Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

            This is. So. Unbelievably. Good.

            “Jesus,” Levi grunts. Tests a deep, shaky thrust. “You’re still coming, aren’t you?”

            Yes. No. I don’t know. I twist my neck and turn back. He’s looking down at me. At my flushed skin and my trembling flesh. He’s not going to stop anytime soon, I know it. I’m going to come disastrously quickly, again, or maybe I’ll never stop, and he’s going to stare at me for every last second of it. Caging me, propped up on his huge, shaking arms, with that hungry, spellbound gleam in his eyes. “You’re some kind of fantasy. Built to do this. Built for me. Fuck, Bee.” His rhythm picks up. Uneven and choppy, but it picks up.

            And I can’t bear it.

            “You can’t,” I moan.

            He immediately pauses.

            “No,” I whine. “Don’t stop.”

            “You said—?”

            “Just . . . Please, don’t look at me.”

            He seems to finally get it. “Hush.” He lowers himself and presses a kiss to my cheekbones. It’s getting—it’s impossible, but it’s getting even better. He’s figured it out, the inside of me. How to angle his thrusts. They’re more shallow, more purposeful, and I’m . . .

            Babbling. Things like Oh my god and More and Please and Please harder and he somehow knows what I mean. He makes sense of me, and bends down to run his tongue down the skin of my throat, to bite my shoulder, to grunt his pleasure against my nape.

            “I’m not sure,” he murmurs gutturally, breath harsh against my ear, “how I haven’t come yet.”

            Me neither, I think. I say his name, muffled in the pillow, and just let go.





19





BASOLATERAL AMYGDALA: ARACHNOPHOBIA



I’D LIKE TO take back everything I’ve said so far.

            Well, not everything. Just the whole I’m going to dedicate my life to the pursuit of neuroscience and forsake all bodily pleasure with the sole exception of vegan Nutella bit I’ve been going on about. I’d like to take that part back: having a friend-slash-coworker-slash-whatever with benefits suits me. Deliciously, fantastically, magically so. I am unbothered. Moisturized. Happy. In my lane. Focused. Flourishing. I suspect I’m having the best weeks of my adult life—including the one spent as a Donuts & Art Camp counselor, where the extent of my duties was to stuff my face with frosting and keep an eye on ten-year-olds as they proclaimed that Cézanne’s paintings were “cute, but very orange.” Maybe it’s the mind-altering sex. I’m sure it’s the mind-altering sex. Undoubtedly it’s the mind-altering sex, but there’s more than that.

            Take BLINK, for example: the demonstration is set for next Friday. Would I feel a tad more relaxed if I had four more weeks before Boris drags half of Congress in front of me? Of course. I’m obsessive and like to be overprepared. But every single test we ran since our breakthrough gave us excellent results. We’re moving to a stage that feels less “thankless grueling groundwork” and more “groundbreaking scientific advance,” and most of the balls are in my court. Each helmet has to be customized for the astronaut who’ll wear it based on the mapping of their brain. It’s a lot of fine-tuning, and I love every second of it. Everyone does: seeing something we’ve been working on tirelessly yield results is a big morale boost, and the engineers have been arriving early and staying late, buzzing around Levi and me with constant questions, and . . .

            We’ve been keeping it secret. This thing Levi and I are doing. Obviously. There’s no point in telling the engineers. Or Rocío. Or Guy—who mostly alternates between questions about my nonexistent husband and inviting Levi out. On Wednesday it’s: “Basketball tonight?” On Thursday: “Beers?” Friday: “What’s going on this weekend?” I’d feel guilty at Levi’s standard response (“Sorry, man, I’m swamped.”), but it’s only temporary. Just one of those things: girl with no interest in relationships meets dude who was into her years ago and they take up the horizontal mambo—no strings attached. In a few weeks I’ll be home, and Guy will have Levi all to himself. In the meantime, we’re stocking up on time together like camels. Time and sex. Have I mentioned the sex? I must be twenty hours behind on sleep, but somehow I’m not tired. My body might be evolving into a sophisticated bioweapon capable of converting orgasms into rest.

            “You should just move in,” Levi tells me on Friday morning. I blink bleary-eyed over coffee he poured me, my brain struggling to decipher the words.