“He’d desperately wanted a boyfriend to lavish with affection and attention. He’d longed to know what it felt like, smelled like, tasted like to love someone.”

“What does he smell like?” “Smell like?” I scrunched up my face. “You know, he looks like he’d smell good.”

“He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Need assaulted him. In his entire life, he’d never felt desire like this. Or the desperation to touch, to hold, to own.”

“It felt like he’d been dragged through the nine circles of hell — by his testicles.”

“She loved Bram in a clear-eyed way she’d never loved her ex-husband, no rose-colored glasses or mindless giddiness, no Cinderella fantasies or false certainty that he’d put her life in order. What she felt for Bram was messy, honest, and soul-deep. He felt like…part of her, the best and the worst. Like someone she wanted to struggle through life with; share triumphs and catastrophes; share holidays, birthdays, every days”

“And then there was Lydia.Lydia who had hurtled into his life – into their lives – with hair like fire, eyes like amethysts and a fuck-me scent so palpable that he’d betrayed the only woman he’d ever loved.”