Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
She shook her head, grinning. “If I could find a girl who codes like you, it’d be a match made in Silicon Valley heaven. But the only single friend I have is Jen, and you said you’d rather burn alive than speak to her for more than thirty minutes.”
I cringed. “That might’ve been a bit harsh.”
Harper reached for her glass again. “She’s actually sweet. Loves animals. Want me to give her a call?”
Wait. What?
That’s it? No hesitation? No disapproval?
No jealous anything?
I stared at her, the burn of rejection hitting faster than the wine ever could.
“Yeah. Maybe,” I said flatly. “Or maybe I’ll just start a Tinder account.”
Her eyes widened. “So you want one-night stands now? Not commitment?”
I licked my lips. “So what if I do?”
She paused, like I’d short-circuited something in her brain.
“Well, I mean… those kind of girls—they’re not good enough for you.”
I frowned. “Okay, Pot. Enjoy the Kettle. You have, like, two accounts.”
She waved me off. “It’s different.”
I tilted my head. “How?”
She shrugged. “Because it’s you. I don’t know… I guess I always thought of you as—like, I don’t know. Asexual?”
My entire world stopped moving.
“You mean…” I swallowed hard. “You think I don’t want sex?”
CHAPTER
SEVEN
EZRA
I swear she’s just a friend, you didn’t even give me a chance to explain why we were naked!
—Les
Iwas so ridiculously offended I almost laughed.
If I’d been any other guy, I would have thrown her over the coffee table right then and there, stripped my clothes off, and given her a first-person demonstration of exactly how much I did want sex.
But instead… I did what I always did.
I stared.
I waited.
I counted to four—because three felt too normal, too mundane.
And I didn’t lose my shit.
Because what was the point?
She clearly saw me as some kind of platonic monk. An asexual being who didn’t need or want sex.
Was I even human?
Had I ever been human?
If there was ever a situation—no, a scenario—where a man snaps, cuts his hair, hits the gym twice a day, and flaunts every single thing he’s got just to prove a point…
This was it.
The gauntlet had been thrown.
The line drawn in the sand.
The first chess piece had been moved—
and she didn’t even realize it.
But in that one small moment in time, she’d released something.
Something that had been bending, straining, so close to snapping—
and her callous words were the final push.
Now I didn’t just want to save her from herself.
I wanted her to regret ever putting me in the zone I’d been trapped in for half my life.
Was it so wrong to want her to feel what I’d been feeling for years?
To have her suddenly, painfully aware of me the way I was of her?
I shoved the thought away before it could turn into action.
“Let’s just watch Friends,” I said casually.
Because in less than a week, the last thing she’d be thinking about while sitting next to me on this couch…
…would be Ross and Rachel.
Game on.
“Are you sure? You seem pretty fired up. Your nose is doing the thing.”
I rolled my eyes. “My nose does not do the thing.”
“It does,” she argued, tapping it with her finger before cupping my chin.
“I know you hate being touched, and I know I just poked your manhood.”
I glared. “You didn’t poke it—you ran it over with a lawnmower set to the wrong height and annihilated all the grass.”
She scrunched her nose. “Yeah, that too. It’s just that—”
She stopped.
Wait. Why was she getting serious?
“Never mind. This dating-and-going-viral thing has my brain scrambled.” She waved it off. “Let’s watch Friends. I deserve it after that disastrous date. Then tomorrow, I’ll focus on my update video—explain all the things that went wrong, and why ‘the one that got away’ was a good choice. Maybe a nice zoologist or marine biologist could exist in his future?”
I rubbed my nose—it suddenly itched like hell. “Yeah. Maybe the guy just… really needs to not open his mouth.”
“Yeah, that too. So—what’s the next date according to the rankings?”
That actually made me smile. “You’ll want earplugs. And to be fair, I really do think he’s smart… he just misplaces words in sentences.”
She grabbed a pillow and smacked me with it. “So—he’s an entitled jackass?”
I grinned. “There it is. Good word placement. Solid sentence structure. You got the meaning across and everything.”
Before I knew it, she was smacking me harder.
I caught the pillow, grabbed her by the waist, and rolled her onto her back on the couch.
“Stoppppp!” she shrieked, laughing.
“Never!”
She hooked her feet behind my ass and tugged me closer.
With a groan, I lifted her—her legs still wrapped tight around me.
Her laughter faltered. She gulped, staring at my mouth.
“Rule breaking,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if she was telling me, or herself.
Calmly—too calmly—I leaned in and murmured, “Yes, well… us asexuals have to get off somehow. Apparently, I just break rules.”
Slowly, I let her slide down my body until her feet hit the floor.