Take a Hint, Dani Brown (The Brown Sisters #2)(60)

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.”