Home, Ms. Lane?” His deep voice was gently amused. “I have to call it something,” I said morosely. “They say home is where the heart is. I think mine’s satin-lined and six feet under.
Karen Marie MoningHis face was in my neck and he was breathing hard. Was he grieving me? Already? Would he miss me? Had I, in some tiny way, come to matter to this enigmatic, hard, brilliant, obsessed man? I realised he'd come to matter to me. Good or evil, right or wrong, he mattered to me.
Karen Marie MoningThose who were so long imprisoned in ice and darkness seem to find the sunlight jarring, painful. The longer I walk around with this grief inside me, the more I understand that. It’s as if sunshine is a slap in the face that says, Look, the world’s all bright and shiny! Too bad you’re not.
Karen Marie MoningHe was still frowning at the cake, looking at it as if he expected it to sprout dozens of legs and begin scuttling toward him, thin-lipped, teeth bared.
Karen Marie MoningDani, Dani, Dani." I flinch. I've never heard anyone say my name so gently. It creeps me all kinds of out. He's towering over me, arms crossed over his chest, scarred forearms dark against the rolled-up sleeves of a crisp white shirt. Heavy silver cuffs glint at both wrists. The light is smack behind his head, as usual. "You didn't really think I'd let you get away with it," Ryodan says.
Karen Marie MoningTemptation isn't a sin that you triumph over once, completely and then you're free. Temptation slips into bed with you each night and helps you say your prayers. It wakes you in the morning with a friendly cup of coffee, and knows exactly how you take it.
Karen Marie MoningHours later, Adam propped himself up on an elbow and stared down at Gabrielle, pondering what made beauty. He thought he was beginning to understand. It wasn't symmetry of features; it wasn't perfection. It was uniqueness. That which one person had that no other possessed. That which was only their own.
Karen Marie MoningSometimes I worry that there’s not enough room in my brain for both my dreams and reality that I’m a hard drive with limited gigabytes and one day I won’t be able to maintain the firewall between them. I wonder if that’s what senility is.
Karen Marie MoningI am the man you've needed all you life. I can give you whatever you wish before you even realize you are wishing for it. I can fill your every longing , heal your every wound, right your every wrong. You have enemies? Not with me at your side. You have hunger? I will find the most succulent, ripe morsel and feed you with my bare hands. You have pain? I will ease it. Bad dreams? I will chase them asunder. Regrets? I will go back and undo them. Command me, Beauty, and I am yours. -Adam Black
Karen Marie MoningObservations,” he says. “Four imperial Unseelie guards were the only commonality I was able to isolate endemic to both scenes.” They’d been standing, armed, at the dock doors, overseeing the delivery. He gives me a sidewise look. “Wow. That was, like, a whole sentence. With nouns and verbs and connective tissue. Endemic. Fancy word.
Karen Marie MoningKeeping vigil over her are two monsters of very different breeds but monster just the same. Death on her left. Devil on her right.
Karen Marie MoningI love music because it's so fecking brilliant. Music is math, and math is the structure of everything and pretty much perfect.
Karen Marie MoningIt's a sponge and I'm a sponge and for a second there all our sponge parts are one and I don't just have square pants, everything about me is squarish because I'm part of a wall.
Karen Marie MoningI have found there to be little distance between the unlatching of a chain and the spreading of a woman’s legs. As if they can never unbar only a single entrance. It’s a disease called hope. Women suffer from it greatly.
Karen Marie MoningDaddy looked at her hard, and right before my eyes, he changed. I watched him inflate again, shake off his own emotions and puff himself up for her. Become her man. Her rock. I smiled. I loved him so much. He'd dragged mom kicking and screaming from grief once before and I knew I could rest easy that he would never let grief steal her from him again. No matter what happened to me.
Karen Marie MoningCaring is love. And love fights! Love doesn't look for the path of least resistance.
Karen Marie MoningAll my life, up until that moment, I'd had a warm, protective blanket wrapped around me, knitted of aunts and uncles, purled of first and second and third cousins, knot-tied with grandmas and grandpas and greats. That blanket had just dropped from my shoulders. I felt cold, lost and alone.
Karen Marie MoningI’m asking the questions tonight.” One day I was going to write a book: How to Dictate to a Dictator and Evade an Evader, subtitled How to Handle Jericho Barrons.
Karen Marie MoningThere should be a vaccine against Adam Black. And all women should be given it at birth.
Karen Marie MoningBedevil the devil and devil be dammed. I fear no devil and bow to no man. - Adam Black
Karen Marie MoningFour: If you try to force yourself into my head, I will force myself into your pants.
Karen Marie MoningAre we, like, having a conversation?" "Did you just, like, ask me for advice and listen with an open mind? If so, then yes, I would call this a conversation
Karen Marie MoningHe closes his hand around mine and I hold on. I like his hand. It's big and holds easy but sure. It's the kind of hold that says, I got you if you want me, but I'll let you go if you feel like running for a while.
Karen Marie MoningDude, got eyes? I'm collecting evidence." [...] "In Ziploc bags." "I think they're Glad." "They look impartial to me.
Karen Marie MoningOne day you do meet a man who kisses you and you can’t breathe around it and you realize you don’t need air. Oxygen is trivial. Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset. To touch the one you love. To try again.
Karen Marie MoningTurn it off," Ryodan says without even looking at me. "You're distressing Dani. No one distresses Dani but me.
Karen Marie MoningYes, I have loved, Ms. Lane, and although it's none of your business, I have lost. Many things.
Karen Marie MoningSometimes my dreams feel so real it's hard to believe they're just the subconscious's stroll across a whimsical map that has no true north.
Karen Marie MoningWhen Darroc returns, I know by the look in his eyes that I've chosen well. He thinks I picked black and red for him, the colors of his guard, the colors he has told me he selected for his future court. I chose black and red for the tattoos on Barrons' body. Tonight I wear my promise to him that I will make things right.
Karen Marie MoningHe gives me a look that says, “Dude, if I knew that do you think I’d have enlisted your puny help?” I snicker. “Something funny here.” “You. All prickly and pissed ’cause there’s something you don’t know. Got to call on the megaservices of the Mega.” “Ever occur to you I’m using you for reasons your inferior human brain can’t begin to understand.
Karen Marie MoningYou might be able to thrash your way out of a spiderweb, but thrashing in quicksand doesn’t work. The harder you fight, the more ground you lose. Struggling merely expedites your inevitable defeat.
Karen Marie MoningI want us to be... what is your word? Friends." "Psychotic rapists don't have friends." "I was unaware you were a psychotic rapists or I would not have offered." (Mac & V'lane)
Karen Marie MoningI didn’t ask. Some things are better left unsaid. He looked at me and I shivered. I never get enough of him. Never will. He lives. I breathe. I want. Him. Always. Fire to my ice. Ice to my fever. Later we would go to bed, and when he rose over me, dark and vast and eternal, I’d know joy.
Karen Marie Moning