Below Zero (The STEMinist Novellas, #3)

by Ali Hazelwood

if this is the place where I die, alone and shivering and bruised and pretty damn hungry . . . well, I have no reason to bitch. After all, blue was always my favorite color.

I just decided to stop trying. Stop caring, too. By the time I was in my teens, I just wanted . . . Well. To this day, I’m not sure what I wanted at fifteen.

It spells simultaneously Do not piss me off because I don’t fuck around and Ma’am, let me carry those groceries for you

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

He says it—you—like I am a remarkable and important thing. The most precious data point; his favorite town; the loveliest, starkest Martian landscape.

“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 have thought about what happened in my office every day for the past five years. You offered to go down on me, and I just . . . embarrassed myself, and it should be the most mortifying memory I have, but for some reason it’s turned into the axis every fantasy of mine spins around, and”—he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose—“I want to fuck you. Obviously. Always have. I just don’t want to fuck you once. I want to do it a lot. For a long time. I want you to come to me for sex, but also want you to come to me when you need help with your taxes and moving your furniture. I want fucking to be only one of the million things I do for you, and I want to be—” He stops. Seems to collect himself and straightens, as if to give me space. To give us space.