Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas, #3)

by Ali Hazelwood

I didn’t really have a plan for after, except for leaving now behind.

I had this feeling, my entire life, that I was never going to be enough.

I was confronted with the unbearable turmoil that comes with trying your best and realizing that sometimes it simply isn’t enough.

I feel little, but surprisingly deeply.

Wow. A male engineer who’s not an asshole. The bar is pretty low, but I’m nevertheless impressed.

It’s not that I think I’m hot shit, but I refuse to be insecure about my appearance. I like myself.

I saw about four people check him out on our way here, but he apparently has no idea that he could be fancast to play the hot Weasley brother. Absolutely zero awareness of how glorious he is.

This is no first kiss. This is a fucking masterpiece.

That I’ve long since realized that the longer people are with me, the more likely they are to find out that I’m not as smart as they think, as pretty, as funny? Honestly, I know that my best bet is to keep people at arm’s length, so that they never find out what I’m actually like.

I always knew I was an asshole, but I’d never quite realized the extent of it.

“I don’t mind carrying you.”

I’m usually not one for displays of vulnerability, but . . . Ian has come for me, in a small rocking boat, across the fjords.

I cannot remember the last time I felt this fragile and confused.

He came to Norway to keep me safe. Every step of the way, all he did was to keep me safe.

Even though I pushed him away, over and over, he still came in a rocking boat in the middle of the coldest ocean on planet Earth, just to get me warm.

“I know you.” My first instinct is to bristle and push back. Something within me rejects being known, because being known means being rejected.

“Is that why you came to rescue me?” I tease. “Because you were thinking about it? Because you have been secretly pining for years?” He meets my eyes squarely. “I don’t know that there was anything secret about that.”

“I still think you won’t like it. I’m just . . . really not that kind of person.” “What kind of person?” “The kind that people enjoy being with for anything that isn’t . . . well, sex.

Suddenly, it’s all upside down. I’m being dragged up his body, flipped on my back, pinned to the bed. One of his hands can hold both my wrists above my head, and when I look up I find him caging me. I first notice the panic in his eyes, then how close he was to coming, then the sheer relief that he managed to stave it off. “Hannah,” he says. His tone is laced with command. “What?” His cock twitches against my abdomen. “I think I’ll be in charge now.”