“Something about the look on her face makes me feel like a meal. And if I were, I’d be a happy meal, for sure.”

“I smile and I look down at Olivia where she’s curled up against me, her beautiful face relaxed in sleep.I don’t want to put names to the things I feel for her. I just want her to know I’m not going anywhere. And that I want to take care of her. To make her happy. I hope that’s enough. It has to be.”

“I stop in front of Olivia and cup her face in my hands, kissing her sweetly on the mouth. She looks up at me with her liquid eyes and something in me melts away. I think to myself that I hope it wasn't something important. Something that I needed.”

“But when she finally says something, I know which part struck her the hardest.It’s the part that makes me look like the bastard most people have always thought me to be.”

“Dark and dirty things come to mind, things like how much pleasure I’d get from putting her in misery. But not the bad kind of misery. No, I want Olivia in the kind of misery that makes her sweat and writhe, and then beg me to come inside her.”

“He wondered if that was her version of a green light. He hoped it was. If he thought she would believe him, he'd tell her how he wanted to protect Miracle, how he wanted to make her happy forever and make sure nothing happened to her, to make sure she never shed another tear as long as she lived.”

“I could always make you.”The way he says it sounds dark and dirty and infinitely pleasurable. All I can think of is what I’d like for him to make me do.There’s an unsavory term for that—a guy forcing a girl to do sexual things. But what is it they say? You can’t rape the willing. And I’d be willing. Oh, how I’d be willing.”