in her gaze, it was either wishful thinking or a protest from her sex drive. “All right. Once our charade dies down, you’ll probably get back to looking for your one true love, anyway. I wouldn’t want to get in the way,” she said wryly.
The idea that Dani could get in the way of anything felt wrong—wrong enough to wrench at something vital in his chest. But she’d made a good point, one that tied up their loose ends neatly. “We should end this when we end the fake relationship. We’ll have to stage some kind of breakup around then, anyway.” Which Zaf had managed to avoid thinking about until this moment. “It’ll be good timing. Which gives us . . . three weeks.”
“Three weeks,” she echoed. “I can work with that.”
“Good,” he said, but it didn’t feel good at all. He pushed away nameless, shapeless misgivings and pulled her closer, where she belonged. “I have one last condition.” Because there were a thousand things he wouldn’t push her on, but this? This was different. “I get that you want casual. But as long as we do this, Danika,” he murmured, “no one touches you but me.”
She swallowed hard, but to his relief, she didn’t argue. When she nodded, something vicious inside him sang to life. “Only you,” she whispered.
It was terrible, how perfect those words sounded on her lips. Dangerous, how much he wanted to hear them again, in a thousand different ways.
This might be the best bad idea he’d ever had.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Dani bit her lip and tried to look sexily expectant as opposed to painfully, desperately horny. It wasn’t easy, not when Zaf was watching her with a focus that shivered its way across her skin. Not when she could feel him, thick and hard, between her thighs. Not when every inch of her shook with a lust so obvious, she was considering throwing her whole, treacherous body out with the recycling tomorrow.
She was unraveling for him, as if she needed him, and the intensity of it made her feel alive and horribly exposed all at once. It was dangerous, to be like this, to crave like this. It had to be. But then she realized that Zaf was unraveling, too, and suddenly things weren’t so bad. Through the fog of her own hunger, she noticed the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the way he wet his lips as if he’d been thirsty for centuries and she was an oasis. He reflected her own frantic need right back at her, and Dani’s worry faded until only anticipation was left, dancing through her stomach like starlight. Only you, she’d said, and the words had seemed to vibrate with something like power.
Which was probably a spiritual pat on the shoulder from Oshun. You know: Well done for taking the hint, darling! Now take an orgasm or two, as well, so you can stop whining all the time.
Dani was mentally promising to do just that when Zaf’s free hand rose to cup her nape, and her thoughts scattered.
Then he kissed her.
This wasn’t like their first kiss: that had been a test, a surprise, and technically, a fake. It hadn’t felt fake, not when he’d taken her apart piece by piece with each cautious stroke of his tongue, but still. It hadn’t been for them, not really—it had been for show. The same went for their second, short kiss at the security desk, even if that had felt . . . different, at the time.
But this? This was so real and so raw, Dani might have flinched away if it wasn’t so fucking good.
Zaf’s mouth was lush and firm against hers, sending electric shivers racing up her spine. His free hand cradled her cheek, and his thumb pushed at the edge of her lips, coaxing her to open wider, to take his tongue deeper. He was always so gentle with her, so unassuming, that she’d never expected his lust to fill the air like rich humidity—but it did. He surrounded her, his taste in her mouth and his hard cock between her thighs, and she wanted to succumb.
When his other hand kneaded her arse with shameless hunger, heat flooded her pussy in response. She rubbed her swollen nipples against the solid breadth of his chest, rocked her desperate clit against the crude ridge of his erection, and helpless need rose in her like the tide. His tongue slid across the tender seam of her upper lip, and she felt that