Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(34)
He arched an eyebrow. “Baby? Can’t decide if that’s better or worse than me calling you babe that one time.”
“Oh, shut up. This is the sort of thing couples say.”
“I bet it is, doll tits.”
Her cheeks heated. “Except that. No one says that.”
“Are you sure?” he asked mildly.
“Yes, I’m sure, sugar cock.”
Zaf spluttered, then burst into a coughing fit. Dani was searching for another name that might cause a similarly adorable reaction when a gaggle of ruddy-faced, thick-necked boys—undergrads, if she had to guess—appeared out of nowhere. They chose a desk opposite Dani’s, dragging spare seats from neighboring tables, ignoring the glares of other occupants as chair legs scraped over the floor. After sitting down in a muttering, giggling group, they proceeded to stare, starry-eyed, at Zaf and tap away on their phones with obvious intent. One boy turned to shove another’s shoulder after a particularly loud guffaw, and Dani caught sight of the lettering on the back of his blue jacket: NGU RUGBY.
“Oh, good,” she whispered. “I do believe your acolytes have found us.”
Zaf rolled his eyes. “I doubt any of them had even heard of me before last week.”
“Honestly, Zafir, you’re so grumpy you could create your own storm clouds. Entire countries would pay good money to use your services, I’m sure.”
“What can I say? It’s a natural talent.”
“Or maybe it’s lack of sleep,” she pointed out, then wanted to kick herself. It was none of Dani’s business if he stayed up until all hours of the night. She was nobody’s mother, thank you very much.
“You’re telling me to sleep? Woman, you just passed out in a library.”
She blushed. “It’s a very restful environment!”
“I’ve heard beds are even better.”
“I don’t want to talk about beds with you, Zaf.” Not right now, anyway, because it wouldn’t do to spontaneously combust in public.
But then it occurred to her that in public was the perfect time to push things, just a little. Because if everything went horribly wrong, and he wasn’t interested in what she had to offer, Dani could claim she’d been faking it. Genius. Suddenly the boys at college who’d once texted her messages like Be my gf? Haha, JK. Unless . . . ? seemed like bold pioneers instead of irritating gnats.
So she murmured the tragic truth with a teasing smile. “Too much bed discussion could tip me over the edge. Next thing you know, I’ll be ravishing you on this undoubtedly unsanitary carpet.”
Apparently, he hadn’t expected that, because for a moment, his face was blank as a new Word document. Dani bit her lip, wondering how he’d respond, and barely noticed the increase in whispers from their excitable observers at the next desk.
Then Zaf’s surprise melted into an expression she could only call hunger. Without warning, he grabbed the leg of her chair and jerked it—jerked Dani—closer. The breath left her lungs, and by the time she remembered how to inhale again, her seat was trapped, sideways, between his spread thighs. His arm rested over the back of the chair, and she felt its heat against her shoulders. His mouth was perilously close to her cheek, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low and rough and changed, and it rasped over her skin the way his hands would. “Tell me what it is you want from me, Danika. Explain it to me. Slow.”
For someone so repelled by relationships, Dani sure had a lot of questions about them. But then, for someone who wasn’t interested in casual sex, Zaf sure struggled with telling her to knock this innuendo bullshit off.
He didn’t want her to knock it off.
Maybe he was imagining the way she looked at him sometimes, like he was a surprise, scary but special all at once. And maybe he was imagining the vulnerability in her, too, glittering beneath her surface like fragments of gold underwater. The problem was—call him reckless, call him led by his dick, call him a hopeless romantic, but he wanted to believe in it. He wanted it so badly that he dragged her closer and asked her straight.
“Tell me what it is you want from me, Danika. Explain it to me. Slow.”
Her teeth grazed the soft, plump flesh of her lower lip, and he felt the action in his fucking balls. Her gaze flicked over to the boys watching them, then back to Zaf. She spoke so quietly he barely heard her. “I want to sleep with you, Zafir. Don’t take it personally, though.” Her smile was painfully sexy and as sharp as an arrow. It certainly burst his bubble.
No. You’ve always known how she operates. Don’t be disappointed with the sun for setting.
Zaf took a breath as his hopes rearranged themselves into common sense. So Dani had nothing more than sex on the brain—he’d have been foolish to expect anything different, and Zaf refused to be a fool. Here was the bottom line: she wanted him back, at least in one way, and that was hot enough to singe his doubts. Everything in life didn’t have to be black-and-white, did it? There was something between searching for happily ever after and outright celibacy, wasn’t there? He certainly fucking hoped so, because it had been a year since his last relationship and right now his dick was so hard, he felt like it might break. Which definitely couldn’t be healthy.
He leaned closer to Dani, mostly to make sure his hard-on was hidden by the shadows between them. But the arm he’d rested on the back of her chair brushed her shoulders, and she sucked in a breath at the contact.