“I want to kiss him for the rest of the night, for the rest of our lives. The one.”

“You promised me one night. I want you next to me tonight. We have the rest of our lives to be apart.”

“I take his hand and pull him back to me, stealing another kiss, smiling against his lips as he kisses me back.And kisses me again.And then some more.And I know he is mine. For now, for the rest of our lives, no matter what comes next.”

“I kissed him, trying to bring him back. I kissed him and let my lips rest against his so that our breath mingled and the tears from my eyes became salt on his skin, and I told myself that, somewhere, tiny particles of him would become tiny particles of me, ingested, swallowed, alive, perpetual. I wanted to press every bit of me against him. I wanted to will something into him. I wanted to give him every bit of life I felt and force him to live.”

“I cannot live the rest of my life without my husband. But I can live without him for one day.”

“How do I describe the feeling that envelopes my being when he is near? It is like a cocoon of warmth and peace, but beneath that there is a deep longing, a hunger that one kiss would not be able to satisfy, one kiss would only make the hunger greater. But oh, how I long for that kiss, a kiss that might never come. Being close to him does things to me, makes me feel things I never knew existed, makes me want things I have never wanted before. I have never desired to know a man's body before I met Ariston. I wonder if he knows that I desire him in such a way, that I not only want to know his body, but that I want him to know mine. There is a part of me that would not care if he loves me or not if I could just have one beautiful, passionate night with him, while the rest of me knows that one night would never be enough.”