“
Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
I am become a sour woman, Catelyn thought. I take no joy in mead nor meat, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
“
HIGGINS
I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance. I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical. Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.
PICKERING
At what, for example?
HIGGINS
Oh, Lord knows! I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track. One wants to go north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind.
”
”
George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion)
“
You're a fascinating woman, Eve. Here we are, wet, naked, both of us half dead from a very memorable night, and still you watch me with very cool, very suspicious eyes."
"You're a suspicious character, Roarke.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Naked in Death (In Death, #1))
“
I have become a sour woman. I take no joy in meat nor mead, and song and laughter have become suspicious strangers to me. I am a creature of grief and dust and bitter longings. There is an empty place within me where my heart was once.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
“
But women are very differently situated with respect to eachother - for they are all rivals (...) Is it then surprising that when the sole ambition of woman centres in beauty, and interest gives vanity additional force, perpetual rivalships should ensue? They are all running the same race, and would rise above the virtue of morals, if they did not view each other with a suspicious and even envious eye.
”
”
Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman)
“
Julie marched over to Matt. She stood in front of him and crossed her arms. “Lift up your sweatshirt.”
Matt rolled his eyes. “God, you really know how to turn a guy on.”
Julie didn’t budge. “If I was trying to turn you on, I could do better than that. Now, lift up your sweatshirt.”
Matt looked up at her and tried to look serious. “Julie, I’m completely offended that you have so little faith in my honesty. I thought at this point in our friendship that you would at least—”
“Get up.” Julie leaned over and shut his laptop. “Get up!” she said again.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Matt said laughing, but he stood up. “I trust you implicitly, and it wouldn’t kill you to show me the same respect.”
“Show me!”
Matt sidestepped the chair and took a few steps backward. “You have quite the attitude today. Suspicious and mean.”
Julie took a step forward, causing Matt to continue backing away. “Lift up your shirt.”
“Look, I appreciate an aggressive woman, but this is really getting weird.”
Julie grabbed his sweatshirt by the waist cuff and lifted it up with one hand, as she pulled down his T-shirt with the other. Matt put his hands over hers, lightly protesting, but she refused to let go. “Aha!” She squinted at his shirt.
“OK, I don’t even know what this is, but it’s definitely geeky.
”
”
Jessica Park (Flat-Out Love (Flat-Out Love, #1))
“
You are that which you seek, but you have left your own deepness and are looking elsewhere. The stress of not finding it creates its own need to be released. And so the cycle continues. You are chasing your own tail, and much of the time that tail looks suspiciously like a woman.
”
”
David Deida (The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire)
“
The people who visit the [Lincoln] memorial always look like an advertisement for democracy, so bizarrely, suspiciously diverse that one time I actually saw a man in a cowboy hat standing there reading the Gettysburg Address next to a Hasidic Jew. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they had linked arms with a woman in a burka and a Masai warrior, to belt out ‘It’s a Small World After All,’ flanked by a chorus line of nuns and field-tripping, rainbow-skinned schoolchildren
”
”
Sarah Vowell (Assassination Vacation)
“
As they approached the next stall, the old woman tending to it looked up at Matthias with suspicious eyes. Nina nodded encouragingly at him.
Matthias smiled broadly and boomed in a singsong voice, “Hello, little friend!”
The woman went from wary to baffled. Nina decided to call it an improvement.
“And how are you today?” Matthias asked.
“Pardon?” the woman said.
“Nothing,” Nina said in Ravkan. “He was saying how beautifully the Ravkan women age.”
The woman gave a gap-toothed grin and ran her eyes up and down Matthias in an appraising fashion. “Always had a taste for Fjerdans. Ask him if he wants to play Princess and Barbarian,” she said with a cackle.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2))
“
But Gemma, you could change the world."
"That should take far more than my power," I say.
"True. But change needn't happen all at once. It can be small gestures."
"Moments. Do you understand?" He's looking at me differently now, though I cannot say how. I only know I need to look away...
We pass by the pools, where the mud larks sift. And for only a few seconds, I let the magic loose again.
"Oi! By all the saints!" a boy cries from the river.
"Gone off the dock?" an old woman calls. The mud larks break into cackles.
"'S not a rock!" he shouts. He races out of the fog, cradling something in his palm. Curiosity gets the better of the others. They crowd about trying to see. In his palm is a smattering of rubies. "We're rich mates! It's a hot bath and a full belly for every one of us!"
Kartik eyes me suspiciously. "That was a strange stroke of good fortune."
"Yes it was."
"I don't suppose that was your doing."
"I'm not sure I don't know what you mean," I say.
And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.
”
”
Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing (Gemma Doyle, #3))
“
What are you doing?"
"Washing your hair," he murmured and proceeded to stroke and massage the shampoo into her short, sopping cap of hair. "I'm going to enjoy smelling my soap on you." His lips curved. "You're a fascinating woman, Eve. Here we are, wet, naked, both of us half dead from a very memorable night, and still you watch me with very cool, very suspicious eyes."
"You're a suspicious character, Roarke."
"I think that's a compliment.
”
”
J.D. Robb (Naked in Death (In Death, #1))
“
Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She kisses Luisa’s forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. “What?
”
”
David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
“
If a gorgeous woman hits on me right off the bat, I’m suspicious. I wonder what she wants. If she hasn’t heard my wit, felt my charm, how could I appeal to her? I’m no Brad Pitt. So what is she after? Most likely it’s my horse cock.
”
”
Jarod Kintz ($3.33 (the title is the price))
“
One should always be suspicious of a woman who tells you that her past was burnt in the flames of a schoolhouse in Peshawar.
”
”
Gyles Brandreth (Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders (The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries #5))
“
The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix.
”
”
Stacy Schiff (Cleopatra: A Life)
“
And while people would pardon convicts, drunks, and men who fuck goats, cows, dogs, and children, they are suspicious, almost terrified, of a woman without a family and no religion. Jesus is the only viable excuse a young woman can use to deny the penis.
”
”
Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn (Patsy)
“
All I really need,” he continued, “is for you to act as a deterrent.”
“A deterrent?” she choked out.
“A human shield, if you will.”
“What?”
“I cannot be left alone with that woman,” he said, and he felt no remorse at the low desperation in his voice. “Please, if you have any care for your fellow man.”
Her lips clamped together in a suspicious line. “I’m not certain what I get out of the equation.”
“You mean besides the joy of my delightful company?”
“Yes,” she said, with an impressive lack of inflection, “besides that.
”
”
Julia Quinn (The Lady Most Willing... (Lady Most..., #2))
“
And are you suspicious of me? (Maggie)
Woman, I’m suspicious of anyone who acts altruistically. I’ve only known a handful of people in my entire life who were actually kind. The vast majority of people only help others when they know it’ll benefit them in some manner. (Sin)
”
”
Kinley MacGregor (Claiming the Highlander (Brotherhood of the Sword, #2; MacAllister, #1))
“
That’s the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn’t really matter if it’s short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that’s all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don’t because they seem to suffer from self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don’t. But I do. I know what I’ve got is a bit strange and difficult to love but those are the very aspects that I love the most! It’s a bit like people. I’ve never been particularly attracted to the uniform of conventional beauty. I’m always a bit suspicious of people who feel compelled to conform. I personally like the adventure of difference. And what’s beauty, anyway?
”
”
Dawn French (Dear Fatty)
“
An early New Thought writer said: “Knead love into the bread you bake; wrap strength and courage in the parcel you tie for the woman with the weary face; hand trust and candor with the coin you pay to the man with the suspicious eyes.” This is beautifully said, and it sums up the Practice of the Presence of God.
”
”
Emmet Fox (Find and Use Your Inner Power)
“
But you said you did not love our father. How can you have faith in him if you didn’t love him?”
“Maybe that’s the reason,” Adam said slowly, feeling his way. “Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe—maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure—never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe—why, maybe it’s a kind of reverse.
”
”
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
“
I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance.
”
”
George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion)
“
Black woman hard to laugh, for she must keep it secret and quiet-like for all white man suspicious of negro mirth.
”
”
Marlon James (The Book of Night Women)
“
Rarely will you meet anyone so jealous a a teacher. Year after year students tumble along like the waters of a river. They flow away, and only the teacher is left behind, like some deeply buried rock at the bottom of the current. Although he may tell others of his hopes, he doesn't dream of them himself. He thinks of himself as worthless and either falls into masochistic loneliness, or, failing that, ultimately becomes suspicious and pious, forever denouncing the eccentricities of others.
”
”
Kōbō Abe (The Woman in the Dunes)
“
Then she jerked back with a siren's smile that made his confidence falter. "Well." She tapped her chin. "That was a decent kiss, all things being equal." She pressed her hand to her chest. "My heart is, if not quite racing, then heading into a quick walk. But I need a thermometer to determine if and how high my body heated. I shall just go--"
"Don't you dare." He caught her by the arm as she was on the verge of fleeing. "You know bloody well that you responded to that kiss."
With a suspicious glee in her eyes, she tugged her arm from his grip. "I'm not saying I didn't respond-- just that I didn't respond to any overwhelming degree. But it was a good kiss, I suppose. Better than some, not as good as others."
"What the hell do you mean? How many chaps have you kissed in the last nine years, anyway?"
"No more than you've kissed women, I should imagine."
"My God."
"But don't worry-- I don't think the average woman would complain about your kissing. You're perfectly competent."
Competent? Bloody insolent chit. Even knowing she was trying to provoke him didn't ease his wounded pride. "Perhaps we should try again."
-Giles and Minerva
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (How to Woo a Reluctant Lady (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #3))
“
A dispassionate conceptual development of the typology of violence must by definition ignore its traumatic impact. Yet there is a sense in which a cold analysis of violence somehow reproduces and participates in its horror. A distinction needs to be made, as well, between (factual) truth and truthfulness: what renders a report of a raped woman (or any other narrative of a trauma) truthful is its very factual unreliability, its confusion, its inconsistency. If the victim were able to report on her painful and humiliating experience in a clear manner, with all the data arranged in a consistent order, this very quality would make us suspicious of its truth.
”
”
Slavoj Žižek (Violence: Six Sideways Reflections)
“
What are you thinking of, Katharine?" he asked suspiciously, noticing her tone of dreaminess and the inapt words.
"I was thinking of you--yes, I swear it. Always of you, but you take such strange shapes in my mind. You've destroyed my loneliness. Am I to tell you how I see you? No, tell me--tell me from the beginning."
Beginning with spasmodic words, he went on to speak more and more fluently, more and more passionately, feeling her leaning towards him, listening with wonder like a child, with gratitude like a woman. She interrupted him gravely now and then.
"But it was foolish to stand outside and look at the windows. Suppose William hadn't seen you. Would you have gone to bed?"
He capped her reproof with wonderment that a woman of her age could have stood in Kingsway looking at the traffic until she forgot.
"But it was then I first knew I loved you!" she exclaimed.
"Tell me from the beginning," he begged her.
"No, I'm a person who can't tell things," she pleaded. "I shall say something ridiculous--something about flames--fires. No, I can't tell you."
But he persuaded her into a broken statement, beautiful to him, charged with extreme excitement as she spoke of the dark red fire, and the smoke twined round it, making him feel that he had stepped over the threshold into the faintly lit vastness of another mind, stirring with shapes, so large, so dim, unveiling themselves only in flashes, and moving away again into the darkness, engulfed by it.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Night and Day)
“
They hang around, hitting on your friends
or else you never hear from them again.
They call when they’re drunk, or finally get sober,
they’re passing through town and want dinner,
they take your hand across the table, kiss you
when you come back from the bathroom.
They were your loves, your victims,
your good dogs or bad boys, and they’re over
you now. One writes a book in which a woman
who sounds suspiciously like you
is the first to be sadistically dismembered
by a serial killer. They’re getting married
and want you to be the first to know,
or they’ve been fired and need a loan,
their new girlfriend hates you,
they say they don’t miss you but show up
in your dreams, calling to you from the shoe boxes
where they’re buried in rows in your basement.
Some nights you find one floating into bed with you,
propped on an elbow, giving you a look
of fascination, a look that says I can’t believe
I’ve found you. It’s the same way
your current boyfriend gazed at you last night,
before he pulled the plug on the tiny white lights
above the bed, and moved against you in the dark
broken occasionally by the faint restless arcs
of headlights from the freeway’s passing trucks,
the big rigs that travel and travel,
hauling their loads between cities, warehouses,
following the familiar routes of their loneliness.
”
”
Kim Addonizio
“
My name is Draco Malfoy. I'm here to turn myself in. I'm a hardened criminal and I'm sure Ronald Weasley would be only too happy to take my statement."
He presented his wand and the woman took it before handing him a badge that read: Draco Malfoy, Hardened Criminal
"If you'll wait over there, dear, I'll summon Mr. Weasley for you."
Draco shrugged, not much caring one way or another. He could keep breathing and cataloguing his regrets as easily in Azkaban as anywhere else.
Weasley seemed to waffle between being pleased as punch and calculatingly suspicious. "Why are you turning yourself in?"
"My close proximity to the Savior of the Wizarding World infected me with sunshine and happy thoughts. I found my inner Gryffindor and it told me to repent."
"Fuck you, Malfoy. Why are you really here?
”
”
dysonrules
“
Wyatt should’ve looked ridiculous sitting on the floor, leaning into the crate making
kissykiss noises at the cat, but he didn’t. He looked … mouthwatering. “Hey, sweet thing,” he said in a low cajoling voice. “Come on out. I’ll gonna love you up, I promise. You know you want some of that.”
“Oh, please,” Emily said on a laugh to cover up the fact that her bones melted at the
sound of him. “That’s never going to work—“
But hell if the cat didn’t shift ever so slightly closer to Wyatt and sniff at him.
Wyatt flashed both Sweetie and Emily a smile. “Aw, that’s it,” he crooned to the
suspicious, wary cat. “Come on, baby girl, all the way. I’ll be good to you, I promise.”
Emily laughed again, even as she felt her nipples tighten. She crossed her arms over her
chest. “Honestly, Wyatt, no selfrespecting female – cat or woman – is going to—
”
”
Jill Shalvis (Then Came You (Animal Magnetism, #5))
“
There was more than one thing wrong with the whole story anyway. Had no one thought it remotely suspicious? Unhappy man marries beautiful woman. Beautiful woman shapes up rather nasty. Man unhappier than ever; woman unhappy as well. Three short weeks... Oops, he's dead! Oh, poor, dear child. Let's see what we can do with her. Free labor!
”
”
Rachel Heffington (Five Glass Slippers)
“
I saw a woman wearing suspicious lettuce!
”
”
Lemony Snicket (The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events, #12))
“
Women understand that there are two distinct economies: There is physical attraction, and then there is the “ideal.” When a woman looks at a man, she can physically dislike the idea of his height, his coloring, his shape. But after she has liked him and loved him, she would not want him to look any other way: For many women, the body appears to grow beautiful and erotic as they grow to like the person in it. The actual body, the smell, the feel, the voice and movement, becomes charged with heat through the desirable person who animates it. Even Gertrude Stein said of Picasso, “There was nothing especially attractive about him at first sight…but his radiance, an inner fire one sensed in him, gave him a sort of magnetism I was unable to resist.” By the same token, a woman can admire a man as a work of art but lose sexual interest if he turns out to be an idiot.
What becomes of the man who acquires a beautiful woman, with her “beauty” his sole target? He sabotages himself. He has gained no friend, no ally, no mutual trust: She knows quite well why she has been chosen. He has succeeded in buying a mutually suspicious set of insecurities. He does gain something: the esteem of other men who find such an acquisition impressive.
”
”
Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth)
“
I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and jumped when I turned and found Ren’s brother standing behind me as a man.
Ren got up, alert, and watched him carefully, suspicious of Kishan’s every move. Ren’s tail twitched back and forth, and a deep grumble issued from his chest.
Kishan look down at Ren, who had crept even closer to keep an eye on him, and then looked back at me. He reached out his hand, and when I placed mine in it, he lifted it to his lips and kissed it, then bowed deeply with great aplomb. “May I ask your name?”
“My name is Kelsey. Kelsey hayes.”
“Kelsey. Well, I, for one, appreciate all the efforts you have made on our behalf. I apologize if I frightened you earlier. I am,” he smiled, “out of practice in conversing with young ladies. These gifts you will be offering to Durga. Would you kindly tell me more about them?”
Ren growled unhappily.
I nodded. “Is Kishan your given name?”
“My full name is actually Sohan Kishan Rajaram, but you can call me Kishan if you like.” He smiled a dazzling white smile, which was even more brilliant due to the contrast with his dark skin. He offered an arm. “Would you please sit and talk with me, Kelsey?”
There was something very charming about Kishan. I surprised myself by finding I immediately trusted and liked him. He had a quality similar to his brother. Like Ren, he had the ability to set a person completely at ease. Maybe it was their diplomatic training. Maybe it was how their mother raised them. Whatever it was made me respond positively. I smiled at him.
“I’d love to.”
He tucked my arm under his and walked with me over to the fire. Ren growled again, and Kishan shot a smirk in his direction. I noticed him wince when he sat, so I offered him some aspirin.
“Shouldn’t we be getting you two to a doctor? I really think you might need stitches and Ren-“
“Thank you, but no. You don’t need to worry about our minor pains.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call your wounds minor, Kishan.”
“The curse helps us to heal quickly. You’ll see. We’ll both recover swiftly enough on our own. Still, it was nice to have such a lovely young woman tending to my injuries.”
Ren stood in front of us and looked like he was a tiger suffering from apoplexy.
I admonished, “Ren, be civil.”
Kishan smiled widely and waited for me to get comfortable. Then he scooted closer to me and rested his arm on the log behind my shoulders. Ren stepped right between us, nudged his brother roughly aside with his furry head, creating a wider space, and maneuvered his body into the middle. He dropped heavily to the ground and rested his head in my lap.
Kishan frowned, but I started talking, sharing the story of what Ren and I had been through. I told him about meeting Ren at the circus and about how he tricked me to get me to India. I talked about Phet, the Cave of Kanheri, and finding the prophecy, and I told him that we were on our way to Hampi.
As I lost myself in our story, I stroked Ren’s head. He shut his eyes and purred, and then he fell asleep. I talked for almost an hour, barely registering Kishan’s raised eyebrow and thoughtful expression as he watched the two of us together. I didn’t even notice when he’d changed back into a tiger.
”
”
Colleen Houck (Tiger's Curse (The Tiger Saga, #1))
“
Frowning, she warmed up the scone she’d saved for Callum. “I could get a pop-up camper to pull behind my truck. When I get a truck, of course. That way, I could move my house every few days and experience different views.”
“You’re not living in a camper.” He bit into the scone and chewed angrily.
“Excuse me.” The female half of the eavesdropping couple took a step closer to the counter. “Are there any more of those scones?”
Lou pasted a regretful smile on her face. “Sorry, no. This was the last one.”
“I didn’t see it in the display.” The woman scowled. “I specifically asked if you had any scones, and you said you were out.”
“I had to hold this one back. It was defective.”
“Defective?” Her eyes darted between Lou’s expression of fake sympathy and the small bite of scone Callum hadn’t eaten yet. “It looked fine.”
“I licked it.” Lou heard Callum choke on the last piece of scone, but she couldn’t look at him or she would start laughing. If his airway was blocked, he was going to have to give himself the Heimlich.
The woman’s suspicious expression didn’t ease. “Why did you let him eat it then?”
“Oh, his tongue is in my mouth all the time,” Lou said sweetly, and Callum’s coughing increased. “I didn’t think he’d mind my germs.”
With a sound of frustration, the woman stormed out of the shop, followed closely by the male half of the couple. The bells rang merrily as the door closed behind them, as if celebrating their absence.
“Sparks,” Callum rasped once his coughing died down. “You’re going to kill me.”
“But what a way to go.”
“True.” Grabbing her hand, he pulled her closer and leaned across the counter. “Now give me some of those germs.
”
”
Katie Ruggle (Hold Your Breath (Search and Rescue, #1))
“
Lost in the stormy kiss, Elizabeth felt her legs gliding down his as he gently lowered her against him until her feet touched the floor. But when his fingers pulled at the ribbon that held her gown in place at her shoulder, she jerked free of his kiss, automatically clamping her hand over his. “What are you doing?” she asked in a quaking whisper. His fingers stilled, and Ian lifted his heavy-lidded gaze to hers.
The question took him by surprise, but as he stared into her green eyes Ian saw her apprehension, and he had a good idea what was causing it. “What do you think I’m doing?” he countered cautiously.
She hesitated, as if unwilling even to accuse him of such an unspeakable act, and then she admitted in a small, reluctant voice, “Disrobing me.”
“And that surprises you?”
“Surprises me? Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?” Elizabeth asked, more suspicious than ever of what Lucinda had told her.
Quietly he said, “What exactly do you know about what takes place between a husband and wife in bed?”
“You-you mean ‘as it pertains to the creation of children’?” she said, quoting his words to her the day she agreed to become betrothed to him.
He smiled with tender amusement at her phrasing. “I suppose you can call it that-for now.”
“Only what Lucinda told me.” He waited to hear an explanation, and Elizabeth reluctantly added, “She said a husband kisses his wife in bed and that it hurts the first time, and that is how it is done.”
Ian hesitated, angry with himself for not having followed his own instincts and questioned her further when she seemed fully informed and without maidenly qualms about lovemaking. As gently as he could, he said, “You’re a very intelligent young woman, love, not an overly fastidious spinster like your former duenna. Now, do you honestly believe the rules of nature would be completely set aside for people?
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
Women have always been the most important part of monster movies. As I walked home one night, I realized why. Making my way down dark city streets to my apartment in Brooklyn, I was alert and on edge. I was looking for suspicious figures, men that could be rapists, muggers or killers. I felt like Laurie Strode in Halloween. Horror is a pressure valve for society's fears and worries: monsters seeking to control our bodies, villains trying to assail us in the darkness, disease and terror resulting from the consequences of active sexuality, death. These themes are the staple of horror films.
There are people who witness these problems only in scary movies. But for much of the population, what is on the screen is merely an exaggerated version of their everyday lives. These are forces women grapple with daily. Watching Nancy Thompson escape Freddy Krueger's perverted attacks reminds me of how I daily fend off creeps asking me to smile for them on the subway. Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it — in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters. In America, a woman is assaulted every nine seconds.
Horror films help explore these fears and imagine what it would be like to conquer them. Women need to see themselves fighting monsters. That’s part of how we figure out our stories. But we also need to see ourselves behind-the-scenes, creating and writing and directing. We need to tell our stories, too.
”
”
Mallory O'Meara (The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick)
“
Gator, go wake that woman of yours. I need some answers. We need her to run the computers for us.”
“Tonight, Boss?” Gator complained. “I had other ideas.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“We all did. Hop to it.”
“What about Sam?” Tucker asked. “His woman is the one who got us into this.”
“I’m wounded.” Sam clutched his abdomen dramatically and staggered with quick, long strides so that he made it to the doorway in three quick steps.
Jonas coughed, sounding suspiciously like he’d muttered “bullshit” under his breath. Kyle threw a peanut at him and Jeff surfed across the table in his bare socks to try to catch him before he bolted.
“He’s in love, boys, let him go. He’ll probably just get laughed at,” Tucker said. “Do you really think Azami’s brothers are going to allow her to hook up with Sam? She’s fine and he’s . . . well . . . klutzy.”
“That hurt,” Sam said, turning back.
“Did you get a good look at those boys? I thought Japanese men were supposed to be on the short side, but Daiki was tall and all muscle. His brother moves like a fucking fighter,” Tucker added. “They might just decide to give you a good beating for having the audacity to even think you could date their sister, let alone marry her.”
“Fat help you are,” Sam accused. “I could use a little confidence here.”
Kyle snorted. “You don’t have a chance, buddy.”
“Goin’ to meet your maker,” Gator added solemnly.
Jeff crossed himself as he hung five toes off the edge of the table. “Sorry, old son, you don’t have a prayer. You’re about to meet up with a couple of hungry sharks.”
“Have you ever actually used a sword before?” Kadan asked, all innocent.
Jonas drew his knife and began to sharpen it. “Funny thing about blade men, they always like to go for the throat.” He grinned up at Sam. “Just a little tip. Keep your chin down.”
“You’re all a big help,” Sam said and stepped out into the hall.
This was the biggest moment of his life. If they turned him down, he was lost.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Samurai Game (GhostWalkers, #10))
“
read an article about this once. A woman was injured in a car wreck and was in a coma. She lived in a nursing facility and her husband came to visit her every day. The staff became suspicious that he was having sex with her despite her being in a coma, so they set up hidden cameras. The man was arrested for rape because his wife was unable to give consent.
”
”
Colleen Hoover (Verity)
“
woman is sitting in her hotel room when there is a knock at the door. She opened the door to see a man whom she had never seen before. He said "oh I'm sorry, I have made a mistake, I thought this was my room." He then went down the corridor and in the elevator. The woman went back into her room and phoned security. What made the woman so suspicious of the man? Answer
”
”
M. Prefontaine (Difficult Riddles For Smart Kids: 300 Difficult Riddles And Brain Teasers Families Will Love (Thinking Books for Kids Book 1))
“
The activists also had instructions to return, to surprise people in order to catch them unaware and with their food unguarded. In many places the brigades came more than once. Families were searched, and then searched again to make sure that nothing remained. “They came three times,” one woman remembered, “until there was nothing left. Then they stopped coming.”17 Brigades sometimes arrived at different times of day or night, determined to catch whoever had food red-handed.18 If it happened that a family was eating a meagre dinner, the activists sometimes took bread off the table.19 If it happened that soup was cooking, they pulled it off the stove and tossed out the contents. Then they demanded to know how it was possible the family still had something to put in the soup.20 People who seemed able to eat were searched with special vigour; those who weren’t starving were by definition suspicious. One survivor remembered that her family had once managed to get hold of some flour and used it to bake bread during the night. Their home was instantly visited by a brigade that had detected the noise and sounds of cooking in the house. They entered by force and grabbed the bread directly out of the oven.21 Another survivor described how the brigade “watched chimneys from a hill: when they saw smoke, they went to that house and took whatever was being cooked.”22 Yet another family received a parcel from a relative containing rice, sugar, millet and shoes. A few hours later a brigade arrived and took everything except the shoes.
”
”
Anne Applebaum (Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine)
“
But she drew in a breath and asked with saccharine sweetness, “Trace, are you ready?”
No, he wasn’t ready. Somehow he had to regain control of this situation. Right now she had the upper hand, and that was untenable.
With the perfect plan in mind, Trace shook his head, but said with what he hoped sounded like indifference, “Quit stalling.”
And then he pulled out his cell phone.
This time, she was all but naked. What little material covered her proved mere decoration, like icing on a very sweet cake—a cake he wouldn’t mine eating, slowly, top to toes and everywhere in between.
Priss stood with her hands on her generous hips, her feet apart, shoulders back.
How such a small woman packed so many perfect curves, he didn’t know. But she managed it with flair. Boy, did she ever.
“Good enough.”
When she smiled at him, he lifted the cell phone and used it to take a picture.
Squawking, Priss leaped behind the curtain and her face went up in flames. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Suddenly shy?” Content with her appalled tone and burning-red face, Trace looked down at the phone. Oh, yeah, that’d do. He pushed a few buttons, then put the cell phone away. “Don’t worry, honey. I emailed it to myself.” His smile felt like a leer. “No one else will see it.”
Unappeased by that promise, she glared at him. “You—!”
“Now, Priss. Modesty at this late date is more than suspicious. You wanted my approval.” He shrugged—and struggled to keep his attention on her face and off the curves that showed even beneath the curtain she clutched to her chin. “You’ve got it, with my admiration, too.
”
”
Lori Foster (Trace of Fever (Men Who Walk the Edge of Honor, #2))
“
George listened to the radio and wondered whether that dear child Nancy would allow him to give her a fur coat. She was very proud, he knew. He didn't want to offend her. Still, she had complained of the cold. That tweed coat of hers was a cheap affair; it didn't keep the cold out. He could put it so that she wouldn't mind, perhaps...
They must have another evening out soon. It was a pleasure to take a girl like that to a smart restaurant. He could see several young fellows were envying him. She was uncommonly pretty. And she liked him. To her, as she had told him, he didn't seem a bit old.
He looked up and caught his wife's eye. He felt suddenly guilty, which annoyed him. What a narrow-minded, suspicious woman Maria was! She grudged him any little bit of happiness.
He switched off the radio and went to bed.
”
”
Agatha Christie (The Case of the Middle-Aged Wife - a Parker Pyne Short Story)
“
White movie stars attracted by Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier were lending their names to the struggle, and their sincerity stood up against the most suspicious scrutiny. One evening at Belafonte's house, Shelley Winters explained why she was glad to contribute her money and her time to the SCLC.
"It's not that I love Reverend King or all black people or even Harry Belafonte. I have a daughter. She's white and she's young now, but when she grows up and finds that most of the people in the world are black or brown or yellow, and have been oppressed for centuries by people who look like her, she's going to ask me what I did about it. I want to be able to say, 'The best I could.'" I was still suspicious of most white liberals, but Shelley Winters sounded practical and I trusted her immediately. After all, she was a mother just like me, looking after her child.
”
”
Maya Angelou (The Heart of a Woman)
“
For a long time being female was treated by science and medicine as being akin to having a serious psychological disorder. Women were routinely prescribed hysterectomies or anxiolytics like valium to treat the symptoms of hysteria which is a syndrome with symptoms that are suspiciously similar to the symptoms of being of human female who has to deal with stupid sexist bullshit. Although scions and medicine has come a long way since these sorts of practices were common place every woman i know has had an experience of being treated as less rational version of a man. Sometimes even by our own doctors simply by virtue of our gender. There belief that women are irrational and therefore underserving of the same rights as men is something that has lingered in the public consciousness in a huge way. And women are very aware of this. We have to listen to a lot of people say a lot of dumb shit about our hormones and about whether we deserve the right to control our own fertility. These types of claims particularly when combined with sciences and medicine mishandling of women for so long have made it very difficult for anyone, even female scientists, to have thoughtful conversations about things like women's hormones and fertility regulation. These topics unaddressed by science are often met with suspicion by anyone who has ever owned a pair of ovaries or is an ovarian sympatist.
”
”
Sarah E. Hill (This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences)
“
Mostly, though, he made people laugh, with wicked impersonations of everyone around him: clients, lawyers, clerks, even the cleaning woman. When Pickwick Papers came out, his former colleagues realized that half of them had turned up in its pages. His eyes - eyes that everyone who ever met him, to the day he died, remarked on - beautiful, animated, warm, dreamy, flashing, sparkling - though no two people ever agreed on their colour - were they grey, green, blue, brown? - those eyes missed nothing, any more than did his ears. He could imitate anyone. Brimming over with an all but uncontainable energy, which the twenty-first century might suspiciously describe as manic, he discharged his superplus of vitality by incessantly walking the streets, learning London as he went, mastering it, memorizing the names of the roads, the local accents, noting the characteristic topographies of the many villages of which the city still consisted.
”
”
Simon Callow (Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World)
“
Regarding a woman, for example, those men who are more modest consider the mere use of the body and sexual gratification a sufficient and satisfying sign of “having,” of possession. Another type, with a more suspicious and demanding thirst for possession, sees the “question mark,” the illusory quality of such “having” and wants subtler tests, above all in order to know whether the woman does not only give herself to him but also gives up for his sake what she has or would like to have: only then does she seem to him “possessed.” A third type, however, does not reach the end of his mistrust and desire for having even so: he asks himself whether the woman, when she gives up everything for him, does not possibly do this for a phantom of him. He wants to be known deep down, abysmally deep down, before he is capable of being loved at all; he dares to let himself be fathomed. He feels that his beloved is fully in his possession only when she no longer deceives herself about him, when she loves him just as much for his devilry and hidden insatiability as for his graciousness, patience, and spirituality.
One type wants to possess a people—and all the higher arts of a Cagliostro and Catiline suit him to that purpose. Someone else, with a more subtle thirst for possession, says to himself: “One may not deceive where one wants to possess.” The idea that a mask of him might command the heart of the people irritates him and makes him impatient: “So I must let myself be known, and first must know myself.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
“
The abuse experience might have made her suspicious of anyone wanting to help and support her. Her abusive partner probably twisted the concept of trust in such a way as to shatter her willingness to trust others. It might be hard for her to fathom that an anchor has no agenda except to care about her. However, it is the very process of learning to trust her anchor which can help an abused woman. Through that relationship she can be reminded what real trust is, who is trustworthy, and how to trust someone again or for the first time.
”
”
Susan Brewster (To Be An Anchor in the Storm: A Guide for Families and Friends of Abused Women)
“
They remind me of it everywhere I go. Every time I step in an elevator and a white woman bunches up in the corner like she thinks I wanna rape her, I’m forced to think about it. Every time I walk into stores, the suspicious looks in white shopkeepers’ eyes make me think about it. Every time I walk past whites sitting in their cars, I hear the door locks clicking and I think about it. I can’t get away from it, man. I stay so mad all the time because I’m forced to spend so much time and energy reacting to race. I hate it. It wearies me. But there’s no escape, man. No escape.
”
”
Nathan McCall (Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America)
“
A woman will tell you for sure if you really are bothering her, and if you bring it up you are only making her suspicious and, hence, increasing the risk of her rejecting you. If she has a boyfriend or a marriage that she considers more important than getting to know more about you, allow her to make that decision herself, and wait for her to say so. Do not ask about it directly, and do not probe her indirectly to try to figure it out. Let her make up her own mind without leading her on. That is how you show a woman proper respect without ruining your own chances to seduce her.
”
”
W. Anton (The Manual: What Women Want and How to Give It to Them)
“
Footsteps from the stairwell startle him out of the past. He turns around as Emma's mother takes the last step into the dining area, Emma right behind her.
Mrs. McIntosh glides over and puts her arm around him. The smile on her face is genuine, but Emma's smile is more like a straight line. And she's blushing.
"Galen, it's very nice to meet you," she says, ushering him into the kitchen. "Emma tells me you're taking her to the beach behind your house today. To swim?"
"Yes, ma'am." Her transformation makes him wary.
She smiles. "Well, good luck with getting her in the water. Since I'm a little pressed for time, I can't follow you over there, so I just need to see your driver's license while Emma runs outside to get your plate number."
Emma rolls her eyes as she shuffles through a drawer and pulls out a pen and paper. She slams the door behind her when she leaves, which shakes the dishes on the wall.
Galen nods, pulls out his wallet, and hands over the fake license. Mrs. McIntosh studies it and rummages through her purse until she produces a pen-which she uses to write on her hand. “Just need your license number in case we ever have any problems. But we’re not going to have any problems, are we, Galen? Because you’ll always have my daughter-my only daughter-home on time, isn’t that right?”
He nods, then swallows. She holds out his license. When he accepts it, she grabs his wrist, pulling him close. She glances at the garage door and back to him. “Tell me right now, Galen Forza. Are you or are you not dating my daughter?”
Great. She still doesn’t believe Emma. If she won’t believe them anyway, why keep trying to convince her? If she thinks they’re dating, the time he intends to spend with Emma will seem normal. But if they spend time together and tell her they’re not dating, she’ll be nothing but suspicious. Possibly even spy on them-which is less than ideal.
So, dating Emma is the only way to make sure she mates with Grom. Things just get better and better. “Yes,” he says. “We’re definitely dating.”
She narrows her eyes. “Why would she tell me you’re not?”
He shrugs. “Maybe she’s ashamed of me.”
To his surprise, she chuckles. “I seriously doubt that, Galen Forza.” Her humor is short lived. She grabs a fistful of his T-shirt. “Are you sleeping with her?”
Sleeping…Didn’t Rachel say sleeping and mating are the same thing? Dating and mating are similar. But sleeping and mating are the same exact same. He shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”
She raises a no-nonsense brow. “Why not? What’s wrong with my daughter?”
That is unexpected. He suspects this woman can sense a lie like Toraf can track Rayna. All she’s looking for is honesty, but the real truth would just get him arrested. I’m crazy about your daughter-I’m just saving her for my brother. So he seasons his answer with the frankness she seems to crave. “There’s nothing wrong with your daughter, Mrs. McIntosh. I said we’re not sleeping together. I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”
She inhales sharply and releases him. Clearing her throat, she smoothes out his wrinkled shirt with her hand, then pats his chest. “Good answer, Galen. Good answer.”
Emma flings open the garage door and stops short. “Mom, what are you doing?”
Mrs. McIntosh steps away and stalks to the counter. “Galen and I were just chitchatting. What took you so long?”
Galen guesses her ability to sense a lie probably has something to do with her ability to tell one. Emma shoots him a quizzical look, but he returns a casual shrug. Her mother grabs a set of keys from a hook by the refrigerator and nudges her daughter out of the way, but not before snatching the paper out of her hand.
”
”
Anna Banks (Of Poseidon (The Syrena Legacy, #1))
“
Keep behind me, Metatron—wait here—Asriel is suspicious—let me lull him first. When he’s off guard, I’ll call you. But come as a shadow, in this small form, so he doesn’t see you—otherwise, he’ll just let the child’s dæmon fly away.” The Regent was a being whose profound intellect had had thousands of years to deepen and strengthen itself, and whose knowledge extended over a million universes. Nevertheless, at that moment he was blinded by his twin obsessions: to destroy Lyra and to possess her mother. He nodded and stayed where he was, while the woman and the monkey moved forward as quietly as they could.
”
”
Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials #3))
“
There were more dead in the courtyard, piled deeper around the steps to the
hall, bodies twisted together, hacked and mutilated. And on the steps in the midst
of it all sat a woman. She was gore-drenched, red with blood from her head to
her boots, a long-axe lying across her lap. An ugly creature was perched upon
her shoulder, with a nasty-looking sting on its tail, and another vaesen sat on the
steps before the woman. It was small, with sharp claws and a half-spear in its
tiny, slim-fingered hand. A tennúr. It had a mound of what looked like bloodcovered nuts piled at its feet and was crunching on one of them as it looked at
Varg. A shiver of revulsion passed through Varg as he realised they weren’t
nuts: they were human teeth. And he didn’t like the way the tennúr’s gaze fixed
for a long moment upon his own mouth. The two vaesen regarded Glornir and
the Bloodsworn with suspicious, violent eyes.
Sitting around the woman’s legs were children, maybe twelve or fifteen of
them. They were the only things in the area not spattered in blood. They didn’t
seem to be scared of the woman, which Varg found strange, as his blood was
tingling, and he felt the ripples of fear and danger pulsing off her. If he had
hackles like Edel’s wolfhounds, they would have been standing stiff and straight.
Ahead of him Varg heard Glornir gasp a breath.
The woman looked up at them as they approached, her eyes fixing on
Glornir. Varg saw recognition dawn in them.
“He’s not here,” the woman said, shaking her head, “he’s not here.” The pain
in her voice was palpable. Tears had streaked clean lines through the blood and
gore and fragments of bone that were thick on her cheeks.
Glornir reined in his horse and slipped from his saddle, then walked a few
steps towards her and stopped.
“Orka Skullsplitter,” he whispered.
The woman stood.
“My brother?” Glornir asked.
“They killed him and took my son,” she said, fresh tears rolling down her
cheeks.
Glornir walked up to her and spread his arms wide, pulling her into an
embrace.
”
”
John Gwynne (The Shadow of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #1))
“
No doubt the movement which rightly or wrongly we have learnt to call the emancipation of women is in the first place a result of the transformation of society into a capitalist and industrial community, in which the home has lost its importance as an economic and productive unity. But the bitter tone of the champions of Woman’s Rights in their arraignment of man’s rule, the suspiciousness which refused to believe that anything but oppression and masculine tyranny was at the bottom of a great number of laws and customs, which in reality were designed just as much to safeguard women and provide them with protectors and maintenance—the rabidity of militant feminists, in short—was a direct reaction against a dressing-gown and slippers tyranny which was peculiar to non-Catholic Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century—a revolt against mock heroes who slouched about their homes trying to assert authority over their womenfolk. The other day I came across a book which illustrates in a rather droll way the extent to which Northern European women have taken it for granted that this peculiar North European form of the subjection of women since the Reformation was characteristic of the whole past of Europe. It was a little essay by an English writer, Virginia Woolf—I confess that it is all I have read of hers,1 but she is said to have a great reputation as a novelist.
”
”
Sigrid Undset (Stages on the Road)
“
The physicist’s, the biologist’s, the historian’s, the philosopher’s, and the artist’s modes of knowing are different. I am wary of absolutism in all its forms. In my experience, scientists are more alarmed by such a statement than people in the humanities. It smacks of relativism, the idea that there is no right and wrong, no objective truth to be found, or, even worse, no external world, no reality. But to say that one is suspicious of absolutes is not the same as saying, for example, that the laws of physics do not theoretically apply to everything. At the same time, physics is not complete, and disagreements among physicists are ongoing. Even settled questions may produce more questions.
”
”
Siri Hustvedt (A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind)
“
It should come as no surprise that women need to work doubly hard to prove their right to power. They have to look to their menfolk around them who can support their claim, rather than detract from it--to their fathers and patriarchs, not to their husbands and lovers. They must clarify to a suspicious public that they are not greedy and conniving, power-hungry for their own sakes, but concerned for the success of a broad swath of society. How does one do that except by somehow downplaying their own ambition, or subsuming her power to that of a male associate, or allowing herself to be interrupted in important meetings, or apologizing more than her male counterparts, or appearing more tentative in her decision-making, or not applying for positions and promotions she might think she isn't qualified for? A woman is rarely congratulated for grasping for more, for reaching higher. Women know exactly how their ambition is perceived by the public, and they must veil their power grabs in a warm and cuddly swath of nonaggression and nonthreatening verbiage, dazzling smiles, colored hair, and a calm and steady gaze, maternal even, without holding their head too high, but not too low either. Is it any surprise that today's women don't even apply for political position of authority if they have to walk through a gauntlet of abuse dissecting their appearance, demeanor, age, weight, and sexual past white simultaneously walking a tightrope of unspoken demands for masculinization?
”
”
Kara Cooney (When Women Ruled the World: Six Queens of Egypt)
“
I shoot up out of my chair. “It’s Bree. Hide the board!”
Everyone hops out of their chairs and starts scrambling around and bumping into each other like a classic cartoon. We hear the door shut behind her, and the whiteboard is still standing in the middle of the kitchen like a lit-up marquee. I hiss at Jamal, “Get rid of it!”
His eyes are wide orbs, head whipping around in all directions. “Where? In the utensil drawer? Up my shirt?! There’s nowhere! That thing is huge!”
“LADY IN THE HOUSE!” Bree shouts from the entryway. The sound of her tennis shoes getting kicked off echoes around the room, and my heart races up my throat.
Her name is pasted all over that whiteboard along with phrases like “first kiss—keep it light” and “entwined hand-holding” and “dirty talk about her hair”.
Yeah…I’m not sure about that last one, but we’ll see. Basically, it’s all laid out there—the most incriminating board in the world. If Bree sees this thing, it’s all over for me.
“Erase it!” Price whispers frantically.
“No, we didn’t write it down anywhere else! We’ll lose all the ideas.”
I can hear Bree’s footsteps getting closer. “Nathan? Are you home?”
“Uh—yeah! In the kitchen.”
Jamal tosses me a look like I’m an idiot for announcing our location, but what am I supposed to do? Stand very still and pretend we’re not all huddled in here having a Baby-Sitter’s Club re-enactment? She would find us, and that would look even worse after keeping quiet.
“Just flip it over!” I tell anyone who’s not running in a circle chasing his tail.
As Lawrence flips the whiteboard, Price tells us all to act natural. So of course, the second Bree rounds the corner, I hop up on the table, Jamal rests his elbow on the wall and leans his head on his hand, and Lawrence just plops down on the floor and pretends to stretch. Derek can’t decide what to do so he’s caught mid-circle. We all have fake smiles plastered on. Our acting is shit.
Bree freezes, blinking at the sight of each of us not acting at all natural. “Whatcha guys doing?”
Her hair is a cute messy bun of curls on the top of her head and she’s wearing her favorite joggers with one of my old LA Sharks hoodies, which she stole from my closet a long time ago. It swallows her whole, but since she just came from the studio, I know there is a tight leotard under it. I can barely find her in all that material, and yet she’s still the sexiest woman I’ve ever seen. Just her presence in this room feels like finally getting hooked up to oxygen after days of not being able to breathe deeply.
We all respond to Bree’s question at the same time but with different answers. It’s highly suspicious and likely what makes her eyes dart to the whiteboard. Sweat gathers on my spine.
“What’s with the whiteboard?” she asks, taking a step toward it.
I hop off the table and get in her path. “Huh? Oh, it’s…nothing.”
She laughs and tries to look around me. I pretend to stretch so she can’t see. “It doesn’t look like nothing. What? Are you guys drawing boobies on that board or something? You look so guilty.”
“Ah—you caught us! Lots of illustrated boobs drawn on that board. You don’t want to see it.”
She pauses, a fading smile hovering on her lips, and her eyes look up to meet mine. “For real—what’s going on? Why can’t I see it?” She doesn’t believe my boob explanation. I guess we should take that as a compliment?
My eyes catch over Bree’s shoulder as Price puts himself out of her line of sight and begins miming the action of getting his phone out and taking a picture of the whiteboard. This little show is directed at Derek, who is standing somewhere behind me.
Bree sees me watching Price and whips her head around to catch him. He freezes—hands extended looking like he’s holding an imaginary camera. He then transforms that into a forearm stretch. “So tight after our workout today.”
Her eyes narrow.
”
”
Sarah Adams (The Cheat Sheet (The Cheat Sheet, #1))
“
All of a sudden, he drew his hand away, and Lillian whimpered in protest. Cursing, Marcus tucked her body beneath his and pulled her face into his shoulder just as the door opened.
In a moment of frozen silence breached only by her ragged breaths, Lillian peered out from the concealing shelter of Marcus’s body. She saw with a start of fright that someone was standing there. It was Simon Hunt. A ledger book and a few folders secured with black ribbon were clasped in his hands. Blank-faced, Hunt lowered his gaze to the couple on the floor. To his credit, he managed to retain his composure, though it must have been difficult. The Earl of Westcliff, known to his acquaintances as an eternal proponent of moderation and self-restraint, was the last man Hunt would have expected to be rolling on the study floor with a woman clad in her nightgown.
“Pardon, my lord,” Hunt said in a carefully controlled voice. “I did not anticipate that you would be… meeting… with someone at this hour.”
Marcus skewered him with a savage stare. “You might try knocking next time.”
“You’re right, of course.” Hunt opened his mouth to add something, appeared to think better of it, and cleared his throat roughly. “I’ll leave you here to finish your, er… conversation.” As he withdrew from the room, however, it seemed that he couldn’t keep from ducking his head back in and asking Marcus cryptically, “Once a week, did you say?”
“Close the door behind you,” Marcus said icily, and Hunt obeyed with a smothered sound that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers, #2))
“
A 2003 study published in Genetics in Medicine shows that this skepticism about race-specific drugs is not fictional; it is widespread in the black community.77 Participants in an anonymous survey and two focus groups that oversampled for minority groups reported that they would be highly suspicious of race-labeled drugs. Nearly half said they would be very suspicious of their safety, and 40 percent said they would be very suspicious of their efficacy. In fact, 13 percent of African Americans said they would choose a drug labeled for whites over one designated for blacks. At a conference on BiDil, an elderly black woman in the audience stood up and said, “If I were sick and somebody told me that they had a drug just for black people to help me, I’d say to them: give me what the white people are taking.
”
”
Dorothy Roberts (Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century)
“
This woman makes sure that I know that there will be no repercussions for anything I say. She lets me know exactly what would happen to the person if we found them. She asks a million questions. “Has anyone ever said anything suspicious to you at work? Has anyone ever been mean to you at work? Have you ever gotten into it with anybody at work? Has anyone ever been inappropriate at work?” She gives me a million opportunities to take a long, hard look at how I am treated at work, and it leads me to one conclusion: I am spoiled to a hilarious degree. She follows up with a phone call later in the week to make sure that I’m sure that I’m sure. I couldn’t believe it. She did such a good job. I’ve certainly been at places where I would’ve killed to have someone like her around. It is so crazy that this woman is the opposite of Lacey’s HR woman. The thought of someone being racist had this lady ready to go off! I loved her. I felt so well taken care of.
”
”
Amber Ruffin (You'll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism)
“
The dog whines, and Julia leans down and lifts her up. “Don’t cry,” she says into Suzanne’s fur. “You shouldn’t police her emotions,” Alma says, but then, frowning, asks, “Are you okay?” It’s a rare display of interpersonal concern as far as Alma goes, and Julia wishes for a second that she weren’t okay, that she could call upon her daughter for some kind of nontraumatic assistance, splinter removal or a dislocated shoulder, something that would require close bodily contact with this person she’s borne, so long as Alma is—such a rarity from her narcissistic lioness—offering. As it is, there isn’t a way to navigate deftly. To allude to something physiological will make her daughter (who doesn’t particularly enjoy her parents’ live presence but also doesn’t want them dead) suspicious and to tell the truth—that she’d been steeling herself for an encounter with her husband following an encounter with the woman who’d almost ended their marriage—is obviously out of the question.
”
”
Claire Lombardo (Same As It Ever Was)
“
Or when you keep a sex-addiction meeting under surveillance because they’re the best places to pick up chicks.” Serge looked around the room at suspicious eyes. “Okay, maybe that last one’s just me. But you should try it. They keep the men’s and women’s meetings separate for obvious reasons. And there are so many more opportunities today because the whole country’s wallowing in this whiny new sex-rehab craze after some golfer diddled every pancake waitress on the seaboard. That’s not a disease; that’s cheating. He should have been sent to confession or marriage counseling after his wife finished chasing him around Orlando with a pitching wedge. But today, the nation is into humiliation, tearing down a lifetime of achievement by labeling some guy a damaged little dick weasel. The upside is the meetings. So what you do is wait on the sidewalk for the women to get out, pretending like you’re loitering. And because of the nature of the sessions they just left, there’s no need for idle chatter or lame pickup lines. You get right to business: ‘What’s your hang-up?’ And she answers, and you say, ‘What a coincidence. Me, too.’ Then, hang on to your hat! It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get. Most people are aware of the obvious, like foot fetish or leather. But there are more than five hundred lesser-known but clinically documented paraphilia that make no sexual sense. Those are my favorites . . .” Serge began counting off on his fingers. “This one woman had Ursusagalmatophilia, which meant she got off on teddy bears—that was easily my weirdest three-way. And nasophilia, which meant she was completely into my nose, and she phoned a friend with mucophilia, which is mucus. The details on that one are a little disgusting. And formicophilia, which is being crawled on by insects, so the babe bought an ant farm. And symphorophilia—that’s staging car accidents, which means you have to time the air bags perfectly
”
”
Tim Dorsey (Pineapple Grenade (Serge Storms #15))
“
Anyone familiar with the darker side of life understands that a man who has lost his shadow is like a woman with a dark past who marries: no one is more loyal, because she knows how much is at stake.
Whispered words like moans sliding over naked skin.
It was in such places that you learned the philosophy of the different races: the melancholy Italians, suspicious Jews, Brutal Germans, and stubborn Spaniards, intoxicated with envy and murderous pride.
The spiteful resentment that we women often resort to when we are in pain.
Elegance could be acquired through money, education, hard work and intelligence.
Doubt is what keeps people young. Certainty is like a malignant virus that infects us as we get older.
Spain: that sad, embittered country, reeking of the sacristy and run by black marketeers and mediocre ruffians. The paradise of envy, barbarity and treachery.
One of those men who use others as a pretext to talk about themselves.
How flimsy the ties are that prevent human beings from lying or betraying.
Women are the only worthwhile temptation. Everything else is negotiable.
After all, like the rest of womankind, she only needed persuading.
”
”
Arturo Pérez-Reverte (El tango de la Guardia Vieja)
“
What is this?" Kathleen asked, picking up the bottle and viewing it suspiciously.
"It's a beautifier," Pandora said.
"Bloom of Rose," Cassandra chimed in.
Kathleen gasped as she realized what it was. "It's rouge. She had never even held a container of rouge before. Setting it on the counter, she said firmly, "No."
"But Kathleen-"
"No to rouge," she said, "now and for all time."
"We need to enhance our complexions," Pandora protested.
"It won't do any harm," Cassandra chimed in. "The bottle says that Bloom of Rose is 'delicate and inoffensive'... It's written right there, you see?"
"The comments you would receive if you wore rouge in public would assuredly not be delicate or inoffensive. People would assume you were a fallen woman. Or worse, an actress."
Pandora turned to Devon. "Lord Trenear, what do you think?"
"This is one of those times when it's best for a man to avoid thinking altogether," he said hastily.
"Bother," Cassandra said. Reaching for a white glass pot with a gilded top, she gave it to Kathleen. "We found this for you. It's lily pomatum, for your wrinkles."
"I don't have wrinkles," Kathleen said with dawning indignation.
"Not yet," Pandora allowed. "But someday you will.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
Early on it is clear that Addie has a rebellious streak, joining the library group and running away to Rockport Lodge. Is Addie right to disobey her parents? Where does she get her courage? 2. Addie’s mother refuses to see Celia’s death as anything but an accident, and Addie comments that “whenever I heard my mother’s version of what happened, I felt sick to my stomach.” Did Celia commit suicide? How might the guilt that Addie feels differ from the guilt her mother feels? 3. When Addie tries on pants for the first time, she feels emotionally as well as physically liberated, and confesses that she would like to go to college (page 108). How does the social significance of clothing and hairstyle differ for Addie, Gussie, and Filomena in the book? 4. Diamant fills her narrative with a number of historical events and figures, from the psychological effects of World War I and the pandemic outbreak of influenza in 1918 to child labor laws to the cultural impact of Betty Friedan. How do real-life people and events affect how we read Addie’s fictional story? 5. Gussie is one of the most forward-thinking characters in the novel; however, despite her law degree she has trouble finding a job as an attorney because “no one would hire a lady lawyer.” What other limitations do Addie and her friends face in the workforce? What limitations do women and minorities face today? 6. After distancing herself from Ernie when he suffers a nervous episode brought on by combat stress, Addie sees a community of war veterans come forward to assist him (page 155). What does the remorse that Addie later feels suggest about the challenges American soldiers face as they reintegrate into society? Do you think soldiers today face similar challenges? 7. Addie notices that the Rockport locals seem related to one another, and the cook Mrs. Morse confides in her sister that, although she is usually suspicious of immigrant boarders, “some of them are nicer than Americans.” How does tolerance of the immigrant population vary between city and town in the novel? For whom might Mrs. Morse reserve the term Americans? 8. Addie is initially drawn to Tessa Thorndike because she is a Boston Brahmin who isn’t afraid to poke fun at her own class on the women’s page of the newspaper. What strengths and weaknesses does Tessa’s character represent for educated women of the time? How does Addie’s description of Tessa bring her reliability into question? 9. Addie’s parents frequently admonish her for being ungrateful, but Addie feels she has earned her freedom to move into a boardinghouse when her parents move to Roxbury, in part because she contributed to the family income (page 185). How does the Baum family’s move to Roxbury show the ways Betty and Addie think differently from their parents about household roles? Why does their father take such offense at Herman Levine’s offer to house the family? 10. The last meaningful conversation between Addie and her mother turns out to be an apology her mother meant for Celia, and for a moment during her mother’s funeral Addie thinks, “She won’t be able to make me feel like there’s something wrong with me anymore.” Does Addie find any closure from her mother’s death? 11. Filomena draws a distinction between love and marriage when she spends time catching up with Addie before her wedding, but Addie disagrees with the assertion that “you only get one great love in a lifetime.” In what ways do the different romantic experiences of each woman inform the ideas each has about love? 12. Filomena and Addie share a deep friendship. Addie tells Ada that “sometimes friends grow apart. . . . But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk—it’s still there.” What qualities do you think friends must share in order to have that kind of connection? Discuss your relationship with a best friend. Enhance
”
”
Anita Diamant (The Boston Girl)
“
to look around. At first sight, the apartment was perfectly ordinary. He made a quick circuit of the living room, kitchenette, bathroom, and bedroom. The place was tidy enough, but with a few items strewn here and there, the sort of things that might be left lying around by a busy person—a magazine, a half-finished crossword puzzle, a book left open on a night table. Abby had the usual appliances—an old stove and a humming refrigerator, a microwave oven with an unpronounceable brand name, a thirteen-inch TV on a cheap stand, a boom box near a modest collection of CDs. There were clothes in her bedroom closet and silverware, plates, and pots and pans in her kitchen cabinets. He began to wonder if he’d been unduly suspicious. Maybe Abby Hollister was who she said she was, after all. And he’d taken a considerable risk coming here. If he was caught inside her apartment, all his plans for the evening would be scotched. He would end up in a holding cell facing charges that would send him back to prison for parole violation. All because he’d gotten a bug up his ass about some woman he hardly knew, a stranger who didn’t mean anything. He decided he’d better get the hell out. He was retracing his steps through the living room when he glanced at the magazine tossed on the sofa. Something about it seemed wrong. He moved closer and took a better look. It was People, and the cover showed two celebrities whose recent marriage had already ended in divorce. But on the cover the stars were smiling over a caption that read, Love At Last. He picked up the magazine and studied it in the trickle of light through the filmy curtains. The date was September of last year. He put it down and looked at the end tables flanking the sofa. For the first time he noticed a patina of dust on their surfaces. The apartment hadn’t been cleaned in some time. He went into the kitchen and looked in the refrigerator. It seemed well stocked, but when he opened the carton of milk and sniffed, he discovered water inside—which was just as well, since the milk’s expiration period had ended around the time that the People cover story had been new. Water in the milk carton. Out-of-date magazine on the sofa. Dust everywhere, even coating the kitchen counters. Abby didn’t live here. Nobody did. This apartment was a sham, a shell. It was a dummy address, like the dummy corporations his partner had set up when establishing the overseas bank accounts. It could pass inspection if somebody came to visit, assuming the visitor didn’t look too closely, but it wasn’t meant to be used. Now that he thought about it, the apartment was remarkable for what
”
”
Michael Prescott (Dangerous Games (Abby Sinclair and Tess McCallum, #3))
“
To grasp incorrectly the basic problem of “man and woman,” to deny the most profound antagonism here and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, perhaps in this matter to dream about equal rights, equal education, equal entitlements and duties — that’s a typical sign of a superficial mind. And a thinker who has shown that he’s shallow in this dangerous place — shallow in his instincts! — may in general be considered suspicious or, even worse, betrayed and exposed. Presumably he’ll be too “short” for all the basic questions of life and of life in the future, and he’ll be incapable of any profundity.
By contrast, a man who does have profundity in his spirit and in his desires as well, together with that profundity of good will capable of severity and hardness and easily confused with them, can think about woman only in an oriental way: he has to grasp woman as a possession, as a property which he can lock up, as something predetermined for service and reaching her perfection in that service.
In this matter he must take a stand on the immense reasoning of Asia, on the instinctual superiority of Asia: just as the Greeks did in earlier times, the best heirs and students of Asia, who, as is well known, from Homer to the time of Pericles, as they advanced in culture and in the extent of their power, also became step by step stricter with women, in short, more oriental. How necessary, how logical, even how humanly desirable this was: that’s something we’d do well to think about for ourselves!
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
“
And, so, what was it that elevated Rubi from dictator's son-in-law to movie star's husband to the sort of man who might capture the hand of the world's wealthiest heiress?
Well, there was his native charm.
People who knew him, even if only casually, even if they were predisposed to be suspicious or resentful of him, came away liking him. He picked up checks; he had courtly manners; he kept the party gay and lively; he was attentive to women but made men feel at ease; he was smoothly quick to rise from his chair when introduced, to open doors, to light a lady's cigarette ("I have the fastest cigarette lighter in the house," he once boasted): the quintessential chivalrous gent of manners.
The encomia, if bland, were universal. "He's a very nice guy," swore gossip columnist Earl Wilson, who stayed with Rubi in Paris. ""I'm fond of him," said John Perona, owner of New York's El Morocco. "Rubi's got a nice personality and is completely masculine," attested a New York clubgoer. "He has a lot of men friends, which, I suppose, is unusual. Aly Khan, for instance, has few male friends. But everyone I know thinks Rubi is a good guy." "He is one of the nicest guys I know," declared that famed chum of famed playboys Peter Lawford. "A really charming man- witty, fun to be with, and a he-man."
There were a few tricks to his trade. A society photographer judged him with a professional eye thus: "He can meet you for a minute and a month later remember you very well." An author who played polo with him put it this way: "He had a trick that never failed. When he spoke with someone, whether man or woman, it seemed as if the rest of the world had lost all interest for him. He could hang on the words of a woman or man who spoke only banalities as if the very future of the world- and his future, especially- depended on those words."
But there was something deeper to his charm, something irresistible in particular when he turned it on women. It didn't reveal itself in photos, and not every woman was susceptible to it, but it was palpable and, when it worked, unforgettable.
Hollywood dirt doyenne Hedda Hoppe declared, "A friend says he has the most perfect manners she has ever encountered. He wraps his charm around your shoulders like a Russian sable coat."
Gossip columnist Shelia Graham was chary when invited to bring her eleven-year-old daughter to a lunch with Rubi in London, and her wariness was transmitted to the girl, who wiped her hand off on her dress after Rubi kissed it in a formal greeting; by the end of lunch, he had won the child over with his enthusiastic, spontaneous manner, full of compliments but never cloying. "All done effortlessly," Graham marveled. "He was probably a charming baby, I am sure that women rushed to coo over him in the cradle."
Elsa Maxwell, yet another gossip, but also a society gadabout and hostess who claimed a key role in at least one of Rubi's famous liaisons, put it thus: "You expect Rubi to be a very dangerous young man who personifies the wolf. Instead, you meet someone who is so unbelievably charming and thoughtful that you are put off-guard before you know it."
But charm would only take a man so far. Rubi was becoming and international legend not because he could fascinate a young girl but because he could intoxicate sophisticated women. p124
”
”
Shawn Levy (The Last Playboy : the High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa)
“
She could envision Shakespeare's sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare's sister, whereas I know that isn't what happened. You see, it isn't necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm only saying that isn't what usually happens. It it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don't have to rape or kill her; you don't even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare's sister did...follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother didn't provide, and if he has to put up with a screaming kid he isn't sure is his, he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of the fathers or the fathers of their children. But Shakespeare's sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along in the world without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm.
So much for the natural relation between the sexes.
But you see, he doesn't have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he'd lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labor regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men's white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college -- these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life.
They may, you say wearily, but who's interested?...Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do....They are always there in the back ground, like Time's winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.
”
”
Marilyn French (The Women's Room)
“
Billy pulled her snug against his body, forgetting his arousal in the urgent need to give her comfort.
He felt her stiffen, sought the reason, and realized she must have felt his erection. She shoved him away with the flat of her palms and stared up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. Or maybe shock was a better word.
Billy knew instantly what he’d lost. The wariness in her gaze spoke for itself. She’d always trusted him implicitly. Like a brother. But it was a lover’s body she’d felt. He could see she was astonished that he’d become aroused by touching her.
He let his hands drop to his sides. He didn’t think excuses would work, but he was willing to give them a try. His mouth curled up on one side in a cock-eyed grin. “Sorry about that. The feel of a female body does that to a man, whether he wants it to happen or not.”
“It shouldn’t happen between us,” she said with certainty. “We’re friends.”
He shrugged. “You’re female. I’m male. Sometimes it happens.”
“Not to us,” she insisted. She stared into his face suspiciously. “Or has it?”
“It might have happened once or twice. No big deal.”
She stared at the visible bulge in his jeans, then glanced up at him, her face flushed and said, “It looks pretty big to me.”
Billy couldn’t help grinning. “Summer, you can’t be this naïve. This is how a man reacts when he’s around an attractive woman.”
“You find me attractive?”
He saw the startled interest in her eyes and realized he’d opened another can of worms. He didn’t want her judging him as a prospective suitor. There was no way he could match up to the men her father presented to her on a silver platter.
“Any man would find a pretty girl like you attractive,” he said, backpedaling as fast as he could. He flipped one of her golden curls back from her shoulder and said, “Curls this bouncy, and eyes like topaz jewels, and a nose this nosy.” He tapped her playfully on the nose. “What man wouldn’t react like I did?
”
”
Joan Johnston (The Texan (Bitter Creek, #2))
“
it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If a sermon promises health and wealth to the faithful, it isn’t true, because that theology makes God an absolute monster who only blesses rich westerners and despises Christians in Africa, India, China, South America, Russia, rural Appalachia, inner-city America, and everywhere else a sincere believer remains poor. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. If doctrine elevates a woman’s married-with-children status as her highest calling, it isn’t true, because that omits single believers (whose status Paul considered preferable), widows, the childless by choice or fate or loss, the divorced, and the celibate gay. If these folks are second-class citizens in the kingdom because they aren’t married with children, then God just excluded millions of people from gospel work, and I guess they should just eat rocks and die. If it isn’t also true for a poor single Christian mom in Haiti, it isn’t true. Theology is either true everywhere or it isn’t true anywhere. This helps untangle us from the American God Narrative and sets God free to be God instead of the My-God-in-a-Pocket I carried for so long. It lends restraint when declaring what God does or does not think, because sometimes my portrayal of God’s ways sounds suspiciously like the American Dream and I had better check myself. Because of the Haitian single mom. Maybe I should speak less for God. This brings me to the question at hand, another popular subject I am asked to pontificate on: What is my calling? (See also: How do I know my calling? When did you know your calling? How can I get your calling? Has God told you my calling? Can you get me out of my calling?) Ah yes, “The Calling.” This is certainly a favorite Christian concept over in these parts. Here is the trouble: Scripture barely confirms our elusive calling—the bull’s-eye, life purpose, individual mission every hardworking Protestant wants to discover. I found five scriptures, three of which referred to
”
”
Jen Hatmaker (For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards)
“
It is a well known fact that warriors and wizards do not get along, because one side considers the other side to be a collection of bloodthirsty idiots who can't walk and think at the same time, while the other side is naturally suspicious of a body of men who mumble a lot and wear long dresses.
Oh, say the wizards, if we're going to be like that, then, what about all those studded collars and oiled muscles down at the Young Men's Pagan Association? To which the heroes reply, that's a pretty good allegation coming from a bunch of wimpsoes who won't go near a woman on account, can you believe it, of their mystical power being sort of drained out. Right, say the wizards, that just about does it, you and your leather posing pouches. Oh yeah, say the heroes, why don't you... And so on.
This sort of thing has been going on for centuries, and caused a number of major battles which have left large tracts of land uninhabitable because of magical harmonics. In fact, the hero even at this moment galloping towards the Vortex Plains didn't get involved in this kind of argument, because they didn't take it seriously, mainly because this particular hero was a heroine. A redheaded one.
Now, there is a tendency at a point like this to look over one's shoulder at the cover artist and start going on at length about leather, thigh-boots and naked blades. Words like "full", "round" and even "pert" creep into the narrative, until the writer has to go and have a cold shower and lie down. Which is all rather silly, because any woman setting out to make a living by the sword isn't about to go around looking like something off the cover of the more advanced kind of lingerie catalogue for the specialised buyer.
Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling's Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a short sword.
”
”
Terry Pratchett (The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2; Rincewind, #2))
“
We need more baskets,” Pandora said triumphantly, entering the hall.
The twins, who were clearly having a splendid time, had adorned themselves outlandishly. Cassandra was dressed in a green opera cloak with a jeweled feather ornament affixed to her hair. Pandora had tucked a light blue lace parasol beneath one arm, and a pair of lawn tennis rackets beneath the other, and was wearing a flowery diadem headdress that had slipped partially over one eye.
“From the looks of it,” Kathleen said, “you’ve done enough shopping already.”
Cassandra looked concerned. “Oh, no, we still have at least eighty departments to visit.”
Kathleen couldn’t help glancing at Devon, who was trying, without success, to stifle a grin. It was the first time she had seen him truly smile in days.
Enthusiastically the girls lugged the baskets to her and began to set objects on the counter in an unwieldy pile…perfumed soaps, powders, pomades, stockings, books, new corset laces and racks of hairpins, artificial flowers, tins of biscuits, licorice pastilles and barley sweets, a metal mesh tea infuser, hosiery tucked in little netted bags, a set of drawing pencils, and a tiny glass bottle filled with bright red liquid.
“What is this?” Kathleen asked, picking up the bottle and viewing it suspiciously.
“It’s a beautifier,” Pandora said.
“Bloom of Rose,” Cassandra chimed in.
Kathleen gasped as she realized what it was. “It’s rouge.” She had never even held a container of rouge before. Setting it on the counter, she said firmly, “No.”
“But Kathleen--”
“No to rouge,” she said, “now and for all time.”
“We need to enhance our complexions,” Pandora protested.
“It won’t do any harm,” Cassandra chimed in. “The bottle says that Bloom of Rose is ‘delicate and inoffensive’…It’s written right there, you see?”
“The comments you would receive if you wore rouge in public would assuredly not be delicate or inoffensive. People would assume you were a fallen woman. Or worse, an actress.”
Pandora turned to Devon. “Lord Trenear, what do you think?”
“This is one of those times when it’s best for a man to avoid thinking altogether,” he said hastily.
”
”
Lisa Kleypas (Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels, #1))
“
Raven paced restlessly across the floor of the cabin, sending Jacques a little self-mocking smile. “I’m very good at waiting.”
“I can see that,” Jacques agreed dryly.
“Come on, Jacques”— Raven made the length of the room again, turned to face him—“ don’t you find this even a little bit nerve-racking?” He leaned lazily back in his chair, flashing a cocky grin.
“Being caged up with a beautiful lunatic, you mean?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Do all Carpathian males think they’re stand-up comedians?”
“Just those of us with sisters-in-law who bounce off walls. I feel like I am watching a Ping-Pong ball. Settle down.”
“Well, how long does something like this take? I thought he implied he’d be in and out of the hospital in two minutes, Jacques. What could have gone wrong? Mikhail was very upset.”
“Mikhail did not actually say anything went wrong, did he?” Jacques asked, blankly innocent.
Raven’s large blue-violet eyes settled on Jacques’s face thoughtfully. Jacques squirmed under her suspicious, steady gaze. There was far too much intelligence in her enormous eyes to suit him. He held up a placating hand. “Now, Raven.”
“Don’t you now-Raven me. That brother of yours, worm that he is, male chauvinist unequaled in modern times, told you something he didn’t tell me, didn’t he?”
Leaning back with studied casualness, Jacques tipped his chair to a precarious angle and raised an eyebrow. “Women have vivid imaginations. I think you have a suspicious nature due to your American upbringing.”
“Intellect, Jacques, not imagination,” she corrected sweetly. “My American upbringing made me incredibly intelligent, and believe me, I can spot one of your pathetic Carpathian plots to protect the helpless woman from information you consider would make her fragile little delicate self unnecessarily fearful.”
He grinned at her. “Carpathian males understand the fragile nature of women’s nerves. Women— especially American women— just cannot take the adversity that we men can.”
“I think I should have enjoyed meeting your mother. How a woman could manage to raise two domineering tyrants like you and Mikhail is beyond me.”
His dark eyes laughed at her. “But we are charismatic, sexy, handsome, and always right.”
Raven hooked her foot around his chair and sent him crashing to the floor. Hands on hips, she regarded him with a superior glint. “Carpathian men are vain, dear brother-in-law,” she proclaimed, “but not too bright.”
Jacques glared up at her with mock ferocity. “You have a mean streak in you, woman. Whatever happened to a soft, sweet, Yes, my lord, you’re always right?”
“Try the Dark Ages.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Prince (Dark, #1))
“
I have come, my lovely,” Roddy said with his usual sardonic grin as he swept her a deep bow, “in answer to your urgent summons-and, I might add,-“ he continued, “before I presented myself at the Willingtons’, exactly as your message instructed.” At 5’10”, Roddy Carstairs was a slender man of athletic build with thinning brown hair and light blue eyes. In fact, his only distinguishing characteristics were his fastidiously tailored clothes, a much-envied ability to tie a neckcloth into magnificently intricate folds that never drooped, and an acid wit that accepted no boundaries when he chose a human target. “Did you hear about Kensington?”
“Who?” Alex said absently, trying to think of the best means to persuade him to do what she needed done.
“The new Marquess of Kensington, once known as Mr. Ian Thornton, persona non grata. Amazing, is it not, what wealth and title will do?” he continued, studying Alex’s tense face as he continued, “Two years ago we wouldn’t have let him past the front door. Six months ago word got out that he’s worth a fortune, and we started inviting him to our parties. Tonight he’s the heir to a dukedom, and we’ll be coveting invitations to his parties. We are”-Roddy grinned-“when you consider matters from this point of view, a rather sickening and fickle lot.”
In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. “Oh, Roddy,” she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek. “You always make me laugh, even when I’m in the most dreadful coil, which I am now. You could make things so very much better-if you would.”
Roddy helped himself to a pinch of snuff, lifted his arrogant brows, and waited, his look both suspicious and intrigued. “I am, of course, your most obedient servant,” he drawled with a little mocking bow.
Despite that claim, Alexandra knew better. While other men might be feared for their tempers or their skill with rapier and pistol, Roddy Carstairs was feared for his cutting barbs and razor tongue. And, while one could not carry a rapier or a pistol into a ball, Roddy could do his damage there unimpeded. Even sophisticated matrons lived in fear of being on the wrong side of him. Alex knew exactly how deadly he could be-and how helpful, for he had made her life a living hell when she came to London the first time. Later he had done a complete turnabout, and it had been Roddy who had forced the ton to accept her. He had done it not out of friendship or guilt; he had done it because he’d decided it would be amusing to test his power by building a reputation for a change, instead of shredding it.
“There is a young woman whose name I’ll reveal in a moment,” Alex began cautiously, “to whom you could be of great service. You could, in fact, rescue her as you did me long ago, Roddy, if only you would.”
“Once was enough,” he mocked. “I could hardly hold my head up for shame when I thought of my unprecedented gallantry.”
“She’s incredibly beautiful,” Alex said.
A mild spark of interest showed in Roddy’s eyes, but nothing stronger. While other men might be affected by feminine beauty, Roddy generally took pleasure in pointing out one’s faults for the glee of it. He enjoyed flustering women and never hesitated to do it. But when he decided to be kind he was the most loyal of friends.
”
”
Judith McNaught (Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3))
“
During the conversation she [7th-GGM, Anna Maria Hoepflinger Floerl] also talked about the guidance with which God had provided her when they started to expel the Salzburgers. She was born in the state of Bavaria and brought up in ignorance by her seriously erring mother and some relatives. However, when God recognized that He could save her soul, He saw to it that among the twelve journeyman of a papal masterbuilder from Salzburg who worked on a church in Bavaria, there was a Lutheran journeyman, called “the Lutheran,” about whose religion strange things were said. Because he got room and board at the house of her cousin, for whom she worked, she was very much aware of his Christian behavior. And, since she noticed great peace, nonconformance to the world, and diligent prayer and intercession as well as sympathy and tears when he saw the bound Evangelical Salzburgers being led past him, she had the deep desire to talk to this man secretly about his and her religious faith.
One evening God arranged for her cousin to be busy with the soldiers who were accompanying the Salzburgers on their way across Bavaria, while the servants were in the tavern. She grasped this opportunity to make this knowledgeable man, who was experienced in Christianity, teach her the Evangelical truth for three hours; upon her request, he also sent her a good book, namely the Schaitberger, in a small well-secured barrel. In it, they eagerly read for three consecutive weeks at night about the Evangelical truth and her previous misunderstandings. Because the people concluded from her overall behavior, especially her absence from monthly confession, observance of brotherhood meetings, participation in pilgrimages, and telling a rosary, that she might have suspicious books, they waylaid her, took the book away from her, and threatened her with jail and death unless she stayed away from this heresy. At the priest’s instigation, her mother, in particular, behaved very badly.
Finally God gave her the courage to leave, although she knew neither the way nor the area. A woman potter, also a secret Lutheran, referred her to her very close kinswoman in Austria; but there she was advised in confidence that she was to go to Salzburg rather than to pretend, in violation of her conscience, because here they searched very much after Evangelical people and books. Since the journeyman bricklayer had given her instructions on how to get to the Goldeck jurisdiction and, there, to a Lutheran family, she traveled there without a passport, like a poor abandoned sheep, in the name of God, who was her leader and guide, and she was well received. However, because the Evangelical people were being expelled at that time, she was summoned to appear before the authorities and was threatened that, if she stayed with these Evangelical people, she would enjoy neither God’s care nor any favor from the people in the Empire, but would die a horrible death. Nevertheless, she said that she would go with them regardless of what might happen to her. She preferred all misery and even death itself to renouncing God, her Savior, and the Evangelical truth. She did not start with good days, but with misery and death, as the bricklayer had told her earlier while assuring her of God’s help.
”
”
Johann Martin Boltzius
“
You do that a great deal, don’t you?”
He swallowed the rest of his wine. “What?”
“Close up into yourself whenever someone tries to peer into your soul. Make a joke of it.”
“If you came out here to lecture me,” he snapped, “don’t bother. Gran has perfected that talent. You can’t possibly compete.”
“I only want to understand.”
“I want to be consumed by a star, but we don’t all get what we want.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Turning for the nearest door into the house, he started to stalk off, but she caught his arm.
“Why are you so angry at your grandmother?” Maria asked.
“I told you-she’s trying to ruin the lives of me and my siblings.”
“By requiring you to marry so you can have children? I thought all lords and ladies were expected to do that. And the five of you are certainly old enough.” Her tone turned teasing. “Some of you are beyond being old enough.”
“Watch it, minx,” he clipped out. “I’m not in the mood for having my nose tweaked tonight.”
“Because of your grandmother, you mean. It’s not just her demand that has you angry, is it? It goes back longer than that.”
Oliver glared at her. “Why do you care? Has she got you fighting her battles for her now?”
“Hardly. She just informed me that I was, and I quote, ‘exactly the sort of woman who would not meet my requirements of a wife.’”
A smile touched his lips at her accurate mimicking of Gran at her most haughty. “I told you she would think that.”
“Yes,” she said dryly. “You both excel at insulting people.”
“One of my many talents.”
“There you go again. Making a joke to avoid talking about what makes you uncomfortable.”
“And what is that?”
“What did your grandmother do, besides giving you an ultimatum about marriage, that has you at daggers drawn?”
Blast it all, would she not leave off? “How do you know she did anything? Perhaps I’m just contrary.”
“You are. But that’s not what has you so angry at her.”
“If you plan to spend the next two weeks asking ridiculous questions that have no answers, then I will pay you to return to London.”
She smiled. “No, you won’t. You need me.”
“True. But since I’m paying for the service you’re providing, I get some say in how it’s rendered. Bedeviling me with questions isn’t part of our bargain.”
“You haven’t paid me anything yet,” she said lightly, “so I should think there’s some leeway in the terms. Especially since I’ve been working hard all evening furthering your cause. I just finished telling your grandmother that I have ‘feelings’ for you, and that I know you have ‘feelings’ for me.”
“You didn’t choke on that lie?” he quipped.
“I do have feelings for you-probably not the sort she meant, though apparently she believed me. But she was suspicious. She’s more astute than you give her credit for. First she accused us of acting a farce, and then, when I denied that, she accused me of thinking to marry you so I could gain a fortune from her down the line.”
“And what did you say to that?”
“I told her she could keep her precious fortune.”
“Did you, indeed? I would have given my right arm to see that.” Maria was proving to be an endless source of amazement. No one ever stood up to Gran-except this American chit, with her naïve beliefs in justice and right and morality.
It amazed him that she’d done it, considering how he’d treated her. No one, not even his siblings, had ever defended him with so little reason. It stirred something that had long lain dead inside him.
His conscience? No, that wasn’t dead; it was nonexistent.
”
”
Sabrina Jeffries (The Truth About Lord Stoneville (Hellions of Halstead Hall, #1))
“
And now he had her in his arms, this amazing, prickly, suspicious, hardheaded woman that he was falling for in spite of himself because she was also sweet and kind and had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever met. Falling hard. It was going to take a lot to convince her that he was a good idea, although he was pretty sure her body might’ve already made its decision. He had no idea what it would take to persuade the rest of her.
”
”
Jill Shalvis (Rainy Day Friends (Wildstone, #2))
“
glory.” “Use me?” The memory returned to him of thinking that, but about Rand, that the Aes Sedai meant to use Rand, not him. They’ve no bloody use for me. Light, they can’t have! “What do you mean? I’m no one important. I am no use to anyone but myself. What kind of glory?” “I knew that would pull you. You, above all.” Her smile made his head spin. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. The blanket slipped, and he caught it hastily before it could fall. “Now listen, they are not interested in me.” What about me sounding the Horn? “I am just a farmer.” Maybe they think I’m tied to Rand in some way. No, Verin said. . . . He was not sure what Verin had said, or Moiraine, but he thought most Aes Sedai knew nothing at all about Rand. He wanted to keep it that way, at least until he was a long way gone. “Just a simple country man. I only want to see a little of the world and go back to my da’s farm.” What does she mean, glory? Selene shook her head as if she had heard his thoughts. “You are more important than you yet know. Certainly more important than these so-called Aes Sedai know. You can have glory, if you know enough not to trust them.” “You certainly sound as if you don’t trust them.” So-called? A thought came to him, but he could not manage to say it. “Are you a . . . ? Are you . . . ?” It was not the kind of thing you accused someone of. “A Darkfriend?” Selene said mockingly. She sounded amused, not angered. She sounded contemptuous. “One of those pathetic followers of Ba’alzamon who think he will give them immortality and power? I follow no one. There is one man I could stand beside, but I do not follow.” Mat laughed nervously. “Of course not.” Blood and ashes, a Darkfriend wouldn’t name herself Darkfriend. Probably has a poisoned knife, if she is. He had a vague memory of a woman dressed as one nobly born, a Darkfriend with a deadly dagger in her slender hand. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. You look. . . . You look like a queen. That’s what I meant. Are you a Lady?” “Mat, Mat, you must learn to trust me. Oh, I will use you, too—you have too suspicious a nature, especially since carrying that dagger, for me to deny it—but my use will gain you wealth, and power, and glory. I will not compel you. I have always believed men perform better if convinced rather than forced.
”
”
Robert Jordan (The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time, #3))
“
Josephine!"
A stentorian bellow shook the candles in their sconces.
Unconsciously, Amy grabbed Richard’s arm, looking about anxiously for the source of the roar. About the room, people went on chatting as before.
"Steady there." Richard patted the delicate hand clutching the material of his coat. "It’s just the First Consul."
Snatching her hand away as though his coat were made of live coals, Amy snapped, "You would know."
"Josephine!"
The dreadful noise repeated itself, cutting off any further remarks. Out of an adjoining room charged a blur of red velvet, closely followed by the scurrying form of a young man. Amy sidestepped just in time, swaying on her slippers to avoid toppling into Lord Richard.
The red velvet came to an abrupt stop beside Mme Bonaparte’s chair. "Oh. Visitors."
Once still, the red velvet resolved into a man of slightly less than medium height, clad in a long red velvet coat with breeches that must once have been white, but which now bore assorted stains that proclaimed as clearly as a menu what the wearer had eaten for supper.
"I do wish you wouldn’t shout so, Bonaparte." Mme Bonaparte lifted one white hand and touched him gently on the cheek.
Bonaparte grabbed her hand and planted a resounding kiss on the palm. "How else am I to make myself heard?" Affectionately tweaking one of her curls, he demanded, "Well? Who is it tonight?"
"We have some visitors from England, sir,"his stepdaughter responded. "I should like to present…" Hortense began listing their names. Bonaparte stood, legs slightly apart, eyes hooded with apparent boredom, and one arm thrust into the opposite side of his jacket, as though in a sling.
Bonaparte inclined his head, looked down at his wife, and demanded, "Are we done yet?"
Thwap!
Everyone within earshot jumped at the sound of Miss Gwen’s reticule connecting with Bonaparte’s arm.
"Sir! Take that hand out of your jacket! It is rude and it ruins your posture. A man of your diminutive stature needs to stand up straight."
Something suspiciously like a chuckle emerged from Lord Richard’s lips, but when Amy glanced sharply up at him, his expression was studiedly bland.
A dangerous hush fell over the room. Flirtations in the far corners of the room were abandoned. Business deals were dropped. The non-English speakers among the assemblage tugged at the sleeves of those who had the language, and instant translations began to be whispered about the room – suitably embellished, of course.
"It’s an assassination attempt!" a woman next to Amy cried dramatically, swooning back into the arms of an officer who looked as though he didn’t quite know what to do with her, but would really be happiest just dropping her.
"No, it’s not, it’s just Miss Gwen," Amy tried to explain.
Meanwhile, Miss Gwen was advancing on Bonaparte, backing him up so that he was nearly sitting on Josephine’s lap. "While we are speaking, sir, this habit you have of barging into other people’s countries without invitation – it is most rude. I will not have it! You should apologise to the Italians and the Dutch at the first opportunity!"
"Mais zee Italians, zey invited me!" Bonaparte exclaimed indignantly.
Miss Gwen cast Bonaparte the severe look of a governess listening to substandard excuses from a wayward child.
"That may well be," she pronounced in a tone that implied she thought it highly unlikely. "But your behaviour upon entering their country was inexcusable! If you were to be invited to someone’s home for a weekend, sirrah, would you reorganise their domestic arrangements and seize the artwork from their walls? Would you countenance any guest who behaved so? I thought not."
Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England. "So much for the Peace of Amiens!" she started to whisper to Jane, but Jane was no longer beside her.
”
”
Lauren Willig (The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (Pink Carnation, #1))
“
It’s making me suspicious of everyone. Everywhere I go I’m looking at people and wondering if it’s them. I hate it. I don’t want to be suspicious of people. I just want the whole thing to go away. To stop. At first I thought it was a few people ganging up on me, jumping on my feminism, as though being a feminist was the worst thing a woman could be. But after a while I realised that it wasn’t really about feminism at all. It was just one person with some sort of grudge against me. That person just kept on and on … and is still sending me letters now.” “We’ll find out who it is. I can look at the whole thing with fresh eyes.” “With a detective’s eyes, you mean?” “Is that so bad? We have to treat it like a police matter and look at all the possibilities. You’d be surprised at how many clues might be contained in as many letters as these. Physical clues, such as the paper and envelopes, the way the stamps are stuck on the envelopes, finger-prints and so on … and clues in the wording.” “There are some spelling and grammatical errors,” she sighed, almost in a gesture of defeat. “Exactly. Those errors can be clues.” “Just in this last letter, the writer has used dont without the apostrophe and your and you’re the wrong way round. They are mistakes that have been repeated again and again over the months. There are quite a lot of spelling mistakes in the earlier, longer letters. I’m not sure how much that will narrow it down, though. Loads of people don’t know when they’re supposed to use apostrophes, so they just guess. And loads of people can’t spell.” “It might help,” he nodded positively. “We should also look at who might have a motive for writing these letters. Is there anyone in your past you think could be responsible?” She shivered. “Like I told you, I’ve had months to think about it. I’ve wondered about practically everyone I’ve ever met and I hate thinking about people that way, especially people I know.” “I can be more objective and maybe I can come up
”
”
Alison Greaves (The Curse Of The Ayton Witches (Inspector McClennan, #3))
“
The child bounded onto the bed, landing on all fours, her round face wreathed in a smile. “Hein nei nan-ne-i-cut?”
“What is your name?” Hunter translated, tousling the imp’s hair as he hunkered beside the bed. “Loh-rhett-ah, eh? Tohobt Nabituh, Blue Eyes.” To Loretta, he said, “Warrior’s daughter, To-oh Hoos-cho, Blackbird.”
Blackbird giggled and glanced at her grandmother, who stood watching from across the room. “Loh-rhett-ah!”
Loretta scooted toward the head of the bed to press her back against the taut leather wall. The little girl followed, reaching out with a small brown hand to lightly touch the flounces on Loretta’s bloomers. Loretta stared at her. At last, a Comanche she didn’t detest on sight. She was tempted to grab hold of her and never let go. Loretta guessed her to be about three years old, possibly four.
While Blackbird satisfied her curiosity about Loretta and examined her form head to toe, Hunter carried on an unintelligible conversation with his mother. From the gestures he made, Loretta guessed he was relating that his captive refused to eat or drink and that her voice had returned. A look of concern flashed across the older woman’s dark face. Hunter rose and thumped the heel of his hand against his forehead, rolling his eyes toward the smoke hole above the firepit.
“Ai-ee!” Woman with Many Robes crossed the packed grass-and-dirt floor and leaned forward to peer at Loretta. After babbling shrilly for several seconds, all the while waving her spoon, she crooned, “Nei mi-pe mah-tao-yo,” and placed a gentle hand on Loretta’s hair.
“My mother says the poor little one must have no fear.”
Woman with Many Robes cast her son a suspicious glance. When it became apparent that he planned to say no more, she brandished her spoon at him.
With great reluctance he cleared his throat, eyed the people crowding the doorway, and said, in a very low voice, “You will have no fear of me, eh? If I lift my hand against you, I will be a caum-mom-se, a bald head, and she will thump me with her spoon.” He hesitated and looked as if he found it difficult not to smile. “She will make the great na-ba-dah-kah, battle, with me. And in the end, she will win. She is one mean woman.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Ai-ee!” Woman with Many Robes crossed the packed grass-and-dirt floor and leaned forward to peer at Loretta. After babbling shrilly for several seconds, all the while waving her spoon, she crooned, “Nei mi-pe mah-tao-yo,” and placed a gentle hand on Loretta’s hair.
“My mother says the poor little one must have no fear.”
Woman with Many Robes cast her son a suspicious glance. When it became apparent that he planned to say no more, she brandished her spoon at him.
With great reluctance he cleared his throat, eyed the people crowding the doorway, and said, in a very low voice, “You will have no fear of me, eh? If I lift my hand against you, I will be a caum-mom-se, a bald head, and she will thump me with her spoon.” He hesitated and looked as if he found it difficult not to smile. “She will make the great na-ba-dah-kah, battle, with me. And in the end, she will win. She is one mean woman.”
Woman with Many Robes stroked Loretta’s hair and nodded, saying something more. She no sooner finished than Blackbird burst into giggles and rolled away from Loretta, planting a hand on her tummy. Whatever it was the woman had said, the child thought it hilarious.
“You must eat,” Hunter translated. “And drink. Soon you will feel better, eh? And she will trade with the Comanchero for you a big spoon. If I ever again strike fear into your heart, you can do your own thumping.”
Loretta concurred with Blackbird. She’d need much more than a spoon to do battle with Hunter.
”
”
Catherine Anderson (Comanche Moon (Comanche, #1))
“
Nothing is more suspicious than an unfeeling woman.
”
”
Nina de Gramont (The Christie Affair)
“
A sign advertising lunches and dinners swung from a post in front of a small white cottage. Flowered curtains hung at the windows and rose-bushes were in bloom along the walk. “Doesn’t look like a hideout for thieves,” said Joe, disappointed. Frank pointed out that the attractive front might be only a cover for some sinister doings inside. He insisted they find out, adding: “Guess we all could eat, anyway. Let’s go in. I’ll telephone and tell Mother we won’t be home for lunch.” The woman who owned the restaurant prepared a delicious meal for the boys, while they looked around. They saw the entire cottage, even the basement, for the owner proudly showed them her preserve closet. There was nothing the least bit suspicious about the house.
”
”
Franklin W. Dixon (The Secret Panel (Hardy Boys, #25))
“
Groaning in exasperation, Easton closed his eyes.
"Are you counting to ten?" River sounded as suspicious as he had been. "You are not counting to ten, because I'm a grown-ass woman, dammit. You don't get to count to ten when dealing with me.
”
”
Sarah Morgenthaler (Enjoy the View (Moose Springs, Alaska, #3))
“
Your boy has ruined my daughter, Tony. She’s expecting.” Elsa saw the way Mrs. Martinelli’s face changed at that, how the look in her eyes went from kind to suspicious. An appraising, judging look in which Elsa was condemned as either a liar or a loose woman or both
”
”
Kristin Hannah (The Four Winds)
“
I’m not only being sold off to a strange man, but I’m also expected to spy and report back anything suspicious to my brothers and keep my mouth shut about any Lebedev business, and if I fuck any of this up, some innocent woman will pay for it. Nothing is ever simple in my world.
”
”
Sonja Grey (Paved in Hate (Melnikov Bratva, # 4))
“
An rud is annamh is iontach. A uniquely Irish phrase, not just in language but in attitude. We’re a post-colonial nation, and in many ways we don’t expect – or even, in a stubborn way, want – too many nice things. Going without will make the having, whenever it comes along, all the sweeter. That’s the reasoning, anyway. It’s why culturally we love when teams end famines and are deeply suspicious of anything more than a three-in-a-row.
”
”
Eimear Ryan (The Grass Ceiling: On Being a Woman in Sport)
“
The character of the victim has always something to do with his or her murder. The frank and unsuspicious mind of Desdemona was the direct cause of her death. A more suspicious woman would have seen Iago’s machinations and circumvented them much earlier.
”
”
Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Hercule Poirot, #20))
“
He can’t do anything to me.” Francis pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m the baron’s guest. She’s chained to that monster. A woman so refined, so delicate, should be shielded from the rigors of the world, so they don’t bruise her. She is completely helpless, you see . . .” Jack choked on his food and made some coughing noises that sounded suspiciously like feline laughter.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (Fate's Edge (The Edge, #3))
“
But you said you didn’t love out father. How can you have faith in him if you didn’t love him?”
“Maybe that’s the reason.” Adam said slowly, feeling his way. “Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe – maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure – never sure of her because you aren’t sure of yourself? I can see pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe – why, maybe it’s a kind of reverse.
”
”
John Steinbeck
“
Shannon found herself smiling, 'You really don't know much sweet talk, do you, Tucker?'
He gave her a suspicious look, like he thought she was trying to trick him. 'I know I'm not going to live without you. I know you're coming with me now, and we're staying together forever.'
Shannon's heart started to heal at those words. And she opened her mouth to tell him so.
But he kept talking so that she couldn't get a word in. 'I love you. I'm going home. That means you're coming with me. How much sweeter talk could a woman want?'
The man would never be a poet. She threw her arms around his neck. 'No woman could want sweeter talk than that. I only got so upset because I can't bear that thought of living without you, Tucker. I'm sorry I doubted you. Yes, I'm coming home with you.'
'You are? Even without your sheep?' Tucker looked doubtful.
Shannon did hate to give them up, but it was in the Bible after all.
”
”
Mary Connealy (Now and Forever (Wild at Heart, #2))
“
Jack poured wine into Janet’s glass, fighting to ignore what felt suspiciously like nerves. “Bon appétit.” What the hell did he possibly have to be nervous about? Absolutely nothing. That’s what. This wasn’t a date or some damned romantic liaison. He was having dinner with an acquaintance who’d gotten stranded near his property—and who just happened to be a beautiful woman.
”
”
Pamela Clare (Soul Deep (I-Team, #6.5))
“
Until now, I felt like I had no real purpose in life, I found myself just wandering through the day to day tasks that have no consequence or interpretation to the kind of woman I am. These emotions have been with me for a number of years now, and I often wonder if it has to do with the death of my mother and the suspicious circumstances in which she passed. What is it about Chas that brings new substance to my life?
”
”
J.A. Heron (30 Days)
“
Sometimes women are overly suspicious of their husbands. When Adam stayed out very late for a few nights, Eve became upset. "You're running around with other women," she charged. "You're being unreasonable," Adam responded. "You're the only woman on earth." The quarrel continued until Adam fell asleep, only to be awakened by someone poking him in the chest. It was Eve. "What do you think you're doing?" Adam demanded. "Counting your ribs!
”
”
E. King (Best Adult Jokes Ever)
“
You smell different, Jacques.” Shea inhaled his scent sharply, pulled back so she could look into his eyes. “Why do you smell different?”
He laughed softly. “It is not a woman, red hair. Why are you so suspicious? I met another one such as myself in the forest. I was in need, and he offered his aid.”
“And you took it?” She was astonished. Jacques had certainly come a long way from the wary, dark, dangerous man she had first encountered. “He was a total stranger, yet you allowed him to help you?”
“You were a total stranger, and I allowed you to do more than simply aid me,” he teased, his mouth warm against the corner of hers. “In fact, you gave me all sorts of interesting ideas on how you could further aid me.”
“I did not. As I recall, I told you I was your doctor, nothing more, and you would not listen to me. You know, Jacques, that’s a very bad habit of yours, not listening to me.”
His mouth wandered back to her ear, his breath stirring her blood. “I promise to remedy the situation as soon as humanly possible,” he whispered with a sorcerer’s magic.
”
”
Christine Feehan (Dark Desire (Dark, #2))
“
Kwa mwanamke wa kuoa natafuta hasanati. Akiwa mbaya atakuwa mzuri. Akiwa maskini atakuwa tajiri. Akiwa gumbaru atakuwa msomi. Akiwa mshamba atakuwa mjanja. Akiwa mjinga atapata maarifa. Nitampenda zaidi kwa mazuri kuliko mabaya.
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
Myron walked up the little brick walk and knocked on the door. A very attractive black woman answered, a pleasant smile at the ready. Her hair was tied back in a severe bun, emphasizing the high cheekbones. Age lines around the eyes and mouth, but nothing drastic. She was well dressed, kind of conservative. Anne Klein II. Her jewelry was noticeable but not too flashy. The overall impression: classy. Her smile seemed to fade when she saw him. “Can I help you?” “Mrs. Yeller?” She nodded slowly, as though not sure. “My name is Myron Bolitar. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” The smile fled completely. “What about?” Her diction was different now. Less suburban civil. More street suspicious.
”
”
Harlan Coben (Drop Shot (Myron Bolitar, #2))