Burned Quotes

“Sex either blows your fucking mind, or it’s not good enough.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“What I know, brother, is you break every goddamned rule for Mac.”
“Back at you, Ry. Difference is, I’ll help you do it.”
“Lor has never been Pri-ya.” Ryodan shakes his head in disgust. “The princess can’t turn us. Son of a bitch, Mac’s ass is—”
“Mine,” Barrons says flatly. “You will never go there. You have a problem with Mac, you work it out with me. I am her shield, I am her second fucking skin.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Temptation 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 Moning, Burned

“Ryodan says softly, “Holy strawberries, Dani, we’re in a jam.”
I look at him like he’s sprouted two heads. Holy strawberries? In a jam? Even Barrons looks stumped.
He continues, “But don’t worry. Holy priceless collection of Etruscan snoods—you really butchered that one, by the way—I’ve got it in the bag. How about this one: holy borrowing bibliophile, let’s book.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Women have been repeating the same mistake since time began: falling for a man’s potential. We rarely see it the same way, and even more rarely care to achieve it.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“If you can't fuck it, eat it or use it for a weapon--kill it.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I have no desire to sleep with you. I want to fuck you. And there is no such thing as perfectly good sex.  If it’s “perfectly good,” I mock in falsetto, “he should be shot in the head and put out of everyone’s misery. Sex either blows your fucking mind, or it’s not good enough. You want me to blow your fucking mind, Ms. Lane? Come on.  Do it.  Be a big girl.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I’m obsessed and addicted and ripped-down-raw in love with Jericho Barrons.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Actions talk. Words are worthless. You think to discover in me a vein of vulnerability, a marbling of sensitivity glimpsed only by you because you’re special, so you can proclaim, “Look, Barrons’ torturous past has made him a monster but only because he’s suffered so much. It’s understandable that he lives by no law but his own—a violent, bloody, conscienceless law—but the healing power of my love will restore his demolished humanity!”

Restore means to return a thing that was taken. Mine was not.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“In bed, I steal moments of tenderness when sex has finally exhausted me to the point where I’m too bone weary to fret anymore about the enormous capacity for evil that’s taken up squatter’s rights inside me. I touch him, put all those things I don’t say into my hands as I trace the red and black tattoos on his skin, the sharp planes and hollows of his face, bury my hands in his dark hair. He watches me in silence when I do, eyes dark, unfathomable.

I sometimes wake up to find he’s pulled me close to him and is holding me, spooned into my back with his face in my hair, and those hands that don’t speak like mine don’t speak move over my skin and tell me I’m cherished, honored, seen.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I’ll give you a choice. Kill me.”
“By definition ‘choice’ mandates a minimum of two possible avenues of action.”
“I wasn’t done. Or kiss me. But do one or the other. Before I do one or the other to you.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I didn’t want to hide the memory from you. I wanted to cram it down your goddamn throat. I wanted to force you to face it, to want it, to want me, to be willing to fight for what was possible between us with the same single-minded devotion as you fucked. Well, Ms. Lane, you’ve got your precious memory back. Will you throw me away now?”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I want to tell her revenge is a devil you don’t want to worship. In destroying your enemy you become it.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“You are what you are. Find a way to live with it.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“She threw her head back and laughed. The kid fucking laughed, eyes shining. Like there was no greater adventure she could possibly be on. Like life was turning out to be the most exhilarating, fantastic roller coaster ride she could ever have imagined. Fuck the pain. Fuck the misery. In the middle of the hopeless, brutal hell her short existence on this earth had been, that girl laughed. You don't snuff out a life like that. You honor it. You take measures to protect it, even from itself when necessary, and keep it alive.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“What no one tells you is that when someone you love dies, you lose them twice. Once to death, the second time to acceptance, and you don’t walk that long, dark passage between the two alone. Grief takes every shuffling, unwilling step with you, offering a seductive bouquet of memories that can only blossom south of sanity. You can stay there, nose buried in the petals of the past. But you’re never really alive again.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Where are you? Touch me.”
I slip my hand into his, and for a moment he just stands there, looking down at where I am, then he closes his eyes and laces strong fingers with mine. I hear exactly what he’s not saying in them: You better bring your ass back to me, woman.
I reply with mine, Always.
He laughs softly then somehow finds my face and kisses me, light and fast, and I taste him on my lips, need him again, hard and fast and soon.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Mac draws up short to keep from slamming into Barrons and her blonde hair swings back over her shoulder, brushing his face as it goes and my hearing is so good I catch the rasp of it chafing the shadow stubble on his jaw, then one of his hands grazes her breast and his eyes narrow when he looks at what he touched in a hungry way I want a man to look at me like one day and, as they continue to recover from the near-collision, their bodies move in a graceful dance of impeccable awareness of precisely where the other is at all times that is unity, symbiosis, partnership I only dream of, wolves that chose to pack up and hunt together, soldiers who will always have each other’s back no matter what, no sin, no transgression too great, ‘cause don’t we all transgress sometimes and it fecking slays me, because once I got a little taste of what that was like and it was heaven and they’re so beautiful standing there, the best of the best, the strongest of the strong that they practically glow to me, on fire with all I ever wanted in my life—a place to belong and someone to belong there with.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Ms. Lane.”Barrons’ voice is deep, touched with that strange Old World accent and mildly pissed off. Jericho Barrons is often mildly pissed off. I think he crawled from the swamp that way, chafed either by some condition in it, out of it, or maybe just the general mass incompetence he encountered in both places. He’s the most controlled, capable man I’ve ever known.
After all we’ve been through together, he still calls me Ms. Lane, with one exception: When I’m in his bed. Or on the floor, or some other place where I’ve temporarily lost my mind and become convinced I can’t breathe without him inside me this very instant. Then the things he calls me are varied and nobody’s business but mine.

I reply: “Barrons,” without inflection. I’ve learned a few things in our time together. Distance is frequently the only intimacy he’ll tolerate. Suits me. I’ve got my own demons. Besides I don’t believe good relationships come from living inside each other’s pockets. I believe divorce comes from that.

I admire the animal grace with which he enters the room and moves toward me. He prefers dark colors, the better to slide in and out of the night, or a room, unnoticed except for whatever he’s left behind that you may or may not discover for some time, like, say a tattoo on the back of one’s skull.

“What are you doing?”

“Reading,” I say nonchalantly, rubbing the tattoo on the back of my skull. I angle the volume so he can’t see the cover. If he sees what I’m reading, he’ll know I’m looking for something. If he realizes how bad it’s gotten, and what I’m thinking about doing, he’ll try to stop me.

He circles behind me, looks over my shoulder at the thick vellum of the ancient manuscript. “In the first tongue?”

“Is that what it is?” I feign innocence.

He knows precisely which cells in my body are innocent and which are thoroughly corrupted. He’s responsible for most of the corrupted ones. One corner of his mouth ticks up and I see the glint of beast behind his eyes, a feral crimson backlight, bloodstaining the whites.

It turns me on. Barrons makes me feel violently, electrically sexual and alive. I’d march into hell beside him.

But I will not let him march into hell beside me. And there’s no doubt that’s where I’m going.

I thought I was strong, a heroine. I thought I was the victor. The enemy got inside my head and tried to seduce me with lies.

It’s easy to walk away from lies.

Power is another thing.

Temptation 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.

He skirts the Chesterfield sofa and stands over me. “Looking for something, Ms. Lane?”

I’m eye level with his belt but that’s not where my gaze gets stuck and suddenly my mouth is so dry I can hardly swallow and I know I’m going to want to. I’m Pri-ya for this man. I hate it. I love it. I can’t escape it.

I reach for his belt buckle. The manuscript slides from my lap, forgotten. Along with everything else but this moment, this man. “I just found it,” I tell him.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“A man steps out.

Strong. Brilliant. Controlled.

Predator.

Unbreakable.

He's everything I admire plus things I can't even put into words.

I crush on Jericho Barrons violently.

My brain almost shuts down every time I see him and that's a lot of gray matter to stupefy.

Used to be, if I couldn't fall asleep I'd fantasize all kinds of ways I'd impress Barrons by killing monsters or saying something really smart or saving the world, and he'd see me as a grown up woman and I'd glow just from the look on his face.

But then Ryodan began popping into my fantasies like he had some kind of business being there, and he'd look all, well...like...Ryodan and he'd laugh and do that husky groan thing he did on level four, so I terminated that happy little exercise in somnolence.

Now I count sheep.

Lately even those buggers look like Ryodan with clear, cold eyes and some weird kind of hypnotic hold on me.

Fecker.

I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to figure out a way to kill him, permanent-like just to get him out of my head.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“A woman who’s lived in a cage all her life. And hates it. Bored in there, aren’t you. Waiting for life to happen. And when it finally does, it steals from you what you loved most. So take back. Explode. Lash out. Blow up”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“She was a fool. She wept like a helpless child that night at Chester’s while the entire club watched. Not because you broke her finger or threatened her but because you were alive and she was that happy to see you. She was always happy to see you. She lit up inside. You lost her. You let her be lost.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I 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 Moning, Burned

“I see how he feels about his world and I want to be one of the parts he prizes. I want to be worth fighting for. Worth the same kind of effort he puts into the things that matter to him. Like Dani.”
"I don’t tell her no human matters to the boss like Dani.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Whatever happened to the good old days when books just got along, cozied up together on bookshelves, hanging out, waiting to be read?”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“I may not have saved you but I fucking avenged you.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“She's cold as ice."
"You used to worry she'd get herself killed before she managed to grow up," Barrons says. "Moot point now."
"She's fucking beautiful."
Barrons studies him a moment then says, "Old enough for you."
"That's not why I watched over her."
"Bullshit. We all saw the woman she could become. Just didn't think she'd do it so quickly."
"I wanted her to have—Ah, fuck, it doesn't matter."
"The childhood she missed. It's gone. Adapt.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Ryodan says softly, “Holy strawberries, Dani, we’re in a jam.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Life is a gift. You fight to keep it. You never quit. Never.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned

“Your heels are damaging my rug. It’s an eighty-thousand-dollar rug.”

I say, “You like me in heels. Money doesn’t signify anymore. And at least I’m not burning holes in it.”

“A wiser woman wouldn’t remind me of that time. I’m still pissed about it.”
― Karen Marie Moning, Burned