At 7:58, I reached over and shut the alarm clock off before it rang, refusing to let it interfere with this perfect moment. The warmth of her skin was intoxicating, enhanced by the heady scents of lilac and musk. I listened to the gentle rhythm of her breathing as she lay nestled in my arm, her wonderful, silken hair draped across my chest.

“Are you asleep?” I whispered. There was no answer.

It had been ten years since we’d last been together like this, but it had never been like this. She was gone, the girl who had been perhaps a bit too frantic, a bit too excitable, a bit too… I searched for the right word… superficial. The girl had taught me how to light a fire; the woman she had become had set me on fire. She had beguiled me completely and I was in love as I had never been before.

But leopards don’t change their spots, I objected.

Perhaps she isn’t a leopard, I countered.

Perhaps.

I was in heaven and in hell. How long would it be until my heart was utterly destroyed?