Not in Love (Not in Love, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

Unlike the others, I knew exactly who he was.

She looked even more beautiful than in her picture. And she’d looked pretty fucking stunning in that, too, standing in front of a painfully familiar UT Austin sign. Not a selfie—a regular old-school photo, cropped to cut out her companion. All that was left was a slender, dark-skinned arm slung lazily around a shoulder. And, of course, her. Smiling, but only faintly. There, but remote. Beautiful.

“Do you do this a lot?” she asked. “Do what? Fuck?” “Save damsels in distress.” “No.” “Because you don’t encounter many, or because you leave them in distress?” Her voice was soft, and on anyone else’s lips the words would have sounded like flirting. Not hers, though. “Either way, I’m flattered,” she added. “You should be.”

Serious. A little impenetrable. Complicated. And Eli had never been a fan of easy.

“You were going to go upstairs to a hotel room booked under my name and spend hours alone with me.” “Hours?” The way he was feeling at the moment, more than that. “Hours,”

He couldn’t tell whether she was flirting, making fun of him, or dead serious. It was exhilarating.

“You have a library card.” She sounded bemused, and he clucked his tongue. “Here I am, trying to help you out in a difficult situation, and you repay me by being surprised that I can read.”

“I didn’t peg you for a hybrid kind of guy.” He snorted and started the engine. “Don’t say what you did peg me for.” “A Mustang, maybe.” “Jesus.” He wiped a hand over his face. “Or a Tesla.” “Get the fuck out. You’re walking home.”

“Thank you,” she said simply. She sounded serious, as usual. Sincere. “For not being a Tesla owner?”

He didn’t even know her name, and he’d spilled about something he’d never acknowledged before, not even to his closest friends. Probably because he didn’t know her name.

This girl, she was going to stick around, even if only in his head.

“I think it would have been fun,” she said, a little melancholic. “What?” “Tonight. You and me.” Eli’s blood thudded in his veins—once, loud, violent. When he glanced at the GPS, their destination was three minutes away. He slowed down to well below the limit, suddenly a scrupulous driver. “Yeah?” “You seem like you’d know what you’re doing.” Oh, you have no fucking idea. We still have time. I can be gentle. Or not. I could be lots of things if you—

“Is it a rule of yours?” She nodded, unperturbed. “Seems arbitrary,” he said casually while parking. Seems like what’s standing between me and you having a fucking spectacular time.

“I’ll leave once you’re inside and I hear you lock your door. And you should put your phone in rice,” he added, wondering what the fuck had come over him. Among his friends, he was famous for being the easygoing one. Laid back. Never like this, intrusive, commanding—not even with his sister. Probably because Maya would have guillotined him.

“Thank you. I really appreciate what you did for me tonight.” “It was the bare minimum.”

Fucking nuts. Was he developing a crush? He hadn’t even known he was capable of it.

She took a step back. Eli was entranced. Her servant. Spellbound. He considered begging her to let him touch her. To let him go down on her here in the hallway. He would go grocery shopping and make her dinner off a YouTube recipe of her choice. He’d wash her car, read her a book, sit here outside her door and just make sure she was safe and protected. They could hold hands all night. They could play Scrabble. He was very close to imploring for something, everything, anything, when she added, “And sometimes the reason is that they should be broken.”

“Eli Killgore will be doing some of the interviews.”

If Eli had been inclined toward corporate espionage, I’d have been a terrible choice. I was utterly, fantastically irrelevant in the grand scheme of Kline. And yet, here he was. Looking at me like nothing else existed in the world.

“Her name is Dr. Rue Siebert,” Sul volunteered. Eli lifted an eyebrow. “Dude, you have a budget of fifty words per day, and you use six of them to give me shit?”

“Did you see Hark today?” Maya’s tone was the personification of casual disinterest. Eli swallowed a snort and sat on the stool next to hers. “How is he?” “Still not age appropriate for you.” “I think he’s into me.” “I think it’s a felony.” “Hasn’t been for a while, since I am almost twenty-two years old.” Tiny whimpered softly at Eli’s feet, as though in agreement. Traitor. “Yes. Fair point. Until you remember that when Hark was twenty-two years old, you had yet to achieve full control of your bowels.”

“Why are you telling me this?” His mouth quirked. “Just confessing something terrible to you. I thought it might be our thing.”

“You really don’t know much about private equities, do you?” My hand tightened on the pipette. “You know a lot about food engineering, though.” “And where does that leave us?” “I don’t think there is an us.”

“Have you been thinking about this as much as I have?” Eli’s voice was low and husky, scratchy with something I didn’t dare to name, but could have easily picked out in a lineup. “I don’t know. How much have you been thinking about this?” He let out a soft laugh. “A lot.” “Then, yes.” I licked my lips, then almost begged him not to look at my mouth that way. “I wish there was a way to stop it.” “Rue.” His Adam’s apple moved. “I think there is.”

“It’s not a good idea.” “Is it not?” “You’re with Harkness. I’m with Kline.” “Yeah, well.” He sounded self-deprecating, as though he wasn’t a fan of his own feelings. “Right now, I don’t give a fuck about Harkness. Or Kline. Or anything else except for…” You. This. Us.

Dressed this way, you look different. Less like my Eli, and more like the kind of person who— My Eli. What the hell was I thinking?

“We should dance,” Eli offered. There were no tells that he was joking. “Should we? Why?” He shrugged, and abruptly he seemed lost, as uneven as I always felt in his company. “Because I like your dress,” he said, nonsensically. It occurred to me, for the first time since our meeting three nights ago, that maybe he didn’t want this, either. Maybe he, too, was desperately fighting off this inexplicable attraction between us. Maybe his success was just as abysmal as mine. “Because I like you. As a person.” His eyes were teasing all of a sudden. Warm. “Even if you don’t like me.”

“You don’t spend your Friday nights on dinner cruises?” “Do you?” He tut-tutted. “You know where I spend my Friday nights, Rue.”

“You’re just such a beautiful couple.” She left for more receptive pastures, and Eli gathered me close once again. “She’s right,” he murmured softly. “About what?” “You do look beautiful.”

“You need someone to call if—” “What about I call you?” I joked. “Yes, please. Please, fucking do that. Do you want my number now, or…?”

Eli. Anyone could find us. But whatever you are about to do, do it anyway.

“Your damn mouth,” he murmured, “is the most obscenely lovely thing I’ve ever had the burden of seeing.”

“I just want to make you come. Maybe come in the process, too. It’s all I fucking think about,” he said roughly. He nipped at my clavicle through the thin fabric of my dress. “But we’re on different sides of a fucking takeover, and apparently that’s too much to ask.”

“It’s disconcerting.” His breath was hot on my cheek. “But in the past seventy-two hours, I’ve found myself thinking over and over that we could fuck however you wanted. For however long you wanted. Wherever you wanted. I’d consent to any and all demands, and it’d be so good that you’d probably just ruin me for the rest of my life, and I’d just sit there, grateful.” He let out a laugh. “Rue. It’s humbling, how bad I want you.”

“But, Rue, if you come, we settle this. Once and for all.”

“It’s just sex,” she continued. “If it’s just fucking, there’s no need for moral dilemmas.” Oh, Rue. Are you sure?

We work it out of our system, and never think about it again.” I hope you’re right, Rue, because I’m not sure my self-respect can take much more of you.

pressed a kiss on his hip that had him wondering if it had become an erogenous zone. Rue Siebert. Changing his cellular makeup, one solemn look at a time.

“Should I?” I could, easily. I could make a mess of you.

“I might like your ass as much as your mouth.” She looked him in the eye. Smiled faintly. “I should have guessed it.” “Guessed what?” He could feel her amusement. “That you’d talk so much during sex.”

“Aw. You’re not sure what to do.” “Correct,” he deadpanned. “I’ve never once made a woman come. Teach me, please.”

“Are you really…you’re done,” he half said, half asked. “Yeah.” She shrugged. Her breathlessness belied her indifference. “You aren’t?”

It wasn’t until later that night, while I was adding nutrients to my hydroponic garden, that the implications fully hit me: If Florence succeeded, I might never see Eli Killgore again. The relief was so strong, it felt like something else altogether.

“Are you okay?” he asked. His voice sounded too real to be something pulled from my memories. And yet, it must be. “Why do you ask?” “You’ve been staring at me for thirty seconds.”

“Everything was fine.” He scanned my face for lies. His lips twisted into a slow smile. “Fine, huh?”

“You want to know what I’m into?” I nodded. “Why?” His head tilted. “Are you hoping I’ll take control? That if I’m the one calling the shots, it’ll make you feel less guilty about being with me?”

“Fair warning: if you don’t stop pushing me, I’m going to bend you over this bench and show you exactly what I’m into.”

What if he took her out for drinks to discuss the merits of high-pressure processing versus thermal techniques, and his fingers brushed against hers across the table? What if he did her laundry to silently thank her for some of the best sex of his life? What if he tied her up, fucked her ass, and made her like it?

Her existence, apparently, did a lot for him. More than an elaborately staged erotic show.

“Nice to meet you, Rue.” He sounded too intimate to fool anyone. She, too sultry. “Likewise.”