Stuck with You (The STEMinist Novellas #2) by Ali Hazelwood

            “Yup.” His hand comes up to cup my cheek. “This is it, Sadie. I don’t think there’s any fucking this up.”

            A million hopeful fireworks explode in my head. My heart squeezes in my chest, heavy and sweet. Okay. Okay. “So I have not turned you off sex forever?”

            He huffs out a laugh. “I doubt me not wanting to have sex with you is something we’ll ever need to worry about, Sadie.”

            “Even if I’m bad at it?”

            “You’re not.”

            “I didn’t think so. I thought I was okay. I mean, average. But maybe—”

            “Sadie.” With a hand on my waist he pulls me a little closer. Just enough for his eyes to meet mine and for my entire world to narrow to him. “Let’s take it slowly. We’ll get there,” he tells me, like he knows, he just knows that this is the first night of many.

            “Are you sure?”

            “Strong suspicion. Would you feel better if I put my clothes back on?”

            I shake my head, and then, on an impulse, close the distance between us. The other kisses he led, which I loved, but with this one I’m in charge, and it’s exactly what I need. He doesn’t try to deepen it till I do. Doesn’t come closer till I shift toward him. Doesn’t try to touch me till I take his hand and set it on my hip, and even then it’s gentle, fingers skimming up and down my thigh, tracing my rib cage ridge by ridge, my spine knob by knob.

            I feel myself relax. Drift away. Expand and contract and forget. Become wet and pliant, a beautiful, delicious heat spreading into my stomach. When my thigh accidentally brushes against Erik’s erection, my breath hitches and he makes a noise, deep and low in the back of his throat.

            “Sorry,” he rasps, arranging me so that I’m turned away.

            I stop him with a hand on his biceps. “I like this, actually.”

            “You do?”

            “Yeah. You?”

            He exhales. “You have no idea, do you?”

            “Of what?”

            He doesn’t elaborate. “I’m happy to do this until sunrise.”

            “Really?” I let out a laugh. “You’d be happy channeling your best high school self and making out?”

            He shrugs. “I’m probably going to come at some point. But I can warn you. You don’t have to be part of it, and there’s a bathroom across the hallway.”

            “No! No, I’m—” dying of embarrassment. “I’d like to. Be part of it, that is.” I clear my throat. “I think we should try again. What we were doing before I freaked.”

            I see it play out on his face: a split second of eagerness, then a mask of bland skepticism. “I think we should wait for that. Take it slow. Go out a few more times until you get used to the fact that I’m . . . so big, apparently.”

            I flush. “But I was thinking . . . what if I go on top? That way I won’t feel trapped?”

            Erik goes still. For a moment, he stops breathing. Then he asks, “Are you sure?” His pupils are dilated.

            “I think so. Would you like to?”

            “That would be . . .” He swallows. His fingers are gripping my hips like he simply cannot let go. “Yeah. I’d like that. If that’s even the word for it.”

            I don’t immediately realize the misunderstanding. Maybe because I’m busy, first shifting on the mattress and climbing over his hips, then basking in the fact that I’m on top of him. I do feel much better, this way. Okay, I think. Yes. I can do this, after all. I love this, actually. I love straddling Erik, looking down at his pale skin, tracing his muscles. I love his eyes on the spots where my nipples push against my top. I love the feeling of my thighs being split wide by his torso, the hairs of his happy trail against my folds. I can have sex with him, after all. I want to have sex with him. I might die if I don’t have sex with him, because right now I want us to be as close as we humanly can.

            But then his hands close around my waist, and he shifts me up. And up. And up. Until my knees are pressing into the mattress on each side of his neck, and I remember what exactly he’d been about to do when we stopped. Big light bulb energy. Oh my God. He thinks I want him to—