“This was perfect. I was about a ten on the poison scale. If he needed venom, I could inject it directly into his neck.”

“‎By reacting from fear instead of responding from love, you inject poison directly into the veins of your relationship.”

“It now appears most of us need about 5,000 units a day if we avoid the sun. The government was off by a factor of ten; an ,i>“order-of-magnitude error.”,/i> Mistakes of this scale are rare in medicine.”

“On a scale of one to ten, what was he?""How would, 'I want him to fuck me to death, and he just might', rate on that scale?”

“Hunger for me, ka-lyrra, he thought silently, get addicted to me. I will be both venom and antidote, your poison and your only cure.”

“Maybe we’ll admit this thing we have is perfect, not worth messing around with. And stay together forever. If you’re interested, that is.”She glanced away. “I could think about that.”He buried his face in her neck. “Think fast”