“She was his beacon to what others called decency, not because she told him how to act but because she made him want to try.”

“There was something in his gaze that told her he liked how she looked in his clothes. It had to be a bloke thing, because she certainly wouldn't want to see him wearing hers.”

“But how could she tell him that the reason she always acted so disinterested in everything was because of the worry that she herself wasn't all that interesting?”

“She had told him that she loved him. He had known that, but hearing it in the traditional phrase had affected him in new and blinding ways.Ways that made him believe that he could do anything.Anything she needed or wanted him to do. Because her loving him meant so much more than him loving her.”

“She was easy to talk to, easy to look at it . . . and when she smiled at him . . . well, he couldn’t call that easy. It hit him in the chest, in the weirdest damn way.Swallowing, she licked her lips and then she could have whimpered, begged for mercy, because she could taste him. Taste him, and it made her want to throw herself against him and kiss him. Again, and again .”

“She couldn't have told you whether it was because she was afraid, or because such a voice in the darkness seemed of necessity a boon; but she listened to him as she had never listened before; his words dropped deep into her soul.”