Jesus God, Ben,” Sam said, then swallowed hard. “Is that why you do this? Make it easy for people to leave?” “Sam, don’t ask me why,” he said. “Do I strike you as even remotely self-aware?

She was so goddamn beautiful, the way things that could end you were. Guns. Knives. The tawny bird of prey she resembled.

He’d never seen a woman look more satiated, a small, knowing smile on her face, like she knew a secret. A secret about him. One he didn’t even know.

I want to take you upstairs, and turn off the lights, and watch your skin turn pink as I move inside you. When I’ve kissed you and your skin’s marked by my mouth, you look like a rose in the moonlight. It gets darker when I’m moving inside you, that blood flush.

It was easy to be with her, so easy he forgot about the rest of the world.

I meant you're very, very persuasive and I doubt I'd resist for long if you set your mind to convincing me.""Say no sometime. Let me persuade you.

When you get everything aligned, when love welcomes the longing, accepts it, learns to live with it, you make love.

How can you even think about being awake in the world, let alone caring about someone?""Because they may be gone, but I'm not. I honor their memories by living, not by becoming the walking dead.

There is no fix for this. She has to endure it, and somewhere along the line she has to learn to live again. Surviving isn't the goal. Living is. This is a battle between me and her grief, and I'm going to be the last man standing.

You don't have to be better, or healed, or over your husband. You just have to be here. That's all I'm asking for. I'm not asking for forever. I'm just asking you to be here, now, with me.