never live without her.  Ever.  And this time, of course, he had no guilt over Juliet, no feelings of self-doubt, and absolutely no reason this side of heaven not to give in to his most fervent desire:  to be with Amy, always. He had come full circle, then. He was the man he had always been. The Beloved One. Charles tilted his head back within Amy's arms and, looking up into her eyes, saw such a wealth of love for him there that he thought his heart was going to come bursting right out of his chest. He lifted her hand to his lips.  "Amy.  My dearest, precious Amy.  I love you.  Will you marry me?" Her eyes suddenly misty, she looked up at Lucien. He only smiled.  "I believe, my dear, that the traditional reply is 'I will."  

They could see the hills now; they were almost there—the long lift of the first pine ridge standing across half the horizon and beyond it a sense a feel of others, the mass of them seeming not so much to stand rush abruptly up out of the plateau as to hang suspended over it as his uncle had told him the Scottish highlands did except for this sharpness and color; that was two years ago, maybe three and his uncle had said, 'Which is why the people who chose by preference to live on them on little patches which wouldn't make eight bushels of corn or fifty pounds of lint cotton an acre even if they were not too steep for a mule to pull a plow across (but then they dont want to make the cotton anyway, only the corn and not too much of that because it really doesn't take a great deal of corn to run a still as big as one man and his sons want to fool with) are people named Gowrie and McCallum and Fraser and Ingrum that used to be Ingraham and Workitt that used to be Urquhart only the one that brought it to America and then Mississippi couldn’t spell it either, who love brawling and fear God and believe in Hell——' and it was as though his uncle had read his mind, holding the speedometer needle at fifty-five into the last mile of gravel (already the road was beginning to slant down toward the willow-and-cypress bottom of the Nine-Mile branch) speaking, that is volunteering to speak for the first time since they left town: 'Gowrie and Fraser and Workitt and Ingrum. And in the valleys along the rivers, the broad rich easy land where a man can raise something he can sell openly in daylight, the people named Littlejohn and Greenleaf and Armstead and Millingham and Bookwright——' and stopped, the car dropping on down the slope, increasing speed by its own weight; now he could see the bridge where Aleck Sander had waited for him in the dark and below which Highboy had smelled quicksand. 'We turn off just beyond it,' he said. 'I know,' his uncle said. '—And the ones named Sambo, they live in both, they elect both because they can stand either because they can stand anything.' The bridge was quite near now, the white railing of the entrance yawned rushing at them. 'Not all white people can endure slavery and apparently no man can stand freedom (Which incidentally—the premise that man really wants peace and freedom—is the trouble with our relations with Europe right now, whose people not only dont know what peace is but—except for Anglo Saxons—actively fear and distrust personal liberty; we are hoping without really any hope that our atom bomb will be enough to defend an idea as obsolete as Noah's Ark.); with one mutual instantaneous accord he forces his liberty into the hands of the first demagogue who rises into view: lacking that he himself destroys and obliterates it from his sight and ken and even remembrance with the frantic unanimity of a neighborhood stamping out a grass-fire. But the people named Sambo survived the one and who knows? they may even endure the other.

I scooch my body over so I’m on the bed, and we’re head to toe. She’s lying next to me. “Sixty-nine,” I say with a smirk. “Oh. I’ve never done that.” “Hop on. Don’t be shy.” She doesn’t hesitate, and the next thing I know, my tongue is on her again and my cock is taken in by her magical mouth. I love the weight of her tits on my abs as she bobs up and down on me. I wrap my arms around her waist, and as much as I want to see what she’s doing that is making me feel so amazing, I love how I can make her wiggle in this position. Her body shudders again, and I wonder if she’s coming. I damn well hope so. I feel some combination of her hands, mouth, and tongue on me as she slides up and down, slick hands on my rock-hard erection. I gyrate up and down a little, rocking my hips into her. Our bodies press together in an explosion of sixty-nine heat and sweat and sex. For a moment, I pull her hands behind her back, forcing her to sit up and on my face. She’s hesitant at first, but I think my enthusiasm overrides any shyness she might have, and she’s twisting into me as she comes again. I know because she tells me, even though her words are barely a whimper at this point. She lifts her body up and off me, then kneels between my legs and pushes her hair behind her head. “D, tell me how you want me to finish you,” she says as she runs her hand up and down on my cock. I bite my lip. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to fuck your tits.” “Well, I’m glad you’re not lying.” She looks down. “Fuck these things? And how would you do that?” I narrow my eyes. “You’ve never done that?” She shakes her head. “Never.” “So I get to take your boobs’ V card?” I exclaim. “Let’s not make a big deal out of it.” She lies down on her back and I position my legs on either side, straddling her upper body. I slide my cock between her breasts, and just enjoy the beautiful view for a moment. When I lean back with one arm for balance, I find myself fondling her clit again—instinct—but she grabs my arm. “Nah-ah. This is about you, now. This is about D.” Grabbing my cock, she pulls me toward her face and leans forward at the same time, then takes me to the back of her throat, leaving me nice and slick. She puts my cock between her tits and then presses them together. “You like that?” she asks, and I nod vigorously. “Very much,” I grit out. “Good. I like watching you do it.” Her eyes flicker with excitement and that turns me on even more. I press her boobs together myself and she grabs hold of my ass and slides her hands around my hips. It’s so damn hot and this is goddamn reckless abandon, and I feel like I can do anything sexually with this woman, like I’m free and she’s my toy and I’m hers, too. I pump my cock between her tits again and she lets out a moan that puts me over the edge. “Gonna come,” I growl. “Where should I come.” “My tits, baby,” she says throatily, and next thing I know I spurt ropes all over her breasts and neck. By some miracle, none gets on her face. When it’s all over, both of our hearts are racing. She looks down at her chest, and then up at me. “Wow.” “I would say sorry, but that would be a lie.” She touches a tiny bit of the liquid with her finger and taps her tongue. “You taste good, actually. I mean, I already tasted you before.” I laugh as I unstraddle her and go grab a towel. “I’ll let you taste me as much as you want, babe. By the way, let me just say you kind of look hot as hell right now.” “Thanks.” I wipe her off, wipe myself off, and then lean down to kiss her. I envisioned a peck, but it ends up being a long, lingering kiss that promises more. She takes my hand and I stand there for a minute, next to her.

Applying math to practical problems was another business altogether; it meant a deep understanding of the problem before writing the equations. But if you muster the strength to weight-lift a car to save a child, above your current abilities, the strength gained will stay after things calm down. So, unlike the drug addict who loses his resourcefulness, what you learn from the intensity and the focus you had when under the influence of risk stays with you. You may lose the sharpness, but nobody can take away what you’ve learned. This is the principal reason I am now fighting the conventional educational system, made by dweebs for dweebs. Many kids would learn to love mathematics if they had some investment in it, and, more crucially, they would build an instinct to spot its misapplications.

Wiping her cheeks, she felt the weight on her wrist and saw the sparkle of the diamonds. The dragon watched her with its flashing eyes. “I-I. It’s beautiful.” After a moment, she managed to whisper, “I love you. Love you both.” She looked up at her Dragon Doms, side by side, both smiling, and the warmth and love flowed from them to wrap around her. When Alastair bent to offer her a hand, she frowned. “Wait… Aren’t you supposed to ask me?” “You need us.” Max gave her a smug smile. “It’s our job as your Doms to give you what you need.” She scowled. Chuckling, Alastair lifted her to her feet and hugged her. “We all know you’d say yes.

I had been very shy then around his girlfriend, who had dark wisps of hair and a beautiful face, as soft and malleable as a baby’s. This, paired with an alarming kindness, left me barely able to speak. Thom I was comfortable with. At some basal level of emotion we were alike, even though Thom was a spiky version of what we called a bro, a man who would not veer from a masculinity at once laidback and entrenched. He lived in sweats. Listened to death metal when he was not listening to yacht rock. Lifted weights daily to a podcast on Engels. Managed, with good humor, the flares of his irritable bowel syndrome. He gave good hugs. He called me his dude. I loved that.

Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly. Many are sound asleep because they do not know about this gold mine of infinite intelligence and boundless love within themselves. Whatever you want, you can draw forth. A magnetized piece of steel will lift about twelve times its own weight, and if you demagnetize this same piece of steel, it will not even lift a feather. Similarly, there are two types of men. There is the magnetized man who is full of confidence and faith. He knows that he is born to win and to succeed. Then, there is the type of man who is demagnetized. He is full of fears and doubts. Opportunities come, and he says, “I might fail; I might lose my money; people will laugh at me.” This type of man will not get very far in life because, if he is afraid to go forward, he will simply stay where he is. Become a magnetized man and discover the master secret of the ages.

I kiss her neck and chest and I slowly lift my weight off of her and pull out. A thick dribble of cum spills from her pussy as I withdraw from her, and without even thinking, I gather it on my fingertips and press it back inside her, watching her sweet cunt accept it. The most possessive, primal feeling of satisfaction rises up in my chest, and I shove my fingers deeper, pushing my release farther inside. “What are you doing?” Margo chuckles breathlessly, looking down the line of her body to watch as I fuck her with my fingers. “This is fucking hot,” I murmur, entranced by the sight of it.

right. Maybe all along I’d been falling in love with her. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that made me love her mind and her soul and her heart. The way that made me believe in soulmates. That the second I lifted her tiny body into my arms all those years ago, all of the weight had lifted off of me. All of the hurt of watching my father walk out of my life without another thought to me or Henry, lessened slightly. But if that was the case, if I truly had been preparing myself for the day she turned eighteen so that I could love her body the same way I loved every other part of her, then I know now this is it. That she is it. “You don’t know that for sure, Cal.” “Yes, I do.

Dear Source from Which All Love Floweth Like Water, the only word I can find that has any weight at all for them is divine.

hate being fat. I hate the way people look at me, or don’t. I hate being a joke; I hate the disorienting limbo between too visible and invisible; I hate the way that complete strangers waste my life out of supposed concern for my death. I hate knowing that if I did die of a condition that correlates with weight, a certain subset of people would feel their prejudices validated, and some would outright celebrate. I also love being fat. The breadth of my shoulders makes me feel safe. I am unassailable. I intimidate. I am a polar icebreaker. I walk and climb and lift things, I can open your jar, I can absorb blows—literal and metaphorical—meant for other women, smaller women, breakable women, women who need me. My bones feel like iron—heavy, but strong. I used to say that being fat in our culture was like drowning (in hate, in blame, in your own tissue), but lately I think it’s more like burning. After three decades in the fire, my iron bones are steel.

I brought you this book. I figured you’d remember it.” He lifted up an old worn green book I’d carried with me from ages eleven to fifteen almost without fail. “Emily Dickinson. You were a fanatic for Emily Dickinson. You remember that?” “Of course,” I said, holding the weight of the book. Inside he’d written Just to let you know some things are always here. Love, Daddy. He always tried so hard to love me, I know he did, but even with that…

And just like that, I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders. A cloud that no longer hovers over me. I feel twenty pounds lighter. Forgiveness and love are more powerful than any drug you can take. I’ve always had a death wish, but for once I have something to live for.

Once I'd understood that the relationship was toxic, it felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Accepting that the man who was supposed to love me unconditionally was, in fact, abusive, was the most difficult thing I had ever processed. I was trapped, I thought, reflecting on the person I had been when Emile was around. I don't even recognise myself. It took escaping Emile's control to accept that he had even been controlling at all. And it took time on my own to figure out and fully accept that Emile was guilty of trying to kill me.

In an instant I was in her arms, her lips against my cheek. I cupped her face in my hands and stared into those eyes, dancing eyes, warm and smiling, filled with tears and love, a combination I couldn’t lose, couldn’t walk away from again. She pulled me inside and closed the door behind me, locking it. I tried to speak, but words wouldn’t come, and she put her finger to my lips to calm me. She turned with her shoulder blades against my chest and drew my arms around her, holding the backs of my hands in her palms. Placing my palms just under her collarbone, she ran my hands down her body. As they passed over her breasts, I could tell they were larger, full and tight, swollen with fluid, and she gasped slightly as I touched her nipples. I closed my eyes, resting my chin on her shoulder, and she continued downward. They moved under her breasts, and I lifted up slightly, feeling their weight, the heaviness, wondering how tired her shoulders were at the end of the day, reminding myself to give her a good backrub. She turned my wrists and drew my hands downward. They immediately began to move forward, over the place where her slim waist used to be, out farther and farther, until they stopped even with her navel. Her skin under the cotton dress was tight, and I spread my fingers wide, taking in the size of her tummy, the width, the depth, moving around it like gripping a basketball. And then it happened. It kicked, a good, hard kick. I could feel it rolling around inside her, stretching and moving, moving deep in her as I had just a few months before on that first night, asking her how it felt to carry a child inside her. I remembered, and she was right. It did feel the very same. My moving inside her had created this movement, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out, from shouting, from wailing in joy as I’d heard her wail in sorrow. She pivoted in my arms and stared into my face, her eyes sad, pain an inch thick over her expression. “Steve, I wanted to tell you, really I did. I wanted to tell you about the baby. And I wanted to tell you about . . .” I put my hand up to quiet her. “I knew, Diana. I already knew.” She looked at me, puzzled. I drew her over to the sofa and sat down beside her. “Remember when we first met?” She nodded. “Well, I lied. The real reason we were here was to look for Nick Roberts.” She was still, quiet, waiting for the rest of the explanation. “When I first came here, I was looking for Nick Roberts. Before I left here the first time, I knew you’d written that book. But I didn’t say anything because by that time I didn’t care. I came to find Nick Roberts. What I found was a beautiful woman, the love of my life. Nick Roberts and anything associated with Nick Roberts just didn’t matter anymore.” “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” she asked, looking down at her hands, unable to meet my eyes. “Because. Because it didn’t matter. Because I knew I’d have to explain to you why I was here in the first place. Because I was afraid you’d be afraid, afraid I was just playing you, afraid I’d expose you and give you up to the media. But I didn’t, I swear to god. It wasn’t me.

Jesus and Women As we look at Jesus and how He interacted with women, we see Him dignifying, validating, and championing them—all in contrast to a misogynist culture. In addition, women played a prominent role in Jesus’ earthly ministry. As John Bunyan put it, “They were women that wept when he was going to the cross, and women that followed him from the cross, and that sat by his sepulcher when he was buried. They were women that was [sic] first with him at his resurrection morn, and women that brought tidings first to his disciples that he was risen from the dead.”2 In an ancient world, where many disregarded the testimony of women, Jesus’ high regard for them bordered on the scandalous. The fact that all these accounts are included in the Canon of Scripture actually verify the resurrection accounts of Christ. Remember, God saw fit that the first eyes to behold the risen Jesus were those of a woman—all during an era where a woman’s testimony had no credibility in a court of law. Women, therefore, were the first evangelists. The only way a man can discover how to treat a woman is by looking at how Jesus interacted with them. Your Lord was the defender of women. He stepped in to save a broken, scandalized woman from the murderous plot of a group of self-righteous men. He lifted the weight of her shame, writing a new destiny for her in the dirt. He saw value in an “unclean” Samaritan woman who was disregarded, despised, and viewed as damaged goods. He honored a prostitute in the house of a Pharisee. He healed a pariah woman whose flow of blood excommunicated her. He exalted a woman who anointed Him for burial by commissioning her story to be rehearsed wherever the gospel message was heard. He never talked down to a woman, but made them heroes in His parables. And that for which Jesus came to die was a woman . . . His woman, the very bride of Christ. Put simply, your Lord is in the business of loving, honoring, and defending women.3 And God chose the womb of a woman to enter this world.

Look at you.” I gestured toward him, for he could not disguise his pain, nor hide the fever that brought beads of sweat to his forehead. “You did this to yourself, Steldor. You punished yourself with your actions, but nothing else was accomplished. You just wanted to be a martyr.” “What’s wrong with that?” he shot back. “You want to be a saint! You want to be the one who brings peace to these people. You’re the one who brought war, Alera. You’re the reason Narian didn’t leave for good when he fled Hytanica. He loves you, and that’s why--” He stopped talking, unable to make himself complete that sentence. “You’re right about one thing,” I whispered in the dead silence. “Narian loves me, but what you won’t acknowledge is that he’s the reason any of us still have our lives. He’s the reason you weren’t killed for that show you put on.” “Extend my thanks,” he said, tone laden with sarcasm. I threw up my hands. “This is pointless, us dancing around in circles. You still won’t listen to anyone, let alone me. I may as well go.” “But you won’t--you aren’t yet ready to leave.” I didn’t move, hating that he knew my threat had been empty, and he stood. He drew closer to me until I could feel the heat radiating from his body. “Hytanica and Cokyri will always be different worlds, Alera. Before this is over, one of those worlds will be destroyed. We can’t coexist like this.” “Not when people like you refuse to believe any different.” “At least I’m not hiding from the truth. You’re so wrapped up in Narian that you can’t see the situation for what it really is. Cokyri is a godless, brutal, warrior empire that despises the very way we live. Now that they are in power, they have no need to honor our traditions or tolerate our beliefs. Don’t you see, it’s not just the Kingdom of Hytanica that will no longer exist. It is our entire way of life.” I stared at him, shocked and confused. Narian and I had always been able to work through our differences, so I had assumed our countries could, as well. But he and I wanted to be together, we wanted to be joined. Our countries did not. “Cokyri is interested only in obtaining certain things from us,” I argued, although a bit of doubt now nagged at me. “As long as we follow their regulations, we can live in the manner we always have.” “Then I’d keep an eye on their regulations, Alera. They’re already changing our educational system, what we are permitted to teach our sons. Religion will come next.” “Change isn’t necessarily all bad.” “It is when it’s forced down your throat. And in case you haven’t notice, the Cokyrians overseeing the work crews have not allowed us to rebuild our churches. They have been reconstructed, but for different, more practical purposes. The Cokyrians are quite enamored with practicality.” Not knowing what else to say, I turned to depart, only to feel his hand on my arm. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Alera. Between us, I mean.” He was looking at me with those dark, intense, fiery eyes--eyes that held love I had never reciprocated. “Things are what they are, Steldor,” I replied, decisive but desolate. “We’re separated by too much. We always have been. Just please, give yourself time to get well.” Before he could stop me a second time, I stepped out the door, feeling the weight of frustration lifting from my shoulders with each step I took away from him. I had been foolish to think he and I could communicate in spite of our differing beliefs. Neither of us wanted to cause the other pain, but that was all we had ever been good at doing.

It was about a week later that I left my parlor to find my long-absent bodyguard leaning with his back against the wall, as though there were nothing unusual about his presence in the corridor outside my door. “London!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t expect to find you back on duty.” “I hope you’re not disappointed, but I figured I might be welcome here again,” he said with a laugh. “I assume I’m no longer a war criminal.” “Quite the contrary--you are a war hero. But I haven’t seen you since you escorted Narian and me back to the city. Where have you been all this time?” “I had to take care of some other business.” He shifted his weight and glanced downward, unable to conceal a grin. “There was another woman who deserved to know I was all right.” I immediately glanced to the third finger of his right hand, where rested a golden betrothal ring, and my smile lifted along with my heart. “Tanda is a fortunate woman to have you.” In atypical form, London confessed his feelings toward her. “After so many years, I never thought I would be so blessed as to have her once more by my side.” Was this the effect Tanda had on my bodyguard, even dating back to the beginning of their courtship? Was her love the key to making him less guarded, more open, more relaxed? And did my love have the same effect on Narian?

The imposter’s dead.” Adara froze as she heard the unfamiliar male voice through her prison’s door. “Are you sure?” her guard asked. “Aye. Lord Selwyn identified him himself. He was stabbed straight through his heart.” Adara felt her world shift at those words. Christian dead? Nay. It couldn’t be. The men outside laughed and began to celebrate. “Christian,” she breathed, her heart shattering in waves of bitter agony. He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t. “Open the door. Lord Selwyn wishes to have the queen join him so that they can set a date for her new wedding.” Never! Adara struggled to breathe as she glanced about for a weapon. There was nothing. But when the door opened, her rage took hold of her. “Damn you!” she shouted, then commenced to throwing every object toward the soldiers who entered. She couldn’t see clearly through her tears. All she knew was that she wanted vengeance on all of them. How dare they kill her Christian! How dare they! Sobs assailed her. She wanted to crumple from the excruciating weight of her grief. But she refused. So instead, she vented by pelting them with everything she could lift and launch. “Adara, cease!” She froze at the sound of a voice she hadn’t expected to hear. For a moment she thought she might be dreaming, until she blinked to look up into the most handsome face she’d ever known. She stared at the same blue eyes that made the tenderest of love to her. Christian. Her grip went lax and the candlestick in her hand fell to the floor. He was alive! She threw herself into his arms and held him close as giddy tears replaced her grief-induced ones. At least until her rage took hold again. “Damn you, you worthless, heartless son of a dog!” she snarled, pulling back to strike at his chest. “How dare you make me think you were dead! Don’t you ever do such a thing to me again.” Christian was stunned by her language and actions. “I didn’t know you could hear us through the door.” She struck him again on his armor, a blow that no doubt he felt not at all, but it gave her some degree of satisfaction. “Well, think better next time.” Her untoward anger amused him. Wiping the tears from her face, he kissed her tenderly. Phantom cleared his throat. “Need I remind the two of you that we still need to get out of this place before the guards regain consciousness?” “We are coming,” Christian said, pulling back from her and taking her hand into his. Two men brought the guards into her room and dumped them by her bed before they tied them securely. “How did you know where to find me?” she asked them. “Phantom has many unsavory friends who know every machination of Selwyn’s.” For some reason she didn’t doubt that.

Gregori’s body bent first, feathers shimmering iridescent in the moonlight. A six-foot wingspan spread, and he glided to the high branch of a nearby tree, razor-sharp talons digging into a branch. The owl’s body went motionless, blended into the night, simply waited. Aidan was next, a peculiar golden color, powerful and lethal, just as silent. Byron’s form was shorter, more compact, his feathers a mantle of white. Mikhail’s solid form wavered in the shadows, and he launched himself into the night sky, the other three following. As if in perfect understanding, they soared higher, shimmering feathers beating strongly as they raced silently toward the clouds high above the forest floor. The wind rushed against their bodies, under their wings, riffling feathers, brushing away every vestige of sadness and violence left behind by the vampire. In the air they wheeled and banked sharply, four great birds in perfect synchronization. Joy erased dread and the heavy weight of responsibility in Mikhail’s heart, lifted guilt and replaced it with rapture. The powerful wings beat strongly as they raced across the sky together, and Mikhail shared his joy with Raven because he couldn’t contain it, not even in the owl’s powerful body. It spilled out, an invitation, a need to share one more pleasure of Carpathian life. Think, my love. Visualize what I put in your head. Trust me as you have never trusted me before. Allow me to give you this gift. There was no hesitation on her part. With complete faith in him, Raven gave herself into his keeping, reaching eagerly for the vision. The slight discomfort, the strange disorientation as her physical body dissolved, did not faze her. Feathers shimmered, sprouted. Beside her, Jacques stepped back, allowing the smaller female owl to hop onto a tall stone angel before his own large frame compressed, reshaped. Together they launched themselves into the night and soared high to join the other four powerful birds circling above them.