Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(25)

“Couldn’t make it.”

“Playing with someone else?”

“A date.”

I hum. “Maybe you should have joined him. Was Emma busy?”

He gives me a look that I cannot quite decipher. As though there’s something catastrophically wrong about what I said. “I told you, Emma doesn’t want to date me any more than I want to date her.”

I doubt it. Who wouldn’t? Also, how freaked out would you be if I told you that the other night I dreamt of you and Emma, sitting side by side in the kitchen, and I was sad? But only for a little. Because after a while it wasn’t you and Emma. It was you and me and you were standing between my legs and you put your hands on my inner thighs and you pushed them open, wider, to make room for yourself and— “You could date someone else, then,” I blurt out. To put a halt to what’s going on in my head.

“I don’t think I want to, Mara.”

“Right.” My heart hiccups. “You wouldn’t enjoy good food and pleasant conversation and getting laid.”

“Is that how your date went?” he asks softly, not looking at me anymore.

“I just meant—” I’m flustered. “You might enjoy dating the right person.”

“Stop channeling Helena.”

I laugh. “Gotta keep up the household tradition of being nosy about people’s personal lives.” Something occurs to me, and I gasp. “You know what’s really shocking?”

“What?”

“That Helena never tried to set us up. Like, you and me. Together.”

“Yeah, that’s—” Liam falls silent abruptly, as though something occurred to him, too. He stares into the middle distance for a moment and then lets out a low, deep laugh. “Helena.”

“What?” He doesn’t answer me. So I repeat, “Liam? What?”

“I just realized that . . .” He shakes his head, amused. “Nothing, Mara.” I want to insist till he explains what revelation he appears to have reached, but he puts a controller in my hand and says, “Let’s play.”

“Okay. Who am I supposed to kill, and how do I do it?”

He smiles at me, and a million little sparks crackle down my spine. “I thought you’d never ask.”





Ten


Three weeks ago

When Liam arrives home, I can barely feel my toes, my teeth are chattering, and I am more blanket than human. He studies me from the entrance of the living room while pulling off his tie, lips pressed together in what looks a lot like amusement.

Asshole.

He observes me for long moments before coming closer. Then he crouches in front of me, widens the gap between the layers of blankets to better see my eyes, and says, “I’m afraid to ask.”

“Th-th-the heat isn’t working. I already looked into it—I think a fuse has b-blown. I called the guy who fixed it last t-time, he should b-be here in half an hour.”

Liam cocks his head. “You’re under three Snuggies. Why are your lips blue?”

“It’s freezing! I can’t get warm.”

“It’s not that cold.”

“Maybe it’s not that cold when you have six hundred pounds of muscles to insulate you, but I’m gonna d-d-die.”

“Are you.”

“Of hypothermia.”

He is definitely pressing his lips together to avoid smiling. “Would you like to borrow my baby-seal fur coat?”

I hesitate. “Do you really have one?”

“Would you want it, if I did?”

“I’m scared to find out.”

He shakes his head and sits next to me on the couch. “Come here.”

“What?”

“Come here.”

“No. Why? Are you planning to steal my seat? Back off. It took me ages to warm it up—”

I don’t get to finish the sentence. Because he picks me up, Snuggies and all, and lifts me across his lap until my ass is resting on his thighs. Which . . .

Oh.

This is new.

For a moment, my spine stiffens and my muscles tense in surprise. But it’s very brief, because he’s so deliciously toasty. Way cozier than my stupid spot on the couch, and his skin . . . it smells familiar and good. So, so good. “You’re so warm.” I let my forehead fall against his cheek. “It’s like you generate heat.”

“I think all humans do.” His nose touches the icy tip of my ear. “It’s physics, or something.”

“First law of th-thermodynamics. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed.”

His hand travels up my spine to cup my nape, and the temperature is suddenly five, ten degrees higher. Heat licks down my spine and spreads around my torso. My breasts. My belly. I almost whimper. “Except by you, apparently,” he says.

“It’s so unfair.” Liam’s thumb is tracing patterns on the skin of my throat, and I have no choice but to sigh. I’m already feeling better. I’m glowing.

“That you are where the heat goes to die?”

“Yeah.” I burrow closer into his chest. “Maybe my parents are secretly shark shapeshifters. Of the cold-blooded, poikilothermic variety. They forgot to warn me that I inherited zero thermoregulation skills and should never live on dry land.”