I don’t need his love.I don’t want it. I don’t want to need it. Not from him. Not from anyone.I don’t want this strangle in my chest, this heat in my belly, this agony in my bones. I don’t want it.

He’d never turned inside-out like this when kissing his clients. Peeled apart, folded back and drifting in a thick sea of desire. Vulnerable, electric and wanting. Wide open to his bones, conscious of himself. A lovee instead of a lover. Thinking of his own pleasure in a way he never did when he was working. So selfish, it was selfless.

Listen and learn it, learn to tell it, and tell it to teach it.

The people who should’ve kept you safe put you in danger. The ones who should’ve known and loved you best threw you away. I don’t understand how, because you’re so good.

Life has rules, Val thought. And you cannot come in the middle of the night and take what we agreed isn’t yours.

I can never love her. And I can never love anyone else. This is my life now. Everything is ruined.

Loving her felt like creating something. A cathedral. Spires and stained glass and bells. But she broke one window and I indiscriminately tore the whole thing down.

He wanted all of her. Her thoughts, her words, her silences and her stillness.

I can't hate you. I could never hate you. But now I can never love you.

I only want you. No one could hold me in the dark the way you do.