Pinned Quotes

The silence was deafening, pressing more heavily on Hollyleaf's ears than the stones that pinned her to the cold floor. ~ Erin Hunter

Before I knew it, he had my arms pinned against the wall over my head, and he was exploring my body with his mouth, my lips, my cheek, my neck, my ear, I could hardly bare it. I was fully aware I was moaning, but I didn't care, this felt good. ~ Kira Adams

I kissed him for a long, long while. My hands wrapped on either side of his face pinned him and wouldn't let him pull away. I didn't want Kabe to ever pull away from me. Let the mountains fall and the stars burn out, I'd never let him go. ~ James Buchanan

That's it. I had enough of your abuse," Tristan said, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me back down on the bed. I screamed as he tackled me. We wrestled back and forth, laughing. I found his tickle spot giving me the advantage, but he was fast and kept getting the upper hand. He had me pinned with my arms above my head and his body pressing down on mine. I stopped resisting, but he didn't let go. He was panting and smiling over his victory. He stared deep into my eyes making my heart race. ~ Jessica Miller

My reflexes were now quicker than my emotion, and it was only after I had pinned her that I felt some dark, primordial excitement pulse through me. I made eye contact with her, and whatever she saw in them made her flinch. I could feel my anger growing, feeding on itself. "You're right Doris." I spoke low so only she could hear me. "I am a freak. But I'm also a predator, and you, Doris, are most definitely prey. Just remember that next time you want to pick a fight. ~ Laura Thalassa

The time comes when each of us has to give up as illusions the expectations which, in his youth, he pinned upon his fellow-men, and when he may learn how much difficulty and pain has been added to his life by their ill-will. ~ Sigmund Freud

Rose's work of art took her all day, including two playtimes, story time, and most of lunch.
At the end of school it was stolen from her by the wicked teacher who had pretended to be so interested.
"Beautiful- what-is-it?" she asked as she pinned it high on the wall, where Rose could not reach.
"They take your pictures," said Indigo, ... when he finally made out what all the roaring and stamping was about. "They do take them ... Why do you want that picture so much?" he asked Rose.
"It was my best ever," said Rose furiously. "I hate school. I hate everyone in it. I will kill them all when I'm big enough."
"You can't just go round killing people," Indigo told her ... ~ Hilary McKay

Only a few days after my encounter with the police, two patrolmen tackled Alton Sterling onto a car, then pinned him down on the ground and shot him in the chest while he was selling CDs in front of a convenience store, seventy-five miles up the road in Baton Rouge. A day after that, Philando Castile was shot in the passenger seat of his car during a police traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, as his girlfriend recorded the aftermath via Facebook Live.

Then, the day after Castile was killed, five policemen were shot dead by a sniper in Dallas. It felt as if the world was subsumed by cascades of unceasing despair. I mourned for the family and friends of Sterling and Castille. I felt deep sympathy for the families of the policemen who died. I also felt a real fear that, as a result of what took place in Dallas, law enforcement would become more deeply entrenched in their biases against black men, leading to the possibility of even more violence.

The stream of names of those who have been killed at the hands of the police feels endless, and I become overwhelmed when I consider all the names we do not know - all of those who lost their lives and had no camera there to capture it, nothing to corroborate police reports that named them as threats. Closed cases. I watch the collective mourning transpire across my social-media feeds. I watch as people declare that they cannot get out of bed, cannot bear to go to work, cannot function as a human being is mea ~ Clint Smith

Fright is something one can never get over. When a warrior is caught in such a tight spot he would simply turn his back to the ally without thinking twice. A warrior cannot indulge thus he cannot die of fright. A warrior allows the ally to come only when he is good and ready. When he is strong enough to grapple with the ally he opens up his gap and lurches out, grabs the ally, keeps him pinned down and maintains his stare on him for exactly the time he has to, then he moves his eyes away and releases the ally and lets him go. A warrior, my little friend, is the master at all times ~ Carlos Castaneda

In the center of the sofa were two oblong companion pillows, shouldered so closely together that they looked like the Decalogue tablets. They were white, or had been white, and painfully stitched upon them with blue thread were companion mottoes, companion pictures. In the left pillow lies a girl, her long blue hair asprawl about her face, her eyes innocently shut, asleep. The motto: I SLEPT AND DREAMED THAT LIFE WAS BEAUTY. But the story continued, and on the next pillow her innocence is all torn away: there she stands, gripping a round broom; her hair now is pinned up severely and behind her sits a disheartening barrel churn. I WOKE AND FOUND THAT LIFE WAS DUTY. The pillows sat, stuffed and stiff as disapproving bishops; they could, he thought, serve as twin tombstones for whole gray generations. ~ Fred Chappell

He sipped again, more deeply. "Is this an interrogation, Lieutenant?" It was the smile in his voice that rubbed her wrong.
"It can be," she said shortly.
"As you like." He rose, set his glass aside, and began to unbutton his shirt.
"What are you doing?"
"Getting into the swim, so to speak." He tossed the shirt aside, unhooked his trousers.
"If I'm going to be questioned by a naked cop, in my own tub, the least I can do is join her."
"Damn it, Roarke, this is murder." He winced as the hot water all but scalded him.
"You're telling me." He faced her across the sea of froth.
"What is it in me that is so perverse it thrives on ruffling you? And," he continued before she could give him her short, pithy opinion, "what is it about you that pulls at me, even when you're sitting there with an invisible badge pinned to your lovely breast? ~ J.D. Robb

We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on? ~ John W. Vessey, Jr.

You call me castoff," Mahlia said, "Chinese throwaway, whatever." Amaya was trying to look away, but Mahlia had her pinned, kept her eye to eye. "My old man might have been peacekeeper, but my mom was pure Drowned Cities. You want to war like that, I'm all in." Mahlia lifted the scarred stump of her right hand, shoved it up in Amaya's face. "Maybe I cut you the way the Army of God cut me. See how you do with just a lucky left. How'd you like that? ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

The man billed as Prospero the Enchanter receives a fair amount of correspondence via the theater office, but this is the first envelope addressed to him that contains a suicide note, and it is also the first to arrive carefully pinned to the coat of a five-year-old girl. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Napoleon said men will die for bits of ribbon pinned to their chests, but the General understands that even more men will die for a man who remembered their names, as he does theirs. When he inspects them, he walks among them, eats with them, calls them by their names and asks about wives, children, girlfriends, hometowns. All anyone ever wants is to be recognized and remembered. Neither is possible without the other. This desire drives these busboys, waiters, janitors, gardeners, mechanics, night guards, and welfare beneficiaries to save enough money to buy themselves uniforms, boots, and guns, to want to be men again. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen

In his fitful eastward progress through Belgium and Germany that winter, my grandfather had shared all manner of billets: with dogfaces and officers, in misery and in comfort, in attack and in retreat, and pinned down by snow or German ordnance. He had bedded down under a bearskin in a schloss and in foxholes flecked pink with the tissue of previous occupants. If an hour's sleep were to be had, he seized it, in the bedrooms or basements of elegant townhouses, in ravaged hotels, on clean straw and straw that crawled with vermin, on featherbeds and canvas webbing slung across the bed of a half-truck, on mud, sandbags, and raw pine planks. However wretched, accommodations were always better or no worse than those on the enemy side. ~ Michael Chabon

Trexler knew what he wanted, and what, in general, all men wanted; and he was glad, in a way, that it was both inexpressible and unattainable, and that it wasn't a wing. He was satisfied to remember that it was deep, formless, enduring and impossible of fulfillment, and that it made men sick, and that when you sauntered along Third Avenue and looked through the doorways into the dim saloons, you could sometimes pick out from the unregenerate ranks the ones who had not forgotten, gazing steadily into the bottoms of their glasses on the long chance that they could get another little peek at it. Trexler found himself renewed by the remembrance that what he wanted was at once great and microscopic, and that although it borrowed from the nature of large deeds and of youthful love and of old songs and early intimations, it was not any one of these things, and that it had not been isolated or pinned down, and that a man who attempted to define it in the privacy of a doctor's office would fall flat on his face. ~ E.B. White

You understand, don't you, Mrs. Mackenzie?" Blackwell murmured, his hard mouth barely moving as the intensity of his regard pinned her to her seat. "The deeds of a willful youth."
A thrill of danger kissed her spine.
"Horseshit!" Morley roared.
Dorian turned back to face him, and Farah was able to let out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding as the black spell he'd woven over her suddenly dissipated.
"For shame, Morley," he mockingly chided. "Such language in front of a lady."
"She is my employee," Sir Morley gritted through clenched teeth. "And I'll thank you not to bother about her if you want to keep the vision in the eye you have left."
"I can hardly help myself. She's such a ripe piece of skirt. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

And I have known the eyes already, known them all
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume? ~ T. S. Eliot

As high as the fire in me burns, Evie, I will stoke it in you."
"Sebastian..."She strained a little, and he pinned her more firmly against the table.
"It's my right to kiss you," he reminded her. "whenever I want, for as long as I want. That was our bargain."
She threw an agitated glance around the room, and he read her thoughts easily.
"I don't give a damn if anyone sees us. You're my wife." A smile chased across his lips. "My better half, to be certain." Leaning over her, he nuzzled into the fine tendrils that strayed over her forehead. His breath was hot and soft on her skin. "My prize... my pleasure and pain... my endless desire. I've never known anyone like you, Evie." His lips touched gently at the bridge of her nose and slid down to the tip. "You dare to make demands of me that no other woman would think of asking. And for now, I'll pay your price, love. But later you'll pay mine... over and over..." He caught her trembling lips with his, his hands cupping the back of her head. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Stop!" she called out.
To a one, the crewmen froze. A dozen heads swiveled to face her.
Sophia swallowed and turned to Mr. Grayson. "What about me? I'm also a virgin voyager."
His lips quirked as his gaze swept her from head to toe and then back up partway. "Are you truly?"
"Yes. And I haven't a coin to my name. Do you plan to dunk and shave me, too?"
"Now there's an idea." His grin widened. "Perhaps. But first, you must submit to an interrogation."
A lump formed in Sophia's throat, impossible to speak around.
Mr. Grayson raised that sonorous baritone to a carrying pitch. "What's your name then, miss?" When Sophia merely firmed her chin and glared at him, he warned dramatically, "Truth or eels."
Bang.
Excited whispers crackled through the assembly of sailors. Davy was completely forgotten, dropped to the deck with a dull thud. Even the wind held its breath in anticipation, and Sophia gave a slight jump when a sail smacked limp against the mast.
Though her heart pounded an erratic rhythm of distress, she willed her voice to remain even. "I've no intention of submitting myself to any interrogation, by god or man." She lifted her chin and arched an eyebrow. "And I'm not impressed by your staff."
She paused several seconds, waiting for the crew's boisterous laughter to ebb.
Mr. Grayson pinned her with his bold, unyielding gaze. "You dare to speak to me that way? I'm Triton." With each word, he stepped closer. "King of th ~ Tessa Dare

In the pits of our souls - if I amuse myself with the notion that I have a soul - Elian and I aren't so different. Two kingdoms that come with responsibilities we each have trouble bearing. Him, the shackles of being pinned to one land and one life. Me, trapped in the confines of my mother's murderous legacy. And the ocean, calling out to us both. A song of freedom and longing. ~ Alexandra Christo

He was really trying to be my friend, without all the emotional baggage we both carried - mine still with me, but carefully folded in vacuum bags so they'd occupy as little room as possible and his, hangin on his shoulders like lead armor, making him slouch sometimes. And yet, as pinned down as he was, he was the one comforting me, supporting not only his weight but mine, too. It wasn't fair. ~ Diana T. Scott

Edmund Clowney observes that prayer involves an honesty that has no real parallel in human relationships, because every human relation necessarily involves only a part of your personality. We relate differently to our spouse, our business partner, and a chance acquaintance on the street because each of our social roles expresses only a part of our personhood. Even our spouse sees only part of who we are. "In relation to God, however, we are 'naked and pinned down' (Heb 4:13). Our masks are gone, pretense is useless: the relationship is not partial, but total. All that we are stands related to our Maker and Redeemer."245 ~ Timothy J. Keller

I told you,lifemate, you're always taking off my clothes."
"Then stop wearing the damn things," he responded gruffly,his hands at her tiny waist, his mouth finding her flat stomach. "Someday my child will be growing right here," he said softly, kissing her belly. His hands pinned her thighs so that he could explore easily without interruption. "A beautiful little girl with your looks and my disposition."
Savannah laughed softly, her arms cradling his head lovingly. "That should be quite a combination. What's wrong with my disposition?" She was writhing under the onslaught of his hands and mouth,arcing her body more fully into his ministrations.
"You are a wicked woman," he whispered. "I would have to kill any man who treated my daughter the way I am treating you."
She cried out,her body rippling with pleasure. "I happen to love the way you treat me,lifemate," she answered softly and cried out again when he merged their bodies, their minds, their hearts and souls.
The future might be uncertain, with the society dogging the footsteps of their people,but their combined strength was more than enough to see them through. And together they could face any enemy to ensure the continuation of their race. ~ Christine Feehan

Royce saw to his horse's needs; then, finding a suitable place, he unrolled his blanket and lay down.

"I take it we're camping here, then?"

Royce said nothing, still refusing to acknowledge his existence.

"You could have said, 'We're going to bed down here for the rest of the night.' No, wait, you're right, too much. How about 'sleeping here'? Two words. Even you could manage that, right? I mean, I know you can talk. You had plenty to say back in Arcadius's office. Couldn't keep the words from coming out then, but no, utterly impossible to indicate in any way that we'll be stopping here for the night."

Hadrian dismounted and began unloading Dancer. "How long were we on the road?" He paused to look up at the moon. "What? Five, six hours? Not a damn word. Getting chilly out, don't you think, Hadrian? Moon looks like a fingernail, ain't that right, Hadrian? That tree looks like a goddamn bear, don't it, Hadrian? Nothing. By the way, in case you hadn't noticed, I was attacked by a goshawk and a pig-riding dwarf that shot eggs at me with a sling. I was knocked from my horse and wrestled with the dwarf, the hawk, and the pig for what had to be half an hour. The dwarf kept smashing eggs in my face, and that ruddy pig pinned me down, licking them off. I only got away because the dwarf ran out of eggs. Then the hawk turned into a moth that became distracted by the light of the moon."
Royce shifted to his side, hood up.

"Yeah, ~ Michael J. Sullivan

I guess you'll just have to get used to having a police car outside the grocery store, the gym, and wherever it is you go for lunch with your friends," Jack lectured. "And this goes without saying: you need to be careful. The police surveillance is a precautionary measure, but they can't be everywhere. You should stick to familiar surroundings, and be vigilant and alert at all times."

"I got it. No walking through dark alleys while talking on my cell phone, no running at night with my iPod, no checking out suspicious noises in the basement."

"I seriously hope you're not doing any of those things anyway."

"Of course not."

Jack pinned her with his gaze.

She shifted against the counter. "Okay, maybe, sometimes, I've been known to listen to a Black Eyed Peas song or two while running at night. They get me moving after a long day at work."

Jack seemed wholly unimpressed with this excuse. "Well, you and the Peas better get used to running indoors on a treadmill."

Conscious of Wilkins's presence, and the fact that he was watching her and Jack with what appeared to be amusement, Cameron bit back her retort.

Thirty thousand hotel rooms in the city of Chicago and she picked the one that would lead her back to him. ~ Julie James

And you're about to pay for that, baby." Furi spun Syn around and pushed his chest against the door. "Furious," Syn groaned when he felt his sweater being roughly yanked over his head. Furi's hand pressed hard into the center of his back, keeping him pinned against the front door. "Yes, punish me." Syn froze when Furi's assault on his body stopped immediately after he said that. Oh no. Furi's hair was brushing against Syn's face as he leaned in to whisper in his ear, "You ever been handcuffed, Sergeant? Restrained." Syn shivered, his cock leaking in his tight jeans. "Oh fuck." "Don't ~ A.E. Via

I've wrestled an alligator before. It wasn't alive, but I still pinned it down. I was trying to impress a woman, and I bet I did, because she went home with another man - but she was smiling, probably wishing he were me. ~ Jarod Kintz

Sometimes, in a moral struggle, we discover the right thing to do - just as, on some cold day long ago, we discovered mittens pinned to our coat sleeve. ~ Robert Breault

I used to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read: Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us ... It was all about letting go of everything. p.7 ~ Pema Chodron

There was someone sitting in his room, over on that chair -
"Are you kidding me?" He exhaled a curse and rubbed the back of his brain. "Really? Are you fucking kidding me?"
Across the way, like some fucked-up scarecrow, a pair of blue jeans, that Nirvana concert T-shirt of the angel's, the flannel bullshit, and a set of Nikes had been stuffed with God only knew what. The head of the "Lassiter" was made out of a nylon bag that had had potatoes in it, and the black and yellow hair was a collection of knee-high business socks - probably Butch's - and Swiffer cleaning rags that had been safety pinned in place.
Around its neck? A handwritten sign that read: the boss was here. ~ J.R. Ward

I'm up high above them all, pinned against this window with a stranger's cock buried inside me. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

Many years ago I sent an old, beloved jacket to a cleaner, the Sycamore Cleaners. It was a leather jacket covered in Guinness and blood and marmalade, one of those jobs ... and it came back with a little note pinned to it, and on the note it said, 'It distresses us to return work which is not perfect.' So that will do for me. That can go on my tombstone. ~ Peter O'Toole

The problem is, hope is the thing that can't be reined in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It's a blessing and curse. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

So I walked down to the operation nearest my office, a brothel, and found the manager. Before he could say anything, I pinned the right side of his cloak to the wall with a throwing knife, about knee level. I did the same with his left side. I put a shuriken into the wall next to each ear, close enough to cut. Then Loiosh went after him and raked his claws down the guy's face. I went up and hit him just below his sternum, then kneed him in the face when he doubled over. He began to understand that I wasn't happy. ~ Steven Brust

I am only saying that I will find you mad wolves to hunt," Ian told his wife, "and that I will never break your heart." If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk like a Night Witch. Nina's soul would always in some deep place yearn to be soaring under a bomber's moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose, and that was fine. Ian thought there was a chance, despite her prickles, that a bit of that remaining heart might thaw enough for him. ~ Kate Quinn

His mind was completely occupied with the image of Aline by the river, the rich mass of her pinned-up hair, the exquisite lines of her body and throat.
Time had only made Aline's beauty more eloquent. Her body was ripe and fully developed, the form of a woman in her prime. With maturity, her face had become more delicately sculpted, the nose thinner, the lips faded from deep rose to the pale shade of pink that tinted the inside of a seashell. And there was that damned, never-forgotten beauty mark, the festive dark fleck that lured his attention to the tender corner of her mouth. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Wherever something is "pinned down" there's a little hole - at least one - more likely many. ~ Laura Mullen

Embrace me, Lou," he repeated my own words back to me, trailing feather-light kisses on my throat, catching my earlobe gently in his teeth. I gasped. Though his body pinned mine to the mattress, he was careful to support his weight with his elbows. I wished he wouldn't. I wanted to feel him. All of him. "Embrace us. ~ Shelby Mahurin

„We gave your way a try," he said to Annabelle. „Now it's time for my way." He flattened his palm on Brax's chest and pushed. Just a little push, but the man flew backward and slammed into the foyer wall. […]
In a blink, Zacharel had a hand wrapped around Brax's throat and his body pinned against the wall, his legs dangling. […]
A soft hand on his shoulder, a beseeching voice in his ear. „Zacharel. Let him down, please. Despite everything, I love him the way you love Hadrenial. I don't want to see him hurt."
Golden eyes widened, bulged, really, as Zacharel increaed the pressure. „Just a little longer. He disrespected you. ~ Gena Showalter

Shelby..." Her tongue skimmed over his while he cupped the back of her neck more firmly. "Shelby," he repeated a moment later, "there was something I wanted to talk to you about earlier, and I'm in danger of becoming as ditracted now as I was then."
"Promise?" She moved her lips to his throat.
"I have a command performance this weekend."
"Oh?" She switched to his ear.
In self-defense, Aan rolled over and pinned her beneath him. "I got a call from my father this afternoon."
"Ah" Humor danced in her eyes. "The laird."
"The title would appeal to him." Alan grasped her wrists to prevent her from clouding his mind as she seemed bent on doing. "It seems he's planned one of his famous family weekends. Come with me."
One brow lifted. "To the MacGregor fortress in Hyannis Port? Unarmed?"
"We'll hoist the white flag."
She wanted to go.She wanted to say no. A visit to his family home came perilously close to that final commitment she was so carefully sidestepping. Questions, speculation-there'd be no avoiding them. Alan heard her thoughts as clearly as if it had been spoken.Pushng back frustration, he changed tactics.
"I have orders to bring that girl-" he watched her eyes narrow- "-that daughter of the thieving, murdering Campbells,with me."
"Oh,is that so?"
"Just so," Alan returned mildly.
Shelby lifted her chin. "When do we leave? ~ Nora Roberts

Ivypool backed away. She twisted and ducked under him as he leaped, but his claws sank into her tail and pinned her to the ground. Thistleclaw and Snowtuft attacked from opposite sides, snarling, slicing her ears. She struggled away from them, crashing into hard muscle. Hawkfrost was behind her now. He stabbed his claws into her shoulders. With a gasp, Ivypool saw his teeth flashing beside her throat. Then a black pelt flashed over the top of the gorse. Paws landed with a thump beside her.
"Get off her!" Hollyleaf yowled.
Ivypool's world spun as the black warrior slammed into Hawkfrost and sent him reeling into the gorse. Free from Hawkfrost's claws, Ivypool turned on Thistleclaw and Snowtuft. She began slashing with her front paws, remembering in a crystalline moment every moon of training. Hollyleaf reared up beside her, matching her blow for blow, as though she instinctively knew where Ivypool would strike next. Blood sprayed the forest floor as Ivypool sliced Snowtuft's muzzle and tore Thistleclaw's nose. Turning she kicked with hind legs and knocked Thistleclaw backward, then sank her teeth into Snowtuft's neck.
The white warrior screeched and ripped free from her jaws. Ivypool tasted his blood as he hared away through the bracken. She met Thistleclaw's gaze. Fear sparked in his eyes as she spat out a bloody clump of Snowtuft's fur.
"Run," she hissed. "Because if you stay, I will kill you".
Mouth open, Thistleclaw fled, disappearing through the ~ Erin Hunter

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks. ~ David Sedaris

I don't want to be pinned down to any position. My position is the lack of a position, but of course you can't even talk about it; the minute you talk you spoil the whole game-Marcel Duchamp ~ Alice Goldfarb Marquis

And her dreams that didn't happen, that couldn't have happened because she'd pinned them on somebody too broken and unattainable to love her back. ~ Janette Rallison

The office Halloween party was at the Royalton last week and I went as a mass murderer, complete with a sign painted on my back that read MASS MURDERER (which was decidedly lighter than the sandwich board I had constructed earlier that day that read DRILLER KILLER), and beneath those two words I had written in blood Yep, that's me and the suit was also covered with blood, some of it fake, most of it real. In one fist I clenched a hank of Victoria Bell's hair, and pinned next to my boutonniere (a small white rose) was a finger bone I'd boiled the flesh off of. As elaborate as my costume was, Craig McDermott still managed to win first place in the competition. He came as Ivan Boesky, which I thought was unfair since a lot of people thought I'd gone as Michael Milken last year. The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Home Abortion Kits. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

When they rolled to a stop, she found herself pinned by a tremendous, huffing weight. And pierced by an intense green gaze.
"Wh-?" Her breath rushed out in question.
Boom, the world answered.
Susanna ducked her head, burrowing into the protection of what she'd recognized to be an officer's coat. The knob of a brass button pressed into her cheek. The man's bulk formed a comforting shield as a shower of dirt clods rained down on them both. He smelled of whiskey and gunpowder.
After the dust cleared, she brushed the hair from his brow, searching his gaze for signs of confusion or pain. His eyes were alert and intelligent, and still that startling shade of green-as hard and richly hued as jade.
She asked, "Are you well?"
"Yes." His voice was a deep rasp. "Are you?"
She nodded, expecting him to release her at the confirmation. When he showed no signs of moving, she puzzled at it. Either he was gravely injured or seriously impertinent. "Sir, you're…er, you're rather heavy." Surely he could not fail to miss that hint.
He replied, "You're soft."
Good Lord. Who was this man? Where had he come from? And how was he still atop her?
"You have a small wound." With trembling fingers, she brushed a reddish knot high on his temple, near his hairline. "Here." She pressed her hand to his throat, feeling for his pulse. She found it, thumping strong and steady against her gloved fingertips.
"Ah. That's nice."
Her face blazed with heat. " ~ Tessa Dare

Hope is the thing that can't be reigned in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It's a blessing and a curse. ~ Cinda Williams Chima

Andrew's kissing Amanda again, her back pinned against the door frame, his hands working through a geometry problem where the goal is to find the point of intersection where two legs bisect. People would like math so much more if it involved real life like that. ~ Julia Kent

He broke away a little to murmur, 'You're sure about this?'

'I need to feel alive, Mac,' said Simone 'I have to know it . . . I don't need flowers . . . I don't need dinner . . . I don't need romance . . . I need fucked.'

The word had an electric effect on Macandrew, who despite now wanting Simone so badly, still had reservations about the situation – mainly the fear that he was taking advantage of it. He felt the last of them wash away as she uttered the word. He pinned her to the wall and freed himself before reaching under her skirt to push her panties to one side and enter her hard and long. He cupped his hands round her backside and pulled her on to him, matching the thrust of his hips and being exhorted to ever greater efforts by Simone's moans in his ear. 'Christ, I want you,' he gasped.

'Then have me . . .'

The all too brief outcome of such passion left Macandrew holding Simone to him and resting his forehead on the wall as his breathing subsided.

Simone broke the silence. 'Tell me how you feel?' she murmured.

'After a moment's thought, Macandrew said, 'Embarrassed. Dare I ask about you?'

'Fucked,' replied Simone.

Macandrew smiled, feeling such a surge of relief when he saw that Simone was smiling too. She ran the tips of her fingers softly down his cheek. 'Let's go shower,' she said.

Showering together was as gentle an experience as their love-making had been passionate ~ Ken McClure

Melville had to fight, fight against the existing world, against his own very self. Only he would never quite put the knife in the heart of his paradisal ideal. Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, love should be a fulfillment, and life should be a thing of bliss. That was his fixed ideal. Fata Morgana. That was the pin he tortured himself on, like a pinned-down butterfly. ~ D.H. Lawrence

Why do movies make this look so simple?" He leaned back and looked her straight in the eye, the smile winning. "One-handed bra removal is not easy. I call false reality."
"Teen boys all over the world are going to hate themselves for not being able to do it."
"Grown men, too."
"Don't forget Irish men." Melody readjusted herself and sat up straighter. "Declan?" she whispered, tipping her face toward his. Then she ran her tongue over his mouth and pinned his other hand against his side. "I don't want you to hate yourself. Don't give up. You've got this. ~ Brooklyn Skye

I'm sorry, Eli. I should have stayed at Snake Fort - " "No." He grabbed her arm and dragged her against his chest. She fell against him with a gasp, her body stiff. His arms circled her waist and pinned her in place so that even if she'd tried to escape from him she couldn't. "We're staying together." His whisper was harsh. The silky loose strands of her hair blew against his lips. He released a long breath and softened his voice. "Wherever that might be, I want us to be together. ~ Jody Hedlund

Tomorrow I want to get a New York bagel and see how it stacks up against Bodo's." Bodo's Bagels are legendary in Charlottesville; we're very proud of those bagels.
Putting my head on his shoulder, I yawn and say, "I wish we could go to Levain Bakery so I could try their cookie. It's supposed to be like no chocolate chip cookie you've had before. I want to go to Jacques Torres's chocolate shop too. His chocolate chip cookie is the definitive chocolate chip cookie, you know. It's truly legendary…" My eyes drift closed, and Peter pats my hair. I'm starting to fall asleep when I realize he's unraveling the milkmaid braids Kitty pinned on the crown of my head. My eyes fly back open. "Peter!"
"Shh, go back to sleep. I want to practice something."
"You'll never get it back to how she had it."
"Just let me try," he says, collecting bobby pins in the palm of his hand.
When we get to the hotel in New Jersey, despite his best efforts, my braids are lumpy and loose and won't stay pinned. "I'm sending a picture of this to Kitty so she'll see what a bad student you are," I say as I gather up my things.
"No, don't," Peter quickly says, which makes me smile. ~ Jenny Han

You are such a dork," I exclaim as my fingers flit over the multitude of images and videos of Will Smith. Pinned quotes and sayings are highlighted, and I chuckle when I recognize a few. "Oh. My. God. Did you actually learn these on purpose?"
He reels me into his arms and kisses the top of my head. "Will I be cementing my dork status if I answer affirmatively?"
"Absolutely." I look up into his beautiful eyes. "But I only love you more for it. ~ Siobhan Davis

You gotta find a life outside this office," he threw out a hand then pinned his eyes on me. "You gotta find a man."
My back snapped straight. "Tack, really - "
He didn't miss my response. He just misinterpreted it.
"Don't go woman on me and tell me you don't need a man to complete you. It's bullshit. Woman looks like you, goddamn waste. But a woman who has the love you got to give, that's not a waste. That's a crying shame."
I closed my mouth because that was sweet.
Then I opened it to remind him, "Uh, FYI, I can't go woman on you since I am a woman, so going woman is redundant. ~ Kristen Ashley

He went to look closely at the painting, which portrayed a parade of fat white geese strolling past the doorway of a cottage.
"Someday I'll be able to afford real art," Garrett said, coming to stand beside him. "In the meantime, we'll have to make do with this."
Ethan's attention was drawn to the tiny initials in the corner of the work: G.G. A slow smile broke over his face. "You painted it?"
"Art class, at boarding school," she admitted. "I wasn't bad at sketching, but the only subject I could manage to paint adequately was geese. At one point I tried to expand my repertoire to ducks, but those earned lower marks, so it was back to geese after that."
Ethan smiled, imagining her as a studious schoolgirl with long braids. The light of a glass-globe parlor lamp slid across the tidy pinned-up weight of her hair, bringing out gleams of red and gold. He'd never seen anything like her skin, fine and powerless, with a faint glow like a blush-colored garden rose.
"What gave you the idea to paint geese in the first place?" he asked.
"There was a goose pond across from the school," Garrett said, staring absently at the picture. "Sometimes I saw Miss Primrose at the front windows, watching with binoculars. One day I dared to ask her what she found so interesting about geese, and she told me they had a capacity for attachment and grief that rivaled humans. They mated for life, she said. If a goose was injured, the gander would stay with her even if the rest ~ Lisa Kleypas

Then I saw a wan face
Not pinned by human sorrows, but bright blanched
By an immortal sickness which kills not;
It works a constant change, which happy death
Can put no end to; deathwards progressing
To no death was that visage; it had passed
The lily and the snow; and beyond these ~ Dan Simmons

If you never knew
the worlds in my mind
your sense of loss
would be small pity
and we'll forget this on the trail.
Take what you're given
and turn away the screwed face.
I do not deserve it,
no matter how narrow the strand
of your private shore.
If you will do your best
I'll meet your eye.
It's the clutch of arrows in hand
that I do not trust
bent to the smile hitching my way.
We aren't meeting in sorrow
or some other suture
bridging scars.
We haven't danced the same
thin ice
and my sympathy for your troubles
I give freely without thought
of reciprocity or scales on balance.
It's the decent thing, that's all.
Even if that thing
is a stranger to so many.
But there will be secrets
you never knew
and I would not choose any other way.
All my arrows are buried and
the sandy reach is broad
and all that's private
cools pinned on the altar.
Even the drips are gone,
that child of wants
with a mind full of worlds
and his reddened tears.
The days I feel mortal I so hate.
The days in my worlds,
are where I live for ever,
and should dawn ever arrive
I will to its light awaken
as one reborn.

Poet's Night iii.iv
The Malazan Book of the Fallen
Fisher kel Tath ~ Steven Erikson

Who's straight? I'm not. I am bent gouged pinched and tugged at, and squeezed into this funny shape. Each life is a game of chess that went to hell on the seventh move, and now the flukey play is cramped and slow, a dream of constraint and cross-purpose, with each move forced, all pieces pinned and skewered and zugzwanged ... But here and there we see these figures who appear to run on the true lines, and they are terrible examples. They're rich, usually. ~ Martin Amis

She settled into a crouch, wings pinned tightly to her back. "Come on then, angel boy." She kept her eyes on the muscles in his shoulders, saw the instant one tensed. A split second later, they were moving in a wicked, dangerous dance of steel and bodies. She'd never really had a chance to spar with Raphael like this, and damn if it wasn't the most fun she'd ever had. ~ Nalini Singh

To be afraid is in a way to be hopeful, because to be afraid means that you haven't given up. You know it doesn't help, but you keep thrashing. The monster has you pinned to the wall, but you're not ready to say, 'Oh, hell, eat me. ~ Betty Rollin

Things can change over time, what looks fixed and pinned and closed in a life can change and open, and what's unthinkable and impossible at one time will easily be possible in another. ~ Ali Smith

Someone dropped her off in a shopping mall food court just before her third birthday. Pinned to her dress was a note with the name Anna, a date of birth, and the words, This child is possessed. ~ Rysa Walker

In a few minutes, West had pinned Phoebe against a corner wall of the winter garden, in a sheltered space of stone and feathery leaves. He possessed her with passion-roughened kisses, almost eating at her mouth, greedily drawing in the honeysuckle taste of her. Her skin was milk-white with golden flecks, smoothness quivering at the stroke of his tongue. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The poets pinned tragedies
to their chests like ribbons. ~ Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down. ~ Thom Mayne

The truth isn't easily pinned to a page. In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap and much more difficult to find. ~ Terry Pratchett

Whoa," I pinned my dress under my legs and nudged his chest with my elbow. "Put me down. This is kidnapping."
"No, it's not," he stated with a smile, keeping his eyes on the path ahead, "It's is a rescue."
"Rescue?" I scoffed, but imagined a white horse waiting for us as we burst through the doors. "I don't need to be rescued."
He stopped walking and looked down at me; I shrank into his arms a little. "The fair maiden, who is locked in the darkest tower, guarded by the cruellest beast, never believes herself to be in danger, only suffering from sorrows untold and a heart untouched. ~ A.M. Hudson

Clay sat up, swinging a leg over Jeff's body to straddle him. He grabbed both wrists and pinned them by Jeff's head, bending closer until they shared a breath between parted lips.
"There's something about you, Jeff. Always something."
"I'm just an ordinary guy
" Jeff stopped when Clay shook his head vigorously.
"You're not. You're special."
"Special how?"
"You taste good. ~ Catt Ford

Leo backed me against the door frame, his demeanor turning all 'take-no-prisoners' as he pinned me in place with his hips. His hands traced up and down the curve of my body until they wound their way through the loose strands of my hair. He was in control, I was totally at his mercy, and I. Didn't. Even. Care. ~ Sarah Darlington

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens. ~ Anne Lamott

Nothing is more deflating to morale than to have a poor outcome pinned on someone who doesn't deserve it. It lacks integrity and overvalues the outcome at the expense of the people as well as the process. ~ Tony Dungy

For never has there been, in modern times, such a Homeric world, where so much value is pinned onto the utterance of name! Entire conversations, entire lives, are devoted to the act of naming people, and in Pakistan the affluent would be totally devoid of talk if they were unable to take names in vain. Caste and all its subclassifications are recreated every day in the structure of a conversation that knows which names to name ... ~ Sara Suleri

He blows out a breath, takes a step toward me. The hallway is so narrow that I'm pinned between the wall and his body, heat rolling off him in waves. "Yeah," he says, voice low. "I feel things." His green eyes burn. It's the most emotion I've seen from him so far, and I have trouble taking a full breath, my lungs compressed with tension. "That's the whole point, Ivy. I want you to feel them, too. ~ Amy Engel

It is easier for a Russian to become an Atheist, than for any other nationality in the world. And not only does a Russian 'become an Atheist,' but he actually BELIEVES IN Atheism, just as though he had found a new faith, not perceiving that he has pinned his faith to a negation. Such is our anguish of thirst! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All of these fanatics were white. They took slavery as a personal insult or affront, a stain upon their name. They had seen women carried off to fancy, or watched as a father was stripped and beaten in front of his child, or seen whole families pinned like hogs into rail-cars, steam-boats, and jails. Slavery humiliated them, because it offended a basic sense of goodness that they believed themselves to possess. And when their cousins perpetrated the base practice, it served to remind them how easily they might do the same. They scorned their barbaric brethren, but they were brethren all the same. So their opposition was a kind of vanity, a hatred of slavery that far outranked any love of the slave. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Somehow you always stayed quiet." He laid his hands beside each of mine, so that if he'd been solid, I would've been pinned between his body and the dresser. "Remember? ~ Jeri Smith-Ready

Going somewhere?" Tamlin asked. His voice was not entirely of this world.
I suppressed a shudder. "Midnight snack," I said, and I was keenly aware of every movement, every breath I took as I neared him.
His bare chest was painted with whorls of dark blue woad, and from the smudges in the paint, I knew exactly where he'd been touched. I tried not to notice that they descended past his muscled midriff.
I was about to pass him when he grabbed me, so fast that I didn't see anything until he had me pinned against the wall. The cookie dropped from my hand as he grasped my wrists. "I smelled you," he breathed, his painted chest rising and falling so close to mine. "I searched for you, and you weren't there."
He reeked of magic. When I looked into his eyes, remnants of power flickered there. No kindness, none of the wry humor and gentle reprimands. The Tamlin I knew was gone.
"Let go," I said as evenly as I could, but his claws punched out, imbedding in the wood above my hands. Still riding the magic, he was half-wild.
"You drove me mad," he growled, and the sound trembled down my neck, along my breasts until they ached. "I searched for you, and you weren't there. When I didn't find you," he said, bringing his face closer to mine, until we shared breath, "it made me pick another."
I couldn't escape. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to.
"She asked me not to be gentle with her, either," he snarled, his teeth bright in the moonlight. He brough ~ Sarah J. Maas

He gestured at me. "Do you like the blanket?"

I nodded. "It's warm."

"I made it. Well, actually, I didn't skin the animal, but I did kill it….after the others pinned it down. It's werewolf skin."

My heart faltered; I gripped at a wad of black fur.

"I slayed the beast for you, Catherine. I used your sword. It was your grandmother's idea actually, a wedding present. You mentioned how chilly you get."

"You didn't slay a werewolf," I breathed before repeating the words louder. "You did not slay a werewolf, Thaddeus."

"Oh, but I did. I took a band of huntsman with me and we tracked one down. A smaller one, mind you, not far from the front gate…"

"You did not!" I contended more strongly. Why would one wolf have separated from the pack? Why outside our walls?

"Yes, Catherine, I did," he insisted.

I shook my head disbelieving. "You're not capable - "

"I am so."

I wanted to cry. I wanted to protest, but to do so meant giving away my knowledge of the truth. Without knowing what else to do or say I changed the subject.

"The fire's gone out."

Thaddeus turned his head to check. "You're right. I'll see to it."

He fed the barrel stove until a healthy blaze was roaring. Finding me no longer a decent conversationalist, Thaddeus left with a promise to return soon with food and water. Unobserved, I gathered up the fur hide of a lost soul and c ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

There it was, shiny and silver, pinned to the requisite position on his chest-a shield that covered his heart but had not been able to protect it. ~ Jodi Picoult

Good mothers know all about patience. They know about lugging the promise of a baby around for nine whole months, about the effort of pushing and puffing until a head pops; they know about being pinned to a spot, wincing as gums make contact with sore nipples; they know about keeping a vigil over a cot all night, praying that the doctor's medicine will work; they know that even when patience seems to be at an end, more is required. Always more. ~ Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

I don't know how to construct a career that'll make me famous. Except maybe get my ears pinned back, get my teeth done, and go to America. But then I'll be competing with billions of actors who haven't got false teeth, and who are 25. ~ Ian Hart

West couldn't stop staring at Lady Clare. He had the feeling if he reached out to touch her, he would come away with his fingers scorched. That hair, blazing from beneath a simple gray traveling bonnet... he'd never seen anything like it. Bird-of-paradise red, with glimmers of crimson dancing amid the pinned-up locks. Her skin was flawless ivory except for a tender spray of freckles sprinkled across her nose, like a finishing spice on some luxurious dessert.
She had the look of someone who had been nurtured: educated and well dressed. Someone who had always been lovingly sheltered. But there was a shadow in her gaze... the knowledge that there were some things no human being could be protected from.
God, those eyes... light gray, with striations like the rays of tiny stars. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Gripping her wrists, he pinned her tight to the vanity. "That sex as a weapon thing can only get you so far, Tess."
Wanna bet? "I'm not damaged, cowboy. I don't have hang-ups about my body, I don't use sex to mask my problems" - much - "and right now, if you don't touch me in some very hot, very wet places, I might die. ~ Kate Meader

We would do the same if we had colonies Franz told himself (it was a sore subject of course), but somehow Franz was aware that if a German youth had accomplished anything so spectacular he would enjoy the ensuing "fuss." He would be fated and acclaimed, and would strut about in uniform with his decoration pinned to his breast for all the world to see. ~ D.E. Stevenson

It had come to him that no one would ever look from these eyes but he: that among all the lives, numerous beyond imagination, in which he might have lived, he was this one, pinned to this single point of infinity; the rest always to be alien, he to be I. ~ Mary Renault

He's not here. The Black Earl."

"I know."

"So, for the moment, we are safe from that madness."

"I am always safe with you. No matter what happens, no matter what, I am safe with you and not with anyone else."

He inhaled. "How long have you been seeing the Black Earl?"

"A few days now." She bit her lower lip. "You?"

"Since I came to Pennhyll." He walked to the fireplace. She turned sideways on her chair, but all he did was stare at the fire, hands clasped and pressed against the small of his back. The fingers of one hand clenched and unclenched. He turned. "What of me? How long have I been in your head?"

"Before the Black Earl, I think. Only I didn't know they weren't just dreams."

"More and more intimate." His mouth thinned. "I confess to once or twice in my life imagining making love to a woman I admire. God knows you're a pretty woman, but I don't just imagine being with you. When I make love to you, you're not thoughts and images in my head, you're in my arms, real and warm. I can taste you and breathe in the scent of you, feel your skin against mine. We've never made love, but I've been inside you. Jesus, Olivia, you know I have."

She nodded.

"Hell, for all we know it's possible I've made a child in you." His eyes pinned her. "Did anything like that happen between you and Andrew?"

"No."

"You sound certain."

"I am."

"You ~ Carolyn Jewel

You never get to pick how you get pinned and how people perceive you. ~ Taylor Hanson

In Paris, I felt connected to history in a way I did not in America. Elderly men I passed in the Latin Quarter, with empty sleeves pinned to the shoulder of their jackets, reminded me of the not-so-distant war. ~ Kati Marton

Maris smiled as he saw that day so clearly in his mind. He'd been pinned to the school wall by a bully who'd been pounding on him. Out of nowhere, this tiny little red-haired boy had come charging in like a hurricane. Barely five years old, Darling had been short for his age. But what he lacked in height, he made up for in ferocity. In no time at all, he'd beat the bully back and had him on the ground, crying for his mother. After making him swear he'd never even look at Maris again, Darling had stood up and come over to him. Forever proud and fierce, Darling had wiped the blood from his lips, then offered Maris his other hand. "Hi, I'm Darling Cruel. We should be friends." Maris had fallen in love instantly. And he'd been in love with Darling every day since. "You ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

His gaze pinned her. "I think you'd better reconsider." Her breath was so tight she barely managed, "Why?" He smiled. "Because I don't think Felton would like having his wife in my bed, and that's where you are going to be." Mary gasped. But he didn't let her reply. He opened the door and left her standing alone in the room, gaping. ~ Monica McCarty

In the entire endless evening his serenity received a jolt only a few times. The first was when someone who didn't know who he was confided that only two months ago Lady Elizabeth's uncle had sent out invitations to all her former suitors offering her hand in marriage.
Suppressing his shock and loathing for her uncle, Ian had pinned an amused smile on his face and confided, "I'm acquainted with the lady's uncle, and I regret to say he's a little mad. As you know, that sort of thing runs," Ian had finished smoothly, "in our finest families." The reference to England's hopeless King George was unmistakable, and the man had laughed uproariously at the joke. "True," he agreed. "Lamentably true." Then he went off to spread the word that Elizabeth's uncle was a confirmed loose screw.
Ian's method of dealing with Sir Francis Belhaven-who, his grandfather had discovered, was boasting that Elizabeth had spent several days with him-was less subtle and even more effective. "Belhaven," Ian said after spending a half hour searching for the repulsive knight.
The stout man had whirled around in surprise, leaving his acquaintances straining to hear Ian's low conversation with him. "I find your presence repugnant," Ian had said in a dangerously quiet voice. "I dislike your coat, I dislike your shirt, and I dislike the knot in your neckcloth. In fact, I dislike you. Have I offended you enough yet, or shall I continue?"
Belhaven's mouth dropped open, his pasty face turning a ~ Judith McNaught

As they left, Anglican vicars in the area pinned a notice from their bishop to the front doors of their evacuated churches. Addressed to "our United States allies," the notice read in part: "This church has stood for several hundred years. Around it has grown a community which has lived in these houses and tilled these fields ever since there was a church. This church, this churchyard in which their loved ones lie at rest; these homes, these fields are as dear to those who have left them as are the homes and graves which you, our Allied, have left behind you. They hope to return one day, as you hope to return to yours, to find them waiting to welcome them home. ~ Lynne Olson

I was never in any danger, Cal." Cora's tone was patient.
"So you say.But you admitted that the heavy snow brought down a tree right beside your tent. You could be lying out there right now, pinned and gravely wounded,and we wouldn't have a clue."
"Cal,I always have my cell phone under my pillow."
"A lot of good that would do if you were crushed beneath a tree. The calendar may say it's springtime, but somebody forgot to tell Mother Nature. If it isn't a tree falling,it could be an avalanche. And there you are, all alone in the wilderness,at the mercy of any number of dangers."
Cora gave a long,deep sigh. "You know I'm not going to give up my excursions. It's where I do my best work.I love it too much to ever stop."
"And I'm not going to stop worrying. I've been doing it too long."
"Now,children," Jesse said with a laugh. "There will be no fighting at the table. ~ R.C. Ryan

For the very first time Andrew realized that life, real life, had no connection with the way people spent their days, whose lips they kissed, what medals were pinned on them, or the shoes they mended. Life, real life went on soundlessly ... ultimately there was no difference between Queen Victoria and the most wretched beggar in London: both were complex machines made up of bone, organ, and tissue, whose fuel was the breath of God. ~ Felix J. Palma

Although I had once pinned all my hopes on putting myself through school, believing I could thereby make something of myself, I now realized the futility of this all too clearly. No amount of struggling for an education is going to help one get ahead in this world. And what does it mean to get ahead anyway? is there any more worthless lot than the so-called great people of this world? What is so admirable about being looked up to by others? I do not live for other. What I had to achieve was my own freedom, my own satisfaction. I had to be myself. ~ Kaneko Fumiko

Every Navy SEAL is supremely confident, because we're indoctrinated with a belief in victory at all costs; a conviction that no earthly force can withstand our thunderous assault on the battlefield. We're invincible, right? Unstoppable. That's what I believed to the depths of my spirit on the day they pinned the Trident on my chest. I still believe it. And I always will. ~ Marcus Luttrell

That was her mistake. She'd pinned her happiness to a teenage girl's chest. Idiot. The realization made her almost smile. She certainly knew better than that. ~ Kristin Hannah