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 knew 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.