Some people see what they want to see.

I stood on my toes and stole a soft kiss from his lips. "Surprise attack," I said. Sam leaned down and kissed me back, his mouth lingering on mine, teeth grazing my lower lip, making me shiver. "Surprise attack back." "Sneaky," I said, my voice breathier than I intended.

His wife's a brand of Christian that forbids a gathering that involves young women dancing in the streets but not races where men die

Do you think I just turn my secrets out for everyone?" He is unfazed. "I didn't know they were secrets," he says. "Or I wouldn't have asked.

There was no sun; there was no light. I was dying. I couldn't remember what the sky looked like. But I didn't die. I was lost to a sea of cold, and then I was reborn into a world of warmth.

Because you know that's not how you want it to end. You know I'd love to have you with me, and it will be that way, one day. But this isn't the way it ought to happen.

He danced on the knife’s edge between awareness and sleep. When he dreamt like this, he was a king. The world was his to bend. His to burn.