I don’t do gentle, Mara,” he felt compelled to warn even as he worked his way down from her lips, over her chin, to the tender spot where her neck met her shoulder. He scraped his teeth over the frantic beat of her pulse and reveled in the delica...
It's possible I've been through too much, lost too much. War damages different people in different ways; Hector taught me that. King Alejandro became spineless and incapable. His father before him was rash and unpredictable, if I'm to believe court g...
She had forced herself to learn to read – picked up bits and pieces, here and there, from the very few teachers who had been patient with her; from looking at words while out and about; from television, and from friends. And to avoid the shouting a...
How simple it could be! The answer to the problem of being anything was being it. How admirable Teddy was! From the ashes of his broken childhood he had formed a decision to be a cheerful person, a do-gooding scientific type with knowledge of English...
Like a butterfly in glass, I want to fly away to you but the invisible walls contain me. It’s not time. Hard to accept when I feel your words calling to me. Your soul beckoning me with its pull. Come to me, you say in one breath; stay, you say in a...
My world, created by glass and flame in the birth of your heat, implodes inside the shadowed walls of my heart. I swallowed the shards you gave me, your eyes on mine. Nothing is easy. I wait, feeling your hands holding the shattered pieces of my soul...
But like all moments trapped in time, that moment would end and Joey Boldt, as all the greats before him did, would begin to understand that clinging too tightly to anything results in Time and Fate shaking you until you can't hold on any longer. And...
If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righ...
I think how we are all broken over one thing or another, how we all limp about, dragging our sorrows & troubles, our failures & disappointments, our perfect loneliness, & how it is when we suddenly open our eyes & see someone next to us dragging thei...
The more bleach in the bedsheets, the greater Chastity's impulse to roll around in them. A party would be thrown, she decided, the kind that would tell a small story in the contents of the dustpan the next morning. Detached sequins and mint leaves mu...
The word 'survivor' carries a weight of remembrance that has broken the minds and bodies of more than a few men and women. It also contains a humbling light of recognition that compels many to do whatever they can to help reinforce the efforts of tho...
A broken heart is something even I can’t protect you from. I’ve been alone for so long, and believe me, all that does is provide a false sense of security. Being alone doesn’t erase the deep yearning that exists in all of us. We are not solitar...
Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that's ...
There is a charm in Solitude that cheers A feeling that the world knows nothing of A green delight the wounded mind endears After the hustling world is broken off Whose whole delight was crime at good to scoff Green solitude his prison pleasure yield...
None of them were easy or soft or simple. They were like me, nursing hurts and hidden wounds, all broken in different ways. We didn't quite fit together. We had edges so jagged we cut each other sometimes . . . I felt a rush of gratitude so sweet it ...
Even at the time—twenty years old—I said to myself: better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ten hours a day. There is no particular daring in this vow, but I have not broken it and shall not do so. The w...
Adam has always had . . . heroic tendencies.” I touched Adam’s arm. “He’s my hero.” There was another pause. . . “That is the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard you say,” Bran said. “Be careful, Adam, or you’ll turn her into a re...
Then Caspian caught up a battle-axe and rushed upon the Lord Drinian to kill him, and Drinian stood still as a stock for the death blow. But when the axe was raised, Caspian suddenly threw it away and cried out, "I have lost my queen and my son: shal...
For some reason, the despair that's welling up in me is transforming into white-hot rage. I feel it working its way up from my toes, winding around my legs, and burrowing into the pit of my stomach. It spears its razor-sharp tendrils through the piec...
I learned that the day "The Viper's Drag" slipped from between my fingers. But whatever might be lost or broken or forgotten is nothing compared to the miraculous rebirth that occurs every time the needle hits the groove. Here is Fats Waller Himself,...
Once upon a time, we were Africans involved in a unique lexicon of beliefs, lore, stories, and customs that were designed to help integrate us into an environment filled with plants, animals, elements, and a complex array of spirits. With the advent ...
