the battered woman--for she wore a skirt--with her right hand exposed, her left clutching at her side, stood singing of love--love which has lasted a million years, she sang, love which prevails, and millions of years ago, her lover, who had been dea...
A pregnant woman is not afraid if you threaten her with what you made her pregnant with.
Before she could let herself think, Clara burst from the door and bolted for the table. People just began turning when she grasped the guest and shoved him to the ground, the chair flying backwards. Wine and food spilled everywhere as he flung out hi...
His mouth captured hers, trying to show her with his kiss what he was still learning to express in words. He loved her. He worshipped her. He'd walk across fire for her. He— —still had the audience of her three brothers. Slowly breaking the kiss,...
I already live like you," Evan lifted his head and looked straight into Christian's eyes. "I'm living like you right now, without her. If she leaves me when I ask her to marry me, or at the altar, or tomorrow, I could still say I tried. I could still...
I adore my mother, but I fear for her. She seems helpless, caught in the vortex of my father's dark moods and unpredictable behavior. I try never to displease her. I love the scent of Juicy Fruit gum on her breath and the hint of Joy perfume on her n...
She had not known how to tell him that his loving whispers were always in her ears, like a story she’d been told, the story of a thing she did not deserve. But he understood. He called those thoughts “the baby teeth of a snake,” and swore he wo...
They had painted a lady leaning her arms on the sill of the window. This lady was waiting for a husband. Her flesh was slack and she was some forty-five years old. Perhaps she had been waiting since she was fifteen. A rose and mauve lady that had not...
A teenage girl lay asleep on the sofa, curled up under a red-and-black knitted afghan. She was on her side, with one slender arm cradling a throw cushion nestled under her head. Long wavy blond hair spread across her back and her shoulders like a cap...
Once, long ago, Jesus had called her name, breaking through the darkness of her oppression to set her free from the seven demons that bound her. now He broke through the hopelessness of her grief and despair. Mary might not have recognized His face, ...
Her eyes widen and she shoves me back and then there's a space between us, enough to paralyze me with all of the things I could do to her next. I could raise my hand and hit her in the face or bring my knee into her stomach, take a fistful of her hai...
Ah, God, Lys" he breathed, and she opened her eyes to look up at him. She was the love of his heart, his true partner in both work and life, and the idea of losing her to the violence of the world they lived in scared the living shit out of him. But ...
In some indefinable way he felt drawn to her, as if he already knew her, as if they had been close friends, soulmates even, somewhere in a previous existence. Her mere presence seemed to calm his thoughts, saving him from the vicissitudes of his mind...
Two-thirty comes during Testifying. It's Janine, telling about how she was gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion.But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault. We chant in unison. Who led ...
And he'd railed at her, his voice booming so loud the bed had seem to shake. She knew he was constantly there, was aware of his movement and comprehended his words, but she couldn't seem to open her heavy eyelids or speak. At night, he would wrap his...
He bent over Farid and wiped some soot from his cold forehead. "Roxanne knows it," he said. "She'll tell it to you. Just go to her and... and tell her I've had to go away. Tell her I'm going to find out if the story is true." He spoke with a strange ...
When she leaned forward to mess with the AC vents, her hair brushed against my leg and it was really soft. It made remember all over again. It made it hard to stay pissed and keep her at arm's length the way I'd planned. It was pretty near damn impos...
If there's a sexier sound on this planet than the person you're in love with cooing over the crepes you made for him, I don't know what it is.
You don't have to treat me as if I'm made out of glass and might break," she said. "I'm a lot stronger than I look." "Is that right?" He looped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him right there in the street between their vehicles. Her full l...
There was an infinitesimal pause while he watched her face, as though he half expected her to recognise it, before he went on, 'My friends call me Thorn,' and gave her a smile of such devastating charm that she blinked. Her hand clasped in his, her s...
She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the bu...
