Chu

“Why books?”

Her brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why are they your vice?”

She set her plate down and wiped her hand on her skirts before reaching for the top volume on a stack of small, leather bound books nearby and extending it to him. “Go on.”

He took it. “Now what?”

“Smell it.” He tilted his head. She couldn’t help but smile. “Do it.”

He lifted it to his nose. Inhaled.

“Not like that,” she said. “Really give it a smell.”

He raised one brow but did as he was told.

“What do you smell?” Sophie asked.

“Leather and ink?”

She shook her head. “Happiness. That’s what books smells like. Happiness. That’s why I always wanted to have a book shop. What better life than to trade in happiness?”
― Sarah MacLean, The Rogue Not Taken

“When you feel more than you can say, when words fail you, when syntax and grammar and well-constructed expressions are choked from your mind and all that's left is raw feeling, a few broken words come forth. I'd like to believe those words, when everything's stripped away, might be the key to it all. The meaning of life. I'd like to think it's possible to remain so devoted to someone's memory that fifty-nine years later, when all the noise of life is muted, the lats gasp passing over your lips is that person's name.”
― Julia Whelan, My Oxford Year

“In the next minute your pants are coming off, my dick is coming all the way out, I’m getting suited up, and then I’m going to be so deep inside of you that all those fears, all that hesitation you’re watching me through, won’t have any room to fit. There’s only going to be room for me and the way we feel when we’re together.”
― Jay Crownover, Built

“I've been fighting every single day of my life. Sometimes I think all I have left is fight.”
― Jay Crownover, Better When He's Brave