“On it.”
With his eyes gleaming hungrily and his mouth swollen and slick, Zaf looked like exactly what he was: an unholy tool of sexual devastation, also known as Dani’s greatest fantasy. He shouldered his way into her room, dropped her onto the bed, and then stripped off the rest of his clothes with little fanfare.
“This is very efficient,” she said as his trousers disappeared.
“I have a one-track mind.”
“I approve.”
He laughed and took off his underwear. Now he was gloriously naked under the glow of her bedside lamp, prowling toward her like an advancing god. He had a broad, heavy body, with amber skin dusted by pitch-black hair, but Dani found 100 percent of her attention sucked up by his cock. Which was appropriate, since she’d like to suck his cock. It was thick and dark and curved slightly to the left, the head shining with pre-come, a fine vein pulsing along the underside that practically begged for her tongue.
“Gosh,” she blurted, blinking hard. “That’s . . . your . . . penis.”
“Yep.” He looked down at himself, frowning a little. “Er . . . this isn’t your first one, is it?”
“No,” Dani squeaked. She was simply experiencing a moment of mild alarm because . . . well. She didn’t think she’d ever wanted anyone quite this much.
Of course you have. You must have. These were just sex chemicals, dopamine and other traitorous substances making her feel oddly attached in the heat of the moment. God only knew what would happen when he put his dick in her. Maybe she’d lose her mind.
And maybe none of that mattered, because Zaf lay over her then, and the skin-to-skin contact felt like sinking into a warm bath after a long day, and Dani quite lost her train of thought.
He traced the line of her jaw and whispered, “You still with me, sweetheart?”
“Al—” She broke off just in time, her voice caught in her throat.
Always. That’s what she’d been about to say. Always. The word sat in front of her, too bright and awful to look at, like a ray of sunshine through the blinds at 6 A.M. What in God’s name was that? Had she fallen asleep in front of a Hallmark film recently and absorbed its bullshit into her subconscious? Dani swallowed hard, bit her lip, and remembered she was sex-drunk. Yes. Chemicals, et cetera. Zaf’s tongue was basically a drug. She’d been over this.
He watched her with a furrow between his thick eyebrows that she suddenly wanted to kiss. “Dan?”
Don’t panic. Everything is fine. But she needed to change the subject, both internally and externally. Which, in this case, meant licking her palm and reaching between their bodies to grasp his cock.
He choked out a moan and his hips jerked. He was so smooth, so hot, so hard. Addictive. She swept her thumb over the fat, swollen head and watched his eyes snap shut. “Danika,” he said, the word ragged. “Fuck. That’s good.”
That’s good. She liked that, coming from his mouth. Liked putting that agonized look on his face, liked the way his control dissolved. This was what she wanted from him. This was all she wanted.
“Tell me what else is good,” she murmured, and stroked him, slow and deliberate, drinking down the way his muscles tightened.
“Yeah,” he grunted when she twisted her wrist. “Yeah. Harder.”
She squeezed, he growled. Before she knew it, he was kissing her, hot and aggressive, his teeth tugging at her lower lip. She kept stroking him, and the faster she jerked his dick, the more he fell apart. Soon he was making hoarse, breathless sounds, catching her wrist with one strong hand, begging her, “No more. Don’t make me come before I get inside you.”
She pouted and ran her thumb lightly along that fine, raised vein.
“Ungh. Fucking hell, Danika.”
“What? I stopped.” She tapped his arse, about to tell him to get up so she could search for condoms. Then she realized his arse was incredible and, firmly distracted, grabbed a good handful. “Mmm. I like this.”
“I like yours. Get up and show me.”
“You’re so bossy.”
“Only works because you like it.”
She gasped in mock outrage and pushed him off her. But she also arched her back for him as she bent over the bedside table. Zaf, both wonderful and predictable, palmed her arse immediately. He cupped one heavy cheek, squeezed, then slid his hand sideways until his thumb glided through her wet folds. She finally found a condom just as he pushed inside her, forcing a breathy little moan from her lungs. “Zafir.”
“Yeah?” His thumb massaged a spot that sent raw pleasure surging through her blood. She must have made some unholy sound—though she couldn’t be sure, since she lost a little awareness for a moment—because he laughed softly and said, “Ah. There.”
“God, you sound so smug.”
“You have no idea.” He eased out of her pussy—which was tragic in the short term, but good in the long term since the current goal was to get his cock in there—and caught her hip, tugging her back onto the bed. “Condom?”
“Here.”
But Zaf didn’t accept the little square of foil; instead, he cradled her jaw in his hand, his thumb tracing Dani’s own wetness over her lips. She slid out her tongue to taste, and the next thing she knew she was sucking the digit deep.
Zaf moaned. “You look fucking good with your mouth full, Danika.”
She released him with a pop. “If you think that’s good, you should see how I look on your dick.”
He laughed, the sound low and strained. “I’d like to.”
And yet, she had the oddest feeling he was stretching this out—touching her here or there, playing her like an instrument while trying not to come, as if he didn’t want any excuse for this to end.
Or maybe she was projecting. Because, although her pulse pounded more, more, more and her pussy grew softer and wetter, just for him, she didn’t exactly want this to end, either.
Calm down. You have almost a month to shag him senseless. That’s more than enough.
It is. It is. It’s more than enough.
She pushed him onto his back and straddled his thighs, ripping open the condom and rolling it on as he hissed out a breath. Tension rippled through his body at her touch, muscles flexing before her eyes, skin flushing with heat, and it was all so . . . so intensely Zaf, and so perfect because of it.
“Now,” he told her. “Dan, please.” He cupped her breast, ran his palm down the length of her body until it curled around her hip. “I need you here.”
She bit her lip and crawled over him, needing it just as much. Moaned when he parted her sensitive folds with his thumbs. Obeyed, breathless and eager, when he ordered, “Put me inside you.”
Then she sank onto his hardness inch by inch, until she was achingly full of him.
But she still wanted more.
* * *
In the moment before they joined, a warning siren screamed at the back of Zaf’s mind. Just the usual sensible bullshit, reminding him that he actually wasn’t that great at keeping sex physical, and that catching feelings was kind of his MO. Zaf listened to the sirens for a second, then decided he wouldn’t mind being eaten alive by unrequited adoration if it happened after he felt Danika come on his dick. Apparently, this was how he made terrible sex-based decisions: with total enthusiasm.
Then she took him inside, her pussy tight and wet around his aching cock. Her moan was a whimper, his breaths were the gasps of a drowning man. Their eyes met—and when searing tenderness burned him just as hot as lust, Zaf knew he’d made a mistake. Because after months of wanting Dani, he had her, and the hunger wasn’t fading. It was already stronger. So strong it threatened to crush him, or worse, to crush the dam he’d set up against all his forbidden feelings.
Ah, shit.
She planted her hands on his chest, rolled her hips, and the ecstasy on her face . . . he would kill to see her look like this, to make her look like this, and she was just giving it to him. How was he supposed to live the rest of his life like a normal human being when he k
new the texture of her skin, knew the tiny, pale stretch mark that arrowed through her left nipple like a lightning bolt through a dark berry? This was what the word intoxicating really meant: Danika trusting him to touch her, wanting him to touch her, and choosing to touch him.
But only for now.
She rose up, and the slick squeeze of her cunt chased that single, hopeless thought away. Then she sank down again, her tits bouncing as she used him, her brows drawn together like she needed this as desperately as he did. She was spellbinding, she was fucking him so good he couldn’t think straight, and when she gasped, “God, Zaf,” that warm, velvet voice stroked him like a touch. He’d heard her say his name a thousand times, but not like this. Never like this. He drank in the sight of her spread open by his cock, saw her plump clit peeking out and rubbed it gently with his thumb. Then he sucked in a breath as her cunt spasmed around him, gripping him so tight he almost lost it.
“Fuck,” he managed, once he could speak again. “Perfect. You’re so perfect.”
Her breath caught, and she looked down at him with wide eyes. “I—”
“Sweetheart. Don’t argue with me right now.”
Her surprise softened into laughter. Then he stroked her again and her giggle cracked right down the middle, her eyes glazing over with lust. “Don’t come,” she gasped, as if she could feel the tension building at the base of his spine. “Oh my God, not yet, don’t come, don’t stop.”
He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath and tried to obey. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, her breasts rubbing his chest, her weight anchoring him, and all he could think was Mine. Something deep inside him cracked beneath a tidal wave of lust, something that had once been called control. Zaf wrapped his arms around her and found he couldn’t let go. He felt almost feral, trapping her against him, trapping himself inside her, and when she moaned into his mouth, a shaking, shuddering sound, the hunger, the possession, the desperation got worse. His hips twisted as he fucked deeper inside her, and she rocked against him, her hands tugging at his hair.
“Baby,” she panted, and this time it wasn’t fake. Nothing right now was fake. The vulnerability in her voice, the shameless need, was so real it almost hurt—and it was all for him. “Baby, please, I need more.”
Anything. He’d give her anything. Especially when it was this damn good.
He repeated his hard upward thrusts and held her in place so she could do nothing but take it. Again, again, again, and then she screamed and tightened so impossibly around him, he didn’t have a hope in hell of holding back. His orgasm tore down his spine and through his aching balls, his come releasing in hot, almost-painful spurts.
All he saw was Dani, all he tasted was her kiss, and all he felt was her body shaking for him as his world spun off its axis.
Chapter Thirteen
Zaf’s dick had Jedi-mind-tricked him.
That was the only explanation. Because now that he’d actually slept with Danika Brown, it seemed painfully fucking obvious that sex was not the magic pill to cure him of his attachment to her. As a matter of fact, without the months-old fog of lust clouding his brain, he saw quite clearly that his feelings for her were honestly out of control.
And those feelings couldn’t be described as friendship. Friendship was there, sure, but so was something else, something dangerous, a bloodred poppy of affection trying to bloom in his chest. He absolutely adored this woman—and he’d just agreed to be her no-strings friend with benefits for the next three weeks. Clearly, he had the intelligence of a rock—a small pebble, a little chip of fucking gravel—because on what planet did intimacy ever cure anyone of affection?
Especially affection like this. Bright and beautiful and wild and terrifying, just like a forest fire.
Beside him, she murmured dryly, “Orgasms are meant to relax you, Zafir.”
He turned his head on the pillow, met her soft, tired eyes. Felt a punch of dizzying warmth, a soul-deep possessiveness, a tender pleasure that made him want to smile. And he’d thought this was a crush. He’d thought this was a crush.
Seriously. Intelligence of a fucking rock.
“Seems like I do things backward,” he told her.
She smiled, all plump cheeks and white teeth, and he felt it in his chest. Beautiful, so beautiful, he couldn’t fucking breathe. “Backward,” she said. “Sounds like you.”
Yeah, it did. Backward, like developing feelings for a friend and only noticing after you swore to keep things platonic. Barbed wire wrapped its way around his heart.
What the hell had he done?
“Hey,” Dani murmured. “Are you okay?” She raised a hand, hesitated, then touched his cheek. Just a brush of her fingertips, but the sensation smacked into him like a fist. He caught her wrist, swallowing down a thousand pointless words, and wondered why she was doing this, anyway. They’d finished ten minutes ago. She’d been to the bathroom, he’d fetched her water from the kitchen. She should be throwing him out, not lying beside him, all soft and naked and warm, touching him as if she gave a shit. This should be pissing him off.
It wasn’t.
“I’m fine,” he told her, because if he said, I’m realizing my feelings for you are way too intense and I never want to leave, she might panic and smother him with a pillow.
She arched an eyebrow and tugged her wrist free of his grip. “Sure. That’s why you’ve been scowling at the ceiling like it shit in your slippers.”
Despite the churn of emotions in his chest, he couldn’t help but smile. “Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“My sterling jokes? Why, I find them on the back of chocolate bar wrappers like everyone else.”
Reckless tenderness took over his brain, and the next thing Zaf knew, he was kissing her. It was sweet and soft, lazy and gentle, her taste ambrosia in his mouth. She raked her fingers through his hair as if she owned him, and fuck, he wished she would. If this was any other woman, he’d say, Let me convince you to be mine. He’d say, Let me learn you. He’d say, Do you feel that? We could have something.
But Dani didn’t feel it, and he couldn’t make her, and sticking his tongue in her mouth seemed like the opposite of accepting those facts. He needed to get away from her addictive warmth, needed to think, even if all he wanted to do was stay here and stay mindless.
When Zaf pulled back, she was smiling. Then he blurted, “I should probably go,” and that smile cooled and hardened into something sharp and silver.
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Yes, you should.” The words were calm—but her voice held a slight, embarrassed edge, and her gaze slid away from his. Like maybe she’d forgotten her own rules there for a second, and he’d just reminded her.
Ah, shit.
“Unless,” he said quickly, “you don’t want me to.”
She sat up, turning away from him. A second passed before she looked over her shoulder and met his eyes again—and in that second, all the uncertainty had vanished from her gaze. Maybe he’d imagined it in the first place. Maybe he was made of wishful thinking.
“I’m far too tired for another round, so yes, I want you to go.” She stretched lazily as she stood. “No offense. I hope you haven’t forgotten the rules already, darling.”
Yeah, right. Those rules were the only lighthouse he had in the storm of his own feelings, and right now, he should follow that glow all the way out of Dani’s flat. Should being the operative word.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said quietly, grabbing his clothes off the floor as she threw on a robe. He felt like throwing a farewell ceremony when she covered that magnificent body, but now didn’t seem like the time. “I was wondering if maybe you forgot. For a moment.”
She shot him a sarcastic look as she sauntered out of the room. “Oh dear.”
“What?” He zipped up his jeans, threw on his shirt, and followed.
“Already searching for excuses to stick around?” She reached the front door and leaned against it, a teasing smile playing at the corners of her lips.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re falling tragically in love with me as we speak?”
“No idea,” Zaf lied, planting his hands against the door, one on either side of her shoulders. “Why do I get the feeling you’d be terrified if I was?”
Her chin lifted. “I hope you’re not psychoanalyzing me, Zafir. The last person who tried that ended up defenestrated.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
She arched an eyebrow, slow and sexy as fuck. “Keep looking at me like that and you’ll find out.”
“Looking at you like . . . this?” he asked, holding her gaze. “Do I make you uncomfortable, sweetheart?”
Dani stepped closer, moving away from the door and into his chest. She was a head shorter than him, but there was steel in her eyes and confidence in her smirk, and he felt like they were players squaring up before a match. “I’m never uncomfortable, Zafir,” she whispered. “I lack the necessary social awareness, and anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of a badass.”
“You’re impossible, is what you are.”
She cocked her head, shooting him an incandescent smile. “You say the sweetest things.”
“Why do I want to kiss you so badly right now?” The question was more for himself than for her. In fact, he hadn’t meant to say it aloud—it just rushed free on a breath of frustration. He should be horrified, or panicking, or concerned, at the very least, by his affection for a woman who didn’t want it. He should be leaving fast enough to make tracks on her shiny floor.
Instead, he was seriously considering fucking her all over again. On the aforementioned shiny floor.
No, Zaf. Stop that. He couldn’t process his emotions and shit while he was balls-deep in the source of his conflict. That much seemed obvious.
“You want to kiss me,” Dani said, “because I’m incredibly good at it.”
“Your middle name is modesty, right?”
“Close.” She grinned. “My middle name is honesty.” But then she sobered. “This is how people work, Zaf. We want what we want, and we get it however we can, and when morals or ideals or promises get in the way, we say fuck it and push right past.”
Take a Hint, Dani Brown Page 18
