Sophie

“Did you enjoy it?" she asked. Her eyes were innocent, as was her tone of voice, but I squirmed regardless. You didn't just come out and admit to liking a book that spent ten pages comparing cunnilingus to a girl eating honeycomb by a summer stream.

"It was compelling," I managed.”
― Anna Burke, In the Roses of Pieria: Library Edition

“I made you into my private Christ, supplicated with my own dark devotions. Nothing existed beyond the range of your exacting gaze, not even me. I was simply a non-entity when you weren't looking at me, an empty vessel waiting to be filled by the sweet water of your attention.”
― S.T. Gibson, A Dowry of Blood

“You made it into an art form, this quiet sort of violence. You were so far into our heads your gentle suggestions so often felt like our own thoughts.”
― S.T. Gibson, A Dowry of Blood

“Eugene slowly lifted his gaze from his shoes. He would only die if someone tried to play the hero. It had been such a long summer, the sun so bleak and unforgiving, and at the end of such a wearying decade. He prayed there were no heroes left.”
― Arden Powell, The Bayou