Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

When her heart slowed, she noticed how hard he was. Or maybe she’d known before, and finally took pity. She turned in his arms, impossibly beautiful, lips glistening, cheeks fairy-tale red, and Eli had to close his eyes and stumble back into the tiles when her hand closed around his cock.

She stroked him firmly and slowly, as though the orgasm he’d given her had deprived her of the ability to function at a reasonable rate. It was torturous, but even when he began bucking his hips into her fist, swearing softly against her damp hair, tightening his grip around her hips, she never sped up enough to push him over the edge. “Fuck, Rue,” he said, and then a frustrated, “you can’t fucking—” And finally, humiliatingly, he begged, “Please.” He bit into her neck, and she didn’t shake her head or smile or say anything, she didn’t give in to what he was asking, but her eyes met his squarely, lovely and blue and calm, and that did it for him.

When he came it was so violent, he couldn’t remember ever feeling anything approaching the good of it, not even while fucking someone, not even as a teenager. The pleasure cracked him at the seams, left him gasping soundlessly, speechless, as though his body was too busy experiencing the magnitude of it to produce even the most inarticulate of noises.

So you like her mouth, and she has phenomenal tits, and gives a spectacular hand job, he told himself, heaving his way back to normalcy, knees weak. So you feel like smiling whenever she’s around and want to know what’s in her head. The way she still gripped him, his semen seeping out of her closed fist, was the closest to a religious experience he’d come in a while. Big fucking deal, he forced himself to think, but it left a sour taste in his throat, the same he experienced when lying to himself. Eli watched her watch him, her serene face always so at odds with the chaos she provoked inside of him, and when he couldn’t take her silence anymore, he wrapped both hands around her cheeks and asked, “You still tired?” His voice was hoarse. He wasn’t surprised.

She nodded.

“Okay. This is what’s going to happen—now we sleep, in my bed. Together. And when we wake up, we do this again. And we stop bullshitting ourselves and each other about whether this is the last time, whether we’re going to stop doing this, whether we have any control over how much we want this.”

To her credit, she hesitated for only a couple of seconds. When she nodded at him again, earnest, a wave of relief crashed into him. “No, Rue. You say it. Say that this is not the last time. Promise me.”

That took her longer. But she did manage to make her way around the words, and when he heard a soft “I don’t want this to be the last time,” he picked her up, toweled her off, and carried her to bed.





21





WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO THAT WITH ME?





ELI

Eli wasn’t one for naps.

It had been a problem back in college, his near pathological inability to fall asleep during the day, especially when pregame rest had been mandatory; now that he’d escaped the NCAA exploitation machine, it only meant that any sleep he didn’t get at night couldn’t be made up for.

Rue had no such issues. She was breathing evenly a minute after he’d settled her on the bed. He sat on the edge of the mattress and stared for a long time, feeling creepy and teenage-ish and helpless to stop, feeling euphoric and smitten. He couldn’t remember ever experiencing anything like this, which meant that he should tread carefully, that she could be dangerous.

He pushed a strand of damp hair behind her ear and made his way downstairs.

Forty-five minutes later a summer thunderstorm was in full swing, and Rue padded into the kitchen wearing yesterday’s clothes and not the T-shirt he’d left out for her on the bed, folded on top of a pair of Maya’s sweats.

He’d never been less surprised.

Her gaze skittered to Tiny, napping blissfully on one of his many beds, then flitted to the bowls of whipped cream and fruit on the counter, then landed on the pan near the stove. “What are you doing?”

“Fulfilling the promise I used to lure you here.”

“You have done that.” She looked sleepy and beautiful and confused. He had to physically restrain himself to avoid pulling her into him.

“The other promise. I said I’d cook for you, remember?”

“You don’t have to.”

Do not hug her. Do not kiss the tip of her nose. Do not run your hand up and down her back. You don’t have to stick your fingers in her hair, and you most definitely do not need to fucking smell her throat. It’ll just send her running faster than a reminder that you still own Kline’s loan. “Come on, Rue.” He gave her a chiding look. “I can’t just fuck you nonstop without feeling like more of an asshole than I actually am. I’m going to have to feed you, just to keep you alive and responsive. No offense, but I’m not into the alternative.”

She glanced away and then lowered her eyes, which was interesting. Atypical. Then said, “I’m weird about food.” He kept his face straight. Made no movement. She was skittish, and he didn’t want to spook her. He watched her swallow, twice, and offered no reaction when she added, “I struggle with non-sit-down meals. And with time constraints.” She held his eyes. “I’d rather not eat than eat in a hurry or standing up.”