" Imagine the love you feel for your child, and then multiply that by a thousand. Imagine what you felt the first time you gazed upon her, and knew that God had given you the most perfect gift to complete your life, and multiply that again. That is what you are to me. That is what I felt the first moment I saw you. Unlike humans, Breeds live for the small gifts, the little kindnesses fate would hand to us. We search for them. We cherish them. The moment I saw you, the animal inside me roared in triumph, the man melted in the face of the woman who stared back at him.

"That was love, Rachel. It was acceptance, the knowledge that what I feared the most, what I ached for the most, was now standing before me, and reaching out for it, claiming it, could destroy everything I am."

She shook her head desperately. "Love doesn't happen like that. It takes time. It builds."

He nodded slowly. "It can happen like that. It can build slowly. It can come like a gentle rainfall, or it can slam into you like a tsunami. You are my tsunami, love. "

― Lora Leigh , Lion's Heat (Breeds, #15; Feline Breeds, #13)