Skin Tones Quotes

I hate to break it to you, but just because someone has pretty hair and a good skin tone and a crown instead of a pointy hat doesn’t mean she’s not the baddest bitch this side of the emerald city.

Magnus? Magnus Bane?” “That would be me.” The man blocking the doorway was as tall and thin as a rail, his hair a crown of dense back spikes. Clary guessed from the curse of his sleepy eyes and the gold tone of his evenly tanned skin that he was part Asian. He wore jeans and a black shirt covered with dozens of metal buckles. His eyes were crusted with a raccoon mask of charcoal glitter, his lips painted a dark shade of blue. He raked a ring-laden hand through his spiked hair and regarded them thoughtfully. “Children of the Nephilim,” he said. “Well, well. I don’t recall inviting you. I must have been drunk.

I am never alone wherever I am. The air itself supplies me with a century of love. When I breathe in, I am breathing in the laughter, tears, victories, passions, thoughts, memories, existence, joys, moments, and the hues of the sunlight on many tones of skin; I am breathing in the same air that was exhaled by many before me. The air that bore them life. And so how can I ever say that I am alone?

The color of your dress really brings out the extraordinary paleness of your skin tone. Are you unwell? Dying, perhaps?

This is a kill-or-be-killed scenario, leech," Regin the Radiant, a glowing-skinned millennium-old swordswoman, told Ellie in a baleful tone. "So raise your weapon and prepare for your end. 'Cause I'm about to take your head." Ellie yawned. Ten days of this was getting old. "Girl, I don't wanna play video games anymore.

I'm so fucking tired of black women always being described by their skin tones! Honey-colored this! Dark-chocolate that! My paternal grandmother was mocha-tinged, café-au-lait, graham-fucking-cracker brown! How come they never describe the white characters in relation to foodstuffs and hot liquids? Why aren't there any yogurt-colored, egg-shell-toned, string-cheese-skinned, low-fat-milk white protagonists in these racist, no-third-act-having books? That's why black literature sucks!

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

Humans didn't really fight over skin tone or ideology; those were just handy cues for kin-selection purposes. Ultimately it always came down to bloodlines and limited resources.

Is your skin this tone all over?" "Only one way you're going to discover the answer to that.

Well,” I reply, using the calm tone I know gets under her skin. I wish I was noble enough not to enjoy it, but I came to terms with my lack of nobility long ago.

Some women,” Dahariel said in that same hard tone devoid of any hint of humanity, “get under a man’s skin until digging them out makes you bleed.

I’m just trying to imagine you in flannel pink sock monkey pajamas. I’m sure you look stunning in pink. (Damien) Actually, with his skin tone he probably does look really good in it. I would definitely say he’s an autumn. (Kish) That’s summer, you dweeb. (Damien) I find it fascinating that you two women know that color palettes for clothes have a name. The fact you corrected him really scares me. (Sin)

You never changed your appearance for men. You changed it for other women. Because they were the ones carefully tracking each others weight and skin tone along with their own. They were the ones trapped with you on the ridiculous appearance obsession merry go round that they couldn't or wouldn't get off.

Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed souffles and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are.

With relationships, I always had a reason why some time in the future would be better for me than it was that day. When I was fat, I thought I'd feel pretty when I was thin, and when I was thin, I thought I'd be happier if I was more toned and muscular and had more money to look more coordinated. I wasn't comfortable in my own skin unless there was a man there to tell me just how radiant that skin looked. I was a victim of low self-esteem and had the Soon syndrome bad. I was running toward a brighter future, unaware of the mirages I'd created in the distance.

It was once said that this is the land of the free. There is, I believe, a statue out there in the harbor, with something written on it about "Give me your hungry...your oppressed...give me pretty much everybody"-that's the way I remember it, anyway. The idea of America is a mutt-culture, isn't it? Who the hell is America if not everybody else? We are-and should be-a big, messy, anarchistic polyglot of dialects and accents and different skin tones.... We need more Latinos to come here. And they should, whenever possible, impregnate our women.

The wish of death had been palpably hanging over this otherwise idyllic paradise for a good many years. All business and politics is personal in the Philippines. If it wasn't for the cheap beer and lovely girls one of us would spend an hour in this dump. They [Jehovah's Witnesses] get some kind of frequent flyer points for each person who signs on. I'm not lazy. I'm just motivationally challenged. I'm not fat. I just have lots of stored energy. You don't get it do you? What people think of you matters more than the reality. Marilyn. Despite standing firm at the final hurdle Marilyn was always ready to run the race. After answering the question the woman bent down behind the stand out of sight of all, and crossed herself. It is amazing what you can learn in prison. Merely through casual conversation Rick had acquired the fundamentals of embezzlement, fraud and armed hold up. He wondered at the price of honesty in a grey world whose half tones changed faster than the weather. The banality of truth somehow always surprises the news media before they tart it up. You've ridden jeepneys in peak hour. Where else can you feel up a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl without even trying? [Ralph Winton on the Philippines finer points] Life has no bottom. No matter how bad things are or how far one has sunk things can always get worse. You could call the Oval Office an information rain shadow. In the Philippines, a whole layer of criminals exists who consider that it is their right to rob you unhindered. If you thwart their wicked desires, to their way of thinking you have stolen from them and are evil. There's honest and dishonest corruption in this country. Don't enjoy it too much for it's what we love that usually kills us. The good guys don't always win wars but the winners always make sure that they go down in history as the good guys. The Philippines is like a woman. You love her and hate her at the same time. I never believed in all my born days that ideas of truth and justice were only pretty words to brighten a much darker and more ubiquitous reality. The girl was experiencing the first flushes of love while Rick was at least feeling the methadone equivalent. Although selfishness and greed are more ephemeral than the real values of life their effects on the world often outlive their origins. Miriam's a meteor job. Somewhere out there in space there must be a meteor with her name on it. Tsismis or rumours grow in this land like tropical weeds. Surprises are so common here that nothing is surprising. A crooked leader who can lead is better than a crooked one who can't. Although I always followed the politics of Hitler I emulate the drinking habits of Churchill. It [Australia] is the country that does the least with the most. Rereading the brief lines that told the story in the manner of Fox News reporting the death of a leftist Rick's dark imagination took hold. Didn't your mother ever tell you never to trust a man who doesn't drink? She must have been around twenty years old, was tall for a Filipina and possessed long black hair framing her smooth olive face. This specter of loveliness walked with the assurance of the knowingly beautiful. Her crisp and starched white uniform dazzled in the late-afternoon light and highlighted the natural tan of her skin. Everything about her was in perfect order. In short, she was dressed up like a pox doctor’s clerk. Suddenly, she stopped, turned her head to one side and spat comprehensively into the street. The tiny putrescent puddle contrasted strongly with the studied aplomb of its all-too-recent owner, suggesting all manner of disease and decay.

Humans didn’t really fight over skin tone or ideology; those were just handy cues for kin-selection purposes. Ultimately it always came down to bloodlines and limited resources.

Melanin is an incomparable beauty. From the lightest to the darkest skin tone, Black women and Black girls are exquisite beauty in every shade. Yes, Black females have that special something that just can’t be ignored. We are Melanin Queens, beautifully created! Respect the complexion.

Black Girls… Beautiful in EVERY shade and size. We’ve got that special something! Our melanin is exquisitely beautiful! Love & embrace the skin that you’re in. Our skin tones represent beauty. Light, brown, and dark skinned girls are equally gorgeous!

Gently, I ran my hand across his chest, exploring it. My breath felt tight in my throat. He was so beautiful. His muscles were toned, defined, his skin warm and smooth. Stroking my palm up over the line of his collarbone, I felt the firmness of his shoulder, the strength of his bicep. I traced my fingers over the black AK, following the lines of the letters. Alex hardly moved as I touched him, his eyes never leaving me. Finally I sighed and dropped my hand. I tried to smile. "I've sort of been wanting to do that ever since that first night in the motel room," I admitted.

Love was feeling the person everywhere, under your skin, in every strand of your hair, in your heart, in your bones, in the tone of your voice when you said their name. Love wasn’t always about being with the person, it was feeling that your world was better just because they lived. Even if you weren’t ever going to be together, he was the air you breathed, invisible but everywhere.

Do you know how I knew the Fates made you for me?” His voice was a hoarse whisper, a tone he used in the darkness of their room after they made love. Persephone shook her head slowly, ensnared by his gaze. “I could taste it on your skin, and the only thing I regret is that I have lived so long without you.

Mia: I was sixteen when I first realized my mom was more concerned about my appearance than I was… I’ll be talking to my mom and realize she hasn’t heard a word because she’s studying my face to see if the foundation I’m using is a good match for my skin tone.

just because someone has pretty hair and good skin tone and a crown instead of a pointy hat doesn’t mean she’s not the baddest bitch this side of the Emerald City.

I felt my hand curl into a fist. Felt my elbow draw back. Felt my arm dart forward, my knuckles crack into Cole's jaw. I couldn't stop myself. His head whipped to the side, and blood leaked from a cut in his lip. Behind me, gasps of shock abounded. "I'm recovered," I said. "Believe me now?" Those violet eyes slitted when they found me. "Assault and battery is illegal." "So have me arrested." He closed what little distance there was between us. Suddenly I could feel his warmth of his breath caressing my skin. "How about I put you over my lap and spank you instead?" "How about I knee your balls into your throat?" "If you're going to play with that particular area, I'd rather you use your hands." "My hands aren't going near that area ever again." A pause. Then, "I bet I could change your mind," he whispered huskily. "I bet I could bash yours." I drew back another fist, but he was ready and caught me midswing. His pupils dilated, a sign of arousal. Another sign: he began to pant. He was acting like I'd tried to unbuckle his jeans rather than smack fire out of him. "Hit me again," he said, still using the same whispered tone, "and I'll take it as an invitation." I was just as bad. I trembled with longing I couldn't control and struggled to catch my breath. "An invitation to do what?" His grip loosened, his fingers rubbing my skin. A caress, not a warning. "I guess we'll find out together.

Black women were beautifully created at birth. We were blessed with melanin in our skin, which makes us Exquisitely Beautiful. From the lightest to the darkest skin tone, our melanin is Fiercely Poppin’ on Purpose. There’s no denying it, a Black woman’s beauty is elegant! We are Black Queens... Uniquely perfect, flaws and all!

They let you drive now?" he said in a wondering tone of voice calibrated to get under her skin. "I leave for a couple of years and miss kitty's first steps. Did anyone take photos for the baby album I sent you?" "It's full of pretty pictures." Holly bared her teeth at him in a caricature of a smile. "Honor is a little concerned about how I keep drawing you with your head cut off," she said in a deliberately thoughtful tone, "but an artist must follow her instincts.

What is it? For what do you scheme? Ethine's death would weigh on you and the stain of her blood would seep into your skin" "Do you know what they wish for when they give you the Unseelie crown?" Roiben's tone was soft, like he was telling a secret. Kaye could barely catch his words. "That you be made of ice. What makes you think it matters what I feel? What makes you think I feel anything at all?

Your brain is involved in everything you do. Your brain controls everything you do, feel, and think. When you look in the mirror, you can thank your brain for what you see. Ultimately, it is your brain that determines whether your belly bulges over your belt buckle or your waistline is trim and toned. Your brain plays the central role in whether your skin looks fresh and dewy or is etched with wrinkles. Whether you wake up feeling energetic or groggy depends on your brain. When you head to the kitchen to make breakfast, it is your brain that determines whether you go for the leftover pizza or the low-fat yogurt and fruit. Your brain controls whether you hit the gym or sit at the computer to check your Facebook page. If you feel the need to light up a cigarette or drink a couple cups of java, that's also your brain's doing.ACTION STEP Remember that your brain is involved in everything you do, every decision you make, every bite of food you take, every cigarette you smoke, every worrisome thought you have, every workout you skip, every alcoholic beverage you drink, and more.

The word was out that maybe, just maybe, a British accent would fit. The hair, the skin tone and the bridgework would have to be up to American network standards, but there had been a lot of British accents up there thanking their mothers for their Oscars, a lot of British accents singing on Broadway, and some unusually big audiences tuning in to British accents in wig on Masterpiece Theatre.

Beauty was all around them. Unsuspected tintings glimmered in the dark demesnes of the woods and glowed in their alluring by-ways. The spring sunshine sifted through the young green leaves. Gay trills of song were everywhere. There were little hollows where you felt as if you were bathing in a pool of liquid gold. At every turn some fresh spring scent struck their faces: Spice ferns...fir balsam...the wholesome odour of newly ploughed fields. There was a lane curtained with wild-cherry blossoms; a grassy old field full of tiny spruce trees just starting in life and looking like elvish things that had sat down among the grasses; brooks not yet "too broad for leaping"; starflowers under the firs; sheets of curly young ferns; and a birch tree whence someone had torn away the white-skin wrapper in several places, exposing the tints of the bark below-tints ranging from purest creamy white, through exquisite golden tones, growing deeper and deeper until the inmost layer revealed the deepest, richest brown as if to tell tha all birches, so maiden-like and cool exteriorly, had yet warm-hued feelings; "the primeval fire of earth at their hearts.

They were staggered to learn that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married to their own flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that divorce may not always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not bear any special and guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical authorities outside of the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet not died in the gutter; that the capitalistic system of distribution and the Baptist wedding-ceremony were not known in the Garden of Eden; that mushrooms are as edible as corn-beef hash; that the word "dude" is no longer frequently used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that some persons of apparent intelligence and business ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a universal custom to wear scratchy flannels next the skin in winter; that a violin is not inherently more immoral than a chapel organ; that some poets do not have long hair; and that Jews are not always peddlers or pants-makers. "Where does she get all them theories?" marveled Uncle Whittier Smail; while Aunt Bessie inquired, "Do you suppose there's many folks got notions like hers? My! If there are," and her tone settled the fact that there were not, "I just don't know what the world's coming to!

The women here are so white,” Rin marveled. “Like the girls in wall paintings.” The skin tones she observed from the caravan had moved up the color gradient the farther north they drove. She knew that the people of the northern provinces were industrialists and businessmen. They were citizens of class and means; they didn’t labor in the fields like Tikany’s farmers did. But she hadn’t expected the differences to be this pronounced. “They’re pale as their corpses will be,” Tutor Feyrik said dismissively. “They’re terrified of the sun.

You are not just white, but a rainbow of colors. You are not just black, but golden. You are not just a nationality, but a citizen of the world. You are not just for the right or left, but for what is right over the wrong. You are not just rich or poor, but always wealthy in the mind and heart. You are not perfect, but flawed. You are flawed, but you are just. You may just be human, but you are also a magnificent reflection of God.

Watch,” he rasped, fluttering his mouth along her neck. “Watch what?” “Us. In the mirror.” Julia opened her eyes and saw the mirror mounted on the wall on the other side of the room. Somehow, it was perfectly positioned to reflect her husband’s magnificent and naked back and the dark-haired woman who was hidden by his body. (...) She’d never seen what they looked like together. His body long and lean, hers smaller and softer. Their skin had different tones—he was darker while she was fair.

I was ten when I heard the music that ended the first phase of my life and cast me hurtling towards a new horizon. Drenched to the skin, I stood on Dunoon’s pier peering seawards through diagonal rain, looking for the ferry that would take me home. There, on the everwet west coast of Scotland, I heard it: like sonic scalpels, the sounds of electric guitars sliced through the dreich weather. My body hairs pricked up like antennae. To my young ears these amplified guitars sounded angelic, for surely no man-made instrument could produce that tone. The singer couldn't be human. His voice was too clean, too pure, too resonant, as though a robot larynx were piping words through vocal chords of polished silver. The overall effect was intoxicating - a storm of drums, earthquake bass, razor-sharp guitar riffs, and soaring vocals of astonishing clarity. I knew that I was hearing the future.

I had to admit there was one good thing about staying in the south. Instead of being the only person with tan skin, I finally looked as if I belonged. Living in the north with the pale-skinned Ixians for so long, though, had not prepared me for such a variety of brown skin tones. Much to my embarrassment, I had found myself gawking at the deeper mahogany skin colors when we first entered Sitia.

No, I’m NOT Team Light Skin. No, I’m NOT Team Dark Skin. No, I’m NOT Team Brown Skin. I’m Team Melanin because we are one! I’m a Black Queen that celebrates ALL shades of Black beauty. Black women and Black girls are equally beautiful in EVERY shade. Our skin tones are Exquisite Beauty. Respect the complexion!

This ride is spectacular! Right, Morpheus? Just like flying, right?” He tenses next to me, trying to hide his panic. I glance at him and he’s practically green; even the jewels beneath his skin flash a putrid, sickly tone. “What’s the matter? Stomach a little kicky? Didn’t you always say it’s the kicks that let you know you’re alive?

In the variety of the tone of her words, moods, hugs, kisses, brushes of the lips, and this night the upside-down kiss over the back of the chair with her dark eyes heavy hanging and her blushing cheeks full of sweet blood and sudden tenderness brooding like a hawk over the boy over the back, holding the chair on both sides, just an instant, the startling sudden sweet fall of her hair over my face and the soft downward brush of her lips, a moment's penetration of sweet lip flesh, a moment's drowned in thinking and kissing in it and praying and hoping and in the mouth of life when life is young to burn cool skin eye-blinking joy - I held her captured upside down, also for just a second, and savored the kiss which first had surprised me like a blind man's bluff so I didn't know really who was kissing me for the very first instant but now I knew and knew everything more than ever, as, grace-wise, she descended to me from the upper dark where I'd thought only cold could be and with all her heavy lips and breast in my neck and on my head and sudden fragrance of the night brought with her from the porch, of some 5 & 10 cheap perfumes of herself the little hungry scent of perspiration warm in her flesh like presciousness.

As he spoke, the edges of the clay man began shimmering, like air does in intense heat, and the lumpen form gradually became more manlike. "Something's happening!" I cried. I was paralyzed by shock and hope. "Please let it work. Come back, Vincent. You have to come back, I whispered, pleading. Red clay became olive-toned skin, and the bald head became waves of raven black hair. The face that Jules had carefully sculpted became a real nose and mouth and eyes, closed as if in sleep. But it lay there, still unmoving, until, focusing on the air just above, Bran yelled, "Come, bardia spirit, inhabit this body!" He made one final sweeping gesture, as if pulling the aura downward, and touching his fingers to the body's side. The eyes flew open and Vincent took a great gulping gasp, as if trying to swallow all of the oxygen in the room. "Vincent," I said, my heart in my throat. His eyes flew to mine. He reached toward me, and I took his hand and pressed it to my cheek. His skin was burning hot, like with a fever. I kissed his fingers, and his skin smelled like fire and rain-soaked earth. Like the boy I thought I would never touch again.

I… What are you doing " Mircea had run a hand through his waterfall of hair and now he was sliding those beautifully shaped hands down his chest to glide over his nipples. His torso was hairless and perfectly sculpted with toned muscles and a long waist. He followed the lines of his flat stomach to the low-slung border of his only remaining garment. His fingers lingered there sliding along that insubstantial barrier teasingly drawing my eyes to the line of dark hair that started below his navel and disappeared beneath the black silk. It was startling against the pale perfection of his skin and except for the faint pink of his nipples gave the only color to his upper body. "Doing dulceaţă " he asked innocently. "I am trying my best to seduce you.

One unexpected bonus of motherhood is the visual beauty. I am enchanted by the sights of my children, the tones of skin, the clear eyes, the grace, the curve of a hand and cheek, to see them racing across the back lawn in a certain slant of light.

Keep creating new chapters in your personal book and never stop re-inventing and perfecting yourself. Try new things. Pick up new hobbies and books. Travel and explore other cultures. Never stay in the same city or state for more than five years of your life. There are many heavens on earth waiting for you to discover. Seek out people with beautiful hearts and minds, not those with just beautiful style and bodies. The first kind will forever remain beautiful to you, while the other will grow stale and ugly. Learn a new language at least twice. Change your career at least thrice, and change your location often. Like all creatures in the wild, we were designed to keep moving. When a snake sheds its old skin, it becomes a more refined creature. Never stop refining and re-defining yourself. We are all beautiful instruments of God. He created many notes in music so we would not be stuck playing the same song. Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your journey and play on. Nobody will ever reach ultimate perfection in this lifetime, but trying to achieve it is a full-time job. Start now and don't stop. Make your book of life a musical. Never abandon obligations, but have fun leaving behind a colorful legacy. Never allow anybody to be the composer of your own destiny. Take control of your life, and never allow limitations implanted by society, tell you how your music is supposed to sound — or how your book is supposed to be written.

You should be wearing green," she said. "To match your eyes." "In case you never noticed, my eyes are gray." "Never mind that," she said, once again waving my words away. "That brown washes out your skin tone." Why was she so concerned about my clothing choices? That was completely unlike her. "I like to look washed out," I said dryly. "Otherwise people are intimidated by my glorious beauty.

So, Mulder,' Colton spoke in a mocking tone. 'What do you think? Look like the work of Little Green Men?' 'Gray,' Mulder said seriously. 'What?' Colton asked. 'Gray,' Mulder explained. You said green men. A Reticulan's skin tone is gray. They're known for their extraction of human livers due to a lack of iron in the Reticulian Galaxy.' Colton looked confused- as though he couldn't tell whether Mulder was joking. 'You can't be serious,' he said. 'Do you know how much liver and onions go for on Reticulum?' Mulder asked Colton.

Whiteness and white people make themselves pervasive yet think of themselves as separate. It is parental and condescending in tone—it invented the concept of race conferring upon itself—a freak genetic accident—the values of intelligence, advancement, beauty, whereby the lower the level of melanin in the body, the higher your place in the hierarchy, the lighter the skin tone, the closer you are to whiteness therefore the better, more beautiful you are regarded, the more suited to power you are. The simplicity of this belief is in tandem with its terrible violence.

There is no racism against white people. If you can turn on the tv and see people like you that's not racism. If you can have your favorite characters who are poc race changed to look like you then you don't face racism. If you don't think about Ferguson every single second because your race is being killed every hour, that's not racism. If you don't get called derogatory slurs because of your skin tone that's not racism. If you don't hate your body because of your race that's not racism. If you don't have to go through life knowing people will think of you as ugly or disgusting and hate you simply because your white that's not racism. You don't face racism for being white. Ya people can be jerks about it. But its not institutionalized. That's like saying you face discrimination for being straight. It's not a thing. You don't face racism. You might want to get over that

Dear Young Black Males, Show respect for our young sistas. They are young Queens, and you’re young Kings. Black is beautiful, period. If you’re one of those young men who put light-skinned women on a pedestal, but look down on dark-skinned young ladies, stop it! Black women come in all shades, and all black families have all shades within their families. It’s one thing to have a preference, and that’s okay, but don’t belittle the other. Respect, appreciate, and protect our sistas. In closing: We already have to deal with race related crap from other ethnic groups, so why add to it amongst our own? We need to build each other up and be united as one, no matter what our skin tone is. Don’t physically or mentally abuse your young Queen. Respect her just like you’d like your mother, grandmother, or sister to be respected by another male. There’s nothing attractive or cool about mistreating a woman. Nothing at all!

Anna?" "Yeah?" He pauses. "Never mind." "What?" "Nothing." But his tone is definitely not nothing. I turn to him, and his eyes are closed. His skin is pale and tired. "What?" I ask again,sitting up. St. Clair opens his eyes, noticing I've moved. He struggles,trying to sit up, too, and I help him. When I pull away, he clutches my hand to stop me. "I like you," he says. My body is rigid. "And I don't mean as a friend." It feels like I'm swallowing my tongue. "Uh. Um. What about-?" I pull my hand away from his. The weight of her name hangs heavy and unspoken. "It's not right.It hasn't been right, not since I met you." His eyes close again,and his body sways. He's drunk. He's just drunk. Calm down,Anna. He's drunk, and he's going through a crisis. There is NO WAY he knows what he's talking about right now. So what do I do? Oh my God, what am I supposed to do? "Do you like me?" St. Clair asks. And he looks at me with those big brown eyes-which,okay,are a bit red from the drinking and maybe from some crying-and my heart breaks. Yes,St. Clair.I like you. But I can't say it out loud, because he's my friend. And friends don't let other friends make drunken declarations and expect them to act upon them the next day. Then again...it's St. Clair. Beautiful, perfect,wonderful- And great.That's just great. He threw up on me.

The glistening colours around his eyes had actually spread out farther on his face, creating an incredibly fascinating montage of blacks, blues, purples, and, around the very edge, pinks. I found my eyes drawn to his unnatural skin tones in morbid curiosity. Besides my sick obsession with his bruises, when my eyes would meet his, the fluttering in my stomach would start up, along with my thumping heart. It was interesting that his face was hardly recognisable, but his hot gazes still gave me goose bumps.

You’re breaking my heart.” At the sound of Rider’s voice, I wheeled around, clutching my bag to my side. First thing I noticed was the faded Ravens emblem stretched over his broad chest, and then I forced my eyes up. The slight scruff along his jaw was gone. Nothing but smooth skin today. No notebook. Hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, a familiar, crooked grin pulled at Rider’s lips, causing the dimple in his right cheek to pop. He stepped forward, and my heart did a backflip as he dipped his chin. I felt his warm breath on the side of my cheek as he spoke. “You didn’t respond to my text last night,” he said, and there was a light, teasing tone I didn’t remember from before. “I thought maybe you didn’t realize it was me, but that would mean someone else would be texting you good-night and calling you Mouse. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

The takeaway message here, as Jablonski points out, is that there is no such thing as different races of humans. Any differences we traditionally associate with race are a product of our need for vitamin D and our relationship to the Sun. Just a few clusters of genes control skin color; the changes in skin color are recent; they’ve gone back and forth with migrations; they are not the same even among two groups with similarly dark skin; and they are tiny compared to the total human genome. So skin color and “race” are neither significant nor consistent defining traits. We all descended from the same African ancestors, with little genetic separation from each other. The different colors or tones of skin are the result of an evolutionary response to ultraviolet light in local environments. Everybody has brown skin tinted by the pigment melanin. Some people have light brown skin. Some people have dark brown skin. But we all are brown, brown, brown.

In a vast space left free between the crowd and the fire, a young girl was dancing. Whether this young girl was a human being, a fairy, or an angel, is what Gringoire, sceptical philosopher and ironical poet that he was, could not decide at the first moment, so fascinated was he by this dazzling vision. She was not tall, though she seemed so, so boldly did her slender form dart about. She was swarthy of complexion, but one divined that, by day, her skin must possess that beautiful golden tone of the Andalusians and the Roman women. Her little foot, too, was Andalusian, for it was both pinched and at ease in its graceful shoe. She danced, she turned, she whirled rapidly about on an old Persian rug, spread negligently under her feet; and each time that her radiant face passed before you, as she whirled, her great black eyes darted a flash of lightning at you. All around her, all glances were riveted, all mouths open; and, in fact, when she danced thus, to the humming of the Basque tambourine, which her two pure, rounded arms raised above her head, slender, frail and vivacious as a wasp, with her corsage of gold without a fold, her variegated gown puffing out, her bare shoulders, her delicate limbs, which her petticoat revealed at times, her black hair, her eyes of flame, she was a supernatural creature.

The skins matched all the tones of chocolate, coffee and wood. There were many white suits and dresses, and many of those flowered dresses which in the realm of printed dresses stand in the same relation as the old paintings of flowers and fruit done by maiden aunts to a Matisse, or a Braque.

Ranger was in his usual black—a perfectly tailored black suit, and a black dress shirt open at the neck. The Glock at the small of his back was also black. Ranger’s body is perfect. His hair is very dark brown. Cut short. His eyes are dark brown and intense. His skin is the color of hot chocolate, the lucky result of his Latino ancestry. His earbud matched his skin tone and was barely detectable.

When my skin had gone back to its even tone I slept with another man and discovered, my hands lying awkwardly on the sheet at either side of me, that I had forgotten what to do with them. I'm responsible and an adult again, full time. What remains is that my sensation thermostat has been thrown out of whack; it's been years and sometimes I wonder whether my body will ever again register above lukewarm.

Neil studied his face, looking for a hint of the earlier fathomless anger and finding nothing. Despite Andrew's unfriendly words, his expression and tone were calm. He said these things like they meant nothing to him. Neil didn't know if it was a mask or the truth. Was Andrew hiding that rage from Neil or from himself? Maybe the monster was buried where neither of them could find it until Neil crossed another unforgivable line. "Good," Neil said at length. Tugging a sleeping dragon's tail sounded like a good way to die a painful death, but Neil would be dead before Andrew's protection wore off. "I want to see you lose control." Andrew went still with his hand halfway to the vodka. "Last year you wanted to live. Now you seem hell-bent on getting killed. If I felt like playing another round with you right now, I would ask why you've had a change of heart. As it stands, I've had enough of your stupidity to last me a week. Go back inside and bother the others now." Neil feigned confusion as he got to his feet. "Am I bothering you?" "Beyond the telling." "Interesting," Neil said. "Last week you said nothing gets under your skin.

Drink this.” “Um, how ‘bout no,” I replied, staring at the dark green contents. Whatever the liquid was, it smelled like pine trees and dirt, and seeing how this woman was Izzy’s mom, I figured it was poisoned. But Aislinn just shrugged. “Don’t, then. No skin off my nose if your head hurts.” “It’s okay,” Mom said, never taking her eyes off Aislinn. “It’ll make you feel better.” “By making me dead?” I asked. “I mean, I’m sure that would make my headache go away, but that’s a heck of a side effect.” “Sophie,” Mom murmured, a warning tone in her voice. But Aislinn just regarded me shrewdly, a tiny smile playing on her lips. “She’s got a mouth on her, that’s for sure,” she said. Her eyes flicked to Mom. “Must’ve gotten that from him. You were always quiet.

From invisible girlhood, the Asian American woman will blossom into a fetish object. When she is at last visible—at last desired—she realizes much to her chagrin that this desire for her is treated like a perversion. This is most obvious in porn, where our murky desires are coldly isolated into categories in which white is the default and every other race is a sexual aberration. But the Asian woman is reminded every day that her attractiveness is a perversion, in instances ranging from skin-crawling Tinder messages (“I’d like to try my first Asian woman”) to microaggressions from white friends. I recall a white friend pointing out to me that Jewish men only dated Asian women because they wanted to find women who were the opposite of their pushy mothers. Implied in this tone-deaf complaint was her assumption that Asian women are docile and compliant. Well-meaning friends never failed to warn me, if a white guy was attracted to me, that he probably had an Asian fetish. The result: I distrusted my desirousness. My sexuality was a pathology. If anyone non-Asian liked me, there was something wrong with him.

Do you know how to kill a Freak with your bare hands? Can you skin and cook a rabbit? Do you know what wild plants you can eat? Would you be able to get yourself from the ruins where I was born all the way up north?” I shook my head, knowing the answer already. “In my world, lady, I’m already as good as I need to be, and I don’t like your tone.

You make out with a boy because he’s cute, but he has no substance, no words to offer you. His mouth tastes like stale beer and false promises. When he touches your chin, you offer your mouth up like a flower to to be plucked, all covered in red lipstick to attract his eye. When he reaches his hand down your shirt, he stops, hand on boob, and squeezes, like you’re a fruit he’s trying to juice. He doesn’t touch anything but skin, does not feel what’s within. In the morning, he texts you only to say, “I think I left the rest of my beer at your place, but it’s cool, you can drink it. Last night was fun.” You kiss a girl because she’s new. Because she’s different and you’re twenty two, trying something else out because it’s all failed before. After spending six weekends together, you call her, only to be answered by a harsh beep informing you that her number has been disconnected. You learn that success doesn’t come through experimenting with your sexuality, and you’re left with a mouth full of ruin and more evidence that you are out of tune. You fall for a boy who is so nice, you don’t think he can do any harm. When he mentions marriage and murder in the same sentence, you say, “Okay, okay, okay.” When you make a joke he does not laugh, but tilts his head and asks you how many drinks you’ve had in such a loving tone that you sober up immediately. He leaves bullet in your blood and disappears, saying, “Who wants a girl that’s filled with holes?” You find out that a med student does. He spots you reading in a bar and compliments you on the dust spilling from your mouth. When you see his black doctor’s bag posed loyally at his side, you ask him if he’s got the tools to fix a mangled nervous system. He smiles at you, all teeth, and tells you to come with him. In the back of his car, he covers you in teethmarks and says, “There, now don’t you feel whole again.” But all the incisions do is let more cold air into your bones. You wonder how many times you will collapse into ruins before you give up on rebuilding. You wonder if maybe you’d have more luck living amongst your rubble instead of looking for someone to repair it. The next time someone promises to flood you with light to erase your dark, you insist them you’re fine the way you are. They tell you there’s hope, that they had holes in their chest too, that they know how to patch them up. When they offer you a bottle in exchange for your mouth, you tell them you’re not looking for a way out. No, thank you, you tell them. Even though you are filled with ruins and rubble, you are as much your light as you are your dark.

[Author's Note:] When my grandmother came to the United States from Puerto Rico in the 1940s, she was a beautiful, glamorous woman from a wealthy family in the capital city, and the young bride of a dashing naval officer. She expected to be received as such. Instead, she found that people here had a very reductionist view of what it meant to be Puerto Rican, of what it meant to be Latinx. Everything about her confused her new neighbors: her skin tone, her hair, her accent, her notions. She wasn't what they expected a boricua to be. My grandmother spent much of her adult life in the States but didn't always feel welcome here. She resented the perpetual gringo misconceptions about her. She never got past that resentment, and the echoes of her indignation still have some peculiar manifestations in my family today. One of the symptoms is me. Always raging against a perceived slight, always fighting against ignorance in mainstream ideas about ethnicity and culture. I'm acutely aware that the people coming to our southern border are not one faceless brown mass but singular individuals, with stories and backgrounds and reasons for coming that are unique. I feel this awareness in my spine, in my DNA. So I hoped to present one of those unique personal stories - a work of fiction - as a way to honor the hundreds of thousands of stories we may never get to hear. And in so doing, I hope to create a pause where the reader may begin to individuate. When we see migrants on the news, we may remember: these people are people.

Wash, wash, wash. Tone, tone, tone. Strip the oil, then add an oil-free moisturizer to replace the oil. This is how we've been taught to care for our skin. It seems a little crazy when you see it in print, right? Take all that oil out and add chemicals to replace it. Nuts!

This distorted lens may lead someone studying human sexuality to ask: “Where are you on a spectrum from straight to gay?” This question would miss a pattern we found in our data suggesting that people's arousal systems are not bundled by the gender of whatever it is that turns them on: 4.5% of men find the naked male form aversive but penises arousing, while 6.7% of women find the female form arousing, but vaginas aversive. Using simplified community identifications like the gay-straight spectrum to investigate how and why arousal patterns develop is akin to studying historic human migration patterns by distributing a research survey asking respondents to report their position on a spectrum from “white” to “person of color.” Yes, “person of color,” like the concept of “gay,” is a useful moniker to understand the life experiences of a person, but a person’s place on a “white” to “person of color” spectrum tells us little about their ethnicity, just as a person’s place on a scale of gay to straight tells us little about their underlying arousal patterns. The old way of looking at arousal limits our ability to describe sexuality to a grey scale. We miss that there is no such thing as attraction to just “females,” but rather a vast array of arousal systems that react to stimuli our society typically associates with “females” including things like vaginas, breasts, the female form, a gait associated with a wider hip bone, soft skin, a higher tone of voice, the gender identity of female, a person dressed in “female” clothing, and female gender roles. Arousal from any one of these things correlates with the others, but this correlation is lighter than a gay-straight spectrum would imply. Our data shows it is the norm for a person to derive arousal from only a few of these stimuli sets and not others. Given this reality, human sexuality is not well captured by a single sexual spectrum. Moreover, contextualizing sexuality as a contrast between these communities and a societal “default” can obscure otherwise-glaring data points. Because we contrast “default” female sexuality against “other” groups, such as the gay community and the BDSM community, it is natural to assume that a “typical” woman is most likely to be very turned on by the sight of male genitalia or the naked male form and that she will be generally disinterested in dominance displays (because being gay and/or into BDSM would be considered atypical, a typical woman must be defined as the opposite of these “other,” atypical groups). Our data shows this is simply not the case. The average female is more likely to be very turned on by seeing a person act dominant in a sexual context than she is to be aroused by either male genitalia or the naked male form. The average woman is not defined by male-focused sexual attraction, but rather dominance-focused sexual attraction. This is one of those things that would have been blindingly obvious to anyone who ran a simple survey of arousal pathways in the general American population, but has been overlooked because society has come to define “default” sexuality not by what actually turns people on, but rather in contrast to that which groups historically thought of as “other.

Sup, guys,” Will said. “This is your new brother, Leo—um, what’s your last name?” “Valdez.” Leo looked around at the other campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from some big families, but he’d always just had his mom—until she died. Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Leo knew he’d never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming. None of them looked like the others—all different face types, skin tone, hair color, height. You’d never think, Hey, look, it’s the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn’t have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.

They powdered their wigs, too. One could choke on the arsnenic and talcum. I can't imagine it was good for the lungs of living, but one does what one must for fashion. At least the women weren't tottering around on five-inch heels, constantly in peril of berking bones." He paused a moment, then said, "What made it easier for vampires was that we lived by candlelight, lamplight - it makes everyone look healthier, even the sick. The harsh lights you favour now...well. Difficult. I heard that a few vampires have taken to those spray-tanning salons, to get the proper skin tones." -Myrnin

it wasn’t just in the comfort of my crochet corner that color blossomed. I began to notice color in other places again. I noticed the tone of a friend’s skin color because I wanted to make her a scarf and wanted to choose colors that would flatter her. I noticed the colors in the skirt of a passerby because I liked the pattern and wanted to create something similar. Before I knew it I was noticing the blue in the sky, the blue in my boyfriend’s eyes, in a way that I simply hadn’t noticed in a very, very long time.

She thumped her weapon (others might call it a cane, but he knew better) against the floor. “Fell off your horse?” “No, I—” “Tripped down the stairs? Dropped a bottle on your foot?” Her expression grew sly. “Or does it involve a woman?” He fought the urge to cross his arms. She was looking up at him with a bit of a smirk. She liked poking fun at her companions; she’d once told him that the best part of growing old was that she could say anything she wanted with impunity. He leaned down and said with great gravity, “Actually, I was stabbed by my valet.” It was, perhaps, the only time in his life he’d managed to stun her into silence. Her mouth fell open, her eyes grew wide, and he would have liked to have thought that she even went pale, but her skin had such an odd tone to begin with that it was hard to say. Then, after a moment of shock, she let out a bark of laughter and said, “No, really. What happened?” “Exactly as I said. I was stabbed.” He waited a moment, then added, “If we weren’t in the middle of a ballroom, I’d show you.” “You don’t say?” Now she was really interested. She leaned in, eyes alight with macabre curiosity. “Is it gruesome?” “It was,” he confirmed. She pressed her lips together, and her eyes narrowed as she asked, “And where is your valet now?” “At Chatteris House, likely nicking a glass of my best brandy.” She let out another one of her staccato barks of laughter.

The dancer...knows it takes Ten sacred years to learn one gesture Of the wind’s caress on the skin of water. Tonight, in the shadows of our dance, I tell my soul to grow quiet, Become lake, reflect unbroken moon. On the deepest part of the lake, A solitary fisher paddles his oars. At the shore, a woman in red sarong Sings: their longing walks on water.

For the first time in her life, Alba wanted to be beautiful. She regretted that the splendid women in her family had not bequeathed their attributes to her, that the only one who had, Rosa the Beautiful, had given her only the algae tones in her hair, which seemed more like a hairdresser's mistake then anything else. Miguel understood the source of her anxiety. He led her by the hand to the huge Venetian mirror that adorned one wall of their secret room, shook the dust from the cracked glass, and lit all the candles they had and arranged them around her. She stared at herself in the thousand pieces of the mirror. In the candlelight her skin was the unreal color of wax statues. Miguel began to caress her and she saw her face transformed in the kaleidoscope of the mirror, and she finally believed that she was the most beautiful woman in the universe because she was able to see herself with Miguel's eyes.

Lauren could smell the starch that kept Jared’s shirtfront crisp, which blended intoxicatingly with tobacco and champagne. When he spoke in confidential tones to the silly woman, Lauren could feel the vibration of his voice in his chest. The bank director’s wife moved away, and still Jared retained his possessive hold on her. His hand trembled slightly as his thumb moved upward and lightly stroked the side of her breast. Or did she only imagine it? Lauren thought she would die from the constriction in her chest that pounded up into her throat and sought release in a small moan. Another guest walked toward them. Slowly, reluctantly, the strong fingers were withdrawn, leaving behind an imprint on Lauren’s skin as scorching as a brand.

Constriction alters a person’s breathing, muscle tone, and posture in order to promote efficiency and strength. Blood vessels in the skin, extremities, and internal organs constrict so that more blood is available to the muscles, which are tensed and prepared to take defensive action. At the same time, the digestive system is inhibited. We may also feel numb and shut down.

The women we become after children, she typed, then stopped to adjust the angle of the paper....We change shape, she continued, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair, We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, persoective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and-look!-they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us. We live, We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet. We learn to look less in the mirror. We put our dry-clean-only clothes to the back of the wardrobe. Eventually we throw them away. We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above.' We give up smoking, we color our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming-pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind. We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry. We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours. We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls. We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold. We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight-seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.

I wanted her bones, her blood, her tissues, the sinews that bound her together. I would have held her to me though time had stripped away the tones and textures of her skin. I could have held her for a thousand years until the skeleton itself rubbed away to dust. What are you that makes me feel thus? Who are you for whom time has no meaning? In the heat of her hands I thought, this is the campfire that mocks the sun. This place will warm me, feed me and care for me. I will hold on to this pulse against other rhythms. The world will come and go in the tide of a day but here is her hand with my future in its palm.

It is certainly not impossible that my father would attempt to frighten me,” he said. “He did so many times in my youth. But he takes too great a risk here. I am his only heir. There is little point in winning an empire if one cannot launch a dynasty. With both his age and his past . . . performance, he is not foolish enough to believe he can father more sons. That is why I can get away with some degree of disrespect. Yet there is a limit, as I’ve learned. My sons could be his heirs as well as I could. He has threatened me with that when I am overtly impudent.” “Threatened you with what? Forcing you to father children? I’m hardly an expert in the matter, but my rudimentary knowledge of the process suggests that would be difficult.” She swore Gavril flushed. Impossible to tell with his skin tone, of course, but his expression said if he was a Northerner, he’d be as red as a summer plum.

A clatter of metal against the concrete made me look back. Liam had moved on from the car to a nearby pile of bikes that were tangled together like brambles. He picked through the frames and spokes and wheels, working carefully, trying to get down to whatever he'd seen under them.... "Do you actually know how to ride?" "Do I know how to ride?" Liam scoffed, leaning over the bike's seat so his face was inches from mine. His pale blue eyes were electric with his excitement; they sent a charge through me, sizzling the rest of the world into peaceful, quiet static. That last bit of distance must have been as unbearable to him as it was to me, because his fingers came down over where my hands rested on the busted leather seat. I felt his touch spread over my skin like late afternoon sunshine. His lips skimmed my cheek, his breath warm against my ear as he said in low, honeyed tones, "Not only can I ride, darlin', but I can give you a few pointers– "Hey, Hell's Angels!" Cole barked. "I didn't bring you in here to shop around for yourselves! Get your assess over here!" Liam expression clouded over as he pulled back, the fluttering excitement vanishing like a candle blown out. with a single breath. I must have looked as disappointed as I felt, letting out a small sound of irritation, because just like that he was smiling again as he tucked a loose strand of hair back over my ear. A softer, smaller smile than before, but one meant for me. It warmed me down to my bones.

I smiled as our hands pressed against one another in midair, as though we were pretending to touch through invisible glass. We managed a long stare before Jack finally blushed, retracting his hands. “How old are you, Jack Patrick?” “I turned fourteen this summer,” he said. I gave an impressed nod, indicating this was no small accomplishment. “Well you’re certainly old enough to know what you like.” Principal Deegan’s first-day speech came back to mind; I had to bite my lip not to jokingly add in, Am I right? “Here, let me give you some examples. Do you like it when girls wear lipstick?” He blushed and nodded. “Yeah.” His voice had an embarrassed tone, like he’d just made a vile confession. “Good—do you like lighter lipstick? Darker lipstick? Red?” I wanted to grab his hand again. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to slide my fingers beneath the desk and touch the bare skin of his leg. “Um,” he said. His hand began to scratch at his scalp. “Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.” I walked up to my desk and grabbed my purse and a box of Kleenex. “So what I’m wearing now is called fuchsia. Kind of a bright pink.” I sat and wiped it off, then took the fuchsia tube of lipstick out of my purse along with two others. “Okay, ready?” He nodded with sudden animation—we were about to play a game.

Raise your chin and bare your throat for me—now.” There was a demanding tone in his deep, growling voice she found it impossible to disobey. Tilting her head, she turned her face to the side and offered him her throat in a display of complete submission. Baird growled in approval and placed a hot, sucking kiss on the tender skin of her offered throat. “Mine,” Liv heard him mutter as he pulled her even closer, lapping at the sensitive place where her shoulder met her neck and thrusting against her. “Mine, Lilenta. Mine forever and always.” The possessive words and the heat in his voice should have sent Liv running but instead she felt a thrill go through her. The thrill of being cherished and cared for. The thrill of being owned. God, yes…I’m yours, Baird. Always and forever yours.

Er Lang examined his shoes in dismay. “You should have told me there was mud down here.” “Is that all you can say?” But I was glad, so glad to see him that I hugged him tightly. Despite his concern about his shoes, he didn’t seem to mind as I pressed my grimy face against his shoulder. “Last time it was a cemetery, and now the bottom of a well,” he remarked. “What were you doing anyway?” As I explained, his tone became icy. “So, you saved a murderer and let yourself be abandoned. Do you have some sort of death wish?” “Why are you so angry?” Pushing back his hat, I searched his face. It was a mistake, for faced with his unnerving good looks, I could only drop my eyes. “You might have broken your neck. Why can’t you leave these things to the proper authorities?” “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Incredibly, we were arguing again. “And where were you all this time? You could have sent me a message!” “How was I supposed to do that when you never left the house alone?” “But you could have come at any time. I was waiting for you!” Er Lang was incensed. “Is this the thanks I get?” If I had thought it through, I would never have done it. But I grasped the collar of his rope and pulled his face to mine. “Thank you,” I said, and kissed him. I meant to break away at once, but he caught me, his hand behind my head. “Are you going to complain about this?” he demanded. Wordlessly, I shook my head. My face reddened, remembering my awkward remarks about tongues last time. He must have recalled them as well, for he gave me an inscrutable look. “Open your mouth then.” “Why?” “I’m going to put my tongue in.” That he could joke at a time like this was really unbelievable. Despite my outrage, however, I flung myself into his arms. Half laughing, half furious, I pressed my mouth fiercely against his. He pinned me against the well shaft. The stone chilled my back through my wet clothes, but my skin burned where he held my wrists. Gasping, I could feel the heat of him as his tongue slipped inside. My pulse raced; my body trembled uncontrollably. There was only the hard pressure of his mouth, the slick thrust of his tongue. I wanted to cry, but no tears came. A river was melting in me, my core dissolving like wax in his arms. My ears hummed, I could only hear the rasping of our breaths, the hammering of my heart. A stifled moan escaped my lips. He gave a long sigh and broke away.

I still stared at Daemon, completely aware that everyone else except him was watching me. Closely. But why wouldn’t he look at me? A razor-sharp panic clawed at my insides. No. This couldn’t be happening. No way.
 My body was moving before I even knew what I was doing. From the corner of my eye, I saw Dee shake her head and one of the Luxen males step forward, but I was propelled by an inherent need to prove that my worst fears were not coming true. After all, he’d healed me, but then I thought of what Dee had said, of how Dee had behaved with me. What if Daemon was like her? Turned into something so foreign and cold? He would’ve healed me just to make sure he was okay. I still didn’t stop.
 Please, I thought over and over again. Please. Please. Please. On shaky legs, I crossed the long room, and even though Daemon hadn’t seemed to even acknowledge my existence, I walked right up to him, my hands trembling as I placed them on his chest. “Daemon?” I whispered, voice thick. His head whipped around, and he was suddenly staring down at me. Our gazes collided once more, and for a second I saw something so raw, so painful in those beautiful eyes. And then his large hands wrapped around my upper arms. The contact seared through the shirt I wore, branding my skin, and I thought—I expected—that he would pull me against him, that he would embrace me, and even though nothing would be all right, it would be better. Daemon’s hands spasmed around my arms, and I sucked in an unsteady breath. His eyes flashed an intense green as he physically lifted me away from him, setting me back down a good foot back. I stared at him, something deep in my chest cracking. “Daemon?” He said nothing as he let go, one finger at a time, it seemed, and his hands slid off my arms. He stepped back, returning his attention to the man behind the desk. “So . . . awkward,” murmured the redhead, smirking. I was rooted to the spot in which I stood, the sting of rejection burning through my skin, shredding my insides like I was nothing more than papier-mâché. “I think someone was expecting more of a reunion,” the Luxen male behind the desk said, his voice ringing with amusement. “What do you think, Daemon?” One shoulder rose in a negligent shrug. “I don’t think anything.” My mouth opened, but there were no words. His voice, his tone, wasn’t like his sister’s, but like it had been when we first met. He used to speak to me with barely leashed annoyance, where a thin veil of tolerance dripped from every word. The rift in my chest deepened.
For the hundredth time since the Luxen arrived, Sergeant Dasher’s warning came back to me. What side would Daemon and his family stand on? A shudder worked its way down my spine. I wrapped my arms around myself, unable to truly process what had just happened. “And you?" the man asked. When no one answered, he tried again. “Katy?” I was forced to look at him, and I wanted to shrink back from his stare. “What?” I was beyond caring that my voice broke on that one word. The man smiled as he walked around the desk. My gaze flickered over to Daemon as he shifted, drawing the attention of the beautiful redhead. “Were you expecting a more personal greeting?” he asked. “Perhaps something more intimate?” I had no idea how to answer. I felt like I’d fallen into the rabbit hole, and warnings were firing off left and right. Something primal inside me recognized that I was surrounded by predators. Completely.

The old woman smiled sweetly at Fermin. My friend stroked her face and her forehead. She appreciated the touch of another skin like a purring cat. I felt a lump in my throat. 'A stupid question, wasn't it?' Fermin went on. 'What you'd like is to be out there, dancing a foxtrot. You look like a dancer; everyone must tell you that.' I had never seen him treat anyone with such delicacy, not even Bernarda. His words were pure flattery, but the tone and expression on his face were sincere. 'What pretty things you say,' she murmured in a voice that was broken from not having had anyone to speak to or anything to say.

Absently, she brushed back some of the hair from her face, and she saw as Jaguar's eyes followed how the long strands slid across her throat. Though his dark skin did not show pallor as clearly as Lord Daryl's had, Turquoise could tell Jaguar had not fed yet, and she recognized the hungry look in his black eyes. Testing, she stood, the movement appearing reluctant. "I"ll leave you to your work if you'd like." He answered the way she had expected him to. Not raising his gaze from her throat, he said, "Come here." Though the words were an order, the tone left room for argument. For a moment, Turquoise almost felt guilty. She was intentionally manipulating him. A feeding vampire is an easy target; most of them completely lost sense of their surroundings as they drew blood. Jaguar did not even try to catch her mind as his lips fell to her throat. If she had been armed, it would have been revoltingly easy to kill him.

Make for yourself a world you can believe in. It sounds simple, I know. But it’s not. Listen, there are a million worlds you could make for yourself. Everyone you know has a completely different one—the woman in 5G, that cab driver over there, you. Sure, there are overlaps, but only in the details. Some people make their worlds around what they think reality is like. They convince themselves that they had nothing to do with their worlds’ creations or continuations. Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed souffles and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are. But you want to make for yourself a world that is deliberately and meticulously personalized. A theater for your life, if I could put it like that. Don’t live an accident. Don’t call a knife a knife. Live a life that has never been lived before, in which everything you experience is yours and only yours. Make accidents on purpose. Call a knife a name by which only you will recognize it. Now I’m not a very smart man, but I’m not a dumb one, either. So listen: If you can manage what I’ve told you, as I was never able to, you will give your life meaning.

Her tone changed from shocked to curious. “How was it? Was it… different?” Sarah bit her lip, ashamed to be gossiping but feeling the strong urge to tell. “Yes,” she confided. “He’s nothing like John. Nothing like him at all.” “Really? What was different? Did he…?” Grace waved a hand as though erasing a chalkboard. “Oh, forget it. I shouldn’t be asking this. But,” again her voice lowered, “is he tattooed everywhere?” Sarah knew it was wrong to talk about him like this, but her inner schoolgirl took over and she nodded, eager to share details. “He’s beautiful … like a stained glass window. And he’s really good with his … mouth.” She raised an eyebrow, giving Grace a significant look. Her friend gasped and giggled. “But isn’t it weird? Touching him?” “Skin is skin, Grace,” Sarah chided. “The tattoos are only on the surface, you know. He’s a man.” A sexy, vulnerable, intense, attractive, responsible, sweet, gentle and loving man.

No matter how awful it is to be sitting in this Terrible magazine office, and talking to this Circular-saw-voiced West side girl in a dirt- Stiff Marimekko and lavender glasses, and this Cake-bearded boy in short-rise Levi’s, and hearing The drip and rasp of their tones on the softening Stone of my brain, and losing The thread of their circular words, and looking Out through their faces and soot on the window to Winter in University Place, where a blue- Faced man, made of rags and old newspapers, faces A horrible grill, looking in at the food and the faces It disappears into, and feeling, Perhaps, for the first time in days, a hunger instead Of a thirst; where two young girls in peacoats and hair As long as your arm and snow-sanded sandals Proceed to their hideout, a festering cold-water flat Animated by roaches, where their lovers, loafing in wait To warm and be warmed by brainless caresses, Stake out a state Of suspension; and where a black Cadillac 75 Stands by the curb to collect a collector of rents, Its owner, the owner of numberless tenement flats; And swivelling back To the editorial pad Of Chaos, a quarter-old quarterly of the arts, And its brotherly, sisterly staff, told hardly apart In their listlessly colored sackcloth, their ash-colored skins, Their resisterly sullenness, I suddenly think That no matter how awful it is, it’s better than it Would be to be dead. But who can be sure about that?

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

A paradisiacal lagoon lay below them. The water was an unbelievable, unreal turquoise, its surface so still that every feature of the bottom could be admired in magnified detail: colorful pebbles, bright red kelp, fish as pretty and colorful as the jungle birds. A waterfall on the far side fell softly from a height of at least twenty feet. A triple rainbow graced its frothy bottom. Large boulders stuck out of the water at seemingly random intervals, black and sun-warmed and extremely inviting, like they had been placed there on purpose by some ancient giant. And on these were the mermaids. Wendy gasped at their beauty. Their tails were all colors of the rainbow, somehow managing not to look tawdry or clownish. Deep royal blue, glittery emerald green, coral red, anemone purple. Slick and wet and as beautifully real as the salmon Wendy's father had once caught on holiday in Scotland. Shining and voluptuously alive. The mermaids were rather scandalously naked except for a few who wore carefully placed shells and starfish, although their hair did afford some measure of decorum as it trailed down their torsos. Their locks were long and thick and sinuous and mostly the same shades as their tails. Some had very tightly coiled curls, some had braids. Some had decorated their tresses with limpets and bright hibiscus flowers. Their "human" skins were familiar tones: dark brown to pale white, pink and beige and golden and everything in between. Their eyes were also familiar eye colors but strangely clear and flat. Either depthless or extremely shallow depending on how one stared. They sang, they brushed their hair, they played in the water. In short, they did everything mythical and magical mermaids were supposed to do, laughing and splashing as they did. "Oh!" Wendy whispered. "They're-" And then she stopped. Tinker Bell was giving her a funny look. An unhappy funny look. The mermaids were beautiful. Indescribably, perfectly beautiful. They glowed and were radiant and seemed to suck up every ray of sun and sparkle of water; Wendy found she had no interest looking anywhere else.

Feeling the slight tremor of his fingers against her skin, Daisy was emboldened to remark, “I’ve never been attracted to tall men before. But you make me feel—” “If you don’t keep quiet,” he interrupted curtly, “I’m going to strangle you.” Daisy felt silent, listening to the rhythm of his breath as it turned deeper, less controlled. By contrast his fingers became more certain in their task, working along the row of pearls until her dress gaped open and the sleeves slipped from her shoulders. “Where is it?” he asked. “The key?” His tone was deadly. “Yes, Daisy. The key.” “It fell inside my corset. Which means… I’ll have to take that off too.” There was no reaction to the statement, no sound or movement. Daisy twisted to glance at Matthew. He seemed dazed. His eyes looked unnaturally blue against the flush on his face. She realized he was occupied with a savage inner battle to keep from touching her. Feeling hot and prickly with embarrassment, Daisy pulled her arms completely out of her sleeves. She worked the dress over her hips, wriggling out of the filmy white layers, letting them slide to the floor in a heap. Matthew stared at the discarded dress as if it were some kind of exotic fauna he had never seen before. Slowly his eyes returned to Daisy, and an incoherent protest came from his throat as she began to unhook her corset. She felt shy and wicked, undressing in front of him. But she was encouraged by the way he seemed unable to tear his gaze from each newly revealed inch of pale skin. When the last metal hook came apart, she tossed the web of lace and stays to the floor. All that remained over her breasts was a crumpled chemise. The key had dropped into her lap. Closing her fingers around the metal object, she risked a cautious glance at Matthew. His eyes were closed, his forehead scored with furrows of pained concentration. “This isn’t going to happen,” he said, more to himself than to her. Daisy leaned forward to tuck the key into his coat pocket. Gripping the hem of her chemise, she stripped it over her head. A tingling shock chased over her naked upper body. She was so nervous that her teeth had begun to chatter. “I just took my chemise off,” she said. “Don’t you want to look?” “No.” But his eyes had opened, and his gaze found her small, pink-tipped breasts, and the breath hissed through his clenched teeth. He sat without moving, staring at her as she untied his cravat and unbuttoned the layers of his waistcoat and shirt. She blushed everywhere but continued doggedly, rising to her knees to tug the coat from his shoulders. He moved like a dreamer, slowly pulling his arms from the coat sleeves and waistcoat. Daisy pushed his shirt open with awkward determination, her gaze drinking in the sight of his chest and torso. His skin gleamed like heavy satin, stretched taut over broad expanses of muscle. She touched the powerful vault of his ribs, trailing her fingertips to the rippled tautness of his midriff. Suddenly Matthew caught her hand, seemingly undecided whether to push it away or press it closer. Her fingers curled over his. She stared into his dilated blue eyes. “Matthew,” she whispered. “I’m here. I’m yours. I want to do everything you’ve ever imagined doing with me.” He stopped breathing. His will foundered and collapsed, and suddenly nothing mattered except the demands of a desire that had been denied too long. With a rough groan of surrender, he lifted her onto his lap.

How is she already asleep?” Sully whispers. “At home she stays up until like two a.m.” “She probably was tired,” Church whispers back. “What, from climbing a hill?” Church doesn’t respond. They get into their sleeping bags and whisper for half an hour about the outdoor soccer season about to start. I hadn’t even realized the indoor season was over—Mom and Dad just told me when I needed to take them to practice or pick them up. I didn’t know how they’d done. Were there any tournaments? Trophies? After a long stretch of silence, Sully says, “So did you really try out for the spring musical?” Church doesn’t respond for a second. “Yes. Why?” “Just wondering. Why didn’t you tell me?” “Because you would have made it about Macy Garrison.” “It—it’s not?” “No.” “Oh. But you’re not going to try out forchoir?” “Maybe.” “Why?” Just the smallest bit of mocking enters Sully’s tone. “Because I like it,” Church snaps back. “We don’t have to do all the same things. Try out for mathletes or something. You like math. You’d be good at it.” “Mathletes is for nerds.” “Sull, there’s something you should know.” “Don’t say it.” “You are a nerd.” “I’m not a nerd. Eliza’s a nerd.” “Actually, I think Eliza’s a geek. I’ve seen her grades. Compared to us, she’s horrible at school.” “You’re a nerd for knowing the difference.” “That’s fine.” Sully makes no sound, but I can feel him fuming in the darkness. I didn’t know Church could get under Sully’s skin so easily. I didn’t know Sully liked math. I didn’t know either of them were that good at school. I didn’t know Church already knew he was good at singing . . . or that he was interested in musical theater. I’ve been living with them their whole lives, but until right now, they’ve felt like strangers

Stop,” Jesse said. I stared up at him, almost panting with fear. “Stop, beloved,” he said more gently, and took up my clenched fist with both hands. “I’ve upset you, and I shouldn’t have. I don’t want you to dread yourself. I don’t want you to dread what is to come. Like I said, you’re exceptional, so there may be nothing to worry about at all. But whatever happens, whatever you face, I’ll face it with you. Do you hear?” “How can you say it? It nearly happened on the roof today. You can’t know-“ “I will be with you. We’re together now, and the universe knows I won’t let you make your sacrifice alone. Dragon protects star. Star adores dragon. An age-old axiom. Simple as that.” I looked down at our hands, both of his curled over mine. I unclenched my fist. Blood from the thorn smeared my skin. “The universe,” I muttered. “The same universe that has produced the Kaiser and bedbugs and Chloe Pemington. How reassuring.” With the same absolute concentration he might have shown for turning flowers into gold, Jesse Holms smoothed out my fingers between his, wiping away the blood. He turned my hand over and lifted it to his lips. His next words fell soft as velvet into the heart of my palm. “Those nights, in the sweetest dark, we shared our dreams. That’s you answer. I was stitched into yours, and you were stitched into mind, and that was real, I promise you.” I felt his lips curve into a smile. The unbelievably sensual, ticklish scuff of his whiskers. “Very good dreams they were, too,” he added. It was no use trying to cling to mortification or fear. He was holding my hand. He was smiling at me past the cup of my fingers, and although I couldn’t see it, the shape of it against my skin was beyond tantalizing, rough and masculine. I was a creature gone hot and cold and light-headed with pleasure. I wanted to snatch back my hand and I wanted him to go on touching me like this forever. I wanted to walk with him back to his cottage, to his bed, and to hell with the Germans and school and all the rest of the world. But he looked up suddenly. “They’re searching for you,” he said, releasing me at once, moving away. They were. I heard my name being called by a variety of voices in a variety of tones, all of them still inside the castle, none of them sounding happy. “Go on.” With a few quick steps, Jesse was less than a shadow, retreating into the black wall of the woods. “Don’t get into trouble. And, Lora?” “Yes?” There was hushed laughter in his voice. “Until we can see each other again, do us both a favor. Keep away from rooftops.

He glanced down at her, keeping his expression carefully impassive. “I hate to leave you.” There was a gently mocking edge to his tone. “You need someone to follow you around and keep you safe from mishaps. On the other hand, you also need someone to find a beekeeper.” Realizing he was not going to talk about Leo, Amelia followed his lead. “Will you do that for us? I would consider it a great favor.” “Of course. Although…” His eyes held a wicked glitter. “As I mentioned before, I can’t keep doing favors for you with no reward. A man needs incentive.” “If … if you want money, I’ll be glad to—” “God, no.” Rohan was laughing now. “I don’t want money.” Reaching out, he smoothed back her hair, letting the heel of his hand graze the edge of her cheekbone. The brush of his skin was light and erotic, causing her to swallow hard. “Goodbye, Miss Hathaway. I’ll see myself out.” He flashed a smile at her and advised, “Stay away from the windows.” On the way down the stairs, Rohan passed Merripen, who was ascending at a measured pace. Merripen’s face darkened at the sight of the visitor. “What are you doing here?” “It seems I’m helping with pest eradication.” “Then you can begin by leaving,” Merripen growled. Rohan only grinned nonchalantly, and continued on his way.

...Women have preserved this `baby look' for as long as possible so as to make the world continue to believe in the darling, sweet little girl she once was, and she relies on the protective instinct in man to make him take care of her. As with everything a woman undertakes on her own initiative, this whole maneuvre is as incredible as it is stupid. It is amazing, in fact, that it succeeds. It would appear very shortsighted to encourage such an ideal of beauty. For how can any woman hope to maintain it beyond the age of twenty-five? Despite every trick of the cosmetics industry, despite magazine advice against thinking or laughing (both tend to create wrinkles), her actual age will inevitably show'- through in the end. And what on earth is a man to do with a grown-up face when he has been manipulated into considering only helpless, appealing little girls to be creatures of beauty? What is a men to do with a woman when the smooth curves have become flabby tires of flesh, the skin slack and pallid, when the childish tones have grown shrill and the laughter sounds like neighing? What is to become of this shrew when her face no longer atones for her ceaseless inanities and when the cries of `Ooh' and Ah' begin to drive him out of his mind? This mummified `child' will never fire a man's erotic fantasy again. One might think her power broken at last. But no, she still manages to get her own way - and for two reasons. The first is obvious: she now has children, who enable her to continue feigning helplessness. As for the second - there are simply not enough young women to go around. It is a safe bet that, given the choice, man would trade in his grown-up child-wife for a younger model, but, as the ratio between the sexes is roughly equal, not every man can have a younger woman. And as he has to have a wife of some sort. he prefers to keep the one he already possesses. This is easy to prove. Given the choice, a man will always choose a younger woman.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room. Winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movement, something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed. But the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organized plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us. "You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor. Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. "We have learnt something… much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us. He fears time, he fears want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of the wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he returns.

Chapter 28 Genghis Cat Gracing Whatever Shithole This Is, Washington, USA You can all relax now, because I am here. What did you think? I’d run for safety at the whim of a fucking parrot with under-eye bags like pinched scrotums? Did you suspect I—a ninja with feather-wand fastness and laser-pointer focus—had the spine of a banana slug? Then you are a shit-toned oink with the senses of a sniveling salamander. Then you don’t know Genghis Cat. I look around and can see that we are surrounded by The Bird Beasts, those crepe-faced, hair ball–brained fuck goblins. I intensely dislike these lumpy whatthefuckareyous who straddle between the Mediocre Servant and animal worlds, trying to be one thing and really not being, like imitation crabmeat in a sushi log that is really just fucking whitefish and WE ALL KNOW IT. “Would you like a little of the crabmeat, Genghis?” my Mediocre Servants seemed to ask with their blobfish lips and stupid faces. “THAT’S FUCKING WHITEFISH, YOU REGURGITATED MOLES!” I’d yowl, and then I’d steal the sushi log and run off and growl very much so they couldn’t have it back, and later I would pee on their night pillows for good measure. I cannot imagine their lives before me. We mustn’t think of those bleak dark ages. But the Beasts are dangerous. I have watched them morph and chew into a house. I have seen them with spider legs and second stomachs and camouflage skins. I have seen them tear the legs off a horse and steal flight from those with feathers. Orange and I have lost family to their fuckish appetites. But they are still fakish faking beasts and I’m fucking Genghis Cat. They are imitation crab and Genghis is filet mignon Fancy Feast, bitch. Probably I should come clean here and tell you that I’m immortal. I always suspected it but can confirm it now that I have surpassed the allocated nine lives. I’m somewhere around life 884, give or take seventy-eight. Some mousers have called me a god, but I insist on modesty. I also don’t deny it. I might be a god. It seems to fit. It feels right. A stealthy, striped god with an exotically spotted tummy—it seems certain, doesn’t it to you? I’m 186 percent sure at this point. Orange insists we stay away from the Beasts all the time, but I only let Orange think he’s in charge. Orange is incredibly sensitive, despite being the size of a Winnebago. He hand-raised each of my kittens and has terrible nightmares, and I have to knead my paws on him to calm him down. Orange and I have a deal. I will kill anything that comes to harm Orange and Orange will continue to be the reason I purr.

I pulled at the knot again and heard threads begin to pop. “Allow me, Miss Jones,” said Armand, right at my back. There was no gracious way to refuse him. Not with Mrs. Westcliffe there, too. I exhaled and dropped my arms. I stared at the lotus petals in my painting as the new small twists and tugs of Armand’s hands rocked me back and forth. Jesse’s music began to reverberate somewhat more sharply than before. “There,” Armand said, soft near my ear. “Nearly got it.” “Most kind of you, my lord.” Mrs. Westcliffe’s voice was far more carrying. “Do you not agree, Miss Jones?” Her tone said I’d better. “Most kind,” I repeated. For some reason I felt him as a solid warmth behind me, behind all of me, even though only his knuckles made a gentle bumping against my spine. How blasted long could it take to unravel a knot? “Yes,” said Chloe unexpectedly. “Lord Armand is always a perfect gentleman, no matter who or what demands his attention.” “There,” the gentleman said, and at last his hands fell away. The front of the smock sagged loose. I shrugged out of it as fast as I could, wadding it up into a ball. “Excuse me.” I ducked a curtsy and began my escape to the hamper, but Mrs. Westcliffe cut me short. “A moment, Miss Jones. We require your presence.” I turned to face them. Armand was smiling his faint, cool smile. Mrs. Westcliffe looked as if she wished to fix me in some way. I raised a hand instinctively to my hair, trying to press it properly into place. “You have the honor of being invited to tea at the manor house,” the headmistress said. “To formally meet His Grace.” “Oh,” I said. “How marvelous.” I’d rather have a tooth pulled out. “Indeed. Lord Armand came himself to deliver the invitation.” “Least I could do,” said Armand. “It wasn’t far. This Saturday, if that’s all right.” “Um…” “I am certain Miss Jones will be pleased to cancel any other plans,” said Mrs. Westcliffe. “This Saturday?” Unlike me, Chloe had not concealed an inch of ground. “Why, Mandy! That’s the day you promised we’d play lawn tennis.” He cocked a brow at her, and I knew right then that she was lying and that she knew that he knew. She sent him a melting smile. “Isn’t it, my lord?” “I must have forgotten,” he said. “Well, but we cannot disappoint the duke, can we?” “No, indeed,” interjected Mrs. Westcliffe. “So I suppose you’ll have to come along to the tea instead, Chloe.” “Very well. If you insist.” He didn’t insist. He did, however, sweep her a very deep bow and then another to the headmistress. “And you, too, Mrs. Westcliffe. Naturally. The duke always remarks upon your excellent company.” “Most kind,” she said again, and actually blushed. Armand looked dead at me. There was that challenge behind his gaze, that one I’d first glimpsed at the train station. “We find ourselves in harmony, then. I shall see you in a few days, Miss Jones.” I tightened my fingers into the wad of the smock and forced my lips into an upward curve. He smiled back at me, that cold smile that said plainly he wasn’t duped for a moment. I did not get a bow. Jesse was at the hamper when I went to toss in the smock. Before I could, he took it from me, eyes cast downward, no words. Our fingers brushed beneath the cloth. That fleeting glide of his skin against mine. The sensation of hardened calluses stroking me, tender and rough at once. The sweet, strong pleasure that spiked through me, brief as it was. That had been on purpose. I was sure of it.

Reagan,” he breathed and my chest swelled from the pure devotion of my name on his lips. I waited for him to say more but for a while he was just silent and serious. Finally, a small smirk played at the corners of his lips and in a lighter tone, he said, “It was close today, though, wasn’t it?” “Yes,” I agreed. He seemed to gather confidence and said impishly, “Makes you realize what you could have lost.” I nodded but didn’t speak- I had been thinking that for hours now. “Makes you realize that you have things to do before you die.” I laughed a little at that. I had given up all those dreams a long time ago, and I was surprised Hendrix hadn’t too. “Like what? Go sky-diving?” Without missing a beat, without taking his eyes off me, or changing his reverent tone he said, “Like kiss you.” And his soft lips were on mine and I stopped breathing. Sensation and desire flooded me as his mouth moved over mine- consuming me, breaking me, making me whole again. His beard scratched and tickled my face but I reveled in the feel of his body moving against mine. His tongue swept across my bottom lip and I opened my mouth on instinct. His lips were so perfect they were otherworldly, they didn’t even belong in the dark world we lived in. Nothing this amazing did. And yet here he was. With me. He deepened the kiss and I felt him everywhere. I felt his hands as they clutched my waist and dragged me against his firm, unyielding body. I felt his body heat as he drew me into him and wrapped his arms around me. I felt his tongue, the hot wetness of his mouth, his beard as it abraded my skin. I felt his happiness call to mine, his soul drink mine in, his essence consume me until I was entirely captivated by him and his kiss.

Hey, that's weird," Chloe says. "You both have the same color eyes as Emma. I've never seen that before. I always thought it was because she's freakishly pasty. Ow! That's gonna leave a mark, Emma," she says, rubbing her freshly pinched biceps. "Good, I hope it does," I snap. I want to ask them about their eyes-the color seems prettier set against the olive tone of Galen's skin-but Chloe has bludgeoned my chances of recovering from embarrassment. I'll have to be satisfied that my dad-and Google-were wrong all this time; my eye color just can't be that rare. Sure, my dad practiced medicine until the day he died two years ago. And sure, Google never let me down before. But who am I to argue with living, breathing proof that this eye color actually does exist? Nobody, that's who. Which is convenient, since I don't want to talk anymore. Don't want to force Galen into any more awkward conversations. Don't want to give Chloe any more opportunities to deepen the heat of my burning cheeks. I just want this moment of my life to be over. I push past Chloe and snatch up the surfboard. To her good credit, she presses herself against the rail as I pass her again. I stop in front of Galen and his sister. "It was nice to meet you both. Sorry I ran into you. Let's go, Chloe." Galen looks like he wants to say something, but I turn away. He's been a good sport, but I'm not interested in discussing swimmer safety-or being introduced to any more of his hostile relatives. Nothing he can say will change the fact that DNA from my cheek is smeared on his chest. Trying not to actually march, I thrust past them and make my way down the stairs leading to the pristine white sand. I hear Chloe closing the distance behind me, giggling. And I decide on sunflowers for her funeral.

Katarina wasn’t afraid of Baden. Not anymore. He took a step to the side, intending to move around her. Oh, no. She flattened her hands on his shoulders, keeping him in place. “I want to know what’s wrong with you.” She said. “Tell me.” He snapped his teeth at her in a show of dominance. “You think you want to know my problem. You’re wrong.” Her tone dry, she said, “I’m so glad you know my mind better than I do.” “Very well. I need sex.” He threw the words at her as if they were weapons. “Badly.” Whoa. Blindside! Heart pounding, she jerked her hands away from him. “Sex...from me?” “Yesss.” A hiss. “Only from you.” Only. Amazing how one little word could send pleasure soaring through her, warming her. “You told me never to touch you.” Which she’d just done, she realized. My bad. “I’ve changed my mind.” His gaze dropped, lingered on her lips. Burning her... “But you and I...we’re a different species.” As if that mattered to her body. Gimme!
 He took a step closer, invading her personal space. “We’ll fit, I promise you.”
 Tristo hrmenych! The raspy quality of his voice, all smoke and gravel...she shivered with longing. Must resist his allure. But...but...why? Before she’d committed to Peter, she’d dated around, had made out in movie theaters, cars and on couches. She’d liked kissing and touching and “riding the belt buckle,” as her friends had called it. Then, after committing to Peter, she’d gifted him with her virginity. At first, he hadn’t known what to do with her—he’d been just as inexperienced—and she’d left each encounter disappointed. When finally she’d gathered the courage to tell him what she wanted, he’d satisfied her well. She missed sex. But connection...intimacy...she thought she missed those more. The dogs barked, jolting her from her thoughts. They’d cleaned their food bowls, and now wanted to play. She clasped Baden’s hand to lead him out of the kennel. He jerked away, severing contact. One action. Tons of hurt. “I’m allowed to touch you and you want to have sex with me, but you’re still disgusted by me.” She stomped outside the kennel, done with him. “Well, I’m leaving. Good riddance! Your do-what-I-say-or-else attitude was annoying, anyway.” He darted in front of her, stopping her. Breath caught in her throat as sunlight streamed over him, paying his chiseled features absolute tribute, making his bronzed skin glimmer. So beautiful. Too beautiful. “I’m not disgusted by you. You need me. I’ve come to accept it,” he admitted, looking away from her. “But being skin-to-skin with another is painful for me. We’ll have to proceed carefully. And you’ll get over your annoyance.” Another order! She would show him the error of his ways.