Not in Love (Not in Love, #1)

by Ali Hazelwood

her demeanor seemed like the embodiment of her writing. Serious. A little impenetrable. Complicated. And Eli had never been a fan of easy.

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

Eli was entranced. Her servant. Spellbound. He considered begging her to let him touch her.

The world was a constant, full-on maelstrom, and my emotions were the one thing I could govern. Eli Killgore looked like the kind of person who’d love to take that away from me.

“Rue. It’s humbling, how bad I want you.”

He was going to keep her. For himself. As long as he could.

“Good girl,”

“Rue. My sad, beautiful fortress girl.”

Rue made him stop and think, and above all she made him yearn like he’d not thought himself capable of,

Rue eviscerated him and made him anew. And if she didn’t want the product of that… Well. That was for him to accept.

then I met you. And you made me wonder, for the very first time, if there was a flaw in my reasoning. Maybe people can be happy and sad. Maybe stories are messy and complicated. Maybe endings don’t always include solutions that tie everything together in a bow. But that doesn’t mean that they have to be tragedies.”

“Is it broccoli, baby?”