When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

I will not take you until you beg me for it. Until you submit to my satisfaction, and you beg. And you will beg. I promise you, Stella, you will beg.

Why would you do that to me?” she said, her voice full of tears. “Why would you do that to anyone? Do you have any idea, any idea, what it’s like to see him like this?” “No, Stella, I do not,” Bashir said seriously. “Please, tell me.

All things need to ripen in their own time.

It was nearly purple with pressure, with desire.

The only thing he could compare it to was the first drink of water after a long, hot, hard day. He couldn’t get enough. He drank until it hurt, neither of them able to stop until they collapsed.

Do you trust me?” he said. Olivia met his hard gaze, and a frisson of uncertainty ran down her spine. She did trust him. Completely. But did he trust her? And why did that matter so much?

You showed me myself, and nobody else in the world could have done that, because there’s nobody I have ever loved the way I love you. I owe you all of that.