Skin Of A Sinner Quotes

I don’t want to make you forget. I want to make you remember. And I’m about to, Rosie.” He breathed hard against my skin. “I’m about to rewrite the pages of our fucking history, baby.

Have you ever had sex in the back of a Rolls Royce?” Kingsley asked, trying not to rip Søren’s shirt in his rush to unbutton it. He needed Søren’s skin on his skin right now. “No,” Søren said. “But ask me that question again in an hour.

For a long while I have believed – this is perhaps my version of Sir Darius Xerxes Cama’s belief in a fourth function of outsideness – that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainly, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers’ seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or a movie theater, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

My religion starts with “Isa” and ends with “Bella,” and I’d worship at her altar every night. Blessed be the meal I’m about to eat and all that.

If he touches you, say the word, and he’s fucking dead. You got it?

Even if it is full of love, all a ghost can do is haunt.

Do you doubt what I’d do for you, Isabella? If you’re in a grave, I’m in one. I promised you forever. We won’t end in death.

Ask me to give up anything, and I’ll do it for you, Isabella. As long as I have you, I don’t give a shit about the rest.

Then, when she hugged me last year, I’m pretty sure I understood why people find religion.

I wanted to be baptized in his skin, purified in his love. I was a sinner, or worse.

To all the self-proclaimed good girls who want to be chased through the forest, then fucked by a masked man.

God, I love it when you beg.

Don’t worry. If you break, I’ll put you back together. If you run, I’m running right behind you. If you burn, I’ll burn with you.

I wanted him to save me. I wanted to be baptized in his skin, purified in his love. I was a sinner, or worse. I wanted him to make me whole. I wanted him to take away the pain and the guilt and the hurt and the wrong. I was blinded by him, with him, to him. I wanted him to save me.

Hit me, scream at me, fucking shoot me if it makes you feel better—at least I know that feeling. But you don’t keep your feelings in, and you sure as fuck don’t lie to me. Got it?

But she isn’t looking at me; she’s looking at them. Is she admiring my handiwork? Is she happy they’ll never be able to come near her again—that I saved her? “I’m sorry, Princess,” I say softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.

No amount of blood spilled will ever be too much for you.” “When will it end?” He smirks. “When I’m in a grave, and even then, Hell won’t keep me from you.

what point do they believe what’s been branded on their skin instead of just knowing who they are inside?

Truth or dare?” he asks out of nowhere. “Truth. Brave people always choose the truth.” I grin. “Is it true that you’ll always be mine?” He lowers his mouth to my ear, his warm breath tickling my skin. “It’s a truth. And sometimes, when you piss me off, it’s a dare. But it’s my life, and you’re a part of it. Always and forever,” I say.

Is the love interest a problematic, obsessive, walking red flag that belongs in prison? Yes. Would he chase you through the woods, blow your back out and tell you to take it like a good girl? Also yes. But would he steal your panties? Watch you sleep? Mark your name into his chest? Kill for you, then treat you like a princess? I think you know the answer to that. And you know what? Us girlies are proud to call his red flags green.

...for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celbrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveller, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

Who do you pray to?” I narrow my eyes, confused. “I don’t pray.” “You’d get on your knees for me if I asked. Does that make me your god, Princess?

he feels like cocoa in the winter and the first sign of color in the fall. And when I’m around him, I feel like sangria in the summer and daffodils in the spring.

There isn’t a god in existence that could stop me from getting to you.

Us girlies are proud to call his red flags green.

You will never be alone again. I swear on my life. Wherever you go, I’ll be right there. We’ll always find each other. I’m not going anywhere. It’s a promise. We’re forever, Princess, and nothing will ever come between us. Do you understand?

The entire world lights up on contact. Every bulb grows brighter, every smell becomes stronger, and I can feel the kiss in my soul. The stars could fall, and I wouldn’t notice. The room could be set ablaze, and I would be helpless to his possession.

My memories could never compare to the reality of you. Don’t you realize you were made for me? We were made for each other.

You know I didn't start writing books until after I left Søren. I could barely get out of bed that first month. I thought I was losing my mind. Some days I thought I was dying. I started creating worlds in my head, other people, other lives. I slipped out of my skin and into theirs, and while I was there I wasn't grieving anymore. I was feeling what they were feeling. Writing resurrected me, Zach. Trust me, I know what it feels like to sell yourself. Writing my books is the opposite of selling myself.

For there was nothing here, no angels, no harps, no gates, no fires singeing the sins back into the sinner, no hungry spirits wandering the land and standing in the cold outside the firelight of the living. There was only wind drawing itself endlessly over the dark crowns of the pines, over the face of the water, over the mountains' icy peaks, over the great wide golden stretches of the teeming land. The wind passed, even as it is passing now, over all the people who find themselves so dulled by the concerns of their own bodies and their own hungers that they cannot stop for a moment to feel its goodness as it brushes against them. And feel it now, so soft, so eternal, this wind against your good and living skin.

If you’ve never felt it, how do you know?” I close my eyes. I’ve got too many words and not enough ways to order them. How do I know? Because saying it aloud is as easy as breathing. Because even the mention of her name lights my skin on fire. Because she’s my first thought in the morning, and my last at night.

When she wants it, she’s a slut. When she doesn’t want it, she’s a slut. The biggest insult men like him can muster is telling a woman exactly what he thinks she is: an object that can be debased to the holes she has.

You’re sorry? Sorry? You don’t get to be sorry!” The more I say the word, the less believable it sounds. “You don’t get to come here and act like everything is alright. Do you even know what they did to me? You left me for dead, Roman. You're a coward.” I shove him, even though he’s not holding me anymore. “A fucking coward!

Every part of him wanted to stay with Jo. Make sure she was okay. Attend to her every need, bringing her the choicest food and cleanest drink, securing her a warm and dry shelter, along with clothes that were of fabrics and colors of her preference. He wanted to sleep with her up against his body, skin to skin, a dagger in his right hand, a gun under his pillow, a length of chain beneath the bed, to ensure her protection against anything and everybody that would hurt her.

He kissed Kyle, checking to see that her eyes stayed sure and real. They did. Instead of saint and sinner, they were man and woman now. When Cole finally tasted her skin, the flavor was honeysuckle. Heaven was not something he had to die to enjoy. Kyle was here now.

knew we would do it the way we both liked. Like animals. With our clothes still on, the dry hay sticking to our sweaty skin, hard slaps of skin against skin reminding us there was nothing pretty or elegant in how we wanted one another. We would have sex the way nature intended us to. With no dignity, or pride, or shame.

exasperate the reader as much as he does the sinners he meets on his journey through America selling textbooks. You

I’m sorry, Princess,” I say softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.

My religion starts with “Isa” and ends with “Bella,” and I’d worship at her altar every night.

don’t want to make you forget. I want to make you remember. And I’m about to, Rosie.” He breathed hard against my skin. “I’m about to rewrite the pages of our fucking history, baby.

For my darKER Souls My sinners who want that neck biting, hair pulling, skin slapping, ass spanking, back scratching, angry kinda sex. Life is for living. So live. Wild, dirty, and free to sin.

Take the word saved as it is used in the evangelical vernacular. It’s true, you are saved by grace, by love, by light … but it’s only half the story. The truth is that there is so much that you’re not saved from. You are not saved from pain or loneliness or the bite of reality sharp against your skin. You’re not saved from rained-out picnics, from disappointment, from the unkindness of strangers. You’re not saved from lost jobs or lost loves or cancer or car accidents. Saved. But they say, It’s not religion, it’s a relationship. They say, God loves the sinner but hates the sin. They say, Let go and let God. And they’re worse than cliché, really. They’re thought-terminating cliché, a term that psychologist, Robert Lifton, coined in his book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. In this type of cliché, “the most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed.

[The Christian story] amounts to a refusal to affirm life. In the biblical tradition we have inherited, life is corrupt, and every natural impulse is sinful unless it has been circumcised or baptized. The serpent was the one who brought sin into the wold. And the woman was the one who handed the apple to man. This identification of the woman with sin, of the serpent with sin, and thus of life with sin, is the twist the has been given to the whole story in the biblical myth and doctrine of the Fall.... I don't know of it [the idea of woman as sinner...in other mythologies] elsewhere. The closest thing to it would be perhaps Pandora with Pandora's box, but that's not sin, that's just trouble. The idea in the biblical tradition of the all is that nature as we know it is corrupt, sex in itself is corrupt, and the female as the epitome of sex is a corrupter. Why was the knowledge of good and evil forbidden to Adam and Eve? Without that knowledge, we'd all be a bunch of babies still Eden, without any participation in life. Woman brings life into the world. Eve is the mother o this temporal wold. Formerly you had a dreamtime paradise there in the Garden of Eden – no time, no birth, no death – no life. The serpent, who dies and is resurrected, shedding its skin and renewing its life, is the lord of the central tree, where time and eternity come together. He is the primary god, actually, in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh, the one who walks there in the cool of the evening, is just a visitor. The Garden is the serpent's place. It is an old, old story. We have Sumerian seals from as early as 3500 B.C. showing the serpent and the tree and the goddess, with the goddess giving the fruit of life to a visiting male. The old mythology of he goddess is right there.... There is actually a historical explanation [of the change of this image of the serpent and the snake in Genesis] based on the coming of the Hebrews into Canaan. The principal divinity of the people of Canaan was the Goddess and associated with the Goddess is the serpent. This is the symbol of the mystery of life. The male-god-oriented groups rejected it. In other words, there is a historical rejection of the Mother Goddess implied in the story of the Garden of Eden. Moyers: It does seem that this story has done women a great disservice by casting Eve as responsible for the Fall. Why...? Campbell: They represent life. Man doesn't enter life except by woman, and so it is woman who brings us into this wold of pairs of opposites and suffering.... Male and female is one opposition. Another opposition is the human and God. Good and evil is a third opposition. The primary oppositions are the sexual and that between human beings and God. Then comes the idea of good and evil in the world. And so Adm and Eve have thrown themselves out of the Garden of Timeless Unity, you might say, just by that act of recognizing duality. To move out into the world, you have to act in terms of pairs of opposites.

Why political intellectuals, do you incline towards the proletariat? In commiseration for what? I realize that a proletarian would hate you, you have no hatred because you are bourgeois, privileged, smooth-skinned types, but also because you dare not say that the only important thing there is to say, that one can enjoy swallowing the shit of capital, its materials, its metal bars, its polystyrene, its books, its sausage pâtés, swallowing tonnes of it till you burst – and because instead of saying this, which is also what happens in the desires of those who work with their hands, arses and heads, ah, you become a leader of men, what a leader of pimps, you lean forward and divulge: ah, but that’s alienation, it isn’t pretty, hang on, we’ll save you from it, we will work to liberate you from this wicked affection for servitude, we will give you dignity. And in this way you situate yourselves on the most despicable side, the moralistic side where you desire that our capitalized’s desire be totally ignored, brought to a standstill, you are like priests with sinners, our servile intensities frighten you, you have to tell yourselves: how they must suffer to endure that! And of course we suffer, we the capitalized, but this does not mean that we do not enjoy, nor that what you think you can offer us as a remedy – for what? – does not disgust us, even more. We abhor therapeutics and its vaseline, we prefer to burst under the quantitative excesses that you judge the most stupid. And don’t wait for our spontaneity to rise up in revolt either.

I mean that we must figure out, together, what we are willing to lie about for the sake of a clean memory. The story ends with no sinners, because it must. Everyone is washed clean. A city holds its breath for decades, waiting for something good to descend, and then it does. This, I believe, means that everything resets, and so does everyone within the container of this glorious happening. To enter the church of triumph, everyone must be absolved, and so everyone is. The pistols vanish from the waistbands of cops, from the sock drawers of dealers. What you thought to be blood, dried on the concrete of the park, is instead handprints left by children who pressed their hands into dark paint and left behind a symbol of their living. Yes, living, the children are alive, even the ones thought to be dead. Even the ones who were on the news, even the ones some of us marched in the streets for and broke glass windows for and threw ourselves into police shields for. In the end of this story, there are tattoos that vanish from the skin of those who got the names of the gone-too-soon inked on them, because no one is gone too soon. Yes, if we are to cure ourselves of curses, let us cure ourselves of all the curses tonight, let the lake cough its thick fog upon the people and let them be unmoved by the sweat. What is sweat but decoration, jewelry upon the extended arms beckoning people toward a revival?

I worry the Christian community has accepted an insidious shift from laboring for others to prioritizing our own rights. We’ve perpetuated a group identity as misunderstood and persecuted, defending our positions and preferring to be right over being good news. We’ve bought the lie that connecting with people on their terms is somehow compromising, that our refusal to proclaim our moral ground from word one is a slippery slope. It has become more vital to protect our own station than advocate for a world that needs Jesus, who came to us, wrapped in our skin, speaking our language. If we were not too beneath Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners, then how dare we take a superior position over any other human being? How lovely is a faith community that goes forth as loving sisters and brothers rather than angry defenders and separatists.

The ink flowed beneath his skin, crossing from him to...to...sinners, it flowed along my fingertips, spreading over my skin, flowing just like his smoke over the backs of my hands. A delicate little bird took shape on the inside of my right forearm. It stretched its wings and took flight, its tiny body flitting over my stomach as its wings beat a thousand times a minute.

When sinners fight with other sinners, the problem is never one of finding a plausible target. The problem with the spirit of accusation is that it is diabolical and destructive, not that it is inaccurate. The flaming darts of the evil one frequently find a suitable target. But there is a difference between the condemnation offered by the devil and the spirit of conviction offered by the Spirit of God. They both strike at the darling sin, but one with a cudgel and the other with a surgeon’s scalpel.

He says to the king, in the north they have contempt for the king’s peace, they want to administer their own murders. If Norfolk cannot subdue them they will fall into their old savagery, where each eye or limb or life itself is costed out, and all flesh has a price. In our forefathers’ time a nobleman’s life was worth six times that of a man who followed the plough. The rich man can slaughter as he pleases, if his pocket can bear the fines, but the poor man cannot afford one murder across his lifetime. We repudiate this, he tells the king: we say a man of violence cannot go free because his cousin is the judge, no more than a wealthy sinner can make up for his sins by founding a monastery. Before God and the law, all men are equal. It takes a generation, he says, to reconcile heads and hearts. Englishmen of every shire are wedded to what their nurses told them. They do not like to think too hard, or disturb the plan of the world that exists inside their heads, and they will not accept change unless it puts them in better ease. But new times are coming. Gregory’s children—and, he adds quickly, your Majesty’s children yet to be born—will never have known their country in thrall to an old fraud in Rome. They will not put their faith in the teeth and bones of the dead, or in holy water, ashes and wax. When they can read the Bible for themselves, they will be closer to God than to their own skin. They will speak His language, and He theirs. They will see that a prince exists not to sit a horse in a plumed helmet, but—as your Majesty always says—to care for his subjects, body and soul. The scriptures enjoin obedience to earthly powers, and so we stick by our prince through thick and thin. We do not reject part of his polity. We take him as a whole, consider him God’s anointed, and suppose God is keeping an eye on him.

Someone might object that they have been taught that God loves sinners, including those who sin racially, unconditionally. No, God loves sinners in Christ. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. The only place where a sinner can possibly be a recipient of God’s love is in Christ. God’s love for sinners was bestowed and manifested in one place only, and that place was the cross of Christ. And so what happens to those who hate Christ, who despise His cross, who insist on turning their face away from Him? What happens to those who stand aloof from God’s solitary provision for sinners? They remain outside in the twilight—a twilight that is rapidly becoming the outer darkness. Where they stand, they hate God, and God hates them.

Slowly, Joaquin leaned in, drawn closer to her against his will. Pursing his lips, he breathed warm air across her cheeks, like animals do when they learn each other’s scent, learn to trust. “Easy now,” he whispered in between the soft puffs of air. “Let go of the fear.” “I can’t,” she said, in a little broken voice that clenched at his heart. “Yes you can.” Joaquin let his lips touch her skin, the merest hint of a contact. She made a tiny sound of alarm, a cross between a sob and a cry. He brushed his mouth against hers. A shudder shook her body, but she pressed into him, seeking his shelter. Keeping his hands braced to the timber, he deepened the kiss. His mouth slanted over hers, bolder now. Her hands rose between them and fisted into his shirt.

Okay, how's this? Margery O'Hare, I solemnly promise never to marry you." "And?" "And I won't talk about marrying you. Or sing songs about it. Or even think about marrying you." "Better." H glanced around him, then lowered his voice, placing his mouth beside her ear so that she squirmed a little. "But I will stop by and do sinful things to that fine body of yours. If you'll allow me." "How sinful?" She whispered. "Oh. Bad. Ungodly." She slid her hand inside his overalls, feeling the faint sheen of sweat on his warm skin. For a moment it was just the two of them. The sounds and scents of the mine receded, and all she could feel was the thumping of her heart, the pulse of his skin against hers, the ever-present drumbeat of her need for him. "God loves a sinner, Sven." She reached up and kissed him, then delivered a swift bite to his lower lip. "But not as much as I do.

In the outer layers of young stars life nearly always appears not only in the normal manner but also in the form of parasites, minute independent organisms of fire, often no bigger than a cloud in the terrestrial air, but sometimes as large as the Earth itself. These "salamanders" either feed upon the welling energies of the star in the same manner as the star's own organic tissues feed, or simply prey upon those tissues themselves. Here as elsewhere the laws of biological evolution come into force, and in time there may appear races of intelligent flame-like beings. Even when the salamandrian life does not reach this level, its effect on the star's tissues may become evident to the star as a disease of its skin and sense organs, or even of its deeper tissues. It then experiences emotions not wholly unlike human fright and shame, and anxiously and most humanly guards its secret from the telepathic reach of its fellows. The salamandrian races have never been able to gain mastery over their fiery worlds. Many of them succumb, soon or late, either to some natural disaster or to internecine strife or to the self-cleansing activities of their mighty host. Many others survive, but in a relatively harmless state, troubling their stars only with a mild irritation, and a faint shade of insincerity in all their dealings with one another. In the public culture of the stars the salamandrian pest was completely ignored. Each star believed itself to be the only sufferer and the only sinner in the galaxy. One indirect effect the pest did have on stellar thought. It introduced the idea of purity. Each star prized the perfection of the stellar community all the more by reason of its own secret experience of impurity.

Devlin and I are past it now, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wound. It was. It’s just scarred over. And that’s the interesting thing about scars—the healed area ends up a lot tougher than the original skin.

from NOT BY BLOOD: "One of life’s unsolvables: why does a pissant drug dealer get to be so comfortable in his own skin while the rest of us lay awake at night, raking ourselves over the coals?" "Whether or not you believe, church puts the sinner in you on notice. Your better angels start making demands. " "Coming back to the city always gave me a sense of calm, like a soothing voice slowing my heartbeat. It’s supposed to be the other way around: stressed-out urbanites fleeing in search of trees and waterfalls. Not me. Not Bill. Without nonstop movement all around us, our brains start creating movement of their own. And the cities in our minds are dangerous places. We get lost in them. We start to feel like we’ll never find our way out.

Feeling her breaths exploding over my skin and how she’s trembling, the most intense emotion I’ve ever experienced floods my entire being.

It is easier to get a sinner out of his sin than a self-righteous person out of his self-righteousness. Conceit of our own righteousness sticks to us as the skin to the flesh.

Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to, and don’t cry for help when you’re drowning. The only things that can save you are the answers you never asked for.

I wouldn’t need a lifeboat if he hadn’t set the ship on fire.

You fucked with my girl.” Roman chuckles darkly, glancing at me before saying, “And you should never fuck with my girl.

We never used to be able to high-five without one or both of us flinching, so when she hugged me for the very first time two years ago on my birthday, it was like I saw the light. Then, when she hugged me last year, I’m pretty sure I understood why people find religion.

I don’t give a shit if I’m working, sleeping, or half-dead; you grab that phone, and you call me. I’ll pick up whatever you need, even if I’m six feet under, Bella. There isn’t a god in existence that could stop me from getting to you.

red silk kissed her skin in all the ways I couldn’t.

The more we marked that gorgeous skin, the more she'd be ours. Each mark was like another collar clamping around her gorgeous body, chaining her to us. The more we marked her, the more obsessed we'd all become. The more obsessed, the harder we'd fight for her. The harder we fought, the safer she'd be.

Remember, it is only mankind that weeps, and the manlier you are, the more you should do so.  Augustine says that the more saintly a person is and full of holy desires, the more tears he should shed during prayer. Oh happy tears that wreck our enemies, that drown evil thoughts, that extinguish the flames of our wrong desires, that wash away the stains of our sins, that moisten the hardness of our heart and soften it towards God! The ship of our desire sails swiftly over you to him, for the wind of the Holy Spirit never fails to purify and move our tears. The sinner bathes himself in you like the snake so that he may the more easily cast the skin of his past life by means of the narrow passage of penance.

I know this was a scare for you today, but your wife and babies are doing just fine.” From the corner of his eye, Gabe saw Nic grimace. Why would she … His heart began to pound and his eyes flew open wide. “Excuse me? Did you just say …?” The doctor pursed her lips in dismay. Looking at Nic, she asked, “Did I speak out of turn?” “He just got here a few minutes ago.” Gabe cleared his throat. “Nic?” She tried to smile, but it was a sickly effort at best. “I had a sonogram today.” She held up the pictures. “Gabe, we’re having twins.” He exhaled as if she’d punched him in the gut and closed his eyes. Twins. He dropped his chin to his chest. Twins. He leaned over, propped his elbows on his knees, and cradled his head in his hands. Twins. His stomach rolled and his skin grew clammy. Without saying a word to the women, he rose and walked into the room’s bathroom, where he turned on the cold water, leaned over, and splashed his face for a full minute. Then he shut off the water, gave his head a shake, and looked up, staring at his reflection in the mirror. He was as white as the snow atop Sinner’s Prayer Pass. “Twins,” he murmured. “You’re not going to faint, are you, Mr. Callahan?” Dr. Marshall asked from the doorway. “We don’t want you to bang your head today, too.” “I’m fine,” he lied, grabbing a white hand towel off a towel bar and wiping his face. He replaced the towel, took a bracing breath, and exited the bathroom. Nic watched him with an anxious expression, her hands clasped and resting protectively over her stomach. Was she worried he’d be upset? Angry? Maybe he would get angry later—at fate, not at Nic—but right now he was too numb for that. Twins. Double the risk. Double the responsibility. Double the potential loss. Great. Just great. He

The historical is supremely political, supremely personal. There is a reason the stories of a culture are always kept with its priests. To tell someone where they are from is to tell someone who they are. A slave, a weaker gender, a god-king’s subject, a sinner, too brown-skinned to understand property ownership.

There is a reason the stories of a culture are always kept with its priests. To tell someone where they are from is to tell someone who they are. A slave, a weaker gender, a god-king’s subject, a sinner, too brown-skinned to understand property ownership.

Where were you on the night of March 7?" Typical detective stuff you hear on television all the time. It's so phony. I hate it. Most people can't remember where they were three nights ago much less on a particular date. I know I can't. The times you remember are the ones you're supposed to: Christmas Day, the Fourth of July, your birthday. As you get older and occasionally look back, even those days drift together into one small blob of memories. But you always remember the first time and the last. You remember your first day of school and the last. You remember the first time you went to the show by yourself and the last time you saw your grandfather. The first time you made love. Most of the nights of my life have passed by barely noticed, like the black squares of rosary beads slipping through the wrinkled fingers in the last pew. But later, when I've looked back, I've realized that a few ink colored seeds have taken root in my mind and have grown into oaken strength. My dreams drift back and nestle in their branches. If those nights were suddenly not to be, I, who had come to lean on them, to relish those few surviving leaves of a young autumn that has passed and will not come again, would not know where I'd been. And I'd wonder, even more so, if there was anywhere to go. Every Chicago winter delivers four gray weeks, with rare spots of sunshine that are apparently the flipside of hell. Teeth bared, the wind comes snarling off the lake with every intention of shredding the skin off your face. Numb since November, hands can no longer tell or care if they are wearing gloves. Snowmen, offsprings of childhood enthusiasm, are rarely born during these weeks. Along with the human spirit, the temperature continues to plummet. The ground is smothered by aging layers of ice and snow. Looking at a magazine ad, you see a vaguely familiar blanket of green. Squinting back through months of brown snow, salt-marked shoes, running noses, icy railings, slippery sidewalks, and smoking sewers, you try to recall the feeling of grass. February is four weeks of hanging onto the ropes, waiting to be saved from a knockout by the bell of spring. One year, I was invited to Engrim University's President's Ball, which was to be held on the first Saturday in February. I don't know why I was invited. Most of the students who received invitations were involved in a number of extracurricular activities; they participated in student government, belonged to various clubs, were presidents of fraternities or sororities, were doing extremely well academically or were, in some other way, pleasing the gods. I was never late with my tuition payments. Maybe that was it. Regardless, the President's Ball was to be held in the main ballroom of one of Chicago's swankiest hotels. I thought it was an excellent opportunity to impress Sarah with my importance. A light snowfall was dotting the night air when

Hands on my skin, their filth working in. I can’t feel anything but pain. Why won’t this ever end? Too hard to breathe. Too worn to care. Pushing sharp knives in my soul. Bleeding inside, still too tired to cry. —Bleeding Tired

Wings under my skin, Fighting to break free. I need a razor to cut them out, So I can live as I’m meant to be. A drop of music, A sip of wine. Watch the sky when I fall I’m sure I’ll be fine. —Falling

I know he wouldn’t hurt me physically. But I’d rather have scars on my body than my soul.

A happy ending is not written in my book.

It took losing Roman to realize I’m a survivor in my own way. Because this is what survivors do: they keep walking even if the sun is blazing or the sky cracks with lightning and rumbles with thunder. One foot in front of the other until, eventually, you can’t walk anymore.

Do it,” he challenges me, gesturing to the keys. “But remember, there isn’t anywhere you could go where I won’t follow.” His promise sends my heart galloping, and fire ignites in my veins.

Fuck baby steps. Why isn’t she madly obsessed with me yet?

Tell me you want me, and I’ll let you come.” “Go to Hell,” she bites out.

He’s a god demanding servitude from his loyal subjects. He’s a puppeteer, pulling all the right strings to make me dance beneath him. And I am a willing victim caught in his net.

The easiest thing I’ve ever done is love her. If I could do it all again, I would do it the exact same way. I would pick her. Every time.

The last time you surprised me, you committed double homicide.

You taste like metal,” she mumbles against my skin. “But I like it. Don’t let me go.” My arms wrap around her like a vice, my body responding instinctively to her plea. I will never let her go.

You will die knowing that your anger is the reason why you’re here. You will die with my name etched into your skin. You will die knowing cruelty and pain, the same way you forced me to live.

Note to self: teach Jeremy how to be humble.

God won’t save you from me.

Do they have meaning?” she whispers as her hand skates over a fox. "Yes She looks up at me through her lashes. “Why did you get them?” “So when you look at me, there isn’t an inch of me you don’t like.

That’s not to say my heart isn’t stuffed to the brim. It’ll simply never be whole. There will forever be cracks, and shards have gone missing.

I’d say rest in peace, but I hope you never find it.

You’re my favorite sin.

Now, instead of Christmas trees and decorations striking me as tacky, I want to find the most beautiful ones possible, so I can surprise Mara when she walks through the door and finds the house bedecked in soft, silvery lights. I want to see them reflected on her skin and hair, echoing the smoky color of her eyes.

I’ve never enjoyed compliments as much as Cole’s. Men have always told me I was pretty, but that’s the blandest of tributes. It says nothing about me as a person. Cole compliments my taste, my opinions, and my talents. He notices things that nobody ever bothered to notice about me before, like the fact that I can taste and smell more acutely than most people, which really does make me a better cook. It’s the silver lining of my sensory issues. While I’m often distracted or stressed by light, sound, smell, and touch, I also take deep pleasure from music and food, rich colors and textures, and the right kind of touch on my skin. It’s a blessing and a curse. When everything is wrong, it’s pure torture. But when all goes right, it’s a gift I’d never give up.

She’s still a part-time brat, I see.

Funny girl. It was fucking easy. I never fucking cared. I could have gone my whole fucking life without pussy again, until this one. You’ve got my dick on lock down and you don’t even know it. I’ve beat off until my hand cramped and I nearly rubbed the skin off my dick. What are you doing to me, Kitty? Who am I? You and this pussy are on my mind twenty-four fucking hours a day. I’m losing my fucking mind.

sigh as I hold out the inhaler. Her delicate fingers wrap around it without hesitation, struggling to suck it in between breaths. She never remembers to take it like she’s meant to. And it’s fall, the worst time of year for her.

My skin is on fire, my pulse racing. She let him touch her. Finger her. Put her in handcuffs, for fuck’s sake. Forget the fact that she belongs to me. The things Marcus and his friend could have done to her are endless.

Why do these men need to be coddled when being turned down? Why do I need to be polite when they’re the ones who started it? Can’t I just say ‘no’?

That night in the phone booth, you told me you’d never been in love before. If you’ve never felt it, how do you know?” I close my eyes. I’ve got too many words and not enough ways to order them. How do I know? Because saying it aloud is as easy as breathing. Because even the mention of her name lights my skin on fire. Because she’s my first thought in the morning, and my last at night. Because I just. Fucking. Know. I swallow. “Because even though I’m unlucky with you, I feel even unluckier without you.

Back to my question. Where are we going?” “It’s a surprise.” I roll my eyes. “The last time you surprised me, you committed double homicide.” “Don’t worry, baby, I’ll outdo myself this time. Make it triple.

He felt flayed open on that table and so when her bare skin touched his, it seemed they melded for a moment into one single person—or, if not one person, one purpose like rain falling on the ocean because all that mattered was water.

Colt’s palm rests on my knee, and he slowly drags it up, under my skirt. He inches to my ear; his hot breath on my skin makes my nipples harden instantly. “On a scale from one to five, how quiet do you think you’ll be able to keep?” And he fucking won. Checkmate, Ava.

I want to hurt you Then do, hurt me Trent, I love your wrath on my skin