A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)

by Arkady Martine

An easy intimacy. Like any other lover Mahit had ever had. Not different at all. And the continuity of endocrine response worked for everyone, Stationer or Teixcalaanlitzlim or something else: endocrine response said, in that brutal language of the flesh, This person has had their hands inside you, and you welcomed them in. Let’s do it again. Here are nice chemicals to help.

hell yeah

Three Seagrass looked at her, flashfire-quick, her mouth twisted into the same amazed-wry expression she’d worn when Mahit had curled her fingers up inside her just so. Which was also the same expression she’d worn when she had watched Mahit turn the performance of barbarism directly against the Minister of Science Ten Pearl, at the very first event they’d ever been to together. That same pleasure, a twisted amazement and joy, a kind of possessive wanting. Mahit couldn’t think about how it made her feel. She didn’t have time to feel anything that strong. That—disarraying of the pattern of the world.

hell yeah