The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

“Olive.” He sighed heavily, closing his eyes. The idea that
he might be thinking of the woman who Holden mentioned
flashed into her mind and slipped away, too painful to
entertain.
She should just tell him. She should be honest with him,
admit that she didn’t care about Jeremy, that there was no one
else. Never had been. But she was terrified, paralyzed with
fear, and after the day she’d had, her heart felt so easy to
break. So fragile. Adam could shatter it in a thousand pieces,
and still be none the wiser.
“Olive, this is how you’re feeling now. A month from now,
a week, tomorrow, I don’t want you to regret—”
“What about what I want?” She leaned forward, letting her
words soak the silence for drawn-out seconds. “What about
the fact that I want this? Though maybe you don’t care.” She
squared her shoulders, blinking quickly against the prickling
sensation in her eyes. “Because you don’t want it, right?
Maybe I’m just not attractive to you and you don’t want this
—”
It nearly made her lose her balance, the way he tugged at
her wrist and pulled her hand to himself, pressing her palm
flush to his groin to show her that . . . Oh.
Oh.
Yeah.
His jaw rolled as he held her gaze. “You have no fucking
idea what I want.”
It took her breath away, all of it. The low, guttural tone of
his voice, the thick ridge under her fingers, the enraged,
hungry note in his eyes. He pushed her hand away almost
immediately, but it already felt too late.
It wasn’t that Olive hadn’t . . . the kisses they’d exchanged,
they were always physical, but now it was as if something had