Under One Roof (The STEMinist Novellas #1) by Ali Hazelwood

            I lean over and whisper in his ear, “Hard and fast, Liam.”

            There is a long moment in which he just stares up at me, disoriented. Then he must realize: we are perfectly lined up. I’m working to take him inside, struggling a little, because he’s so big this way. But I’m moving now, balancing my palms on his chest, up and down and up again, and a few minutes later, on the downstroke, he’s completely wedged inside me.

            The angle is so deep, my vision spots. Liam’s grip digs almost painfully around my waist.

            “Mara.” He is panting. “I’m not going to be able to pull out.”

            “It’s fine.” It’s perfect. “Just do what feels good.”

            Everything does, anyway. The slide of flesh, the wet friction—even within the clumsy mess of our movements, as he slips out and has to nudge himself back in, this feels like perfection. The way he stares at my face, my breasts, the rise and fall of my hips, looking stunned; the wet, filthy sounds of us moving together; the things he says about how beautiful I am, how precious, about all the times he has imagined doing this—and there are so many.

            I feel my pulse spike, and I smile at him as I lean forward. I love you, I think. And I suspect that you love me, too. And I cannot wait for us to admit it to each other. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

            “I think,” he grunts against my throat. “Mara, I think I’m going to come now.”

            I nod, too close to speak, and let him roll us over.



* * *




* * *

            “Well. That was certainly fast.” Liam hasn’t caught his breath yet. His tone is mildly self-deprecating.

            “Yup.” Delicious. It was delicious.

            “I can do better,” he says. I’m pretty sure he has no clue that this was better. Best. Ever. “I think. Maybe with practice.”

            I’m not even sure it’s over yet. My nerve endings are still twitching. My entire body is flooded with an electric sort of pleasure, wrenched out of me and then poured back in again. “It wasn’t that fast,” I say.

            Liam buries his face in my neck and curls around me, dwarfing me. Yeah. It was fast.

            “I mean,” I mumble against his chest, “that it wasn’t too fast. It was . . .” Extraordinary. Spectacular. Transcendent. “Good. Very good.” He presses a kiss to my throat, and I add, “But it wasn’t that hard, either.”

            He tenses. “I’m sorry. Do you—”

            “That is to say, we should do it again.” He pulls back to meet my eyes. He looks very, very serious. I’m feeling considerably less so. “And again. And again. Until we get it right. Perfectly hard, and perfectly fast. You know?”

            His smile unfurls slowly. “Yeah?” Hopeful and happy, he looks younger than ever. I grin and pull him in for a kiss.

            “Yeah, Liam.”





Epilogue


            Six months later

            “Who puts coffee creamer in their smoothies, anyway?”

            “People.”

            “No way.”

            “Plenty of people.”

            “Name one.”

            “Me.”

            I roll my eyes. “Name two.”

            Silence.

            “See?”

            Liam sighs. “It doesn’t mean anything, Mara. Normal people don’t have conversations about coffee creamer.”

            “You and I certainly do. Hazelnut or vanilla?”

            “Vanilla.”

            I put two bottles in the cart. Then I push up on my toes and plant a kiss on Liam’s mouth, short and hard. Liam follows me for a bit when I step back, as if reluctant to let me go.

            “Okay.” I smile. Lately, I’m always smiling. “What else?”