Dark Taste Of Rapture Quotes

Impossible. I merely brought the essentials. Clothes, my favorite boots, face cream, makeup, a few books to read, a couple cans of caviar, lingerie, and my coffeepot.
Plus a few other things a girl like me just can't live without but can't mention in mixed company because it would be indelicate. You know, because they're sexual."
- at "lingerie," Hector and Dallas had stood a little straighter. At "sexual," they'd moaned. Jaxon punched them both in the back of the head. ~ Gena Showalter

Then she looked away, dismissing him as if she'd found him to be substandard.
All right, then. She didn't find him attractive. Good.
In fact, he kept his head shaved to a glossy shine for just that reason. He was a man willing to do anything to discourage feminine attention.
Because yeah, females could be vanity hounds and most preferred their dates to have hair. Black, blond, red, it didn't matter, as long as the locks were thick and lustrous.
And here was a news flash for little
Miss Giggles: when he allowed his to grow, it was dark brown, nearly jet, with hints of gold and worthy of a fucking lion. ~ Gena Showalter

The man in the dark suit sips his Laphroaig and water, savoring the marshy taste, the body-in-the-bog quality of the whisky. ~ Neil Gaiman

Death was more like what we went through in the park: two people walking side by side in the mist, rubbing against trees and bushes, and not a word between them. It was something emptier than the name itself and yet right and peaceful, dignified, if you like. It was not a continuation of life, but a leap in the dark and no possibility of ever coming back, not even as a grain of dust. And that was right and beautiful, I said to myself, because why would one want to come back. To taste it once is to taste it forever - life or death. Whichever way the coin flips is right, so long as you hold no stakes. Sure, it's tough to choke on your own spittle - it's disagreeable more than anything else. And besides, one doesn't always die choking to death. Sometimes one goes off in his sleep, peaceful and quiet as a lamb. The Lord comes and gathers you up into the fold, as they say. Anyway, you stop breathing. And why the hell should one want to go on breathing forever? Anything that would have to be done interminably would be torture. The poor human bastards that we are, we ought to be glad that somebody devised a way out. We don't quibble about going to sleep. A third of our lives we snore away like drunken rats. What about that? Is that tragic? Well then, say three-thirds of drunken rat-like sleep. Jesus, if we had any sense we'd be dancing with glee at the thought of it! We could all die in bed tomorrow, without pain, without suffering - if we had the sense to take advantage of our reme ~ Henry Miller

I would have given a fortune to know what the people sitting there were thinking. What the world looked like to them. Imagine if it was radically different from what I saw. If it was full of pleasure at the dark leather of the sofa, the black surface of the coffee and its bitter taste, not to mention the yellow eye of custard in the center of the puff pastry's winding and cracked terrain. What if the whole of this world sang inside them? What if they were full to bursting with the many delights the day had bestowed on them? ~ Karl Ove Knausgaard

This was my first time in Govan. You could smell and taste the thick smog in the air. The Blue Triangle was a new high-tech building, and it didn't look right standing there in front of older and more historical buildings. The Blue Triangle may have looked great from the outside, but once inside, to my horror, it was full of young teenage boys and girls full of deep and dark depression ~ Stephen Richards

As I took off the rumpled sheets, the smell of the people who had slept in them would lift up into the air. There was the round, almost sweet sweat smell of a child who had spent a day happily exploring, or the sharper-edged odor of one who'd gone to bed unhappy. With the bigger beds, I came to understand the way the scents of two people could mingle as effortlessly as rainwater, and to recognize the times they stayed apart, the smells resolutely separate. Sometimes there were those unreal perfumes, jumbling and talking too loudly- but underneath them I could always find the person. Sadness, like the dark purple juice of a blackberry. Fear, like the metallic taste of an oncoming storm. Love, which smelled like nothing so much as fresh bread. In an odd way, the game wasn't that different from reading the smells of our island. Scents were always about what was growing and what was dying. What would last through the next season. This was just with people instead of trees or flowers or dirt. ~ Erica Bauermeister

He is tangled in Isabelle's arms, he is curtained by Isabelle's hair, he is touching Isabelle's body, he is lost in Isabelle, in her smell and her taste and the silk of her skin.
He is onstage, the music pounding, the floor shaking, the audience cheering, his heart beating beating beating in time with the drumbeat.
He is laughing with Clary, dancing with Clary, eating with Clary, running through the streets of Brooklyn with Clary, they are children together, they are one half of a whole, they hold hands and squeeze tight and pledge never to let go.
He is going cold, stiff, the life draining out of him, he is below, in the dark, clawing his way to the light, fingernails scraping dirt, mouth filled with dirt, eyes clogged with dirt, he is straining, reaching, dragging himself up toward the sky, and when he reaches it, he opens his mouth wide but does not breathe, for he no longer needs to breathe, only to feed. And he is so very hungry.
He is sinking his teeth into the neck of an angel's child, he is drinking the light.
He is bearing a Mark, and it burns.
He is raising his face to meet the gaze of an angel, he is flayed by the fury of angel fire, and yet still, impudent and bloodless, he lives.
He is in a cage.
He is in hell.
He is bent over the broken body of a beautiful girl, he is praying to whatever god that will listen, please let her live, anything to let her live.
He is giving away that which is most precious to him, ~ Cassandra Clare

Somehow Jason and I ended up on the very last seat. Maybe everyone else was just too tired to walk that far.
Jason put his arm around me and drew me up against his side. Once the coach called the roster and everyone was accounted for, we headed home. It was really dark on the bus. It didn't seem as windy. Maybe because Jason was holding me close.
Then he kissed me. A really long, slow, deep kiss. A kiss that made me see fireworks.
When he pulled back, I could see him grinning, even in the darkness. "I love the flavor of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream."
"You know where you can always get a taste," I said.
He kissed me again. ~ Rachel Hawthorne

Finally, finally, I was thrown into this tiny, dark cell. It all went quiet. But I instantly noticed the warmth. And I could just make out the shape of the room under the crack in my blindfold.
I waited.
I was half-naked with my camouflage jacket pulled back halfway down my back, and I was huddled over shivering. I must have looked a mess.
I could taste the snot smeared down my face.
A hand pulled my blindfold off and a light went on.
"Recognize this, Bear?" a voice said softly.
I squinted. The DS was pointing at a white cross on his arm. I didn't react. I needed to double-check in my mind.
"This means the end of the exercise--Endex. Remember?"
I did, but still I didn't react yet. I needed to check once more in my mind. Then, finally, I nodded weakly at him. And he smiled back.
It was the end.
"Well done, buddy. Now take a seat, take five, and get this brew down you. The quack will be in to see you in a few minutes."
The DS put a blanket around my shoulders. A smile spread across my face and I felt a tear of relief trickle down my cheek.
For an hour a psychiatrist then debriefed me. He told me that I had done well and had resisted effectively. I felt just so relieved. I loved that psychiatrist.
The real lesson of this was twofold: Control your mind; and Don't get caught.
As the DS said, "Remember, at the end of the day, these guys are on your side. They are British, they aren't a real enemy. If they were, ~ Bear Grylls

Loved. I hadn't even realized how desperetly I'd wanted love.How much we both needed to know that in a world of dark corners and sharp needles, there really is a place where kisses taste like apple pie and where stars spill like suger across the sky. A place where unknown roads no longer scare you because you have another hand to hold. A place where butterflies always flutter whenever you see each other, and a single touch tells you that you are not alone. A place where every kiss still feels like the first. In that place of us, Liv and Dean, love has its own poetry and language. Allure, quartrefoil, fleur-de-lis ... Professor. Beauty. ~ Nina Lane

Why is she kissing me back like she's trying to crawn inside of me?
I hate that her taste quenches something hidden deep in the dark shadows of my soulless being that's been starving for so long. I hate that her warm touch feels like a jagged knife stabbing the pain I've tucked away for the day when I can avenge it.
If we don't stop, she could awaken something that cannot be brought to life. Not ever. ~ Jewel E. Ann

APPLES SCENT,
You arrive in the basement. Immediatly it catches you. Apples are here, lying on fruit trays, turned crates. You didn't think about it. You had no wish to be flooded by this melancholic wave. But you can't resist. Apple scent is a breaker. How could you manage without this childhood, bitter and sweet ?
Shrivelled fruits surely are delicious, from this feak dryness where candied taste seems to have wormed in each wrinkle. But you don't wish to eat them. Particularly don't turn into an identifiable taste this floating power of smell. Say that it smells good, strong? But not ..... It's beyond .... An inner scent, scent of a better oneself. Here is shut up school autumn, with purple ink we scratch paper with down strokes and thin strokes. Rain bangs against glasses, evening will be long ....
But apple perfume is more than past. You think about formerly because of fullness and intensity from a remembrance of salpetered cellar, dark attic. But it's to live here, stay here, stand up.
You have behind you high herbs and damp orchards. Ahead it's like a warm blow given in the shade. Scent got all browns, all reds with a bit of green acid. Scent distilled skin softness, its tiny roughness. Lips dried, we alreadyt know that this thirst is not to be slaked.
Nothing would happen if you bite the white flesh. You would need to become october, mud floor, moss of cellar, rain, expectation.
Apple scent is painful. It's from a stronger life, a slowness ~ Philippe Delerm

God, the gown was hideous. So utterly hideous. Never before had so much money been put in the service of so little taste. She batted her eyes at the mirror in glee; her reflection flirted back with her: dark-haired, dark-eyed, coquettish and mysterious. "What do you ladies think?" she asked, turning about. "Ought I have more lace?" At her feet, the beleaguered Mrs. Sandeston let out a whimper. ~ Courtney Milan

She didn't want to be empty, didn't want to vanish. She wanted to be whole.
She said, "I want to remember you."
An emotion flared in his face. He braced her hips, tugged her closer. His lids were heavy, eyes dark. His mouth was a wet gleam. She didn't recognize his expression. It was new. She leaned in and drank the newness of him.
Their kiss turned savage. She made it so. She felt his teeth, reveled in the sure knowledge that it had never been like this between them. Yet at the same time, she felt each kiss they'd shared before, felt them live inside this one. His mouth left hers, rasping down her neck. He buried his face in her skin.
She sought his mouth and found that he tasted different now. She was tasting the taste of her skin on his mouth. Coppery. She dipped her tongue into it again.
"Kestrel."
She didn't answer him.
"This is a bad idea."
"No," she said. "It isn't."
He pulled away, closed his eyes, and dropped his head to press his brow against her belly. She felt rich with the words he muttered against her nightdress. His mouth burned through the cloth.
His chair scraped back. He no longer touched her. "Not like this."
"Yes. Exactly like this." She tried to find the words to express how this helped, how he somehow mapped the country of herself, showed the ridges, the rise and valley of her very being.
"Kestrel, I think that you're…using me a little."
She stopped, unpleasantly startled. It occurred to he ~ Marie Rutkoski

IT TAKES SOME OF US a long time to find out what the price is of being in nature, and what the facts are about your tenure. How long it takes depends on how swiftly the social sugars dissolve. But when at last they do dissolve there's a different taste in your mouth, bringing different news which registers with dark astonishment and fills your eyes. And this different news is that from vast existence in some way you rise up and at any moment you may go back. Any moment; the very next, maybe. ~ Saul Bellow

Dear Future Daughter:

1) When you're at some party, chain smoking on the roof with some strange girl with blue hair and exorbitant large dark eyes, ask her about her day. I promise you, you won't regret it. Often times you'll find the strangest of people have the most captivating of stories to tell.

2) Please, never mistake desire for love. Love will engulf your soul, whilst desire will emerge as acid, slowly making it's way through your veins, gradually burning you from the inside out.

3) No one is going to fucking save you, anything you've read or heard otherwise is bullshit.

4) One day a boy is going to come along who's touch feels like fire and who's words taste like vanilla, when he leaves you, you will want to die. If you know anything at all, know that it is only temporary.

5) Your mental health comes before school baby, always. If its midnight, and you have an exam the next day but your hands have been shaking for the past hour and a half and you're not so sure you want to be alive anymore, pull out that carton of Ben and Jerry's and afterwards, go the fuck to bed. So what if you get a 68% on the exam the next day? You took care of yourself and at the end of the day that will always come before a high test score. To hell with anyone who tells you differently. ~ Abbie Nielsen

She propped herself up on one elbow so that her thick mane of silky hair spilled across her body, a thin veil over her breasts.
His gut clenched hotly at the sight, his dark eyes going black with a sudden flare of desire. She laughed softly, the sound sultry in the night. "I think you could have sex all night and never be sated."
He bent down to taste temptation, his tongue bringing her nipple to a hard peak. "I would very much like to give it a try, sivamet--my love. I could lose myself in your body. ~ Christine Feehan

Sweet like liquor. Sweet like heroin. She's an addict's kind of bitter taste--my own personal hit of dope ~ Lana Sky

Polly Jean, I love you. I love the texture of your skin, the taste of your saliva, the softness of your ears. I love every inch and every part of your entire body. From your toes and the beautifully curved arches of your feet, to the exceptional shade and warmth of your dark hair. I need you in my life, I hope you need me too. ~ Nick Cave

Sometimes in life you meet a femme fatale and you can refuse them nothing they treat you like dirt but even the dirt they dish out has a taste you can resist?
From the novel 'Adventures of a Dark Duke: The Pin ~ Russell C. Brennan

Too many times, I confused my melancholy for loneliness and sought comfort in the wrong arms. Too many times, I surrendered myself to my own illusions, trying to find something that I didn't understand. Always searching for an elusive affection, desire so pervading it was painful in its insatiability. Every time I held it close, it slipped through my fingers, my body resting in the depth of others only to find myself shivering in shallow water.

When you wrapped yourself around me, I knew it was different. A subtlety I had never known, in your embrace. Our restless, wandering souls came together, ideas and passions transforming into redamancy. I know it now – that elusive something I had always wanted – with you, every day, in every kiss, the way you touch me, in dark and light, in the illumination of all of the little things, with hundreds of no matter whats and the taste of forever. ~ Jacqueline Simon Gunn

She was never without dark glasses, she was always well groomed, there was a consequential good taste in the plainness of her clothes, the blues and grays and lack of luster that made her, herself, shine so. ~ Truman Capote

The man closest to the king didn't bother glancing around. His sapphire eyes went right to Manon, and stayed there. He would have been beautiful were it not for the dark collar around his throat and the utter coldness in his perfect face. He smiled at Manon as though he knew the taste of her blood. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Why, oh why, do you hide in shadows?
As a venomous viper you lurk in dark corners.
Waiting, waiting, waiting to spew your hate. cantankerous you are though you haven't a clue.
Spread, spread, spreading over beauty like a poisonous cloak.
At your touch the day is dark. At your touch the dark is death.
Dying, dying, dying, all light is gone, made ash of simmering sulfur no more to see the day, the dawn.
Do we partake of your deceit or do we despise?
Your lies, your lies, I will outlive your lies, and once again color this world in truth.
Pure, so sweet, the taste of revenge.
Be cursed evil shroud for the dark never wins. ~ Anonymous Diva

I taste like dark, sinful chocolate and the bite of whiskey sliding down a parched throat. I taste like the wild rush of freedom as you change into wolfskin and race beneath the moon's silvery light. I taste like a man's tongue between your legs, slowly stroking and licking your succulent flesh. I am the caress of a hand against your bare bottom, a slow slap of your soft, pink core just before I mount you and push deep inside your most intimate place ... stroking you deep and slow. ~ Jennifer Ashley

Dear God, master of the universe, compassionate and merciful: we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before your throne and beseech you to recall from this world Saadat Hasan Manto, son of Ghulam Hasan Manto, who was a man of great piety. Take him away, Lord, for he runs away from fragrance and chases after filth. He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths. He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates sweetness, but will give his life to taste bitter fruit. He will not so much as look at housewives but is in seventh heaven in the company of whores. He will not go near running waters, but loves to wade through filth. Where others weep, he laughs; and where others laugh, he weeps. Faces blackened by evil, he loves to wash with tender care to make visible their real features. He never thinks about you but follows Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed you. ~ Saadat Hasan Manto

Zacharias's study bore the marks of his predecessors, whose taste had run decidedly stoicheiotical. They had had a fondness for skulls with burning lights in their eye sockets, crystal balls in which mysterious shapes came and went, and dark velvet window curtains traced with obscure runes. ~ Zen Cho

His hands cupped her cheeks, holding her steady so that he might drink in the sight of her. It was too dark to see the exact colors that made her unforgettable face, but Simon knew that her lips were soft and pink, with just a tinge of peach at the corners. He knew that her eyes were made up of dozens of shades of brown, with that one enchanting circle of green constantly daring him to take a closer look, to see if it was really there or just a figment of his imagination.
But the rest - how she would feel, how she would taste - he could only imagine.
And Lord, how he'd been imagining it. Despite his composed demeanor, despite all of his promises to Anthony, he burned for her. When he saw her across a crowded room, his skin grew hot, and when he saw her in his dreams, he went up in flames.
Now - now that he had her in his arms, her breath fast and uneven with desire, her eyes glazed with need she couldn't possibly comprehend - now he thought he might explode.
And so kissing her became a matter of self-preservation. It was simple. If he did not kiss her now, if he did not consume her, he would die. It sounded melodramatic, but at the moment he would have sworn it to be true. The hand of desire twisting around his gut would burst into flame and take him along with it.
He needed her that much. ~ Julia Quinn

Last comes the beverage of the Orient shore, Mocha, far off, the fragrant berries bore. Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip, Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip. ~ Pope Leo XII

The cicada lies in the earth for seventeen years. It is warm and dark there, it is soft and wet. Its little legs curl underneath it, and twitch only once in a little while. What does the cicada dream when it is folded into the soil? What visions travel through it, like snow flying fast? Its dreams are lightless and secret. It dreams of the leaves it will taste, it composes the concerto it will sing to its mate. It dreams of the shells it will leave behind, like self-portraits. All its dreams are drawn in amber. It dreams of all the children it will make.
And then it emerges from the earth, shaking dust and damp soil from its skin. It knows nothing but its own passion to ascend - it climbs a high stalk of grass and begins to sing, its special concerto to draw the wing-pattern of its beloved near. And as it sings it leaves its amber skin behind, so that in the end, it has sung itself into a new body in which it will mate, and die.
The cicadas leave their shells everywhere, like a child's lost buttons. The shells do not understand the mating dance that now occurs in the mountains above it. The shell knows nothing of who it has been, it does not remember the dreaming of self, that was warm in the earth. The song emptied it, and now it simply waits for the wind or the rain to carry it away.
You are the cicada-in-the-earth. You are the shell-in-the-grass. You do not understand what you dream, only that you dream. And when you begin to sing, the song will separate you ~ Catherynne M. Valente

Spices are like colors: if you mix them all together you get a taste that is akin to the colors black, dark brown, or grey. But if you mix spices judiciously and sparingly - as you would mix yellow and blue to make green - you get a wholly unexpected and beautiful flavor. ~ Clifford Cohen

Aubade"

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows ~ Philip Larkin

This is my heart - carry it with you. I will dream of you in the dark, and you will taste it in my tea, and feel it in my shoes. ~ Catherynne M Valente

The good news was that he wasn't sixteen anymore and he had this, his art. His food. And if this dinner continued to go the way it was going, if Mrs. Raje stood by her word and gave DJ the contract for her son's fund-raising dinner next month based on tonight's success... well, then they'd be fine.
Mrs. Raje had been more impressed thus far. Everything from the steamed momos to the dum biryani had turned out just so. The mayor of San Francisco had even asked to speak to DJ after tasting the California blue crab with bitter coconut cream and tucked DJ's card into his wallet.
Only dessert remained, and dessert was DJ's crowning glory, his true love. With sugar he could make love to taste buds, make adult humans sob.
The reason Mina Raje had given him, a foreigner and a newbie, a shot at tonight was his Arabica bean gelato with dark caramel. DJ had created the dessert for her after spending a week researching her. Not just her favorite restaurants, but where she shopped, how she wore her clothes, what made her laugh, even the perfume she wore and how much. The taste buds drew from who you were. How you reacted to taste as a sense was a culmination of how you processed the world, the most primal form of how you interacted with your environment.
It was DJ's greatest strength and weakness, needing to know what exact note of flavor unfurled a person. His need to find that chord and strum it was bone deep. ~ Sonali Dev

The images start to darken and she feels another hunger well up in her, this one having to do with another kind of desire. The desire to feed, to possess, and the aggressive thrill of a predator capturing and killing its prey as it tears into unspoiled flesh. Its teeth ripping and rending and the satisfying coppery taste of blood. There is the ultimate moment of surrender of drinking away the life essence. The pinnacle of lust which mounts in the very last breath, when the light drains from the victim's eyes and when the soul fades ... Then there is only a triumphant cry to the moonlight and the beckoning depths of the ever waiting water. ~ Melissa St. Hilaire

Observe! I hold the magic tablet of truth! You are Monster; I am Man. Each is alone; each sees dawn and dusk; each feels pain and pain's ease. Why should one be victor and the other victim? We will never agree; never shall you know gain by the toil of man! Submit to the what-must-be! If you fail to heed, then you must taste a bitter brew and never again walk the sands of dark Sigil. ~ Jack Vance

Discouragement, fear, and depression -
three villains who lurk in the dark.
They slip inside souls with a blindfold and goals
to shatter your dreams and extinguish your spark.

Their tactics are highly effective.
They crush a great many each day.
And under their spell it is easy to dwell
On fiascoes and failures that end in dismay.

The heart and the mind are left heavy.
The last speck of will is erased.
And nothing stays on when these villains are gone
but a mouthful of bile with the bitterest taste.

Alas! You must conquer the scoundrels!
Elude, dodge, and keep them at bay!
To feel fear slink in, boring under your skin,
is a sign that his brothers are well on their way.

So reach for your weapons against them!
Take hope and hard work in each hand!
Strap faith on your hips and a prayer on your lips
and show those debasers how firmly you stand!

Discouragement, fear and depression -
the truth should be known of these cads.
They're empty and weak; it is your strength they seek.
Deny them and life is your wish in the bag. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I am in a chaos of principles - groping in the dark - acting by instinct and not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm, and actually give pleasure to those I love best. There, gentlemen, since you wanted to know how I was getting on, I have told you. Much good may it do you! I cannot explain further here. I perceive there is something wrong somewhere in our social formulas: what it is can only be discovered by men or women with greater insight than mine - if, indeed, they ever discover it - at least in our time.

Gekürzt:
Meine Grundsätze sind in Wirrwarr geraten – ich taste im dunkeln -, handle aus Instinkt und nicht nach Vorbildern. Vor acht oder neun Jahren, […] hatte ich einen schönen Vorrat feststehender Meinungen; aber die sind mir eine nach der andern abhanden gekommen; je älter ich werde , um so weniger sicher bin ich. Eigentlich befolge ich jetzt keine andere Lebensregel, als dass ich Neigungen nachgehe, die weder mir noch sonst jemandem schaden, sondern denen, die ich liebe, wirklich Freude machen. […] Ich spüre, dass etwas in unserem sozialen Gefüge nicht stimmt: aber was es ist, das können nur Männer und Frauen mit besserer Einsicht als ich herausfinden – wenn sie es überhaupt herausfinden ~ Thomas Hardy

She moved to push past him. When he did not move, she stopped, unwilling to touch him.
A pity. The memory of the warmth of her gloved hand on his cold cheek flashed. Apparently her behavior outside had been the product of surprise.
And pleasure.
He wondered what else he might do instinctively in response to pleasure. An image flashed- blond hair spread wide across dark, silken sheets, ice blue eyes alight with surprise as he gave prim, proper Penelope a glimpse of dark and heady pleasure.
He'd nearly kissed her in the darkness. It had started out as a way to intimidate her, to begin the systematic compromising of quiet, unassuming, Penelope Marbury. But he did not deny that as they stood in his barren kitchen, he wondered what she would taste like. How her breath would sound fluttering across his skin. How she would feel against him. Around him. ~ Sarah MacLean

Of Woman and Chocolate

"Chocolate shares both the bitter and the sweet.

Chocolate melts away all cares, coating the heart while smothering every last ache.

Chocolate brings a smile to the lips on contact, leaving a dark kiss behind.

Chocolate is amiable, complimenting any pairing; berries, peanut butter, pretzels, mint, pastries, drinks...everything goes with chocolate.

The very thought of chocolate awakens taste buds, sparking memories of candy-coated happiness.

Chocolate will go nuts with you, no questions asked.

Chocolate craves your lips, melts at your touch, and savors the moment.

Chocolate is that dark and beautiful knight who charges in on his gallant steed ready to slay dragons when needed.

Chocolate never disappoints; it leaves its lover wanting more.

Chocolate is the ultimate satisfaction, synonymous with perfection.

Chocolate is rich, smooth pleasure.

Chocolate has finesse - the charm to seduce and indulge at any time, day or night.

Chocolate is a true friend, a trusted confidant, and faithful lover.

Chocolate warms and comforts and sympathizes.

Chocolate holds power over depression, victory over disappointment.

Chocolate savvies the needs of a woman and owns her.

Simply put, chocolate is paradise. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

How Could You Not - for Jane Kenyon

It is a day after many days of storms.
Having been washed and washed, the air glitters;
small heaped cumuli blow across the sky; a shower
visible against the firs douses the crocuses.

We knew it would happen one day this week.
Now, when I learn you have died, I go
to the open door and look across at New Hampshire
and see that there, too, the sun is bright
and clouds are making their shadowy ways along the horizon;

and I think: How could it not have been today?
In another room, Keri Te Kanawa is singing
the Laudate Dominum of Mozart, very faintly,
as if in the past, to those who once sat
in the steel seat of the old mowing machine,
cheerful descendent of the scythe of the grim reaper,

and drew the cutter bars little
reciprocating triangles through the grass
to make the stalks lie down in sunshine.
Could you have walked in the dark early this morning
and found yourself grown completely tired
of the successes and failures of medicine,
of your year of pain and despair remitted briefly
now and then by hope that had that leaden taste?

Did you glimpse in first light the world as you loved it
and see that, now, it was not wrong to die
and that, on dying, you would leave
your beloved in a day like paradise?

Near sunrise did you loosen your hold a little?
How could you not ~ Galway Kinnell

Judd returned during the last hour of my Friday shift. Without seeing him coming as I wiped a table, I knew something was up because two large burly men flinched.
Turning, I found Judd moving fast towards me. Before I could speak, his hands cupped my face and his lips were on mine.
Murmuring at the deepening kiss, I tossed aside the wash towel and wrapped my arms around his waist. He felt like perfection.
Judd pulled away and stated to speak then his gaze focused on the two men watching us and smiling. His dark stare killed their enthusiasm and they returned to eating.
"Back less than a minute and you're already losing me tips," I teased, causing Judd to smile grudging. "You taste like peppermint."
"I slept for shit and chewing gum keeps me alert."
Caressing his lips, I couldn't stop grinning. "You're so fucking beautiful and you're mine. How did that happen?"
Judd finally gave me a great smile. "I laid eyed on you and was done for. ~ Bijou Hunter

When death comes, we take off our clothes and gather everything we left behind: what is dark, broken, touched with shame. When Death demands we give an accounting, naked we present our lives in bundles. See how much these weigh, we tell him, refusing to deny what we have lived. Everything that is touched by light loves the light. We the stubborn-as-grass, we who reel at the taste of sap and want our spirits cleansed, will not betray the weeds, snake, or crippled mare. Never leave behind what the light shone on. ~ Linda Gregg

Love was nothing but a lie people told themselves.
But lust?
Lust was real, and he was feeling it. Feeling it to his core. As he held her to him, his blood pounded with the fiercest, most primal kind of need. One that spoke of possession and claiming and mine.
She made him wild.
Surely it was simply because he'd gone so long without female company. Madeline wasn't even his usual sort. Given his choice, he would have said he favored a bonny Scots lass with fiery hair and a knowing gleam in her eye. Not a shy, proper English gentlewoman just learning the taste of her first kiss.
But beneath the shyness and reserve, she possessed a natural, earthy sensuality. He couldn't help but think of what that might mean in bed- when all the rules and corsets were shed, and the dark freed her from propriety. ~ Tessa Dare

Shut up," I snapped. "This is not the time. What part of this situation seems like a joke to you?"
Lohka pulled up his knees, giving a feeble, half-manic little laugh. "Oh, maybe just the idea that some soul-devouring being of chaos could be waiting anywhere to finish destroying my life," he said. "That's kind of hilarious, you know. Have you ever had a soul-devouring being of chaos hunting you down so it could finish eating you?"
"No," I said. "I'm sorry, Lohka."
"That's nice," he muttered.
"What about the part where this soul-devouring being of chaos seems to have a taste for me at the moment?" Zhabyr asked. "Can we worry about that, now? Because I kind of already am. ~ J. Leigh Bralick