“This feeling, this tentative flutter in her belly - this was hers. This was sunlight on her face. It was the warmth she'd dreamed of. It was a curl of honest attraction, the first she'd experienced in years.”

“Warmth pooled in her belly, and spiraled through her body. Her breasts, her abdomen, her knees. Her knees? She'd never really had an orgasm in her knees before.”

“What Alex was able to do to her, the way he made her feel was unlike anything she'd ever experienced before and she knew she'd never be able to get enough of him. He was her drug, her high, and she was addicted without any desire to find a cure.”

“It was at first almost as if he hadn't wanted to kiss her. His mouth was hard on hers, unyielding; then he put both arms around her and pulled her against him. His lips softened. She could feel the rapid beat of his heart, taste the sweetness of apples still on his mouth. She wound her hands into his hair, as she'd wanted to do since the first time she'd seen him. His hair curled around her fingers, silky and fine. Her heart was hammering, and there was a rushing sound in her ears, like beating wings”

“But she'd forgotten. She'd forgotten because she'd been so busy thinking of her own fucking feelings. As if she fucking mattered.”

“She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.”