Stuck with You (The STEMinist Novellas, #2)

by Ali Hazelwood

“I don’t know if this is a date,” he says, serious, “but if it isn’t, will you go on one with me?”

“You are a brilliant engineer who knows the Premier League stats of the past three decades off the top of your head. Physically, you are the uncanny combination of every single feature I’ve ever found attractive—no, I will not expand on that. And you saved me on your phone as Corporate Thor, even after I gave you my full name.” “I wasn’t sure about the spelling and—you saw that?” “Yup.” His hand comes up to cup my cheek. “This is it, Sadie. I don’t think there’s any fucking this up.”

“I’ve been thinking about eating you out all day,” he says against my skin, which is sticky and drenched and—I cannot believe this is happening. I cannot believe this is sex. “All. Fucking. Day.”

“And I’ve been scared, scared like never before, that I’d hurt you.” He lifts his hand. Curves it around my cheek. “That I’d left you in some—any kind of pain. That I couldn’t make amends. Which, let me tell you, is no fun when you know in your lizard brain that you’re about five minutes from falling in love with someone.” He closes his eyes. “Maybe past. Can’t really tell.”

This is my new happy place, Erik murmured into the shell of my ear the second time we had sex that night. And then he pushed my sweaty hair away from my forehead, and I looked up at him and thought, His eyes are the exact color of the sky when the sun shines. And I always, always loved the sky.

“I only knew you for twenty-four hours, but I’ve never missed anyone so much.”

I never, ever want this moment to end. I want to paint it and frame it and hang it on the wall—this wall—and treasure it and make a million more and—