“I saw you and my heartbeat thundered out of control, my breathing stopped and I realized, in that perfect moment, I didn’t want to breathe if I couldn’t draw in the scent of your beautiful hair or the glorious honey of your very being.

“Impossibly, I forgot the centuries of loneliness when I looked into your lovely, midnight-blue eyes and saw the stars of a darkened sky.”

Slowly, deliberately, he kissed the tips of each of my fingers.

“If just one of your kisses can bring my dead heart to life, what could two or three accomplish? Perhaps a miracle, yes?”

He stared at my lips for a moment, his expression so intense, I almost grabbed him by the ears and dragged him to me for another passionate kiss.

I didn’t because I wanted to hear more. I yearned to hear more. I think I needed to hear him say the words as much as he needed to say them.

“I live to kiss your sweet lips because life isn’t worth living without doing so. Only you have returned the light to the darkness inside me, and I adore you for it. What is life without the light? What is breath without life? Before you, I barely existed. With you, my heart sings and I live.”