“In the end, this armor is my skin. If it is damaged, I am damaged.”

“I want to learn his body, find every pleasure it’s hiding. All this reverence and simple awe I feel when I touch him, feel his breath brush my skin.”

“You’re with me,” Dan murmured against Vadim’s lips. “In my thoughts, my heart, my mind, no matter what I am doing. I goddamned need you, and I want you—always.”

“He understood it then. The potential, the utter, unbelievable freedom to be whoever existed underneath his skin.”

“If I touched you, that’d be it.” Dan shook his head, “Damn, how the fuck am I going to make you understand?” Pleading, almost. “You are everything, don’t you get it? You are the Afghan mountains, the damned red dust, the endless sky. You were my home, and more often than not, also my reason. You are unlike all the others, unlike anyone I shag, because when I touch you, it’s not just a touch, it’s eleven years of heaven and hell.”

“I think it sometimes takes me a while, but I end up making good decisions at some point. Pretty much when I have exhausted all other options.”

“You made me human. I stand by that. You made me into somebody I would have wanted to become, if I'd ever thought about what I wanted to be that wasn't about a record or power or a rank or some...delusion I was chasing. If all that was gone and stripped away, the man I am, I am because of what you did, what you made me feel all those years.”