Home > Work > Jinxed (Karma, #2)
1 " His eyes slowly moved up my legs. I drank the iced tea in my glass so as not to have to respond. He needed to stop staring at me like he was ready to eat me. What the hell was wrong with him today? He was too smart to get caught by Cupid. But, he was acting awfully interested. The worst part about that was that the more interested he looked, the more my body seemed to respond. Forget him! What the hell was wrong with me? My breathing became more erratic. I tugged my hair loose from its pony tail and pulled it over my shoulders, trying to hide how excited certain parts of my body were becoming. It backfired, because he took it as a different type of sign and closed the gap between us. One hand reached up and threaded through my hair as I tilted my face upward. I felt his other palm land on my hip, but it didn't stay there long. Slowly it slid down and then wrapped around until it cupped my ass and pulled me upward into contact with his hips where I could feel just how much he wanted me. "
― Donna Augustine , Jinxed (Karma, #2)
2 " He didn't get it. That's exactly why I needed my Maker's Mark. You can't throw my life into turmoil, and then screw me out of my bourbon too. "
3 " No, I might not know what's coming, but I know where you're going. "
4 " I wonder if he ever smelt bad. Maybe if he got all sweaty. No, that wasn't a good thing to think about either. I'd seen him all sweaty as he'd covered my body with his. There was good sex, and then, there was that night. "
5 " There is no better or worse, inferior or superior. It's figuring out where you're meant to be and then getting there. This is true in every aspect of your life. If you fight to stay somewhere you don't belong, it will never be good and never get better. "
6 " To sum it up, Fate was like the Universe’s experiment in extra credit. If the rest of us were a scoop of vanilla ice cream, he was a sundae, with extra fudge and a cherry. "
7 " Sometimes, I really cracked myself up. "
8 " I thought we weren't actually dead?", I asked. There was a lot of ambiguity surrounding that subject. We weren't mortal anymore. That was for sure. I could swing by my grave and prove that anytime I wanted. But, we had bodies with needs. And could get hurt or killed. And, though, I've been told we didn't age, my hair continued to grow. I still woke up hungry in the morning, and watch out, if I didn't get a cup of coffee. It was like we were straddling some invisible fence between immortality and human frailty. "Seriously, are we dead or not? I asked again when I still received no response. I got several yes's and no's at the same time confirming my own belief. Somehow, we were neither. "
9 " She's the queen of the herd." "May I touch her?" "If she'll let you. She doesn't take to strangers well." I took a hesitant step forward and reached out my hand. Terror approached me with confidence, then ducked her muzzle beneath my palm. Once she came closer, for a moment, I feared she was going to trample me. But then she brushed gently against my side. "She wants you to ride her." Jockey looked at me. "This is an honor." All thoughts of bailing out quietly went to hell with that statement. Why not? How often did you get a chance to ride a Night Mare? "
10 " Santa, himself, was sitting behind his desk when I walked in. "Hello," he greeted me. He looked exactly as one would expect. Long white beard and a thick head of white hair. His cheeks were rosy and he truly did look jolly when he smiled at me. "You're the new Karma." "Yes," I smiled back all the while waiting for the scolding. "Would you care for a cookie?" He motioned to the heaped plate on the corner of his desk. "No thanks." I didn't want to get thrown out mid-bite. He was Santa. He knew everything. Any second, he'd tell me to get the hell out of his office, throwing coal at me as I ran. He stood up from his chair and walked around to the fireplace that blazed in the corner, lending the space a warm light. "Would you like to sit?" He motioned to the two well-stuffed chairs in front of it. "I don't want to take up too much of your time. I can see you're busy." I made a step backward toward the door. "I got time for you." Guess I was going to have to see this thing out until the coal started flying. I watched as he sat. He was still smiling. I took the seat across from him. Maybe he didn't know. "I know why you're nervous." Well, there went that. "Karma, sometimes there are gray areas in life. Things that don't fit neatly into wrong vs right. "
11 " Do you need me to carry you?" The words were said softly but with a definite edge. He looked so angry, I wasn't sure if he was mad or trying to help. "No." The last thing I wanted was to be carried out of there. I turned in my seat and tried to get a read on him. An idiot would have known he was pissed, but beyond that, I got nothing. Why was he the only person in my life I had so much trouble reading. He started to lean down and I realized I was out of time. "Don't you dare," I said, trying to delay whatever action he was preparing to take. Looks like my stall quota had been all used up. If I'd had any delusions of him cutting me any slack because of what had happened between us, I was quickly realizing how wrong I'd been. He seemed even worse. "
12 " I’d title them and file them away as this or that. Everything they did was then filtered through that title, whether it was accurate or not. "