“
It was heartfelt, it was heartbreaking. It was extreme joy, it was bone-crushing grief. It was fiery hot, it was icy-cold. It was true love sprouting... it was true love dying.
It's like we were both trying to hold onto something that was slipping through our fingers, and we didn't understand why.
”
”
S.C. Stephens (Thoughtless (Thoughtless, #1))
“
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.
”
”
Sara Teasdale (Strange Victory)
“
Bless you, daugher of man," Carter said, his eyes luminous and almost silver now. He leaned down and kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes and caught my breath. His lips were both burning hot and icy cold.
”
”
Richelle Mead (Succubus Revealed (Georgina Kincaid, #6))
“
You ain’t know nothing,” a man scoffed. “How I’m supposed to trust some junkie Churchwitch-”
The words sliced through her like razor-sharp fangs. Her face flooded with shame, so hot she imagined it steamed in the icy air. At least it wasn’t difficult to identify the speaker. All she had to do was look for the man with Terrible’s fist locked around his neck.
“Ain’t think I hear you right,” Terrible said in a calm, quiet voice. “Wanna louden up?” The man shook his head His eyes bulged. He looked like a bug, with his hands clenching into tiny useless fists. “You sure? You got else to say, you best say it now, instead of later. Now we got us watchers. Later might not be true, dig?” The man dug.
”
”
Stacia Kane (Unholy Magic (Downside Ghosts, #2))
“
You, sir," I said, "have all the dignity of a badger with the clap. Shark shit has more fiber than you. I'm going to tie your nuts-first to a monkey's cage and make a mix tape of the resulting noise. Then I'm going to take a bag of marshmallows and a pair of granny panties and-"...
... He didn't want to know what I was going to do with those granny panties. Surprisingly, Granuaile did. "Sensei, what were you going to do with those marshmallows and panties?" she whispered as we walked together. "I mean, I'm sure it had to be dire, but it just didn't sound as threatening as the potential havoc a monkey could wreak on his sack."
"There was more to that recipe," I admitted. "He cut me off before I could get to the Icy Hot and the gopher snake.
”
”
Kevin Hearne (Tricked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #4))
“
Cool lips touched hers, and a refreshingly icy breeze swept over her, cooling her more. "Do that again," she mumbled. "Feels nice." She was rewarded by more cooling kisses against her closed eyelids and hot brow. "I'll be fine in a few minutes. I'm stronger than I look."
"I know, min ros. I know." Wynter's husky voice whispered in her ear. "Tomorrow, you'll be ready to fight Frost Giants barehanded, but for now, just rest.
”
”
C.L. Wilson (The Winter King (Weathermages of Mystral, #1))
“
One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets.
And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns.
Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground.
Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky.
The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land....
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)
“
The rightness of it surged through me, hot where I was cold, scorching through all the icy chambers of my heart until it burned. Until I was lit up like an old house and quickly going down in her flames.
”
”
Giana Darling (Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men, #6))
“
Hearing wulfen howl is... well, it's horrible. The sound is glassy, hovering at the upper ranges of hearing, and it's full of paws on snow and running with the icy wind hitting the back of your throat like stares. Underneath the glassy edge is the song of flesh ripped apart, the sweetness of hot blood, and the savagery of crunching bones with sharp teeth.
The worst part is how it climbs into your brain, pressing itself like a hard sharpness into the soft folds, and drags open the doors socialization slams shut to keep the howling ravening thing down inside down and tame.
The thing on four clawed legs that lives in all of us.
”
”
Lilith Saintcrow
“
O VENENO ARDENTE DO DESGOSTO. THE WHITE HOT POISON OF ANGER.
When others make us angry at them- at their shamelessness, injustice, inconsideration- then they exercise power over us, they proliferate and gnaw at our soul, then anger is like a white-hot poison that corrods all mild, noble and balanced feelings and robs us of sleep. Sleepless, we turn on the light and are angry at the anger that has lodged like a succubus who sucks us dry and debilitates us. We are not only furious at the damage, but also that it develops in us all by itself, for while we sit on the edge of the bed with aching temples, the distant catalyst remains untouched by the corrosive force of the anger that eats at us. On the empty internal stage bathed in the harsh light of mute rage, we perform all by ourselves a drama with shadow figures and shadow words we hurl against enemies in helpless rage we feel as icy blazing fire in our bowels. And the greater our despair that is only a shadow play and not a real discussion with the possibility of hurting the other and producing a balance of suffering, the wilder the poisonous shadows dance and haunt us even in the darkest catacombs of our dreams. (We will turn the tables, we think grimly, and all night long forge words that will produce in the other the effect of a fire bomb so that now he will be the one with the flames of indignation raging inside while we, soothed by schadenfreude, will drink our coffee in cheerful calm.)
What could it mean to deal appropriately with anger? We really don't want to be soulless creatures who remain thoroughly indifferent to what they come across, creatures whose appraisals consist only of cool, anemic judgments and nothing can shake them up because nothing really bothers them. Therefore, we can't seriously wish not to know the experience of anger and instead persist in an equanimity that wouldn't be distinguished from tedious insensibility. Anger also teaches us something about who we are. Therefore this is what I'd like to know: What can it mean to train ourselves in anger and imagine that we take advantage of its knowledge without being addicted to its poison?
We can be sure that we will hold on to the deathbed as part of the last balance sheet- and this part will taste bitter as cyanide- that we have wasted too much, much too much strength and time on getting angry and getting even with others in a helpless shadow theater, which only we, who suffered impotently, knew anything about. What can we do to improve this balance sheet? Why did our parents, teachers and other instructors never talk to us about it? Why didn't they tell something of this enormous significance? Not give us in this case any compass that could have helped us avoid wasting our soul on useless, self-destructive anger?
”
”
Pascal Mercier (Night Train to Lisbon)
“
He took the risk and his people had died. He blamed himself. It didn't reflect in his face, but I saw it in his eyes for a brief moment, before they went back to their icy blue. The last time we talked, I was almost completely convinced that he was a sociopath. He seemed invulnerable, as if nothing could bother him. This did.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (White Hot (Hidden Legacy, #2))
“
Oookay, that was seriously confusing, especially the part about the Warrior Prince being a taco stand,” I laughed, trying to thaw the icy chill in the room.
”
”
Robyn Peterman (Fashionably Dead (Hot Damned, #1))
“
Sometimes it’s a flutter, a flicker of wings in your chest. Others, it’s a relentless vise that stops the beat, if only for a second. It might be a hot burn, spreading like wildfire in your ribs, or an icy cold space, empty and void. But the heart always reacts. Even after seven years, just hearing his name inspired any of those reactions or a dozen more. And there was one every single time.
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
Three Haiku, Two Tanka
(Kyoto)
CONFIDENCE
(after Bashō)
Clouds murmur darkly,
it is a blinding habit—
gazing at the moon.
TIME OF JOY
(after Buson)
Spring means plum blossoms
and spotless new kimonos
for holiday whores.
RENDEZVOUS
(after Shiki)
Once more as I wait
for you, night and icy wind
melt into cold rain.
FOR SATORI
In the spring of joy,
when even the mud chuckles,
my soul runs rabid,
snaps at its own bleeding heels,
and barks: “What is happiness?”
SOMBER GIRL
She never saw fire
from heaven or hotly fought
with God; but her eyes
smolder for Hiroshima
and the cold death of Buddha.
”
”
Philip Appleman
“
Here.' Miles unzipped the backpack and pulled out the container of IcyHot. 'Go to the dresser. Should be one of the top drawers--smear this in the crotch of every pair of underwear you find.'
'I--what?' I took the container. 'That's disgusting.'
'I'm paying you fifty dollars for this,' Miles hissed, turning toward the bed.
I went to the dresser and yanked open the top drawer on the left. Empty. Crisp white underwear and boxers filled the one on the right.
Well... at least they were clean.
”
”
Francesca Zappia (Made You Up)
“
Slowly, I drag myself out of bed and into the shower. I arbitrarily punch buttons on the control board and end up hopping from foot to foot as alternating jets of icy cold and steaming hot water assault me. Then I’m deluged in lemony foam that I have to scrape off with a heavy bristled brush. Oh, well. At least my blood is flowing.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
“
But when had my father ever not been stiff and in pain? From my earliest memory he smelled strongly of Icy Hot.
”
”
Rufi Thorpe (Margo's Got Money Troubles)
“
As I feel less overwhelmed, my fear softens and begins to subside. I feel a flicker of hope, then a rolling wave of fiery rage. My body continues to shake and tremble. It is alternately icy cold and feverishly hot. A burning red fury erupts from deep within my belly: How could that stupid kid hit me in a crosswalk? Wasn’t she paying attention? Damn her!
A blast of shrill sirens and flashing red lights block out everything. My belly tightens, and my eyes again reach to find the woman’s kind gaze. We squeeze hands, and the knot in my gut loosens. I hear my shirt ripping. I am startled and again jump to the vantage of an observer hovering above my sprawling body. I watch uniformed strangers methodically attach electrodes to my chest. The Good Samaritan paramedic reports to someone that my pulse was 170. I hear my shirt ripping even more. I see the emergency team slip a collar onto my neck and then cautiously slide me onto a board. While they strap me down, I hear some garbled radio communication. The paramedics are requesting a full trauma team. Alarm jolts me. I ask to be taken to the nearest hospital only a mile away, but they tell me that my injuries may require the major trauma center in La Jolla, some thirty miles farther.
My heart sinks.
”
”
Peter A. Levine (In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness)
“
His hope was like an intake of icy air—it hurt—and just as sharp and sudden was his jealousy. In an instant he was hot and cold with it, his hands clenching into fists so tight they burned. A flare of adrenaline coursed through him and left him shaking, and it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her, and for the fleeting flash of an instant, he felt relief. Followed by crushing disappointment and self-loathing for what his reaction had been.
”
”
Laini Taylor (Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #2))
“
The day I arrived in Yakutsk with my colleague Peter Osnos of The Washington Post, it was 46 below. When our plane landed, the door was frozen solidly shut, and it took about half an hour for a powerful hot-air blower- standard equipment at Siberian airports- to break the icy seal. Stepping outside was like stepping onto another planet, for at those low temperatures nothing seems quite normal. The air burns. Sounds are brittle. Every breath hovers in a strangle slow-motion cloud, adding to the mist of ice that pervades the city and blurs the sun. When the breath freezes into ice dust and falls almost silently to the ground, Siberians call it the whisper of stars.
”
”
David K. Shipler (Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams)
“
People often made the mistake of assuming Cassian was the wilder one; the one who couldn't be tamed. But Cassian was all hot temper- temper that could be used to forge and weld. There was an icy rage in Azriel I had never been able to thaw.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
Some children sit in their warm cosy beds with snacks and hot cocoas watching Hollywood movies with age rating while others shivering in the freezing blizzards drinking from icy broken pipes and ripping pieces of jewellery off bloody bombed up limbs.
”
”
Et Imperatrix Noctem
“
O wind, songs have ye in her name? Plucked her did ye from midnight blasted millyard winds and made her renown ring in stone and brick and ice? Hard implacable bridges of iron cross her milk of brows? God bent from his steel arc welded her a hammer of honey and of balm?
The rutted mud of hardrock Time . . . was it wetted, springified, greened, blossomied for me to grow in nameless bloodied lutey naming of her? Wood on cold trees would her coffin bare? Keys of stone rippled by icy streaks would ope my needy warm interiors and make her eat the soft sin of me? No iron bend or melt to make my rocky travail ease--I was all alone, my fate was banged behind an iron door, I'd come like butter looking for Hot Metals to love, I'd raise my feeble orgone bones and let them be rove and split the half and goop the big sad eyes to see it and say nothing. The laurel wreath is made of iron, and thorns of nails; acid spit, impossible mountains, and incomprehensible satires of blank humanity--congeal, cark, sink and seal my blood--
”
”
Jack Kerouac (Maggie Cassidy)
“
He’ll never get out of there,” V sneered, his icy eyes flaring with pure violence. “Not alive, at any rate.”
“Good thing you have more than one table.” Butch clapped his bestie on the shoulder. “You sick fuck.”
“Don’t knock it till you tried it.”
“Nah, I’m a good Catholic boy. I go that route and my body would incinerate on the spot—and not from hot wax.”
“Pansy.”
“Pervert.” The pair of them chuckled at their inside joke and then got serious again—because with a squeak of the brakes, the ambulance stopped.
”
”
J.R. Ward (The Beast (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #14))
“
I’ve never understood why the heart always reacts. A shot of adrenaline is all it takes, triggered by a thought. A word. A memory. And every time the reaction is singular, a fingerprint of a moment. Sometimes it’s a flutter, a flicker of wings in your chest. Others, it’s a relentless vise that stops the beat, if only for a second. It might be a hot burn, spreading like wildfire in your ribs, or an icy cold space, empty and void. But the heart always reacts. Even after seven years, just hearing his name inspired any of those reactions or a dozen more. And
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother. She had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. And, to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer in utter loneliness; she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of children, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-grandchildren. They are, in the language of the slave’s poet, Whittier,— “Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever-demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air:— Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, From Virginia hills and waters— Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
”
”
Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave)
“
THE CONDITIONAL Say tomorrow doesn’t come. Say the moon becomes an icy pit. Say the sweet-gum tree is petrified. Say the sun’s a foul black tire fire. Say the owl’s eyes are pinpricks. Say the raccoon’s a hot tar stain. Say the shirt’s plastic ditch-litter Say the kitchen’s a cow’s corpse. Say we never get to see it: bright future, stuck like a bum star, never coming close, never dazzling. Say we never meet her. Never him. Say we spend our last moments staring at each other, hands knotted together, clutching the dog, watching the sky burn. Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive, right here, feeling lucky.
”
”
Ada Limon (Bright Dead Things: Poems)
“
If you were trying to startle us half to death, you succeeded,” she told him as she closed the distance between them.
He responded with an angry growl, “The only thing I was trying to do was cool my a..., er, butt off.”
“What?” Not the reply she had expected to get from him.
“Those little shits,” he huffed, pointing in the direction of the boys’ cabins, “slipped Ex-Lax into my coffee this morning!”
“How do you know it’s not just a stomach bug?”
He grunted his impatience. “Because I discovered the laxative box in the boys’ bathroom garbage, alongside the empty jar of Icy Hot those delinquents thought would be funny to smear all over the toilet seat in the boys’ bathroom.” Water ran down his tanned face, spewing from his lips as he ranted angrily.
No wonder Dalton had virtually flew, pants half undone, into the lake. Her lips began to twitch. This isn’t funny, she told herself. “Are you okay?”
Was he okay? Dalton arched a wet brow. “My innards aren’t threatening to combust any longer, but my ass is still burning.
”
”
Lindsey Brookes (Kidnapped Cowboy (Captured Hearts, #1))
“
The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the contrary.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby Dick: or, the White Whale)
“
Damen said, ‘You haven’t told him.’ ‘You don’t even deny it?’ said Jord. A harsh laugh, when Damen was silent. ‘You hated us so much, all this time? It wasn’t enough to invade, to take our land? You had to play this—sick game as well?’ Damen said, ‘If you tell him, I can’t serve him.’ ‘Tell him?’ said Jord. ‘Tell him the man he trusts has lied, and lied again, has deceived him into the worst humiliation?’ ‘I wouldn’t hurt him,’ said Damen, and heard the words drop like lead. ‘You killed his brother, then got him under you in bed.’ Put like that, it was monstrous. It’s not that way between us, he ought to have said, and didn’t, couldn’t. He felt hot, then cold. He thought of Laurent’s delicate, needling talk that froze into icy rebuff if Damen pushed at it, but if he didn’t—if he matched himself to its subtle pulses and undercurrents—continued, sweetly deepening, until he could only wonder if he knew, if they both knew, what they were doing. ‘I’m going to leave,’ he said. ‘I was always going to leave. I stayed only because—’ ‘That’s right, you’ll leave. I won’t allow you to wreck us. You’ll command us to Ravenel, you’ll say nothing to him, and when the fort is won, you’ll get on a horse and go. He’ll mourn your loss, and never know.’ It was what he had planned. It was what, from the beginning, he had planned. In his chest, the beats of his heart were like sword thrusts. ‘In the morning,’ said Damen. ‘I’ll give him the fort, and leave him in the morning. It’s what I promised.’ ‘You’re gone by the time the sun hits the middle of the sky, or I tell him,’ said Jord. ‘And what he did to you in the palace will seem like a lover’s kiss compared with what will happen to you then.’ Jord was loyal. Damen had always liked that about him, the steadfast nature that reminded him of home. Strewn around them was the end of the battle, victory marked by silence and churned grass. ‘He’ll know,’ Damen heard himself say. ‘When word of my return to Akielos reaches him. He’ll know. I wish you would tell him then that I—’ ‘You fill me with horror,’ said Jord. His hands were tight on his knife. Both his hands, now. ‘Captain,
”
”
C.S. Pacat (Captive Prince: Volume Two (Captive Prince, #2))
“
I’ve never understood why the heart always reacts. A shot of adrenaline is all it takes, triggered by a thought. A word. A memory. And every time the reaction is singular, a fingerprint of a moment. Sometimes it’s a flutter, a flicker of wings in your chest. Others, it’s a relentless vise that stops the beat, if only for a second. It might be a hot burn, spreading like wildfire in your ribs, or an icy cold space, empty and void. But the heart always reacts. Even after seven years, just hearing his name inspired any of those reactions or a dozen more. And there was one every single time.
”
”
Staci Hart (A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2))
“
I turned my back on Coyote without saying another word. He didn’t want to know what I was going to do with those granny panties. Surprisingly, Granuaile did. “Sensei, what were you going to do with those marshmallows and panties?” she whispered as we walked together. “I mean, I’m sure it had to be dire, but it just didn’t sound as threatening as the potential havoc a monkey could wreak on his sack.” “There was more to that recipe,” I admitted. “He cut me off before I could get to the Icy Hot and the gopher snake.” “Ew. What would you do with that?” “I will leave it to you as an exercise.” I
”
”
Kevin Hearne (Tricked (The Iron Druid Chronicles, #4))
“
Every Saturday I would go to the library and choose my books for the week. One late-autumn morning, despite menacing clouds, I bundled up and walked as always, past the peach orchards, the pig farm and the skating rink to the fork in the road that led to our sole library. The sight of so many books never failed to excite me, rows and rows of books with multicolored spines. I’d spent an inordinate amount of time choosing my stack of books that day, with the sky growing more ominous. At first, I wasn’t worried as I had long legs and was a pretty fast walker, but then it became apparent that there was no way I was going to beat the impending storm. It grew colder, the winds picked up, followed by heavy rains, then pelting hail. I slid the books under my coat to protect them, I had a long way to go; I stepped in puddles and could feel the icy water permeate my ankle socks. When I finally reached home my mother shook her head with sympathetic exasperation, prepared a hot bath and made me go to bed. I came down with bronchitis and missed several days of school. But it had been worth it, for I had my books, among them The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Half Magic and The Dog of Flanders. Wonderful books that I read over and over, only accessible to me through our library.
”
”
Patti Smith (Year of the Monkey)
“
George is very far, right now, from sneering at any of these fellow creatures. They may be crude and mercenary and dull and low, but he is proud, is glad, is almost indecently gleeful to be able to stand up and be counted in their ranks—the ranks of that marvelous minority, The Living. They don't know their luck, these people on the sidewalk, but George knows his—for a little while at least—because he is freshly returned from the icy presence of The Majority, which Doris is to join.
I am alive, he says to himself, I am alive! And life-energy surges hotly through him, and delight, and appetite. How good to be in
a body—even this beat-up carcass—that still has warm blood and semen and rich marrow and wholesome flesh! The scowling youths on the corners see him as a dodderer no doubt, or at best as a potential score. Yet he claims a distant kinship with the strength of their young arms and shoulders and loins. For a few bucks he could get any one of them to climb into the car, ride back with him to his house, strip off butch leather jacket, skin-tight Levi's, shirt and cowboy boots and take a naked, sullen young athlete, in the wrestling bout of his pleasure. But George doesn't want the bought unwilling bodies of these boys. He wants to rejoice in his own body—the tough triumphant old body of a survivor. The body that has outlived Jim and is going to outlive Doris.
”
”
Christopher Isherwood (A Single Man)
“
Winter was come indeed bringing with it those pleasures of which the summer dreamer knows nothing—the delight when the fine and glittering day shows in the window, though one knows how cold it is outside; the delight of getting as close as possible to the blazing range which in the shadowy kitchen throws reflections very different from the pale gleams of sunlight in the yard, the range we cannot take with us on our walk, busy with its own activity, growling and grumbling as it sets to work, for in three hours time luncheon must be ready; the delight of filling one's bowl with steaming café-au-lait—for it is only eight o'clock—and swallowing it in boiling gulps while servants at their tasks come in and out with a, 'Good morning: up early, aren't you?' and a kindly, 'It's snug enough in here, but cold outside,' accompanying the words with that smile which is to be seen only on the faces of those who for the moment are thinking of others and not of themselves, whose expressions, entirely freed from egotism, take on a quality of vacillating goodness, a smile which completes that earlier smile of the bright golden sky touching the window-panes, and crowns our every pleasure as we stand there with the lovely heat of the range at our backs, the hot and limpid flavour of the café-au-lait in our mouths; the delight of night-time when, having had to get up to go shiveringly to the icy lavatory in the tower, into which the air creeps through the ill-fitting window, we later return deliciously to our room, feeling a smile of happiness distend our lips, finding it hard not to jump for sheer joy at the thought of the big bed already warm with our warmth, of the still burning fire, the hot-water bottle, the coverlets and blankets which have imparted their heat to the bed into which we are about to slip, walled in, embattled, hiding ourselves to the chin as against enemies thundering at the gates, who will not (and the thought brings gaiety) get the better of us, since they do not even know where we have so snugly gone to earth, laughing at the wind which is roaring outside, climbing up all the chimneys to every floor of the great house, conducting a search on each landing, trying all the locks: the delight of rolling ourselves in the blankets when we feel its icy breath approaching, sliding a little farther down the bed, gripping the hot-water bottle between our feet, working it up too high, and when we push it down again feeling the place where it has been still hot, pulling up the bedclothes to our faces, rolling ourselves into a ball, turning over, thinking—'How good life is!' too gay even to feel melancholy at the thought of the triviality of all this pleasure.
”
”
Marcel Proust (Jean Santeuil)
“
This seat taken?" My eyes grazing over the only other occupant, a guy with long glossy dark hair with his head bent over a book.
"It's all yours," he says. And when he lifts his head and smiles,my heart just about leaps from my chest.
It's the boy from my dreams.
The boy from the Rabbit Hole,the gas station,and the cave-sitting before me with those same amazing,icy-blue eues, those same alluring lips I've kissed multiple times-but only in slumber, never in waking life.
I scold my heart to settle,but it doesn't obey.
I admonish myself to sit,to act normal, casual-and I just barely succeed.
Stealing a series of surreptitious looks as I search through my backpack, taking in his square chin,wide generous lips,strong brow,defined cheekbones, and smooth brown skin-the exact same features as Cade.
"You're the new girl,right?" He abandons his book,tilting his head in a way that causes his hair to stream over his shoulder,so glossy and inviting it takes all of my will not to lean across the table and touch it.
I nod in reply,or at least I think I do.I can't be too sure.I'm too stricken by his gaze-the way it mirrors mine-trying to determine if he knows me, recognizes me,if he's surprised to find me here.Wishing Paloma had better prepared me-focused more on him and less on his brother.
I force my gaze from his.Bang my knee hard against the table as I swivel in my seat.Feeling so odd and unsettled,I wish I'd picked another place to sit, though it's pretty clear no other table would have me.
He buries his smile and returns to the book.Allowing a few minutes to pass,not nearly enough time for me to get a grip on myself,when he looks up and says, "Are you staring at me because you've seen my doppelganer roaming the halls,playing king of the cafeteria? Or because you need to borrow a pencil and you're too shy to ask?"
I clear the lump from my throat, push the words past my lips when I say, "No one's ever accused me of being shy." A statement that,while steeped in truth, stands at direct odds with the way I feel now,sitting so close to him. "So I guess it's your twin-or doppelganer,as you say." I keep my voice light, as though I'm not at all affected by his presence,but the trill note at the end gives me away.Every part of me now vibrating with the most intense surge of energy-like I've been plugged into the wall and switched on-and it's all I can do to keep from grabbing hold of his shirt, demanding to know if he dreamed the dreams too.
He nods,allowing an easy,cool smile to widen his lips. "We're identical," he says. "As I'm sure you've guessed. Though it's easy enough to tell us apart. For one thing,he keeps his hair short.For another-"
"The eyes-" I blurt,regretting the words the instant they're out.From the look on his face,he has no idea what I'm talking about. "Yours are...kinder." My cheeks burn so hot I force myself to look away,as words of reproach stampede my brain.
Why am I acting like such an inept loser? Why do I insist on embarrassing myself-in front of him-of all people?
I have to pull it together.I have to remember who I am-what I am-and what I was born to do.Which is basically to crush him and his kind-or,at the very least,to temper the damage they do.
”
”
Alyson Noel (Fated (Soul Seekers, #1))
“
As early as 1921 interrogations usually took place at night. At that time, too, they shone automobile lights in the prisoner's face (the Ryazan Cheka—Stelmakh). And at the Lubyanka in 1926 (according to the testimony of Berta Gandal) they made use of the hot-air heating system to fill the cell first with icy-cold and then with stinking hot air. And there was an airtight cork-lined cell in which there was no ventilation and they cooked the prisoners. The poet Klyuyev was apparently confined in such a cell and Berta Gandal also. A participant in the Yaroslavl uprising of 1918, Vasily Aleksandrovich Kasyanov, described how the heat in such a cell was turned up until your blood began to ooze through your pores. When they saw this happening through the peephole, they would put the prisoner on a stretcher and take him off to sign his confession. The "hot" and "salty" methods of the "gold" period are well known. And in Georgia in 1926 they used lighted cigarettes to burn the hands of prisoners under interrogation. In Metekhi Prison they pushed prisoners into a cesspool in the dark.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago)
“
In the end, she saved me by dropping down and patting the floor, trying to coax the cat out of hiding. “Viens ici, ma petite Bisou,” she crooned. “Ma choupinette. N’aie pas peur.” Suddenly I thought of those old scenes in the Addams Family when Gomez would lose his mind when Morticia spoke French. If I never got it watching reruns as a kid, I got it now. It didn’t even matter I had no clue what she was saying. Just the words on her lips were sexy. Blair sighed and sat back on her heels, looking up at me, her lips in a pout. “She won’t come out.” Christ, she was adorable. And why was it so hot in here?
”
”
Melanie Harlow (Drive Me Wild (Bellamy Creek, #1))
“
Roosevelt wouldn't interfere even when he found out that Moses was discouraging Negroes from using many of his state parks. Underlying Moses' strikingly strict policing for cleanliness in his parks was, Frances Perkins realized with "shock," deep distaste for the public that was using them. "He doesn't love the people," she was to say. "It used to shock me because he was doing all these things for the welfare of the people... He'd denounce the common people terribly. To him they were lousy, dirty people, throwing bottles all over Jones Beach. 'I'll get them! I'll teach them!' ... He loves the public, but not as people. The public is just The Public. It's a great amorphous mass to him; it needs to be bathed, it needs to be aired, it needs recreation, but not for personal reasons -- just to make it a better public." Now he began taking measures to limit use of his parks. He had restricted the use of state parks by poor and lower-middle-class families in the first place, by limiting access to the parks by rapid transit; he had vetoed the Long Island Rail Road's proposed construction of a branch spur to Jones Beach for this reason. Now he began to limit access by buses; he instructed Shapiro to build the bridges across his new parkways low -- too low for buses to pass. Bus trips therefore had to be made on local roads, making the trips discouragingly long and arduous. For Negroes, whom he considered inherently "dirty," there were further measures. Buses needed permits to enter state parks; buses chartered by Negro groups found it very difficult to obtain permits, particularly to Moses' beloved Jones Beach; most were shunted to parks many miles further out on Long Island. And even in these parks, buses carrying Negro groups were shunted to the furthest reaches of the parking areas. And Negroes were discouraged from using "white" beach areas -- the best beaches -- by a system Shapiro calls "flagging"; the handful of Negro lifeguards [...] were all stationed at distant, least developed beaches. Moses was convinced that Negroes did not like cold water; the temperature at the pool at Jones Beach was deliberately icy to keep Negroes out. When Negro civic groups from the hot New York City slums began to complain about this treatment, Roosevelt ordered an investigation and an aide confirmed that "Bob Moses is seeking to discourage large Negro parties from picnicking at Jones Beach, attempting to divert them to some other of the state parks." Roosevelt gingerly raised the matter with Moses, who denied the charge violently -- and the Governor never raised the matter again.
”
”
Robert A. Caro (The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York)
“
At the top of Anonybitch’s feed, there is a video of a boy and a girl making out in a hot tub. Anonybitch is particularly famous for her hot tub videos. She tags them #rubadub. This one’s a little grainy, like it was zoomed in from far away. I click play. The girl is sitting in the boy’s lap, her body draped over his, legs hooked around his waist, arms around his neck. She’s wearing a red nightgown, and it billows in the water like a full sail. The back of her head obscures the boy. Her hair is long, and the ends dip into the hot tub like calligraphy brushes in ink. The boy runs his hands down her spine like she is a cello and he is playing her.
I’m so entranced I don’t notice at first that Kitty is watching with me. Both of our heads are tilted, trying to suss out what it is we’re looking at. “You shouldn’t be looking at this,” I say.
“Are they doing it?” she asks.
“It’s hard to say because of her nightgown.” But maybe?
Then the girl touches the boy’s cheek, and there is something about the movement, the way she touches him like she is reading braille. Something familiar. The back of my neck goes icy cold, and I am hit with a gust of awareness, of humiliating recognition.
That girl is me. Me and Peter, in the hot tub on the ski trip.
Oh my God.
I scream.
Margot comes racing in, wearing one of those Korean beauty masks on her face with slits for eyes, nose, and mouth. “What? What?”
I try to cover the computer screen with my hand, but she pushes it out of the way, and then she lets out a scream too. Her mask falls off. “Oh my God! Is that you?”
Oh my God oh my God oh my God.
“Don’t let Kitty see!” I shout.
Kitty’s wide-eyed. “Lara Jean, I thought you were a goody-goody.”
“I am!” I scream.
”
”
Jenny Han (P.S. I Still Love You (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #2))
“
last sixteen years Aidan’s detected a shift among spirits. He doesn’t know what it means yet, but he’s certain there’s a pattern.” “What kind of pattern?” “Dark spirits and demons are growing stronger.” I bet Nolan could have helped figure out the pattern. I can only imagine how different all of this would be if he had been here with me since the beginning, performing research for Aidan, trying just as hard as Aidan to find answers. Maybe he would have even found some. “Can you sense the demon?” he asks. I nod. Lucio stops dead in his tracks. Despite the flames growing ever higher around us, Lucio and I feel a cool breeze coming from down the road. Lucio starts walking in the direction of the chill, and I follow, placing my feet in the dusty footprints his steps leave behind. Even though he’s not much taller than I am, his feet are bigger than mine, and I feel like a little kid every time I place one of my sneakers in the spot where his dust-covered boot was seconds before. Lucio’s wearing shorts, and instead of looking at where we’re going, I’m watching the muscles in his calves flex and release with each step. He certainly looks strong enough to confront a demon. When he stops, I practically crash into him. “In there,” Lucio whispers, nodding in the direction of a squat stucco building on our left. It’s so small that it can’t possibly have more than one room. An icy breeze blows its splintered wooden door open, bringing a wall of smoke along with it, despite the fact that it’s the only building in sight that isn’t actually on fire. The door bangs against the tiny building with a loud crash as goose bumps rise on my sweaty skin. “Why did the demon choose this town?” I ask. “These people are completely helpless.” “Exactly,” Lucio says. “The same way we gather strength from helping spirits move on, a demon gathers strength from destroying spirits.” Despite the breeze coming from the darkness just a few steps away, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so hot. Somewhere inside
”
”
Paige McKenzie (The Awakening of Sunshine Girl (The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, #2))
“
I looked at him. “Why did you come with me?”
He let go of the strap on his chest and shifted on his feet.
“Why are you here?”
And when his eyes finally met mine, they were open. They let me in.
I took a step back.
My mouth opened to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. They were stuck in the back of my throat, wrapped tightly around my windpipe. I was suddenly aware of the icy, opaque depths beneath us again, waiting for the smallest crack to pull us down into it. Waiting to feed on us. My heart pulsed in my veins as the fear pressed down on me, making me feel heavier. It was terrifying - that feeling - like there was something tying me to him. Because if one of us fell into the darkness, the other would too.
I stepped around him, walking faster toward the other side. Toward solid ground and safety. The lake grumbled beneath my weight. Growling. Hungry. I closed my eyes, trying not to see it. That depth within me, sealed down under the surface. I kept my eyes ahead, leaving Fiske standing in between the middle of the two night skies, the stars and the moon encircling him. The only hot, living thing on the ice. The only thing I could feel.
”
”
Adrienne Young (Sky in the Deep (Sky and Sea, #1))
“
When you find yourself frustrated by the unexpected, and possibly temporary failure of a seemingly good plan...stay cool as an icy on a hot summer day. Remember, the only thing you can control is yourself!
”
”
Yadi J.
“
But the more Dirmit listened to her mother, the more panic-stricken she became. She started to tremble and shake and thought she might faint dead away. But Atiye was set upon giving her advice. She went to great lengths to explain how young girls shouldn't talk too much and how it was improper for them to stretch out their legs when they sat down. Dirmit felt a hot flush as Atiya ticked each item off on her list. First she turned red, then her hands and feet grew icy. Twitching and panting, she lost her color entirely and turned pale as ash.
From that day on, Dirmit withdrew into herself. Obeying Atiye's warnings, she dared not ask questions or approach her brotehrs or her father. Her voice and breath were lost inside her.
”
”
Latife Tekin (Sevgili Arsız Ölüm)
“
The room was suddenly too hot, and the walls seemed to be closing in around her. She had to get away, to get fresh air, before she screamed. “Please, excuse me,” Lydia said before fleeing. *** “Well,” Ian drawled, leaning back in his chair. “That went well.” Vincent ignored him and turned to Miss Hobson with an icy glare. “You did inform Lydia that she is to wed, did you not?” The woman’s chin lifted in a vain attempt to hide her anxiety. “I’d assumed she understood her responsibility as a young lady of noble birth.” Her voice quavered defensively. “She’d spoken of having a Season in New Orleans. How was I to know things may have been different there?” Vincent cursed as the matter became clear. “Because her father failed to perform his responsibility to Society when he married for love… Bloody hell, I should have known!” “Vincent.” The duke’s voice was implacable. “My wife will not sponsor the young woman if she is not willing.” Miss Hobson sighed. “Surely she could not expect something so fanciful as love.” Vincent ignored the chaperone and faced Ian. “I am certain we can persuade Miss Price to see reason. She has been receptive to all other aspects of taking her place in Society.” Ian swirled the brandy in the glass before giving a slight nod. “No doubt her grief remains for the loss of her parents.” Miss Hobson nodded. “A reasonable assumption, Your Grace. I’m certain she’ll collect herself after a while and be down soon.” Ten
”
”
Brooklyn Ann (One Bite Per Night (Scandals with Bite, #2))
“
To the west, the sinking sun was a red orb, streaking the evening sky with wisps of dark gray and pink. Loretta no longer sat erect on the horse to keep her breasts from touching the Comanche’s naked back. She slumped against him, her lolling head pillowed by the muscular cleavage of his spine. Pain shot up her cramped legs from the bonds of coarse wool braid. The rawhide around her wrists had cinched tight, cutting into her skin. Her tongue was a parched lump. One more mile, and she felt sure she would die.
She imagined herself sinking into blackness, escaping. It would be cool and dark in heaven. The water there would flow sparkling and icy. There would be no Comanche with cruel, midnight blue eyes.
Hunter’s voice rumbled inside him, vibrating against her cheek. Loretta felt the stallion slowing down. Angry words in a language she couldn’t understand ricocheted around her, high, low, growling, shrill. She fluttered her lashes, too miserable to care why the men argued, just thankful for the reprieve. She felt Hunter shift his weight backward, felt his hard hands fumbling with the tight band of leather that bound her wrists. The next second her arms were freed and fell like dead weights to her sides. Hunter’s strong back disappeared. She slumped forward on the horse, not caring about anything as long as she could rest.
Something cold touched her left ankle. In some distant part of her mind, she realized that someone was cutting the wool braid that bound her feet. She kept her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against the horse’s sweaty neck, her arms hanging. A moment later her right ankle was freed as well.
And then came a new kind of pain. Not fire, but thousands of needles pricking her legs, the agony shooting to her hips. She gasped and bolted upright. When she did, she pitched sideways. The world turned upside down. Arms caught her. The sky spun above her. Someone yelled.
Torture. She was being carried, but the arms that cradled her were made of white-hot fire, singeing her wherever they touched. She didn’t think there could be any pain more excruciating. Then cruel hands lowered her to a soft mat of grass, but the blades of the grass turned to sharp spikes, piercing her flesh.
Loretta closed her eyes and gave herself up to the pain. Someone held her and rocked her--someone strong with a deep voice that whispered like silk through her mind. The words were sometimes strange, but the few she understood made the meaning of the others absolutely clear. She was safe where she was, sure enough safe--forever.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
By late January 2014, Tesla had completed the construction of a cross-country Supercharger corridor that would allow Model S drivers to get from Los Angeles to New York without having to spend a penny on energy. The electric highway took a northern route through Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Illinois, before approaching New York from Delaware. The path it cut was similar to a trip taken by Musk and his brother, Kimbal, in a beat-up 1970s BMW 320i in 1994. Within days of the route’s completion, Tesla staged a cross-country rally to show that the Model S could easily handle long-distance driving, even in the dead of winter. Two hot-pepper-red Model S’s, driven by members of the Supercharging team, left Tesla’s Los Angeles–based design studio just after midnight on Thursday, January 30. Tesla planned to finish the trip at New York’s City Hall on the night of February 1, the day before Super Bowl XLVIII, which would take place at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just across the state line. Along the way, the cars would drive through some of the snowiest and most frigid places in the country, in one of the coldest weeks of the year. The trip took a little longer than expected. The rally encountered a wild snowstorm in the Rocky Mountains that temporarily closed the road over Vail Pass and then provided an icy entrance to Wyoming. Somewhere in South Dakota, one of the rally’s diesel support vans broke down, forcing its occupants to catch a flight from Sioux Falls to rejoin the rest of the crew in Chicago. And in Ohio, the cars powered through torrential rains as the fatigued crew pressed on for the final stretch. It was 7:30 A.M. on Sunday, February 2, when the Teslas rolled up to New York’s City Hall on a bright, mild morning. The 3,427-mile journey had taken 76 hours and 5 minutes—just over three days. The cars had spent a total of 15 hours and 57 seconds charging along the way,
”
”
Hamish McKenzie (Insane Mode: How Elon Musk's Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil)
“
For a brief moment, he remembered when he had been the most cool-headed in the Brotherhood, the icy intellectual, the laser-sighted truth layer. Lately, the stressors had been coming on him so hard and fast. He had turned into a flaming hot Cheetos!
”
”
J.R. Ward
“
Sometimes their children would do everything exactly as they’d taught them, and sometimes they would do all the things they’d told them not to do, and seeing them suffer the tiniest disappointments would be more painful than their own most significant losses, but then other times they would do something so extraordinary, so unexpected and beautiful, so entirely of their own choice and their own making, it was like a splash of icy water on a hot day. Those were the glorious moments. That’s how she finally made herself fall back to sleep: by remembering all the glorious moments, one after the other after the other, her children’s ecstatic faces looking for their parents in the stands, looking for their approval, looking for their love, knowing it was there, knowing—she hoped they knew this—that it would always be there, even long after she and Stan were gone, because love like that was infinite.
”
”
Liane Moriarty (Apples Never Fall)
“
I lifted the book, firing two words down the bond between us before I blasted my shields up again.
Conversation over.
'Like hell it is,' he snarled. A thrum of power caressed my fingers, and then the book sealed shut between my hands. My nails dug into the leather and paper- to no avail.
Bastard. Arrogant, presuming bastard.
Slowly, I lifted my eyes to him. And I felt... not hot temper- but icy, glittering rage.
I could almost feel that ice at my fingertips, kissing my palms. And I swore there was frost coating the book before I hurled it at his head.
He shielded fast enough that it bounced away and slid across the marble floor behind us.
'Good,' he said, his breathing a bit uneven. 'What else do you have, Feyre?'
Ice melted to flame, and my fingers curled into fists.
And the High Lord of the Night Court honestly looked relieved at the sight of it- of that wrath that made me want to rage and burn.
A feeling, for once. Not like that hollow cold and silence.
And the thought of returning to that manor with the sentries and the patrols and the secrets... I sank back into my chair. Frozen once more.
'Any time you need someone to play with,' Rhys said, pushing the plate toward me on a star-flecked wind, 'whether it's during our marvellous week together or otherwise, you let me know.'
I couldn't muster up a response, exhausted from the bit of temper I'd shown.
And I realised I was in a free fall with no end. I had been for a while. From the moment I'd stabbed that Fae youth in the heart.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2))
“
for the next several million years? Well, it might be, but there’s a hitch. Unfortunately, what Jacob’s results actually show is that Earth can be expected to be stabilized for all this time in an ice-free state. We’ve not only stopped the climate pendulum from swinging, but we’ve also got it pinned at one extreme end of its range. An ice-free Earth may in itself not sound horrible, unless you’re attached to the kind of planet we’ve always known and you are fond of penguins, polar bears, and the countless other species dependent on icy high-latitude environs. Yet we have no idea what this implies for the planet as a whole. How hot will the equatorial regions be in this new normal? What will happen to ocean circulation, sea level, precipitation patterns, and the rest of the biosphere? Nobody knows, but it is clear that this would be a drastically altered Earth. Yet,
”
”
David Grinspoon (Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future)
“
Ignoring her protests, he swept her up in his arms and carried her toward the hut. “Put me down!” Elizabeth cried. “I said put me down!” Her mouth tasted of ashes, and the sudden knowledge that she was afraid turned her fear into white-hot anger. “Release me at once, you . . . you red savage!” Balling her right hand into a fist, she struck him as hard as she could on the side of the face. Cain gasped, and Elizabeth felt his muscles tense. “Tshingue,” he muttered between clenched teeth. She raised her fist to strike him again. “Do not,” he warned softly. His stride quickened. They were past the hut and moving swiftly toward the beach. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded as the sound of the ocean grew louder. “Cain!” Her voice took on a shrill edge. “Cain!” “You want down,” he said. “You get down.” “Cain, no!” Water splashed around his ankles. “Cain!” “If you have fever, cool.” Without warning, Elizabeth was in the air. Before she could catch her breath, she plunged into the icy water of the Atlantic. “Ohhh!” Coughing and sputtering, she struggled to get her feet under her. An incoming wave tripped her, and before she could recover her balance, an iron hand closed around hers and dragged her back to the beach. She sank down on the warm ground, spitting out sand and salt water. “Damn you,” she choked. “You tried to drown me.” Cain’s answering chuckle was almost more than she could bear. “You’re inhuman!” “This one does not know this word inhuman,″ he said solemnly. “Stop it! Stop taunting me. I hate you!” she cried. He dropped to the sand beside her. “I do not think you hate me.” ″I do! I—” Fiercely, Cain pulled her into his arms and silenced her words with his mouth against hers. Elizabeth tried to pull away, but he was too strong. Her struggles went unheeded as Cain seared her lips with a fiery, all-consuming kiss. Then, as suddenly as he had begun his assault, he released her. “Look into your heart, Englishwoman,” he said huskily. “Wipe the salt from your eyes and truly look. Tell me then if it is hate you feel for Shaakhan Kihittuun.” Before she could reply, he was gone, walking back toward the hut.
”
”
Judith E. French (Lovestorm)
“
FISHERMAN’S NET The dreadlocks from Little Bay did not worry about worry. Chilled by the sea breeze, icy beer and a spliff, I could tell as he turned to the music, he was irie with the rhythm of the rising tide. I selected a yellow-tail snapper from his catch. “Come home and cook for you,” he smiled, flashing a gold-capped tooth. I laughed that throaty unnerving laugh, but he never flinched. Can’t be sure of the sequence; the music lapped us into knee-high grass, and the sea spray settled like the skin round my nipples, and thighs knotted like mangrove roots giving in to the deep, held by the strength of his arms and the cry of the snapper, caught.
”
”
Peekash Press (Coming Up Hot: Eight New Poets from the Caribbean)
“
In the cold of winter, the wind blows the snow off the ground and waves of white come sweeping across our tiny stretch of lawn and hit the house in sprinklings of icy snow. Invisible streams of air seep through the cracks of the old windows and the smell of our rice-scented home swims in the currents of cold. Outside, the sound of police sirens resonates in the rippling, urgent winter winds. In the warmth of spring, the wind transforms the empty parking lot by the corner Laundromat into a field of fallen petals as crab apple trees release their blooms and the hard pavement feels the soft brush of tender, ephemeral beauty. Wet rain falls into shattered concrete and the pools of black water lie still for the pink and white and red petals to swim in. The wind carries the voices of laughing children into our house as we watch the petals sway to and fro in the dark puddles across our street. In the heat of hot summer, the green grass grows while the yellow dandelions die, and in the wake of their demise the wind carries their spirits and their seeds across open lots, rotting houses, small yards, littered avenues, and everywhere there are little parachutes of pollen floating away. Late into the night, we listen to the voices of friends and neighbors talking outside on their porches, hear the clinking of cans, turn our heads toward their laughter and their tears, and the wind loses its appeal for a season because the pull of people grows strong across the fertile green.
”
”
Kao Kalia Yang (The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father)
“
Are you still cold?” the doctor asked.
“Yes, ever since these rains began to fall and the icy fogs settled. On the ward they never turn the heat on.”
“Well, in the outside—the world—it is August. The sky is clear and the sun is very hot. I am afraid that the cold and the fog are inside you.
”
”
Joanne Greenberg (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden)
“
Troubled, he swam through the crevice into the cave. But as he took a deep breath to steady himself, he froze at the bottom. He could smell someone else had been here. One of his own people, with the faintest hint of sulfur and ash. A depthstrider? Certainly not. Their kind rarely came out of the deep, and they wouldn’t dare overstep their bounds when they could smell his scent here. Arges had made certain it was very clear whose cave this was. Which only left one other person. There was only one in his tribe who reeked of the depths, of the endless layer of gasses that hid yet another layer of the ocean from prying eyes. “Daios,” he snarled. His brother had been here. He had stared up at the achromo through the currents, and she likely didn’t even know he’d been there. Lurking in the depths, like the predator he wasn’t supposed to be, Daios had likely thought about stealing what was Arges’s. And then his blood turned icy. What if his brother had killed the achromo? What if he hadn’t been here and his enraged brother had ended this job for Arges? His gills flared wide in worry and all the lights along his tail flashed bright and hot. He wouldn’t stand for it. No one would take Mira from him, not this soon, not when she had just ignited the spark of interest in his chest. With a flick of his tail, he launched himself to the surface. Splashing loudly, he whipped his head around in the air. Searching for her. Hoping and praying to every ocean god out there that would listen that she be right where he left her. A startled shriek echoed through the cave, and he had to dodge a launched rock that would have bludgeoned him. Though the projectile should have angered him, all he could muster was a relieved sigh.
”
”
Emma Hamm (Whispers of the Deep (Deep Waters, #1))
“
This is where you break free,' he said softly.
'I don't want to,' she said, but the words came out wrong, breathless. And despite all the cold and the damp, she could feel herself go hot from her cheeks all the way down to the bare skin beneath Archer's hands. 'I mean, I just need to catch my breath.'
He mad a scolding sound with his tongue. 'You don't get to catch your breath. If you stop fighting, you lose.' He moved one icy hand to her throat and she felt the sharp tip of a knife against her neck.
Evangeline went very still, or she tried to. It was surprisingly hard not to move with a blade to her throat and a hand intimately wrapped around her stomach. 'Are you insane?'
'Undoubtedly.' He slowly moved the dagger, drawing a careful line over her pulse. He didn't pierce her skin, but the effect was still dizzying.
'Never imagine you're safe,' he scolded. His knife traced a line from the hollow of her throat to the centre of her chest all the way down to the laces of her vest.
”
”
Stephanie Garber (A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #3))
“
The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot that it appeared icy.
”
”
Susan Orlean (The Library Book)
“
But you have a right to know
that this could come out and embarrass you.”
“Embarrass me?” he snapped, vibrating with rage. “Embarrassment isn’t on the list of what I’d feel.”
“Gideon—”
“I would destroy the career of any reporter who wrote about this, and then I'd dismantle the publication that ran the piece.” He was so cold with fury, he was icy. “I’m going to find the monster who hurt you, Eva, wherever he is, and I’m going to make him wish he were dead.
”
”
Sylvia Day (Bared to You (Crossfire, #1))
“
Alice and I have photographed and eaten jerk chicken over plantains, spicy and sweet; cups of icy, sweet, rich halo-halo piled with red beans and fruit cocktail; lobster roll sliders stuffed full of delicate shellfish on buttery brioche; pani puri, the fried Indian hollow rounds of dough loaded up with mashed potato and chickpeas and sweet, tangy tamarind chutney. My camera was happy. I was happy.
”
”
Amanda Elliot (Best Served Hot)
“
Sometimes their children would do everything exactly as they’d taught them, and sometimes they would do all the things they’d told them not to do, and seeing them suffer the tiniest disappointments would be more painful than their own most significant losses, but then other times they would do something so extraordinary, so unexpected and beautiful, so entirely of their own choice and their own making, it was like a splash of icy water on a hot day.
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Liane Moriarty (Apples Never Fall)
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Only a small part of Tom's brain functioned normally. The rest of it was busy gathering details: the whiff of perfumed dusting powder, the intense blueness of her eyes. He'd never seen a complexion like hers, fresh and faintly opalescent, like milk glass with pink light shining through it. Was her skin like that all over? He thought of the limbs and curves beneath the ruffles of her dress, and he was suffused with a sensation that recalled the way icy water could sometimes feel hot, or a burn could feel like a chill.
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Lisa Kleypas (Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels, #6))
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The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were a sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot that it appeared icy. Hamel said he felt like he was standing inside a blacksmith’s forge.
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Susan Orlean (The Library Book)
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When I burn too hot, I like to bask on icy glaciers to cool off. - The Malwatch
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Scaylen Renvac
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When he was hidden in shadows, he looked up at the night sky. He had no choice. He pressed his hands against his forehead, trying to think of another possibility. There was none.
He wiped at the hot tears stinging his eyes, then slowly he lifted his arms to the fathomless black sky. He could endure anything if he knew Serena was safe. Anything.
"Father of night and evil, I call you." A primitive vibration trembled in the air. He knew the Atrox was near.
"Allow me to cross over and become your servant again."
A deadly cold throbbed through him with the ancient rhythm of evil.
"I come freely," Stanton added and felt something collapse inside him. "Take me back to the night."
Spears of lightning crackled across the sky and a concussion boomed through the earth, releasing the sulfurous smells of hell. Then a raven-black cloud seeped up from the ground and hovered around him.
Stanton held an image of Serena's face deep inside him as he breathed the icy spirit of the Atrox back into his body. The chill seeped deep inside him, wintry tentacles reaching down to his bones. The Atrox embraced him and welcomed him back to its congregation. Its raw power surged through him and when Stanton opened his eyes, he again ruled the night.
The world around him seemed sharper now, as if he could see in the dark. His pain was gone and in its place he felt a dark joy. He grinned as the wild rapture seized him. This time he was no longer invitus. Evil pulsed through him without guilt or worry, consequence or remorse. He breathed in the feel of it, then leaned back and became a black mist, hissing into the air.
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Lynne Ewing (The Sacrifice (Daughters of the Moon, #5))
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When I plan a menu I consider color, texture, taste, and balance: Color: A red vegetable next to a yellow one looks unappetizing. Two white ones, like celery and cauliflower, look awful.
Texture: Creamed chicken with mashed potatoes makes too much mush. Always serve something crisp with something soft.
Taste: Never team two sours, two sweets, or two bitters. Candied yams and cranberry sauce are both delectable, but served together they break two of these rules, color and taste contrast.
Balance: Courses shouldn't be uniformly rich nor light. A too rich menu might consist of a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy cream soup, a roast with thickened gravy and potatoes, and a heavy whippedcreamtopped dessert. If the main course is substantial, the first should be light, crisp and appetizing, and the dessert an airy sherbet or a compote of fresh fruit.
I decide first on the main course. For a buffet for twelve there should be two warm dishes. If you're going to be a relaxed hostess choose two that can be made the day before. Most of them improve with reheating. Some of the possibilities are beef bourguignon, boned and skinned breasts of chicken in a delicate cream sauce, a shrimp-lobster-and-scallop Newburg, lamb curry with all its interesting accompaniments.
With any of these, serve a large, icy bowl of crisp salad with a choice of two or three dressings in little bowls alongside.
Hot dishes must be kept hot in chafing dishes or on a hot tray so that they’re just as good for the second helping. Plates should be brought warm to the buffet table just before the guests serve themselves. I like to have a complete service at each end of the table so that people won’t have to stand in line forever, and there should be an attractive centerpiece, though it can be very simple. A bowl of flowers, carefully arranged by the hostess in the afternoon, and candles—always candlelight.
The first course for a buffet supper should be an eye-catching array of canapés served in the living room with the drinks. I think there should be one interesting hot thing, one at room temperature, and a bouquet of crisp raw vegetables.
The raw vegetables might include slim carrot sticks, green pepper slices, scallions, little love tomatoes, zucchini wedges, radishes, cauliflowerettes, olives, and young turnips. Arrange them colorfully in a large bowl over crushed ice and offer a couple of dips for non-dieters.
[...]
It’s best to serve hot hors d’oevres in two batches, the second ones heating under the broiler while the first round of drinks is served.
[...]
After people have had their second helpings the maid clears the buffet and puts out the dessert. Some people like an elaborate ice-cream concoction — so many men like gooey, sweet things. Pander to them, and let them worry about their waistlines. Some people like to end dinner with cheese and fruit. Other two kinds — one bland and one forthright, and just ripe. French bread and crackers on the side. For diet watchers gave a pretty bowl of fresh fruits, dewy and very cold. Serve good, strong coffee in pretty demitasses and let the relaxed conversation take over.
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Joan Crawford (My Way of Life)
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Breath!’ A voice, wild with anxiety, ordered, and I felt a cruel stab of pain where I recognized the voice because it wasn't Marcel’s.
I could not obey. The waterfall pouring from my mouth didn't stop long enough for me to catch a breath. The black, icy water filled my chest, burning.
The rock smacked into my back again, right between my shoulder blades, and another volley of water choked its way out of my lungs.
‘Breathe, Bell! C'mon!’ Marcel begged.
Black spots bloomed across my vision, getting wider and wider, blocking out the light.
The rock struck me again.
The rock wasn't cold like the water; it was hot on my skin. I realized it was Marcel’s hand, trying to beat the water from my lungs. The iron bar that had dragged me from the sea was also… warm… My head whirled; the black spots covered everything…
Was I dying again, then? I didn't like it. This wasn't as good as the last time. It was only dark now, nothing worth looking at here. The sound of the crashing waves faded into the black and became a quiet, even whoosh that sounded like it was coming from the inside of my ears…
‘Bell?’ Marcel asked, his voice still tense, but not as wild as before. ‘Bells, honey, can you hear me?’
The contents of my head swished and rolled sickeningly like they'd joined the rough water…
‘How long has she been unconscious?’ someone else asked.
The voice that was not Marcel’s shocked me, jarred me into a more focused awareness.
I realized that I was still. There was no tug of the current on me-the heaving was inside my head. The surface under me was flat and motionless. It felt grainy against my bear arms.
‘I don't know,’ Marcel reported, still frantic. His voice was very close. Hands-so warm they had to be his- I brushed wet hair from my cheeks. ‘A few minutes? It didn't take long to tow her to the beach.’ The quiet whooshing inside my ears was not the waves-it was the air moving in and out of my lungs again. Each breath burned-the passageways were as raw as if I'd scrubbed them out with steel wool. But I was breathing.
And I was freezing. A thousand sharp, icy beads were striking my face and arms, making the cold worse.
‘She's breathing. She'll come around. We should get her out of the cold, though. I don't like the color she's turning…’ I recognized Sam's voice this time.
‘You think it's okay to move her?’
‘She didn't hurt her back or anything when she fell?’
‘I don't know.’
They hesitated.
”
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Marcel Ray Duriez (Nevaeh Hard to Let Go)
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Usually, a fire is red and orange and yellow and black. The fire in the library was colorless. You could look right through it, as if it were sheet of glass. Where the flame had any color, it was pale blue. It was so hot that it appeared icy.
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Susan Orlean (The Library Book)
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Can liquid be considered a proper dessert? Oui, in the rare instance that it's something as exquisite as Angelina's signature chocolat "l'Africain." So obscenely thick and outrageously rich, it's even better than when, as a kid, I'd sip Swiss Miss hot cocoa and savor those mini-marshmallows after sledding on an icy winter day.
Angelina's hot chocolate is so smooth and velvety, each sip sensually coats your tongue and teeth. It's both refined and indulgent; it's a simple recipe but a sophisticated experience. It arrives on a silver tray and is served perfectly warm- not scalding hot- with a side of whipped cream sculpted into a decorative puff. It's the perfect way to warm up on a rainy spring day. A decadent way to get your day's chocolate quota. It's hot chocolate worth the price of airfare to Paris.
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Amy Thomas (Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate))
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Several years of living in the Netherlands had reduced my innate English prudishness somewhat, but I still suffered from a typical Englishman's angst at public nudity. Cowering between the changing rooms and the pool, I spent ten anguished minutes trying to decide whether to keep my swimming trunks on or risk taking them off. Would the other patrons run screaming if I stripped off? Or would they run screaming if I didn't? I eventually decided to assimilate as best as I could, and marched to the poolside dressed as God made me, flinging my towel aside with carefree abandon. No one ran screaming, although I did get a big smile and a wink from a bearish, Russian-looking man twice my age, and wondered briefly if I'd strayed into the wrong kind of bathhouse.
The biggest surprise was that men and women were mixing freely not just in the pools but in the showers and changing rooms too, all as happily naked as the day they first drew breath. A group of older men sat talking about football in the hot tub, and a pair of middle-aged women were busily planning someone else's wedding while swimming lengths in the icy main pool. Yet despite the mixing of the sexes, the atmosphere was reassuringly chaste. I was almost certainly the only person who wasn't retired, and there were (to put it politely) more raisins on display than grapes. I didn't quite know where to look, and spent a lot of time feigning interest in the ceiling.
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Ben Coates (The Rhine: Following Europe's Greatest River from Amsterdam to the Alps)
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Class?" I asked in surprise. "Today?"
"This isn't a spa vacation, Tiger Lily. Just be glad it's History of Wormwood and not conditioning."
"Conditioning?"
"Hope you've got a bottle of Icy Hot in there.
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Christine Manzari (Deviation (The Sophisticates, #1))
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If a goal is worth pursuing, even the pain that accompanies our practice feels good - just like the pain of good exercise, spicy hot pot, or icy cold tingling soda. But if you feel like you’re hurting yourself to achieve rewards and the only thing you enjoy is the final goal and not the process, it’s probably time to rethink - not just about your priorities but the way you think about them.
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Woo-Kyoung Ahn (Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better)
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Another rumble of thunder preceded him lifting his head, and a bolt of lightning illuminated the look of determination. As though he’d already come to the same conclusion she had just thought of. As though he knew he would tear the world down for her. The first drops of rain hit them. Heavy, thick balls that splattered on her shoulders and down into her hair. They were drenched in moments, staring at each other as an icy wind blew up as well. “Ask me,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “Ask me and it will be done.” “I’m not a murderer. I’m a thief.” “I am a murderer. You have seen me kill for less than keeping those you love safe. The burden will not be yours to bear. It will be mine.” Rain dripped down her cheeks, or maybe those were tears, because they burned hot enough to brand her cheeks. “I can’t ask you to kill someone.” “You won’t be asking me to do that. You’re asking me to save someone’s life, and how I do it is up to me.” He reached up and smoothed his thumbs along her cheeks. “You have to know by now that I would do anything for you, kefi.” She did. And that terrified her because there were so many things she could ask him to do. So many paths down this road that would end in blood and violence.
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Emma Hamm (Echoes of the Tide (Deep Waters, #3))