Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(55)

“I beg your pardon?”

He ignored her. “—and loves it. I know you have a busy life, but you make room for the stuff that matters. If it was worth it, and you wanted to, you could make room for a relationship, too. What you get out of being loved, it’s supposed to be worth the compromise. When it’s good, it makes you want to compromise.”

She eyed him steadily for a moment, her expression unreadable. But something about the line of her mouth, the slow rhythm of her breaths, told him she was thinking. Hard.

In the end, though, it came to nothing. “I have no idea how you aren’t married yet,” she murmured, studying him like he was some kind of exotic insect. Then she sighed and shook her head, as if brushing away fairy tales. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s some lucky individual out there who’s just dying to spend forever with a bookish workaholic who wants to vomit at the prospect of romance, but I don’t care enough to bother searching for them. I’m not interested in the, er, transformative power of love, or what have you. I don’t need it. I know what I want from life, and I know how to get it.”

Each word landed with a thump in Zaf’s chest, like a series of death knells, though he couldn’t say exactly what was dying.

I know what I want from life, and I know how to get it. “So do I,” he said softly.

Dani nodded. “We’re not that different, you know, even if we’re facing opposite directions. I don’t want to waste my time looking for a diamond in a pile of shit. And you don’t want another unhappy ending.”

Another. The way she looked at him, as if she saw his every fear and secret hope, was almost enough to make Zaf sweat. He still wanted to chase away the ghosts in her eyes, but if that meant she got to chase his, too . . . no fucking thank you.

Besides, he hadn’t been lying when he’d said he respected her choices. Didn’t mean he had to like them. But he respected them, because he respected her.

“I accept your conditions,” he said finally. “But I have a couple of my own.” Needed them, he realized, if he was going to come out of this unscathed.

“Hit me,” she murmured. Then she wiggled on his lap, and he narrowly avoided biting off his own tongue. “Quick.”

“First: we can’t do this forever.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Forever isn’t really my thing.”

“I know.” His cheeks heated. “I meant . . . maybe, since we put a deadline on the fake relationship, we can put a deadline on this, too.” That would save him from stumbling over boundaries or breaking rules he’d never learned. Dani was so committed to this no-strings shit, she’d actually prayed about it—and Zaf knew from experience that when you started praying, it meant you were deadly serious or about to die or both. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass himself by holding on too long.

She eyed him carefully, and if he caught a flash of disappointment 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.