Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

It was her.

Rue.

Naked.

Eli’s cock got so hard, so suddenly, he was sure it was all over for him.

He was her servant. Anything she wanted, Eli would do it. He had to slide his hands behind his back, trap them between himself and the wall, just to stop himself from touching and gripping and taking.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He couldn’t compute her body. She was full in a way that reminded him of the movies his grandmother used to watch, of the actresses he’d think about when sex was just a hazy notion in his head. Mediterranean, he thought. With rounded hips and a rounded stomach and rounded shoulders and some rounded, truly luscious, magnificent tits. Her legs were smooth, nicely shaped, and maybe it was because of the anticipation of the last few days, but he didn’t think he’d ever seen anything this lovely in all his years on this damn planet. He’d enjoyed looking at a lot of women, and they were all made different, and they’d all been beautiful, but there was something here, with Rue, that felt almost . . .

Poignant, he thought, and laughed at himself, soft yet loud in the quiet room. A few days of being horny, and he was ready to write a fucking sonnet about her ass. Her lush, spectacular ass. It bounced slightly as she took a side step—a fucking work of art.

“What?” She came toward him, eyebrows lifting inquisitively.

Her body was on full display, unfaltering, and her effortless confidence kicked his arousal up another notch, even when he’d thought it had nowhere else to go. “Nothing. You look . . .” Amazing. Sweet. Enchanting. Fuckable. “Good.”

“Thank you.” Her mouth curled upward, as though she enjoyed the compliment, and he wanted to give her a million more. Scribble them in the fucking burning Library of Alexandria. “On the app you wrote you’d be fine with my limits?”

He nodded, remembering the message he’d been pulling up at embarrassingly frequent intervals in the past few days. He had it memorized, but all those clinical words felt so at odds now with her pink, soft glory. He would die one day, and med students would find the sentences carved in his brain.

FYI, I don’t enjoy penetrative sex much. If that’s a deal-breaker, then we should both move on.

“You still don’t want to have sex?” he checked.

She frowned in confusion. Then her eyes widened. “You mean, penetrative intercourse?”

A gynecologist, that’s what she sounded like. And he was dying to touch her. Ready to beg to smell the crease where her abdomen met her thigh. “Yup.”

She nodded. “Correct.”

He was curious about the reason, but she didn’t volunteer an explanation. Narrowing his options might be a good idea, anyway. He had things in mind, enough to fill the next week with, that didn’t require putting his dick inside her. He could probably just look at her for a while, and things would happen.

“Okay,” he said, finding himself split. He wanted Rue to enjoy this, a lot, but he was also absolutely, single-mindedly focused on his own desires and needs. It had been a long time coming. It had been . . .

Shit. Four days. They’d met four days ago. He felt like he’d been trudging upstream for the last year.

“Come here,” he murmured, and he was half in love with how quickly she complied, how close to him she stopped, how straight her posture. She was within reach. He could touch her wherever he wanted. His fingers twitched with impatience.

And yet, Eli found himself lifting his thumb and pressing it into her lips. His true north. “There is something about your mouth,” he mused.

“You mentioned.” She shrugged. The way her tits bounced would likely count as a formative moment in his sexual history. “It’s weirdly asymmetrical. The top and bottom, I mean.” She sounded calm, but her voice was eager. “Would you like me to go down on you?” she offered plainly.

His muscles, his nerve endings, the entire bone structure of his body tensed and stretched and reached toward her. “Would you like to?” he asked.

She nodded without hesitation. Eli could barely process it.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he said eventually. “Not this time.”

“There won’t be another time,” she reminded him.

The edges of his arousal sharpened. Eli clenched the back of his teeth before forcing a smile. “If this is my only chance, then yeah. I’d love for you to suck my cock.” They were being so goddamn polite, from his pragmatic tone to her minute nod. Her hands made quick, sensible work of unbuckling his belt, undoing the top button on his pants. Her knees bent to—

“Wait,” he stopped her. She gave him a wide-eyed look, and the impulse to carry her to his home and keep her there for months or until this mess with Kline was over, whichever came first, was so overwhelming, he had to consciously get a grip. Hand on her upper arm, he dragged her back up. “I owe you a story. One of ours.”

Something terrible, he meant. Shameful and hitherto untold. Rue’s lips parted. She nodded, expectant.

“My first time was with my high school girlfriend. I was crazy about her, Rue. We were together for two years, and I swear to god, I was ready to marry her. Then one day, when her parents were gone, I walked into her house for a surprise visit and found her having sex with someone else.” He swallowed. “He was one of my teammates, and it had been going for months. They ended up getting married. Last I heard, they had kids. I think they’re happy.”