“His presence was somehow a balm on the open wound of my heart.”

“He does not just fill my body, my womanhood. He fills me. My heart, my soul. He fills the horrible emptiness that has gaped inside me all my life.”

“Chase tugged my hips flush against his, and I felt a hard length between us. It was only a bulge against the leather of his pants, but it was enough to get me wetter than a rainforest between my legs.”

“The music glides between the pores of your skin to bubble through your veins in place of blood, and you can't help but clutch the mic with both trembling hands and let the song flow out of you like blood from a wound. In those moments, when the music has replaced everything and even awareness of your own body has faded, you can't breathe, can't do anything but let the song own you, let the performance rocket through you. There's no people, no problems in your life, no buzz of alcohol in your blood or pain in your heart.”

“Then her eyes are fluttering open and she's looking into me. Not at me, but into me.”

“I wasn't always in love with Colton Calloway; I was in love with his younger brother, Kyle, first. Kyle was my first one true love, my first in every way.”

“There is so much. I had no fucking clue I could feel this way, this much. It's like some deep well opened up inside me, and now all the love in all the world is being poured through me into her.”