I do love you,” I whispered. “Like crazy heat and lightning, but like warmth and comfort too. I feel all of it.

Shane,” Jesse whispered. Just his name. But the longing and desire in that one word turned him inside out.

Whenever he left me, it was like he took a part of me with him, and I didn’t feel whole until he came back again.

He still couldn’t believe that it had actually happened. That day a few weeks before when Shane had kissed him for the first time, when everything had changed between them, still felt like a fantasy. His most hidden favorite fantasy. But it was real. Impossibly, crazily real. Jesse was still waiting to wake up.

He’d passed “ready” about three exits back.

Three days later, I was waiting in my boyfriend’s apartment with two of my friends, a couple of porn stars, and a coworker who used to have a crush on me. It was an odd mix.

They looked at each other with such adoration it almost made my stomach hurt – until I looked at Dusty and saw the potential of that kind of love between him and me. It could happen so easily for me. His gentle nature, that sunny smile, the way he seemed to instinctively want to touch me, it felt like the future.

I want to hold you like this every night. I want your smell on my pillows.

He'd passed "ready" about three exits back.