“I was drinking in the surroundings: air so crisp you could snap it with your fingers and greens in every lush shade imaginable offset by autumnal flashes of red and yellow.”

“He laughed and then leaned in and kissed my neck. It was our second kiss. Yes, I was counting. And no, I didn't want it on the neck. "Do you want to hear more?""We live, right? Because it's not looking very good."He laughed again, and I knew in that instant it was a sound I wouldn't want to live without.”

“Though I wondered what she ever made of my professed love for and intentions to marry Big Bird, the hottie of Sesame Street.”

“Everything we think we know is really only perceived by our senses,' he explains patiently. 'The sounds we hear are just waves in the air; colors are electromagnetic radiation; your sense of taste comes from molecules that match a specific area on your tongue. Hey, if our eyes could access the infrared part of the light spectrum, the sky would be green and trees would be red. Some animals see in completely different ways, so who knows what colors look like to them. Nothing is really how we perceive it.”

“Everyone thinks I named my cat Mango because of his orange eyes, but that's not the case. I named him Mango because the sounds of his purrs and his wheezes and his meows are all various shades of yellow-orange.”

“What are you doing?”“I...” He appeared to have no idea himself. “I wanted to see your freckle.”A vulnerable tenderness flashed across his face, more painful to see than the coldness. It took every ounce of strength I had not tobeg for one last kiss. As fast as his expression had softened, it was back to stone again.“What do you want from me, Kai?”“For starters?” His voice lowered to sexy, dangerous depths. “I want to introduce myself to every freckle on your body.”

“You will be so happy you didn't get pregnant. Because this child will fill your life so full of love that you will thank God every day that somehow it was just meant to be. She was meant to be yours.”