Introducing to you scenes that had a better energy than actual love confessions:
“Tell me again what you said at the revel,” he says, climbing over me, his body against mine.
“What?” I can barely think.
“That you hate me,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Tell me that you hate me.”
“I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
— Judecardan, The Wicked King by Holly Black
“Simon murmured her name, tenderly, and she turned to look up at him through a glassy film of tears. He bent low to kiss her—her lips, her cheeks, her brow—and she clung to him, and hid her face against his chest when she could no longer bear the touch of his mouth.
“I don’t love you,” she whispered, the lie bitter on her tongue. “I refuse to love you.”
“I know,” he said and held her to him, stroking her hair. “I don’t love you either.”
— Simoneliana, Kingsbane by Claire Legrand