There was an art to the male posterior. That's all there was to it.

She'd assumed she'd be married and have kids by this age, that she would be grooming her own daughter for this, as her friends were doing. She wanted it so much she would dream about it sometimes, and then she would wake up with the skin at her wrists and neck red from the scratchy lace of the wedding gown she'd dreamed of wearing. But she'd never felt anything for the men she'd dated, nothing beyond her own desperation. And her desire to marry wasn't strong enough, would never be strong enough, to allow her to marry a man she didn't love.

He didn't think he belonged here, so she was making him face some uncomfortable facts. People adapt. People change. You can grow where you're planted.

I spent so much time telling myself that this wasn't home that I started to believe it," she said carefully. "Belonging has always been tough for me." I can be your home," he said quietly. "Belong to me.

Safe is just another word for scared.

After you finish a book, the story still goes on in your mind. You can never change the beginning. But you can always change the end.

No one should ever compromise the dignity of another human being.