Then why was his tongue in your mouth? Was he conducting a clinical test of your gag reflex?" He smiled, but not nicely. "How is your gag reflex, Ms. Lane? Are you a hair trigger?" Barrons likes to use sexual innuendo to try to shut me up. I think he expects the well-raised southern belle in me will think eew and back off. Sometimes, I do think eew, but I don't back off. "I'm a spitter, if that's what you're asking." I flashed him a too-sweet smile. "Didn't look that way to me. I think you're a swallower. His tongue was halfway to China and you were still taking it." "Jealous?

How could they let me grow up like that—happy and pink and stupid?

Please tell me we don't grow up and turn into the adults that drive us crazy.

I am going to love you now, slow and sweet.

I have studied humans for a small eternity. Intent infuses their every movement. Road maps to their inner navigation, plastered all over their skin. Born to be slaves.

I was adrift in a sea of questions and if answers were lifeboats, I was in imminent danger of drowning.

I'd learned a thing or two. Hope strengthens. Fear kills.