Mackenzie Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Mackenzie. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Mackenzie raises her hand proudly. “I have a bagina.” I smirk. “Yes, you do sweetheart. And someday, it’s gonna help you rule the world.
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
God bless the book people for their boundless knowledge absorbed from having words instead of friends.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
We are not broken things, neither of us. We are cracked pottery mended with laquer and flakes of gold, whole as we are, complete unto each other. Complete and worthy and so very loved.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Catholics don't believe in divorce. We do believe in murder. There's always Confession, after all. --Brianna Fraser to Roger MacKenzie
Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone (Outlander, #7))
We're not courting trouble," I say. "Flirting with it, at most.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Just thinking about all that blood." I nearly shudder. "Doesn't it make you a bit squeamish?" "Ladies haven't the luxury of being squeamish about blood," she replies, and Percy and I go fantastically red in unison.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
The stars dust gold leafing on his skin. And we are looking at each other, just looking, and I swear there are whole lifetimes lived in those small, shared moments.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Love makes the world go round? Not at all. Whiskey makes it go round twice as fast.
Compton Mackenzie
It's beginning to feel like he's shuffling his way through the seven deadly sins, in ascending order of my favourites.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Love may be a grand thing, but goddamn if it doesn't take up more than its fair share of space inside a man.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
It is remarkable how much courage it takes to kiss someone, even when you are almost certain that person would very much like to be kissed by you. Doubt will knock you from the sky every time.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Ugh. Feelings.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
You deserve to be here. You deserve to exist. You deserve to take up space in this world of men.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Because women don't have to be men's equals to be considered contenders; they have to be better. That's the lie of it all. You have to be better to prove yourself worthy of being equal.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Because I wanted you." He turned from the window to face me. "More than I ever wanted anything in my life," he added softly. I continued staring at him, dumbstruck. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn't this. Seeing my openmouthed expression, he continued lightly. "When I asked my da how ye knew which was the right woman, he told me when the time came, I'd have no doubt. And I didn't. When I woke in the dark under that tree on the road to Leoch, with you sitting on my chest, cursing me for bleeding to death, I said to myself, 'Jamie Fraser, for all ye canna see what she looks like, and for all she weighs as much as a good draft horse, this is the woman'" I started toward him, and he backed away, talking rapidly. "I said to myself, 'She's mended ye twice in as many hours, me lad; life amongst the MacKenzies being what it is, it might be as well to wed a woman as can stanch a wound and set broken bones.' And I said to myself, 'Jamie, lad, if her touch feels so bonny on your collarbone, imagine what it might feel like lower down...'" He dodged around a chair. "Of course, I thought it might ha' just been the effects of spending four months in a monastery, without benefit of female companionship, but then that ride through the dark together"--he paused to sigh theatrically, neatly evading my grab at his sleeve--"with that lovely broad arse wedged between my thighs"--he ducked a blow aimed at his left ear and sidestepped, getting a low table between us--"and that rock-solid head thumping me in the chest"--a small metal ornament bounced off his own head and went clanging to the floor--"I said to myself..." He was laughing so hard at this point that he had to gasp for breath between phrases. "Jamie...I said...for all she's a Sassenach bitch...with a tongue like an adder's ...with a bum like that...what does it matter if she's a f-face like a sh-sh-eep?" I tripped him neatly and landed on his stomach with both knees as he hit the floor with a crash that shook the house. "You mean to tell me that you married me out of love?" I demanded. He raised his eyebrows, struggling to draw in breath. "Have I not...just been...saying so?
Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
Idiots annoy me.” Mackenzie holds up the jar again, and in goes another dollar. The jar? It was invented by my sister, who apparently thinks my language is too harsh for her offspring. It’s the Bad Word Jar. Every time someone—usually me—swears, they have to pay a dollar. At this rate, that thing is going to put Mackenzie through college.
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
Against the sky, the stars crown him, marking the edges of his silhouette like he is a constellation of himself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I swear, you would play the coquette with a well-upholstered sofa." "First, I would not. And second, how handsome is this sofa?
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
And then Jesus says, 'Well, watch this' - " "Really? Well, watch this?" "That's biblical language." "If your Bible is written by Henry Montague.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
What’s the use of temptations if we don’t yield to them?
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I loved and adored you, but I drained you like a thirsty man at a spring. I loved what you could give me - your admiration, your acceptance, your love, your forgiveness. I forgot to love you for yourself.
Jennifer Ashley (Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage (MacKenzies & McBrides, #2))
It occurs to me then that perhaps getting my little sister drunk and explaining why I screw boys is not the most responsible move on my part.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
It is not a failure to readjust my sails to fit the waters I find myself in.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
We don't fit in, you and me," he said. "We're both oddities no one knows what to do with. But we fit together." He took her hand, pressed her palm to his, then laced their fingers through each other's. "We fit.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
it’s hard not to see. You’re the kind of pair that makes everyone around them feel as though they’re missing out on a private joke.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Her name is Mackenzie. She’s got long blond hair and the biggest blue eyes you’ll ever see. She’s almost four. See her there? On the other end of the seesaw I’m currently riding.
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
I have lived most of my life as a devotee of the philosophy that a man should not see two sevens in one day,
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
So Mackenzie, have you decided what you want to be when you grow up?" "Yep. I wanna be a princess. And i wanna mary a prince and live in a castle." I need to talk to my sister. Disney is dangerous.
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
I do not think of him as Lord Ian Mackenzie, aristocratic brother of a duke and well beyond my reach; not as the Mad Mackenzie, an eccentric people stare at and whisper about. To me, he is simply Ian.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
My dear imaginary Captain MacKenzie, you are not real and never will be. I, however, am a true and eternal fool. Here, have a drawing of a snail.
Tessa Dare (When a Scot Ties the Knot (Castles Ever After, #3))
Uncle Drew?" "Yes, sweetheart?" "Where do babies come from?
Emma Chase (Twisted (Tangled, #2))
Everything is valuable, in its own way. Everything is full of history.
V.E. Schwab (The Archived (The Archived, #1))
As the bills fall into the jar, Alexandra takes her hand. “Come on Mackenzie, let’s go to the American Girl store and spend some of Uncle Drew’s money.” “Okay!
Emma Chase (Tangled (Tangled, #1))
I’m sorry,” she says. “What for?” “You’ve had a rough go.” “Everyone has a rough go. I’ve had it far easier than most people.” “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean your feelings matter less.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Is this what love feels like?" he whispered to her. "I don't like it, my Beth. It hurts too much.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
I've always been of the mind that subtlety is a waste of time. Fortune favors the flirtatious.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
The great tragic love story of Percy and me is neither great nor truly a love story, and is tragic only for its single-sidedness. It is also not an epic monolith that has plagued me since boyhood, as might be expected. Rather, it is simply the tale of how two people can be important to each other their whole lives, and then, one morning, quite without meaning to, one of them wakes to find that importance has been magnified into a sudden and intense desire to put his tongue in the other's mouth. A long, slow slide, then a sudden impact.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Everyone has heard stories of women like us—cautionary tales, morality plays, warnings of what will befall you if you are a girl too wild for the world, a girl who asks too many questions or wants too much. If you set off into the world alone. Everyone has heard stories of women like us, and now we will make more of them.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Oh no." Percy looks sideways at me. "Oh no what?" I swallow. "I'd first like it to be noted that I am most certainly not a smuggler." "Monty..." he says, my name sopping with dread. "And," I continue overtop him, "I'd like you to both remember just how much you adore me and how dull and gloomy your lives would be without me in them." "What did you do?
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Ali Bell doesn't play hide-and-seek," Lucas said. "She plays hide-and-pray-I-don't-find-you." Mackenzie smiled. "When Ali Bell gives you the finger, she's telling you how many seconds you have to live." Cole chuckled, saying, "Fear of spiders is arachnophobia, and fear of tight spaces is claustrophobia, but fear of Ali Bell is just called logic." "Oh, oh." Kat clapped excitedly. "There used to be a street named after Ali Bell, but it was changed because nobody crosses Ali Bell and lives. True story.
Gena Showalter (Through the Zombie Glass (White Rabbit Chronicles, #2))
If the Good Lord didn't want men to play with themselves, we'd have hooks for hands.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
In the east," she says after a time, her gaze still downcast, "there is a tradition known as kintsukuroi. It is the practice of mending broken ceramic pottery using lacquer dusted with gold and silver and other precious metals. It is meant to symbolize that things can be more beautiful for having been broken." "Why are you telling me this?" I ask. At last she looks at me. Her irises are polished obsidian in the moonlight. "Because I want you to know," she says, "that there is life after survival.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I love you, but I don’t know how to help you. I still don’t! I’m an emotional delinquent and I say wrong things all the time, but I want to be better for you. I promise that. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re ill and it doesn’t matter if I have to give up everything, because you’re worth it. You’re worth it all because you are magnificent, you are. Magnificent and gorgeous and brilliant and kind and good and I just . . . love you, Percy. I love you so damn much.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Your beauty is not a tax you are required to pay to take up space in this world.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I, Gavin MacKenzie, sexy cowboy man of Baker City, Oregon … being of sound mind and hot body … do hereby declare that I love you, Andie Marks, lawyer extraordinaire, and want to be married to you until I’m so old, I either die or my pecker falls off.I will have sex with you whenever you want, and I will always give you the option to be on top if that’s what will make you happy. Blowjobs will always be optional but appreciated.I will change diapers when called for, both for our children and for you when you’re old and decrepit. I will never spit in public or burp too loudly or say mean things about your friends.I promise never to raise my hand against you in anger or tell you that you’re useless or threaten to hurt people who you love. Ten-four, over and out, happily ever after. Those are my vows.
Elle Casey (Shine Not Burn (Shine Not Burn, #1))
Mackenzie, you cannot produce trust, just as you cannot 'do' humility. It either is or is not. Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me.
William Paul Young (The Shack)
No one calls a girl spirited or opinionated or intimidating or any of those words you can pretend are complimentary and means it to be. They’re all just different ways of calling her a bitch.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I'm learning there is no one way for life to be lived, no one way to be strong or brave or kind or good. Rather there are many people doing the best they can with the heart they are given and the hand they are dealt. Our best is all we can do, and all we can hold on to is each other.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.
Alice Mackenzie Swaim
Because I want you to know,” she says, “that there is life after survival.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I have become a veritable scholar in seemingly innocent ploys to get his skin against mine.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Of course she had some pathetic illusions about herself or she would not be able to go on living.
Jean Rhys (After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie)
and the person I most want to run away from is me.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
My heart had been touched by him, battered by him, cradled by him as the days passed. He was cruel without meaning to be yet he was kind, and I needed him too much to let myself want him
Mackenzie Herbert (Chasing Trains)
The room is warm and smells like dust, and just the presence of so many books makes it easier to breathe. It’s remarkable how being around books, even those you’ve never read, can have a calming effect, like walking into a crowded party and finding it full of people you know.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Percy sees me off at the door with more affirming words but no hug or even a pat upon the shoulder. Thank god for friends who learn to speak to you in your own language rather than making you learn theirs.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
We make a good team, Mackenzie Bishop.” “We do.” We do, and that is the thing that tempers the heat beneath my skin, checks the flutter of girlish nerves. This is Wesley. My friend. My partner. Maybe one day my Crew. The fear of losing that keeps me in check.
V.E. Schwab (The Archived (The Archived, #1))
You are such a chick." I widened my eyes in mock surprise. "No way. Are you sure?" Sighing again, he rubbed at the tattoos on his wrist. "Mackenzie was right. You aren't slayer material." Before he had time to register my intentions, I threw a punch. My sore, swollen knuckles slammed into his cheekbone, thrusting his head to the side. Pain shot up my arm, but I bit my tongue to stop a moan. "You were saying?" He popped his jaw, rubbed at the reddening skin-and slowly grinned. "Okay, so now I understand why Cole likes you. You're worse than Kat.
Gena Showalter (Alice in Zombieland (White Rabbit Chronicles, #1))
Stay with me.” “We’re married,” she whispered. “Of course I’ll stay.” “You could decide to leave me.” “I won’t.” “Promise me.” “I have promised. I do promise.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
There is nothing good about watching another man claim your ship because your skin is too dark to do it yourself," he says, each word a glancing wound. "So in future, you needn't demand apologies on my behalf.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I wish I could be better for you." She looks over at me, and I duck my head, shame sinking its teeth in. "I'm older and I know I'm supposed to be... an example, I don't know. At least someone you aren't embarrassed of." "You do fine." "I don't" "You're right, you don't. But you're getting better. And that isn't nothing.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
And thank God, because I don't want simple. I do not want easy or small or uncomplicated. I want my life to be messy and ugly and wicked and wild, and I want to feel it all.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
I would teach my body to regrow my heart each time I gave it to him, over and over and over again. Heart after heart after heart—every one of them his.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman’s Guide to Getting Lucky (Montague Siblings, #1.5))
I do not need reasons to exist. I do not need to justify the space I take up in this world.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
We are not broken things, neither of us. We are cracked pottery mended with lacquer and flakes of gold, whole as we are, complete unto each other. Complete and worthy and so very loved.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
[...] I am a wildflower and will stand against the gales. Rare and uncultivated, difficult to find, impossible to forget.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
...Mac, I want you to go back to the house and make sure the ladies don't get the idea to go searching as well. I told Eleanor not to, but you know the Mackenzie females." Mac scowled."Hell, Hart, can't you find something easier for me to do? Go up against an army of assassins in my underwear, maybe?
Jennifer Ashley (The Duke's Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides, #4))
His hand rested on my hair, and without knowing quite how it happened, I found myself curled against him, my head just fitting in the hollow of his shoulder. For so many years," he said, "for so long, I have been so many things, so many different men." I felt him swallow, and he shifted slightly, the linen of his nightshirt rustling with starch. I was Uncle to Jenny's children, and Brother to her and Ian. 'Milord' to Fergus, and 'Sir' to my tenants. 'Mac Dubh' to the men of Ardsmuir and 'MacKenzie' to the other servants at Helwater. 'Malcolm the printer,' then, and 'Jamie Roy' at the docks." The hand stroked my hair, slowly, with a whispering sound like the wind outside. "But here," he said, so softly I could barely hear him, "here in the dark, with you...I have no name.
Diana Gabaldon
Because when I look at you, I forget everything. I lose all track of what I’m saying or doing. I can see only your eyes.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
When you are a child you are yourself and you know and see everything prophetically. And then suddenly something happens and you stop being yourself; you become what others force you to be. You lose your wisdom and your soul.
Jean Rhys (After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie)
Oh. It’s Fraser. James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser.” He pronounced it formally, each name slow and distinct. Completely flustered, I said “Claire Elizabeth Beauchamp,” and stuck out my hand idiotically. Apparently taking this as a plea for support, he took the hand and tucked it firmly into the crook of his elbow. Thus inescapably pinioned, I squelched up the path to my wedding.
Diana Gabaldon (Outlander (Outlander, #1))
I am somehow stuck with an obstinate mount that resembles less a horse and more a leggy sausage, and seems fond of ingesting my commands and then ignoring them in their entirety.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I have spent so long building up my fortress and learning to tend it all myself, because if I didn’t feel I needed anyone, then I wouldn’t miss them if they weren’t there. I couldn’t be neglected if I was everything to myself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Perhaps the future was only inevitable once you began to shape all your actions to fit it.
Mackenzi Lee (Loki: Where Mischief Lies)
I wish I could make your world want you," Theo said. "Yours too," Loki replied.
Mackenzi Lee (Loki: Where Mischief Lies)
It's so easy to make a person who hasn't got anything seem wrong.
Jean Rhys (After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie)
Don't ever think that what my Son chose to do didn't cost us dearly. Love always leaves a significant mark," she stated softly and gently. "We were there together." Mack was surprised. "At the cross? Now wait. I thought you left him - you know - 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" It was a Scripture that had often haunted Mack in The Great Sadness. "You misunderstand the mystery there. Regardless of what he felt at that moment, I never left him." "How can you say that? You abandonded him just like you abandoned me!" "Mackenzie, I never left him, and I have never left you." "That makes no sense to me," he snapped. "I know it doesn't, at least not yet. Will you at least consider this: when all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?
William Paul Young (The Shack)
You're trying to play a game designed by men. You'll never win, because the deck is stacked and marked, and also you've been blindfolded and set on fire. You can work hard and believe in yourself and be the smartest person in the room and you'll still get beat by the boys who haven't two cents to rub together. So if you can't win the game, you have to cheat. You operate outside the walls they've built to fence you in. You rob them in the dark, while they're drunk on spirits you offered them. Poison their waters and drink only wine.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
In the company of women like this— sharp-edged as raw diamonds but with soft hands and hearts, not strong in spite of anything but powerful because of everything— I feel invincible. Every chink and rut and battering wind has made us tough and brave and impossible to strike down. We are mountains— or perhaps temples, with foundations that could outlast time itself.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
Three stairs from the botton, he touches my face and says, 'You look like my dream come true.'
Jillian Dodd (That Wedding (That Boy, #2))
Everything matters.Everything you do touches someone in some way, even though you might not understand that.
Jennifer Ashley (The Duke's Perfect Wife (MacKenzies & McBrides, #4))
A small shift in the gravity between us and suddenly all my stars are out of alignment, planets knocked from their orbits, and I'm left stumbling, without map or heading, through the bewildering territory of being in love with your best friend.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Can’t seal up a conversation with a casual Oh, by the way, could you perhaps not touch me the way you always have because each time it puts fresh splinters in my heart? Particularly when what I’d really like to say is Oh, by the way, could you please keep touching me, and perhaps do it all the time, and while we’re at it, would you like to take off all your clothes and climb in bed? They’re both weighted alike.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
He raises his head. "You're nothing like your father, Monty. For a start, you're far more decent than he is." I'm not sure how, after all the terrible things I've done, he can possibly mean that. "You might be the only person left on earth who thinks me decent." Between us, I feel his knuckles brush mine. Perhaps it's by chance, but it feels more like a question, and when I spread my fingers in answer, his hand slides into mine. "Then everyone else doesn't know you.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
My Beth,” he whispered, his breath hot on her swollen lips. “Thank you.” “For what?” Beth couldn’t stop crying, but she smiled, her face aching with it. “Setting me free.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
...Illegitimate children can be left money, but they can't inherit the peerage." "You wouldn't want it," Cameron put in. "More trouble than it's worth. And for God's sake, don't murder Hart or I'm next.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
Jem made the little Scottish noise again, and Brianna looked sideways at him. "Are you doing that on purpose?" He looked up at her, surprised. "Doing what?" "Never mind. When you are fifteen, I'm locking you in the cellar." "What? Why?" he demanded indignantly. "Because that's when your father and grandfather started getting into real trouble, and evidently you're going to be just like them.
Diana Gabaldon (Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander, #8))
Ian closed his eyes. Beth watched emotions flicker across his face, the uncertainty, the stubbornness, the raw pain he’d lived with for so long. He didn’t always know how to express his emotions, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel them deeply. When Ian slowly opened his eyes, he guided his gaze directly to Beth’s. His golden eyes shimmered and sparkled, pupils ringed with green. He held her gaze steadily, not blinking, or shifting away. “I love you,” he said. Beth caught her breath, and sudden tears blurred her vision. “Love you,” Ian repeated. His gaze bore into hers harder than Hart’s ever could hope to. “Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you…
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
Are you going to be sick?” I raise my head. The duke is gone, but Helena is on the window seat, twisting her necklace around her fingers. I don’t answer, because I don’t believe a prisoner owes his captors any sort of report on his health. That, and if I’m going to be sick, I’d prefer to do it all over her, and I’d prefer it to be a stealth attack.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
So long as you don’t go falling in love with me.” I don’t know why I say it. Call it battlements around my helpless heart. Percy looks away from me fast, shoulders curling up. It almost looks like a flinch. But then he says, “I’ll try my best.” He
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I think I want a house of my own," I start, the words a discovery as they leave my mouth. "Something small, so I don't have much housework, but enough room for a proper library. I want a lot of books. And I wouldn't mind a good old dog to walk with me. And a bakery I go to every morning where they know my name.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
My head's higher than his, but we're close enough that I can see the freckles beneath his eyes. If I had to pick a favorite part of Percy's face - which would be impossible, really, but if held at gunpoint and forced to make a selection - it would be that small star-map across his skin. A part of him it feels as though no one else but me is ever close enough to see.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
I don’t know what you’re referencing, madam,” the chairman says, his voice raised over mine. “I’m talking about menstruation, sir!” I shout in return. It’s like I set the hall on fire, manifested a venomous snake from thin air, also set that snake on fire, and then threw it at the board. The men all erupt into protestations and a fair number of horrified gasps. I swear one of them actually swoons at the mention of womanly bleeding.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
What do you want me to say? Yes, I’m ill. I’m an epileptic—that’s my lot. It isn’t easy and it isn’t very enjoyable but this is what I’ve got to live with. This is who I am, and I don’t think I’m insane. I don’t think I should be locked up and I don’t think I need to be cured of it for my life to be good. But no one seems to agree with me on that, and I was hoping you’d be different, but apparently you think just the same as my family and my doctors and everyone else.
Mackenzi Lee (The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue (Montague Siblings, #1))
Every time you rolled your eyes and every little smart remark you made about how silly it was for girls to care about their looks. You refused to let me--or anyone!--like books and silks. Outdoors and cosmetics. You stopped taking me seriously when I stopped being the kind of woman you thought I had to be to be considered intelligent and strong. All those things you say make men take women less seriously--I don't think it's men; it's you. You're not better than any other woman because you like philosophy better than parties and don't give a fig about the company of gentlemen, or because you wear boots instead of heels and don't set your hair in curls.
Mackenzi Lee (The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy (Montague Siblings, #2))
And when he presses his lips into the curve of my throat, I can feel his tears on my skin. “You are an idiot,” I say, even as I guide his face and mouth to mine. I kiss him, not gently, but desperately. Desperately, because he’s worth it—because life is terrifying and short and I don’t know what will happen. All I know is that here and now, I am still alive, and I want to be with Wesley Ayers. Here and now I want to feel his arms wrapped around me. I want to feel his lips on mine. I want to feel his life tangling with mine. Here and now is all we have, and I want to make it worth whatever happens next.
V.E. Schwab (The Unbound (The Archived, #2))
Psychopaths provide shallow praise and flattery only in order to gain trust. When you actually need emotional support, they will typically offer an empty response—or they will completely ignore you. With time, this conditions you not to bother them with your feelings, even when you need a partner the most, especially during times of tragedy or illness. You will begin to notice that you are never allowed to express anything but positive praise for them.
Jackson MacKenzie (Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People)
Ian cupped her chin and turned her face up to his. Then he did what he’d been practicing since the night on the train – he looked her fully in the eyes. He couldn’t always do it. Sometimes his gaze simply refused to obey, and he’d turn away with a growl. But more and more he’d been able to focus directly on her. Ian’s eyes were beautiful, even more so when his pupils widened with desire. “Have I told you today that I love you?” he asked. “A few dozen times. Not that I mind.” As a young woman who’d been starved for love much of her life, Beth lapped up Ian’s generous outpouring of the words. He’d surprise her with them, catching her as she walked down the hall, pushing her up against a wall, breathing, “I love you.” Or he’d tickle her awake and tell her while she tried to hit him with a pillow. The best was when he lay against her in the dark, fingers tracing her body. She treasured his whispered, “I love you.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))
Beth stared at the bowl, a fragile piece of the past, such a delicate object in Ian’s large, blunt fingers. “Are you certain?” “Of course I’m certain.” His frown returned. “Do you not want it?” “I do want it,” Beth said hastily. She held her hands out for it. “I’m honored.” The frown faded, to be replaced by a slight quirk of his lips. “Is it better than a new carriage and horses and a dozen frocks?” “What are you talking about? It’s a hundred times better.” “It’s only a bowl.” “It’s special to you, and you gave it to me.” Beth took it carefully and smiled at the dragons chasing one another in eternal determination. “It’s the best gift in the world.” Ian took it gently back from her and replaced it in its slot. That made sense; in here it would stay safe and unbroken. But the kiss Ian gave her after that was anything but sensible. It was wicked and bruising, and she had no idea why he smiled so triumphantly.
Jennifer Ashley (The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie (Mackenzies & McBrides, #1))