Tipping The Velvet Quotes

Being in love, you know... it's not like having a canary, in a cage. When you lose one sweetheart, you can't just go out and get another to replace her.

This is the problem with even lesser demons. They come to your doorstep in velvet coats and polished shoes. They tip their hats and smile and demonstrate good table manners. They never show you their tails.

It was heavy, and I staggered when I lifted it; but it was strangely satifying to have a real burden upon my shoulders – a kind of counterweight to my terrible heaviness of heart.

With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk.

She scissored the curls away, and - toms, grow easily sentimental over their haircuts, but I remember this sensation very vividly - it was not like she was cutting hair, it was as if I had a pair of wings beneath my shoulder-blades, that the flesh had all grown over, and she was slicing free...

All unwillingly I opened my eyes - then I opened them wider, and lifted my head. The heat, my weariness, were quite forgotten. Piercing the shadows of the naked stage was a single shaft of rosy limelight, and in the centre of this there was a girl: the most marvellous girl - I knew it at once! - that I had ever seen.

We fitted together like the two halves of an oyster-shell. I was Narcissus, embracing the pond in which I was about to drown. However much we had to hide our love, however guarded we had to be about our pleasure, I could not long be miserable about a thing so very sweet. Nor, in my gladness, could I quite believe that anybody would be anything but happy for me if only they knew.

clad not exactly as a boy but, rather confusingly, as the boy I would have been, had I been more of a girl

You smell,' she began, slowly and wonderingly, 'like -' 'Like a herring!'I said bitterly. My cheeks were hot now and very red; there were tears, almost, in my eyes. I think she saw my confusion and was sorry for it. 'Not at all like a herring,' she said gently.'But perhaps, maybe, like a mermaid...

Do me a favor,” he whispers, curling my fingers over the back of his and bringing them to his mouth. “What?” His eyes never leave mine as he brushes his lips over my knuckles. “Dream of me tonight,” he says softly. He watches me, waiting for a response. I have no words, so I simply nod. He doesn’t need to know that no one else occupies my dreams. No one. “Dream of my lips, teasing you.” Straightening one of my fingers, he kisses the tip. His voice is like velvet and his words are like an aphrodisiac. “Dream of my tongue, tasting you.” His tongue sneaks out to flick the end of my finger. A surge of desire rocks my core. “And I’ll dream of you. Of what it feels like to be inside your warm, wet body.

Now she has turned up, saying all the things I dreamed she'd say.

When I see her,” I said, “it’s like - I don’t know what it’s like. It’s like I never saw anything at all before. It’s like I am filling up, like a wine-glass when it’s filled with wine. I watch the acts before her and they are like nothing - they’re like dust. Then she walks on the stage and - she is so pretty; and her suit is so nice; and her voice is so sweet… She makes me want to smile and weep, at once. She makes me sore, here.” I placed a hand upon my chest, upon the breast-bone. “I never saw a girl like her before. I never knew that there were girls like her…” My voice became a trembling whisper then, and I found that I could say no more. There was another silence. I opened my eyes and looked at Alice - and knew at once that I shouldn’t have spoken; that I should have been as dumb and as cunning with her as with the rest of them. There was a look on her face - it was not ambiguous at all now - a look of mingled shock, and nervousness, and embarrassment or shame. I had said too much. I felt as if my admiration for Kitty Butler had lit a beacon inside me, and opening my unguarded mouth had sent a shaft of light into the darkened room, illuminating all. I had said too much - but it was that, or say nothing.

He mumbled words against her lips, too low for her to hear, but she imagined she got a strong impression of what he wanted to say, as he coaxed her lips apart, letting Scarlett taste the coolness of his tongue and the tips of his teeth as he grazed her lower lip. Every touch created colours she had never seen. Colours as soft as velvet and as sharp as sparks that turned into stars.

Oh, for shame! Nancy, have you never seen Florrie's face in a chrysanthemum, or a rose?' 'Never.' I said. 'Though there was a flounder for sale on a fishmonger's barrow, in Whitechapel yesterday, and the likeness was quite uncanny. I very nearly brought it home...

I knew that Kitty and I felt just the same- only, of course, about different things. I should have remembered this, later.

I have been being careful since the first minute I saw you. I am the Queen of Carefulness. I shall go on being careful for ever, if you like - so long as I might be a bit reckless, sometimes, when we are quite alone

But he was not like Walter, who might take his pleasure where he chose it. His pleasure had turned, at the last, to a kind of grief; and his love was a love so fierce and so secret it must be satisfied, with a stranger, in a reeking court like this. I knew about that kind of love. I knew how it was to bare your palpitating heart, and be fearful as you did so that the beats should come too loudly, and betray you.

When I see her,’ I said, ‘it’s like - I don’t know what it’s like. It’s like I never saw anything at all before.

She sang that night like - I cannot say like an angel, for her songs were all of champagne suppers and strolling in the Burlington Arcade; perhaps, then, like a fallen angel - or yet again like a falling one: she sang like a falling angel might sing with the bounds of heaven fresh burst behind him, and hell still distant and unguessed. And as she did so, I sang with her - not loudly and carelessly like the rest of the crowd, but softly, almost secretly, as if she might hear me the better if I whispered rather than bawled.

Kitty’s gone, Flo. Like Lilian. Believe me, there’s more chance of her coming back!’ I began to smile. ‘And if she does, you can go to her, and I won’t say a word. And if Kitty comes for me, you can do similar. And then, I suppose, we shall have our paradises - and will be able to wave to one another from our separate clouds. But till then - till then, Flo, can’t we go on kissing, and just be glad?

There were silhouettes of girls holding hands on a couple of the covers, and on one - a shiny, hardback American edition - two girls kissing. I shook my head at the audacity of my sister, at my own embarrassment, at the sheer perfection of both her timing and her gift. From Tipping the Velvet to Cameron Post, an entire library of girls like me.

But there was something very appealing about that Fe-Male. I saw myself in it - in the hyphen.

I might be weary or stupid; I might be nauseous with drink; I might be sore, at the hips, with the ache of my monthlies, but the opening of this box, as I have said, never ceased to stir me - I was like a dog twitching and slavering to hear his mistress call out Bone!

He sighed and opened the black box and took out his rings and slipped them on. Another box held a set of knives and Klatchian steel, their blades darkened with lamp black. Various cunning and intricate devices were taken from velvet bags and dropped into pockets. A couple of long-bladed throwing tlingas were slipped into their sheaths inside his boots. A thin silk line and folding grapnel were wound around his waist, over the chain-mail shirt. A blowpipe was attached to its leather thong and dropped down the back of his cloak; Teppic picked a slim tin container with an assortment of darts, their tips corked and their stems braille-coded for ease of selection in the dark. He winced, checked the blade of his rapier and slung the baldric over his right shoulder, to balance the bag of lead slingshot ammunition. As an afterthought he opened his sock drawer and took a pistol crossbow, a flask of oil, a roll of lockpicks and, after some consideration, a punch dagger, a bag of assorted caltrops and a set of brass knuckles. Teppic picked up his hat and checked it's lining for the coil of cheesewire. He placed it on his head at a jaunty angle, took a last satisfied look at himself in the mirror, turned on his heel and, very slowly, fell over.

Tricky was a plain-faced man with a very handsome voice - a voice like the sound of a clarinet, at once liquid and penetrating, and lovely to listen to.

I’m taking you out, to meet my friends. I’m taking you,’ she put a hand to my cheek, ‘to my club.

If people like me don't work, it's because they look at the world, at all the injustice and the muck, and all they see is a nation falling in upon itself, and taking them with it. But the muck has new things growing out of it - wonderful things! - new habits of working, new kinds of people, new ways of being alive and in love ...

Her friend - and her partner on the stage. You will not believe me, but making love to Kitty - a thing done in passion, but always, too, in shadow and silence, and with an ear half-cocked for the sound of footsteps on the stairs - making love to Kitty and posing at her side in a shaft of limelight, before a thousand pairs of eyes, to a script I knew by heart, in an attitude I had laboured for hours to perfect - these things were not so very different. A double act is always twice the act that the audience thinks it; beyond our songs, our steps, our bits of business with coins and canes and flowers, there was a private language, in which we held an endless, delicate exchange of which the crowd knew nothing. This was a language not of the tongue but of the body, its vocabulary the pressure of a finger or a palm, the nudging of a hip, the holding or breaking of a gaze, that said, You are too slow - you got too fast - not there but here - that's good - that's better! It was as if we walked before the crimson curtain, lay down upon the boards and kissed and fondled - and were clapped, and cheered, and paid for it!

Mr Bliss looked grave. 'Your brother was very sensible to warn you, Miss Astley - but sadly misinformed. There are no trams in Trafalgur Square - only buses and hansoms, and broughams like our own. Trams are for common people; you should have to go quite as far as Kilburn, I'm afraid, or Camden Town, in order to by struck by a tram

Now, from the crown of my head to the curve of my toe-nails, there was an unguent for every part of me - oil for my eyebrows and cream for my lashes; a jar of tooth-powder, a box of blanc-de-perle; polish for my fingernails and a scarlet stick to redden my mouth; tweezers for drawing the hairs from my nipples, and a stone to take the hard flesh from my heels.

There were about thirty of them, I think - all women; all seated at tables, bearing drinks and books and papers. You might have passed any one of them upon the street, and thought nothing; but the effect of their appearance all combined was rather queer. They were dressed, not strangely, but somehow distinctly. They wore skirts - but the kind of skirts a tailor might design if he were set, for a dare, to sew a bustle for a gent. Many seemed clad in walking-suits or riding-habits. Many wore pince-nez, or carried monocles on ribbons. There were one or two rather startling coiffures; and there were more neckties than I had ever seen brought together at any exclusively female ensemble.

I knew about that kind of love. I knew how it was to bare your palpitating heart, and be fearful as you did so that the beats should come too loudly, and betray you. I had kept my heart-beats smothered; and had been betrayed, anyway.

From the line, watching, three things are striking: (a) what on TV is a brisk crack is here a whooming roar that apparently is what a shotgun really sounds like; (b) trapshooting looks comparatively easy, because now the stocky older guy who's replaced the trim bearded guy at the rail is also blowing these little fluorescent plates away one after the other, so that a steady rain of lumpy orange crud is falling into the Nadir's wake; (c) a clay pigeon, when shot, undergoes a frighteningly familiar-looking midflight peripeteia -- erupting material, changing vector, and plummeting seaward in a corkscrewy way that all eerily recalls footage of the 1986 Challenger disaster. All the shooters who precede me seem to fire with a kind of casual scorn, and all get eight out of ten or above. But it turns out that, of these six guys, three have military-combat backgrounds, another two are L. L. Bean-model-type brothers who spend weeks every year hunting various fast-flying species with their "Papa" in southern Canada, and the last has got not only his own earmuffs, plus his own shotgun in a special crushed-velvet-lined case, but also his own trapshooting range in his backyard (31) in North Carolina. When it's finally my turn, the earmuffs they give me have somebody else's ear-oil on them and don't fit my head very well. The gun itself is shockingly heavy and stinks of what I'm told is cordite, small pubic spirals of which are still exiting the barrel from the Korea-vet who preceded me and is tied for first with 10/10. The two brothers are the only entrants even near my age; both got scores of 9/10 and are now appraising me coolly from identical prep-school-slouch positions against the starboard rail. The Greek NCOs seem extremely bored. I am handed the heavy gun and told to "be bracing a hip" against the aft rail and then to place the stock of the weapon against, no, not the shoulder of my hold-the-gun arm but the shoulder of my pull-the-trigger arm. (My initial error in this latter regard results in a severely distorted aim that makes the Greek by the catapult do a rather neat drop-and-roll.) Let's not spend a lot of time drawing this whole incident out. Let me simply say that, yes, my own trapshooting score was noticeably lower than the other entrants' scores, then simply make a few disinterested observations for the benefit of any novice contemplating trapshooting from a 7NC Megaship, and then we'll move on: (1) A certain level of displayed ineptitude with a firearm will cause everyone who knows anything about firearms to converge on you all at the same time with cautions and advice and handy tips. (2) A lot of the advice in (1) boils down to exhortations to "lead" the launched pigeon, but nobody explains whether this means that the gun's barrel should move across the sky with the pigeon or should instead sort of lie in static ambush along some point in the pigeon's projected path. (3) Whatever a "hair trigger" is, a shotgun does not have one. (4) If you've never fired a gun before, the urge to close your eyes at the precise moment of concussion is, for all practical purposes, irresistible. (5) The well-known "kick" of a fired shotgun is no misnomer; it knocks you back several steps with your arms pinwheeling wildly for balance, which when you're holding a still-loaded gun results in mass screaming and ducking and then on the next shot a conspicuous thinning of the crowd in the 9-Aft gallery above. Finally, (6), know that an unshot discus's movement against the vast lapis lazuli dome of the open ocean's sky is sun-like -- i.e., orange and parabolic and right-to-left -- and that its disappearance into the sea is edge-first and splashless and sad.

She wore a boiled shirt and a bow-tie, and her hair, though long and bound, was sleek with oil. She was about two- or three-and-thirty, and her waist was thick; but her upper lip, at least, was dark as a boy’s. They would have called her terribly handsome, I guessed, in about 1880.

George thrust into Alma's hand a lithograph of a spotted 'Catasetum.' The orchid had been rendered so magnificently that it seemed to grow off the page. Its lips were spotted red against yellow, and appeared moist, like living flesh. Its leaves were lush and thick, and its bulbous roots looked as though one could shake actual soil off them. Before Alma could thoroughly take in the beauty, George handed her another stunning print- a 'Peristeria barkeri,' with its tumbling golden blossoms so fresh they nearly trembled. Whoever had tinted this lithograph had been a master of texture as well as color; the petals resembled unshorn velvet, and touches of albumen on their tips gave each blossom a hint of dew. Then George handed her another print, and Alma could not help but gasp. Whatever this orchid was, Alma had never seen it before. Its tiny pink lobes looked like something a fairy would don for a fancy dress ball.

Why, because I must! Because how could I rest, when the world is so cruel and hard, and yet might be so sweet. . . The kind of work I do is its own kind of fulfilment, whether it's successful or not." She drank her tea. "It's like love." "Love!" I sniffed. "You think love is its own reward, then?" "Don't you?

I am going to hate New Orleans," he whispered against her silken hair before she began lowering her head. Her breath warmed the velvet tip of him, sending fire racing through his blood. "Maybe we can think of something interesting to make it more enjoyable for you," she ventured. Her mouth was satin soft, moist and hot. Gregori pressed his hips forward, forcing her back on the bed, his knees on the thick blanket above her. She was so beautiful, her flawless skin like cream, her thick hair spilling around her slender shoulders. Sitting up, she slowly peeled off the cotton shirt, baring her full breasts to his silver gaze. She looked lush and sexy in the dark of the night, a mysterious,erotic gift to him. "You think you might make New Orleans more bearable for me then?" His eyes were saying more than his mouth, touching her here and there, dwelling on every curve of her body. Her hand spanned his flat stomach and lingered there. "I'm sure I can be inventive enough to make you forget your dread of crowds. Take off my jeans." "Your jeans?" he echoed. "You put them on me, and they're definitely in the way. Take them off." Her hand was wandering lower, her fingeres walking lightly over his clenching muscles, a deliberate persuasion. His hands made quick work of unfastening her jeans and tugging them down her legs. She kicked them aside and leaned forward to press a kiss onto his stomach. Her hair slid over his heavy fullness, a silken tangle that nearly drove him out of his mind. "Sometimes your orders are very easy to follow,ma cherie," he murmured, his eyes closing as her mouth wandered lower.

Miss Velvet." "Lord, darlin'. You're the only man in this state who would tip his hat to a whore." She ushered the other women along and stopped beside Jake. "You haven't been back to see me, darlin'." "No, ma'am." "You won't be coming back to see me, will you?" He shook his head. "No, ma'am. I won't." She smiled, a warm, pretty smile. "It's just as well. A man like you, darlin', shouldn't have to pay a woman. You take care of yourself now, you hear?" He returned her smile. "Yes, ma'am. I will." She reached out, touching the raised comer of his mouth with the tip of her finger. "Lord, darlin', I don't know how any woman could walk away from that smile.

You taste so sweet." The whispered words sent a shiver down her spine. Somehow, whenever she had imagined this intimacy with a man, she had thought of darkness and urgency and groping. She had not expected firelight and heat and this patient courting of her body. Jack's lips wandered in a velvet path from her throat to the sensitive opening of her ear, played lightly, and then Amanda jerked in surprise as she felt the tip of his tongue stroke along a tiny inner crevice. "Jack," she whispered. "You don't have to play the lover for me. Truly... you are kind to pretend that I'm desirable, and you-" She felt him smile against her ear. "You are an innocent, mhuirnin, if you think that a man's body reacts this way out of kindness.

It should be illegal for a woman to look as good as you do.” “Really?” She peered down at herself again, but saw nothing all that spectacular. “I’m glad you like it.” “I love it. I love you.” He dug in his pocket. “When I left today, it was for this.” Speechless, Priss watched as he opened a now-wet jeweler’s box. Inside, securely nestled in velvet, was a beautiful diamond engagement ring. Her heart nearly stopped. “I wanted it to be a surprise.” There were no words. Her eyes suddenly burned and her throat went tight. Trace took her hand and slipped the ring on her finger. The fit was perfect, but then, anything Trace did, he did right. “Priss?” Using the edge of his fist, he lifted her chin. “We’ve been to movies and plays, to small diners and fancy restaurants. I’ve taken you dancing and hiking, to the amusement park and the zoo.” Sounding like a choked frog, Priss said, “All the things I never got to do growing up.” “But there’s so much more, honey.” He moved wet tendrils of hair away from her face and over her shoulder. “I was trying to give you time to enjoy it all.” “No!” Priss did not want him second-guessing his intent. “I don’t need any more time. Really I don’t.” Both still very attentive, Matt and Chris snickered. Trace just smiled at her. Closing her hand into a fist, she held the ring tight. “All I need, all I want, is you.” “Glad to hear it, because I’m not an overly patient guy. Hell, I think I knew you were the one the day you showed up in Murray’s office.” He kissed the tip of her nose, her lips, her chin. “You were so damned outrageous, and so pushy, that you scared me half to death.” “You felt me up,” Priss reminded him. “But that was a first for me, too.” “I remember it well.” He treated her to a deeper kiss, and ended it with a groan. “Every day since then, I’ve wanted you more. Even when you worried me, or lied to me, or made me insane, I admired you for it.

I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. I pictured a sky. It was blue black, soft and dense as fur. Across and over the expanse of night, into the velvet depths of it, light was scattered, enough for a thousand darknesses. Patterns revealed themselves; the eye, exquisitely dazzled, sought out snail-shell whorls and shattered pearls, gods and beasts and planets. As we stood still, yet we rotated, and, whilst turning, moved in a larger circle, round and round the sun, and oh, the dizzying momentum of it..

She was too compelling to look at directly. Bright like the sun, bright and terrible. Only one other being could look upon her, and that was Death. And so…they became lovers.” He said the word like a caress, like velvet again, and my face began to heat. “Together they forged great and hellish things,” Jesse murmured. “Lightning and waterfalls that churned into clouds off the tip of the world. Chasms so winding deep that daylight never traced their endings. They dreamed through golden days and silvered nights. All the other creatures envied or adored them, because Death and the Elemental were destruction and creation joined as One. In the natural order of things, they should not have been stronger joined. And yet they were.” He shifted, coming closer to me. A hand settled lightly atop my chest, directly over my heart. At our feet the seawater splashed a little, as if disturbed by something rolling over in the dark, distant deep. “Centuries passed, and mankind began to devour the earth, even the wildest places. They had tools to invent and wars to fight and grubby, short lives. Nothing about them dwelled in the magic of the ancient spirits. So although Death, the Great Hunter, prospered as he sieved through their villages, the Elemental, strong as she once was, thinned into a web of gossamer. Human lives simply tore her apart.” His hand was so warm. Warmer than I, warmer than the air, and still just barely touching me. The light behind my lids never lifted, so I knew he wasn’t glowing, but it felt as if he held a tame coal to my skin. It felt like something painless and ablaze, drawing my heart upward into it. “The time had come for them to divide. Like all the rest of her kind, the goddess would cease to exist; she had no other course. So Death and the Elemental severed their joined hearts. For a few generations more, she drifted alone through the last of the sacred places, deserts, and fjords, lands so savage no human had yet desecrated them.” Jesse’s voice dropped to a whisper. Without moving his hand, he bent down, his breath in my ear. “And Death, who had tasted her brightness, who would never cease to crave it-who knew her better than all the collected souls of all mankind’s weeping dead-became her Hunter.” I was hot and strange. I was light and lighter, and curiously my breath came so slow. “Until at last, one starry night beneath the desert moon, she surrendered to him. She allowed him to come to her, to make love to her. To unravel her…” It was happening. He sat next to her and bore witness to her change, her pulse slowing, her skin blanching, the fans of her lashes stark against the contours of her face. He kept his palm there against her chest, up and down with her respiration, and watched the smoke begin to curl around his fingers. “And by his hand, in the bliss of her unraveling, she touched the stars…” Lora’s breath hitched. Her heart skipped-then stopped. If I could take this from you, Jesse thought fiercely. If I could take this one moment away from you and keep the agony for myself- Her eyes opened, went instantly to his. Panic lit her gaze. Then she was gone. His fingers sank to the floor through her empty blouse, and the blue dragon smoke that was all of Eleanore Jones rose into strands above him.

We're not like anything! We're just - ourselves." "But if we're just ourselves, why do we have to hide it?" "Because no one would know the difference between us and - women like that!" I laughed. "Is there a difference?" I asked again. She continued grave and cross. "I have told you," she said. "You don't understand. You don't know what's wrong or right, or good . . ." "I know that this ain't wrong, what we do. Only that the world says it is." She shook her head. "It's the same thing," she said. Then she fell back upon her pillow and closed her eyes, and turned her face away.

There was, of course, the dildo that I have described (though the device, or the instrument, was what I learned, following Diana, to call it: I think the unnecessary euphemism, with its particular odour of the surgery or house of correction, appealed to her; only when really heated would she call the thing by its proper name - and even then she was as likely to ask for Monsieur Dildo, or simply Monsieur). Besides this there was an album of photographs of big-buttocked girls with hairless parts, bearing feathers; also a collection of erotic pamphlets and novels, all hymning the delights of what I would call tommistry but what they, like Diana, called Sapphic Passion.

I could love you all night, Raven,” he murmured enticingly against her throat. His hands moved over her body, leaving fire in their wake. “I want to love you all night.” “Isn’t that the point? It’s dawn.” Her hands had a mind of their own, finding every defined muscle with her fingertips, stroking across his hard male form, seeking her own exploration. “Then I will spend the day making love to you.” He whispered the words against her mouth, bent closer to nibble at the corners of her lower lip. “I need you with me, Raven. You chase away the shadows and lighten the terrible load that threatens to drown me.” She skimmed her fingertips across the hard edges of his mouth. “Is this possession, or is it love?” She dipped her head to press her mouth to the hollow of his sternum, to slide her tongue over the ultrasensitive skin above his heart. There was no mark, no scar, but the sweep of her tongue followed the exact line of his earlier wound, where he had forced her to accept his life’s blood. She was merged with him, reading his mind, his erotic fantasies, wanting to bring them to life. His gut clenched hotly, his body responding with fierce aggression. Raven smiled at the feel of his hard length burning against her skin. She had no inhibitions when she lay with him, only a fierce desire to burn with him. “Answer me, Mikhail--the truth.” Her fingertips brushed his velvet tip, fingers curled around the heavy thickness of him sending hunger raging through his body. She was playing with fire, but he didn’t have the strength to stop her; he didn’t want to stop her. His hands curled in her damp hair, two tight fists. “Both,” he managed to gasp.

Here at the tip of Louisiana, it’s as if the sky and swamp and wild green trees know Holy Fire demands we lead staid, ascetic lives and try to make up for it, giving us all the splendor and decadence we aren’t supposed to want. Sunrises and sunsets are riots of color, the gulf sapphire blue, the black swamp laced with velvet-green lily pads, tall trees almost floating out of the depths. Trees everywhere, in fact: bending over dirt roads and bracing the shore and thick as a wall of sentries in the woods, dripping with Spanish moss. All this beauty stirs the soul, making one feel the pinprick presence of another order: God, perhaps, but maybe also something darker, secret beings with lives that unfold in the slivers between trees, whose slitted eyes blink open at night in the depths of the swamp, yellow and ancient as alligators’.

My neck was slender and long and I could bend it nearly all the way about to take in my body: also slender, also shining. I was a dragon of gold, as if Jesse had touched me and transmuted me but not taken my life. I was sinuous and covered in lustrous golden scales, all the way almost to the tip of my tail, until they faded into purple. I had a mane, too, mapping a line down my back. It looked like a ruff of silk or cut velvet. I folded my neck around almost double so that I could rub my chin on it. Silken, yes, but also jagged. Combing my chin through it sent quivers of pleasure down my spine. Then I saw my wings. They were folded against my back, metallic. Without knowing how I did it, I opened them, using muscles I didn't even have as a person. ... I slashed my tail through the rain and realized that it was barbed when it hit an oak tree and I got stuck. No problem. I pulled it out and danced around, delighted at the fresh, gaping hole in the trunk. ... If the shark-hunters or lance-bearers came for me, I'd chew them to chum.

He leaned back on his hands. And then idly turned to her. She inhaled, and exhaled an almost long-suffering sigh. And he began in a patient, almost leisurely fashion, in a voice fashioned from dark velvet, a voice that stroked over her senses until they were lulled, to lecture directly to her as if she was a girl in the schoolroom. "A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should... touch places in you that you didn't know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild. It should... hold a moment, I want to explain this as clearly as possible..." He tipped his head back and paused to consider, as though he were envisioning this and wanted to relate every detail correctly. "It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it's very nearly pain." He waited, watching her face, allowing her to accommodate the potent words. Her mouth was parted. Her breathing short. She couldn't look away. His eyes and voice held her as fast as if he'd cradled her face with his hands. And as he said them, an echo of sensation sounded in her, like a remembered dream, an instinct awakened. She thought about Mars getting ready to give Venus a good pleasuring. Stop, she should say. "And...?" she whispered. "It should make you do battle for control of your senses and your will. It should make you want to do things you'd never dreamed you'd want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you've ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact..." he paused for effect "haunt you for the rest of your life." She sat wordlessly when he was done. As though waiting for the last notes of a stormy, discordant symphony to echo into silence. 'The most intense physical pleasure.' His words reverberated in her. As if her body contained the ancient wisdom of what that meant, and now, having been reminded, craved it.

SNAPPY TURTLE PIE   1 chocolate cookie crumb pie shell (chocolate is best, but shortbread or graham cracker will also work just fine) 1 pint vanilla ice cream 4 ounces ( of a 6-ounce jar) caramel ice cream topping (I used Smucker’s) ½ cup salted pecan pieces 4 ounces ( of a 6-ounce jar) chocolate fudge ice cream topping (I used Smucker’s) 1 small container frozen Cool Whip (original, not low-fat, or real whipped cream) Hannah’s Note: If you can’t find salted pecans, buy plain pecans. Measure out ½ cup of pieces, heat them in the microwave or the oven until they’re hot and then toss them with 2 Tablespoons of melted, salted butter. Sprinkle on ¼ teaspoon of salt, toss again, and you have salted pecan pieces. Set your cookie crumb pie shell on the counter along with your ice cream carton. Let the ice cream soften for 5 to 10 minutes. You want it approximately the consistency of soft-serve. Using a rubber spatula, spread out your ice cream in the bottom of the chocolate cookie crumb crust. Smooth the top with the spatula. Working quickly, pour the caramel topping over the ice cream. You can drizzle it, pour it, whatever. Just try to get it as evenly distributed as you can. Sprinkle the salted pecan pieces on top of the caramel layer. Pour or drizzle the chocolate fudge topping over the pecans. Cover the top of your pie with wax paper (don’t push it down—you don’t want it to stick) and put your Snappy Turtle Pie in the freezer overnight. Put your container of Cool Whip in the refrigerator overnight. Then it’ll be spreadable in the morning. In the morning, remove your pie from the freezer and spread Cool Whip over the top. Cover it with wax paper again and stick it back into the freezer for at least 6 hours. If you’re not planning to serve your pie for dinner that night, wait until the 6 hours are up and then put it into a freezer bag and return it to the freezer for storage. It will be fine for about a month. Take your Snappy Turtle Pie out of the freezer and place it on the countertop about 15 minutes before you’re ready to serve it. When it’s time for dessert, cut it into 6 pieces as you would a regular pie, put each piece on a dessert plate, and place one Snappy Turtle Cookie (recipe follows) on the center of each piece, the head of the turtle facing the tip of the pie. Yield: 6 slices of yummy ice cream pie that all of your guests will ooh and ahh over.

I cast my gangly body into the shadow of the stable and watched them, curious to see my uncle with a triumphant smile on his mouth. He called for Jedha, the Master-at-Arms, and they spoke in low, swift voices before turning in to the house. I stayed in the shadows and trailed them through the hall into the mahogany library, the wooden doors left slightly ajar. I can’t remember what they said to one another—how my uncle had gotten the Providence Card away from the highwaymen—only that they were consumed with excitement. I waited for them to leave, my uncle fool enough not to lock the Card away, and I stole into the heart of the room. Writ on the top of the Card were two words: The Nightmare. My mouth opened, my childish eyes round. I knew enough of The Old Book of Alders to know this particular Providence Card was one of only two of its kind, its magic formidable, fearsome. Use it, and one had the power to speak into the minds of others. Use it too long, and the Card would reveal one’s darkest fears. But it wasn’t the Card’s reputation that ensnared me—it was the monster. I stood over the desk, unable to tear my eyes away from the ghastly creature depicted on the Card’s face. Its fur was coarse, traveling across its limbs and down its hunched spine to the top of its bristled tail. Its fingers were eerily long, hairless and gray, tipped by great, vicious claws. Its face was neither man nor beast, but something in between. I leaned closer to the Card, drawn by the creature’s snarl, its teeth jagged beneath a curled lip. Its eyes captured me. Yellow, bright as a torch, slit by long, catlike pupils. The creature stared up at me, unmoving, unblinking, and though it was made of ink and paper, I could not shake the feeling it was watching me as intently as I was watching it. Trying to grasp what happened next was like mending a shattered mirror. Even if I could realign the pieces, cracks in my memory still remained. All I’m certain of was the feel of the burgundy velvet—the unbelievable softness along the ridges of the Nightmare Card as my finger slipped across it. I remember the smell of salt and the white-hot pain that followed. I must have fallen or fainted, because it was dark outside when I awoke on the library floor. The hair on the back of my neck bristled, and when I sat up, I was somehow aware I was no longer alone in the library. That’s when I first heard it, the sound of those long, vicious claws tapping together. Click. Click. Click. I jumped to my feet, searching the library for an intruder. But I was alone. It wasn’t until it happened again—click, click, click—that I realized the library was empty. The intruder was in my mind.

From there he saw Fermina Daza walk in on her son's arm, dressed in an unadorned long-sleeved black velvet dress buttoned all the way from her neck to the tips of her shoes, like a bishop's cassock, and a narrow scarf of Castilian lace instead of the veiled hat worn by other widows, and even by many other ladies who longed for that condition

Emboldened, she skimmed her fingers across his buttocks, feeling the muscles clench in response, then onward to the top of his thigh, finding it just a bit rough with hair. Then, before she had time to talk to herself out of the impulse, she reached for his shaft and encircled him with her fingers. A harsh groan issued from his throat. She stiffened and began to withdraw, but he stopped her with a hand, forcing her fingers to stay where they were. "Stroke me," he said. "Please." Trembling, she hesitated just a moment more, then did as he wished. The feel of him was astonishing, hard and thick, yet covered with a skin as sleek and smooth as velvet. She glided up his length, then down, pausing at the last to brush a curious thumb across the tip. His shaft jumped in her palm, Jack releasing another throaty moan. "Harder," he said. "Stroke me harder." And she did, caressing him with increasing confidence while he massaged her breasts and took her mouth in a savage kiss. As she opened her lips wide, he slid his tongue inside, licking and lapping, then thrusting in and out in time to the movements of her hand. He kissed her until she was dizzy, her grip gradually weakening on him as he drowned her in a tide of pleasure.

Close your eyes - Breathe slowly, deeply and regular - Take the wrinkles out of your forehead - Relax your scalp - Let your jaw sag and drop open - Relax the other muscles in your face - Relax your tongue and lips - Let your eyes go limp in the sockets - Drop your shoulders - Drop them lower - Feel the muscles in the back of your neck go limp - Relax your chest - Take a deep breath and hold it - Exhale and blow out all your tension - Tell your arms to relax, right then left - Feel a sense of well-being invading your body - Tell your legs to relax, right then left - Take three deep breaths - Let your mind go blank - Imagine you are in a big, black, velvet hammock. Everywhere you look is black - Hold this thought for ten seconds

Perhaps I could help,” Marcus suggested pleasantly, stopping beside her. “If you would tell me what you’re looking for.” “Something romantic. Something with a happy ending. There should always be a happy ending, shouldn’ there?” Marcus reached out to finger a trailing lock of her hair, his thumb sliding along the glowing satin filaments. He had never thought of himself as a particularly tactile man, but it seemed impossible to keep from touching her when she was near. The pleasure he derived from the simplest contact with her set all his nerves alight. “Not always,” he said in reply to her question. Lillian let out a bubbling laugh. “How very English of you. How you all love to suffer, with your stiff…stiff…” She peered at the book in her hands, distracted by the gilt on its cover. “…upper lips,” she finished absently. “We don’t like to suffer.” “Yes, you do. At the very least, you go out of your way to avoid enjoying something.” By now Marcus was becoming accustomed to the unique mixture of lust and amusement that she always managed to arouse in him. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping one’s enjoyments private.” Dropping the book in her hands, Lillian turned to face him. The abruptness of the movement resulted in a sharp wobble, and she swayed back against the shelves even as he moved to steady her with his hands at her waist. Her tip-tilted eyes sparkled like an array of diamonds scattered over brown velvet. “It has nothing to do with privacy,” she informed him. “The truth is that you don’t want to be happy, bec—” She hiccupped gently. “Because it would undermine your dignity. Poor Wes’cliff.” She regarded him compassionately. At the moment, preserving his dignity was the last thing on Marcus’s mind. He grasped the frame of the bookcase on either side of her, encompassing her in the half circle of his arms. As he caught a whiff of her breath, he shook his head and murmured, “Little one…what have you been drinking?” “Oh…” She ducked beneath his arm and careened to the sideboard a few feet away. “I’ll show you…wonderful, wonderful stuff…this.” Triumphantly she plucked a nearly empty brandy bottle from the edge of the sideboard and held it by the neck. “Look what someone did…a pear, right inside! Isn’ that clever?” Bringing the bottle close to her face, she squinted at the imprisoned fruit. “It wasn’ very good at first. But it improved after a while. I suppose it’s an ac”—another delicate hiccup— “acquired taste.” “It appears you’ve succeeded in acquiring it,” Marcus remarked, following her. “You won’ tell anyone, will you?” “No,” he promised gravely. “But I’m afraid they’re going to know regardless. Unless we can sober you in the next two or three hours before they return. Lillian, my angel…how much was in the bottle when you started?” Showing him the bottle, she put her finger a third of the way from the bottom. “It was there when I started. I think. Or maybe there.” She frowned sadly at the bottle. “Now all that’s left is the pear.” She swirled the bottle, making the plump fruit slosh juicily at the bottom. “I want to eat it,” she announced. “It’s not meant to be eaten. It’s only there to infuse the—Lillian, give the damned thing to me.

Yarrow sat, paralyzed. He didn’t register the luxurious red velvet interior of the carriage or the sweeping grasslands outside the window. He barely noticed the girl sitting cross-legged on the bench opposite him. But after some time—whether twenty minutes or two hours, he could not have said—the numbness faded. It was rapidly replaced with, first, a sense of being utterly dislodged in the world, and shortly after that, a deep wretchedness that started at the tip of his head and ran down his spine, pooling in his boots.

Jon let out a slow sigh; it felt incredibly good. Tom tugged down the waist of Jon’s pants and licked him slowly from root to tip, his callused hand holding Jon’s cock upright. Over and over his rough-velvet tongue stroked him. Then, Tom’s lips pushed back his foreskin gently so that he could lick the underside Jon’s cockhead and up over the taut skin before sucking him down into the wet tunnel of his mouth. Jon groaned, twisting his fingers in Tom’s hair. Tom’s

The woman lifted the lid to reveal a wand of cut crystal set on a regal velvet pillow. It had a slender glass handle and at the tip, a multifaceted star which refracted at the light of the glittering chandelier above the counter.

The woman lifted the lid to reveal a wand of cut crystal set on a regal velvet pillow. It had a slender glass hangle and at the tip, a multifaceted star which refracted at the light of the glittering chandelier above the counter.

And with that, he stepped out from the darkness of the tunnel mouth to find himself in a kind of cave; the air was warm with sandalwood, and nutmeg, and allspice, and cardamom, and the Moths were all around him. For a moment, Tom was breathless with the beauty of the Midnight Folk. In the semi-darkness, their wings shone with a faint luminescence and their skin gleamed with unearthly tattoos, like something under black light. Their hair was braided with feathers and rags, and all of them seemed to be covered with a powdery dust that twinkled and shone against their skin, setting the shadows darkly aflame. And all around them lay a pattern of those vivid tracks, as if the luminescence could be transferred to their surroundings by touch; each set of prints a different shade in troubled, alien colors. Instinctively, he looked for Charissa's colors in the crowd. But she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was surrounded by the dangerous shine of the enemy. He saw them only in slices of light against the velvet darkness. The tip of a wing; the gleam of an eye; the mystic spiral of a tattoo that seemed to move across the skin.

Later in the day, Holly frowned at her reflection in the mirror. “This can’t be right!” Holly muttered to herself. She looked like a cross between a panda bear and a raccoon. She had tried to apply a more advanced version of makeup than she was used to, and it was not going well. “Smokey eye, my foot! I look like I have two black eyes.” She had not done the proper shading with her eye shadow, and now her large green eyes were encased with a deep black color that spanned her entire eyelid. “Maybe I should try a different one,” Holly mused aloud. She sat in William’s bedroom at his dresser. She already had on her pretty crushed velvet black dress and a small heart-shaped diamond pendant. It had been William’s birthday gift to her last year. “Let me re-read this article again to see if I can make sense of these instructions.” Holly read her magazine article out loud. “Which Greek Goddess are you? Athena, Venus, or Aphrodite? Check out our makeup tips below to turn heads at your next event!” “Hmmmm, that sounds soooooo good, if only I was better at applying makeup.” She had decided to try their Aphrodite look and had been trying to apply the eyeliner to give her a smoky eye effect. Holly had to wash her face four times already and start over because each time was worse than the last. “Concentrate, Holly, or you’ll be late for the gala. This is your last chance; it’s do or die time!” she warned her reflection in the mirror. “So, it says to put the light grey eyeshadow on the inner one-third of my eyelids. Hmmm, maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know where the inner third is.” She got an idea and went to William’s desk. Looking around, she found a ruler. “Ah-ha! Eureka, I got it!” She went back to her position at his dresser and closed her eyes for a quick, small prayer, then held the ruler up to measure her eye. “Ah-ha! Twenty-one millimeters. So, that means the inner one-third of my eye must be from my nose out seven millimeters . . . right about HERE!” Holly expertly applied the light grey eye shadow to the inner third of her eyelids. “What a big improvement already! Wow! I’m not a panda bear anymore! Ok, one-third down, two-thirds to go . . . I can do this!” Reading further, she said, “Ok, now apply the dark grey eye shadow to the next third of your eye, finishing with the dark brown eye shadow on the outer third of your eyelid.” Holly expertly followed the instructions and sat back in her chair, stunned. She looked beautiful! She had achieved the desired effect, and now her green eyes were enhanced to perfection. “Wow, wow, wow!” Holly felt encouraged to keep going. She read the next instructions. “‘Now, apply blush to your face with an emphasis on contouring your cheekbones.’” “‘Contouring my cheekbones? Who do they think I am, Rembrandt?” Holly said with a groan. Holly gingerly picked up her blush container as if it were about to bite her. She decided another quick prayer wouldn’t go amiss. With a deep breath she muttered, “Ok, I’m going in!” She glanced nervously at the picture in the magazine and tried her hardest to follow it along her cheekbones. “That turned out pretty good!” Holly turned her face this way and that, examining it. It may not have been exactly as in the picture, but the blush now accentuated her beautiful high cheekbones. “Whew! Only the lip left, thank goodness! You got this, Holly!” She encouraged her reflection in the mirror.

Have I told you today why I love you?” Carter takes a step toward me, then another, his smile growing with each inch he eliminates. “I love you because you’re funny and snarky, sarcastic as all hell, and the night we met, you told me to go fuck myself.” He ignores the way Cara shrieks his name. “You’re also kind and soft, sensitive and sweet, the best auntie, and a teacher I would’ve died to have in high school. You’re not just my girlfriend; you’re my biggest cheerleader and my best friend.” He takes my face in his hands, thumbs wiping at the overflowing tears dripping down my cheeks. I don’t even know where they came from. “Why are you crying, Ollie girl? I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.” “I don’t know what’s going on, but you called me your best friend and your girlfriend,” I sob, folding toward his chest as I grip the loosened collar of his shirt. His soft chuckle is warm against my lips as he tips my chin up to kiss me. He takes a step backward, dipping his hand in his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box, and he sinks to one knee. “I’m hoping to call you something else when I’m done doing what I need to do here.

Tapping Bill’s chest, Franny glided off him and lay on her side, her breath stroking his week-old whiskers. “Our morning of lovemaking in the Magnolia mansion will keep me satisfied until you’re ready. When we do tip the velvet, I know you’ll leave me exhausted but begging for more.” “I’m so lucky to have you.” “Indeed, you are, Bill Stamford.” Franny toyed with Bill’s whiskers. “You know I don’t like a beard. You’re going to have to shave it.” ‘I know. I just didn’t feel like shaving since the wedding.” He kissed her. “Then you’re not angry that we haven’t joined giblets?

He suddenly leaned forward in his chair and cut off her words with a kiss, tipping her chin upward gently with his fingertips. As their lips met, a little breathless sigh escaped her. Her eyes fluttered closed. Sliding his hand around her nape, he coaxed her lips apart. Her heart raced. She needed little urging, accepting his kiss eagerly, capturing his clean-shaved face between her fingertips. He tasted of port. She savored it, taking his tongue even more deeply into her mouth in sensuous welcome. Her hands trembled as she stroked the strong line of his jaw and ran her fingers through his silken black hair. With a low moan of desire, he slid his arms around her, shaping the natural contour of her waist below the draped velvet of her gown's high-waisted style, running his hands downward over her hips. She fought to keep a rein on the passion he ignited in her blood.

Cake Pops A cake and frosting confection dipped in candy coating and served on a stick. 1 cake (9 x 13) or 18 cupcakes (out of liners) 2 cups buttercream or cream cheese frosting 2 packages of candy melts 30 lollipop sticks (large thick ones) 1 large foam block In a large bowl, crumble up the cake into very small pieces. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the frosting until it is well mixed; it should be the consistency of truffles. Roll the cake frosting mixture into walnut-sized balls and place on a cookie sheet coated with wax paper. Once all the cake has been rolled, put it in the fridge to harden a bit. Melt the candy in a double boiler or a microwave according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Take the cake balls out of the fridge and dip the end of a lollipop stick into the melted candy. Slide a cake ball about half an inch down onto the candy-tipped stick. Now dip the whole cake ball into the melted candy, tapping it very gently on the side of the bowl to get rid of the excess. Stand the cake pop up by pushing the non-cake end into the foam block. If you’re decorating with sprinkles, sugars, or coconut, now is the time to do it, as the candy will harden fairly quickly. Repeat until you’re out of cake balls and melted candy.

He cupped a hand around her wet head and rubbed his mouth over her sodden hair, her saturated lashes, the round tip of her nose. Just as he reached her lips, she turned her face away, and he growled in frustration, dying for the taste of her. He had never wanted anything so badly. For a split second he was tempted to hold her head in his hands and crush his mouth on hers. But that wouldn't satisfy him... he could not get what he wanted from her with force. Carrying Lottie from the shower-bath, he dried them both before the hearth in the bedroom and combed Lottie's long hair. The fine strands were dark amber when wet, turning to a pale shade of champagne when they were dry. Admiring the contrast of the shining locks against his velvet robe, he smoothed them with his fingers.

And you chose Machiavelli?” He chuckles, considering me from beneath the long curl of his lashes. “Remind me not to get on your bad side.” “You know much about him?” He pulls his T-shirt up from the hem, and my heart pops an artery or something because it shouldn’t be working this hard while at rest. I swallow hard at the layer of muscle wrapped around his ribs. One pectoral muscle peeks from under the shirt, tipped with the dark disc of his nipple. My mouth literally waters, and I can’t think beyond pulling it between my lips and suckling him. Hard. “Do you see it?” he asks. “Huh?” I reluctantly drag my eyes from the ladder of velvet- covered muscle and sinew to the expectant look on his face. “See what?” “The tattoo.” He runs a finger over the ink scrawled across his ribs. Makavelli. “I hate to break it to you,” I say with a smirk. “But someone stuck you with a permanent typo.” He laughs, dropping the shirt, which is really a shame because I was just learning to breathe with all that masculine beauty on display. “Bristol, stop playing. You know it’s on purpose, right?” “Oh, sure, it is, Grip.” I roll my eyes. “Nice try.” “Are you serious?” He looks at me like I’m from outer space. “You know that’s how Tupac referred to himself on his posthumous album, right? That he misspelled it on purpose?” I clear my throat and scratch at an imaginary itch on the back of my neck. “Um … yes?” His warm laughter at my expense washes over me, and it’s worth being the butt of the joke, because I get to see his face animated. He’s even more handsome when he laughs. “You’re funny.” He laughs again, more softly this time. “I didn’t expect that.

As I racked the balls, I held the last one in my palm, the way you might cradle the weight of a breast when your lover moves over you and your breath is searing in and out, in and out. As I leaned over the cue I let the yellow light handing low over the table slide over the hollows in my wrist up the long smooth muscle of my bare arms and lose itself in the dip and shadowed curve of collarbone and breasts. As I drew the cue-the long beautifully polished warm strong cue-back over the sensitive webbing between thumb and index finger, I enjoyed the sensation and let my face show it, and then I thrust with my hips with my arm with my cue, into the ball, through it, and the pretty-coloured triangle exploded into a dozen rolling pieces. I threw back my head and laughed as the balls dropped in the pockets: one, two, three. Around the table with the cue now, picking up the chalk-stroke it, rub it around the tip, the rounded velvet tip, cherish it, make sure that not a millimeter is ignored-laying my left breast plump against the felt and stroking that cue back and forth, back and forth, calculating, measuring, waiting as my breathing quickened my breathing quickened and the moment trembled then thrusting again, and round the table and again, and again and again until the felt was all green and clean and I straightened, nipples hard against the silk of my waistcoat, and smiled a slow, satiated smile. And then she smiled back at me from a table and stood and stepped forward like a young deer leaving the shelter of the trees.

You’re right, I do want to please you. But how do I know you haven’t done your hypnotic thing on me, and it’s all your idea, not mine?” He had to reach for his voice, and when he found it, it was gravel. “I would not mind hypnotizing you to do my bidding, but somehow I think you can please me without such help.” He was finding it difficult to think straight, his mind a cloud of erotic desire. Water lapped at his hips as she moved closer. Her breasts brushed his legs, sending ripples of fire through his bloodstream. She pushed against his knees so that he was forced to open them to accommodate her. Her chin nudged his lap. “I have to think of the best way I might please you. You have all sorts of interesting ideas running around in your head. I need to find the best one, don’t you think?” Her breath was warm silk, breathing more life into his rigid body. Her tongue caught a drop of water, savored it. Jacques groaned at the pleasure shooting through him. His legs circled her naked body, drawing her close so that her soft mouth was level with the throbbing velvet tip thrusting toward her. Deliberately he inched his body forward. Bubbles frothed and burst around him; her hair washed over his legs, tangled around him, weaving them closer together. He found he was holding his breath, no longer able to get air. The touch of her mouth was like hot silk. Jacques’ mind seemed to dissolve, his body trembled, and his heart exploded in his chest. He felt as if his very insides were coming apart. His body was no longer his own, no longer under his control. Shea was playing him like a musical instrument, all throbbing notes and building passion. He could only watch her helplessly, ensnared in her web of beauty and love. He caught her head in his hands, bunching wet hair in his fists. No one, nothing, in all the long centuries had prepared him for the intensity of emotion she brought out in him. He knew what it meant to know he would gladly die for someone.

He appeared on the edge of the firelight, his grin spreading from cheek to cheek, his velvet cloak stirring in the winter wind. I recognized him immediately. Death tipped his hat to me.

MacRae drew closer and took her head in his hands. His thumbs caressed the edge of her jaw, the light rasp of calluses causing gooseflesh to rise everywhere. Holy Moses, he was really going to do it. She was about to be kissed by a stranger. Too late to make light of anything now. What have I done? She stared up at him with wide eyes, the dissonant notes of nerves and tension joining in a long, sweet chord of desire. The crescents of his lashes, dark with gold tips, lowered slightly as he looked down at her. There was no place to hide from that piercing gaze. She felt so terribly exposed, every bit as naked as he'd been a few minutes ago. His head bent, and his mouth found hers with a pressure as soft as snowfall. She'd thought he might be rough or impatient, maybe a bit clumsy... she'd expected anything but the gently teasing caress that coaxed her lips apart before she was even aware of it. He tasted her with the tip of his tongue, a sensation that went down to her knees and weakened them. She felt herself list like a ship unable to right itself, but he gathered her firmly against him, his supportive arms closing around her. The tender focus on her mouth deepened until it had gone on longer than any kiss in her life, and still she wanted more. He kissed her as if it were not the first time but the last, as if the world were about to end, and every second was worth a lifetime. He feasted on her with the craving of years. Blindly she caught at his mouth with hers, while her fingers tangled in his hair. The textures of him- plush velvet, rough bristle, wet silk- stimulated her beyond bearing. She'd never known desire like this, a swoon that kept deepening into more and more exquisite feeling.

EASY FRUIT PIE   Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position. Note from Delores: I got this recipe from Jenny Hester, a new nurse at Doc Knight’s hospital. Jenny just told me that her great-grandmother used to make it whenever the family came over for Sunday dinner. Hannah said it’s easy so I might actually try to make it some night for Doc. ¼ cup salted butter (½ stick, 2 ounces, pound) 1 cup whole milk 1 cup white (granulated) sugar 1 cup all-purpose flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it) 1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon salt 1 can fruit pie filling (approximately 21 ounces by weight—3 to 3 and ½ cups, the kind that makes an 8-inch pie) Hannah’s 1st Note: This isn’t really a pie, and it isn’t really a cake even though you make it in a cake pan. It’s almost like a cobbler, but not quite. I have the recipe filed under “Dessert”. You can use any canned fruit pie filling you like. I might not bake it for company with blueberry pie filling. It tasted great, but didn’t look all that appetizing. If you love blueberry and want to try it, it might work to cover the top with sweetened whipped cream or Cool Whip before you serve it. I’ve tried this recipe with raspberry and peach . . . so far. I have the feeling that lemon pie filling would be yummy, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet. Maybe I’ll try it some night when Mike comes over after work. Even if it doesn’t turn out that well, he’ll eat it. Place the butter in a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan and put it in the oven to melt. Meanwhile . . . Mix the milk, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium-size bowl. This batter will be a little lumpy and that’s okay. Just like brownie batter, don’t over-mix it. Using oven mitts or potholders, remove the pan with the melted butter from the oven. Pour in the batter and tip the pan around to cover the whole bottom. Then set it on a cold stove burner. Spoon the pie filling over the stop of the batter, but DO NOT MIX IN. Just spoon it on as evenly as you can. (The batter will puff up around it in the oven and look gorgeous!) Bake the dessert at 375 degrees F., for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until it turns golden brown and bubbly on top. To serve, cool slightly, dish into bowls, and top with sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. It really is yummy. Hannah’s 2nd Note: The dessert is best when it’s baked, cooled slightly, and served right away. Alternatively you can bake it earlier, cut pieces to put in microwave-safe bowls, and reheat it in the microwave before you put on the ice cream or sweetened whipped cream. Yield: Easy Fruit Pie will serve 6 if you don’t invite Mike and Norman for dinner. Note from Jenny: I’ve made this by adding ¼ cup cocoa powder and 1 teaspoon of vanilla to the batter. If I do this, I spoon a can of cherry pie filling over the top.

but I loved her, and not a soul must know it - not even she.

Meet them where they are." Though increasingly common, this phrase is a beacon of wisdom whose profound significance often lies dormant. It calls us to approach others with radical authenticity, shedding the weight of our assumptions and expectations. Whether in teaching, caregiving, or simply the quiet intimacy of a friendship, its message is universal. Every human relationship dances on the delicate axis of influence—parent to child, mentor to student, friend to friend—yet it’s too easy for influence to tip into judgment… To meet someone where they are is to disarm that judgment, replacing it with empathy and weaving a space for connection, trust, and understanding. To meet someone where they are is to step into their world as a guest, not a conqueror.