A nervous laugh caught in my throat. “What?”
He took a step toward me. Then another.
“You think I hate your attraction, Lillian?” His tone was soft now, almost tender. “You’re right. Ido. Because it completely ruins me.”
My back hit the elevator wall. Cold steel against my spine, fire everywhere else.
He didn’t stop. He kept moving forward, closing the space until I could smell him. His hand came up, hovering for a suspended second before it touched my cheek, a whisper of contact that set every nerve buzzing.
“How am I supposed to speak, breathe,exist,” he murmured, “when you look at me the way you do? When you speak to me the way you do?”
I shook my head, my pulse tripping. “You said you didn’t—”
“Ilied.”
The words landed like a strike. My lungs forgot how to work.
His fingers traced down the side of my face until they slid along my shoulder, down my arm, my waist, lingering at my hip before gliding down my thigh. My breath seized somewhere in my chest.
“‘Tell me you don’t feel the same?’” he said, repeating my words from forever ago. “Is that really what you asked me?” He gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Tell meyoucan’t see that I feel it too. You can’t, can you? Because you do. Youseeit. Youfeelit.”
He leaned in, breath trembling against my skin, his nose brushing mine in a fleeting, shattering contact.
“Everything about you consumes me,” he whispered. “Everything about you draws me closer. The only thing you should congratulate me on is how I’ve managed to keep my hands off you this entire time.” His lips grazed my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my mouth, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Do you want this, Lillian?” His voice was all gravel and longing. “Do you wantme?”
Any reasonable thought I had was sprinting for the exit, but one managed to stay. It came out before I could stop it. “We can’t. It’s haram.”
He stilled—just for a second—his gaze searching mine for the punchline of what he assumed was a joke. Then, like it was the simplest truth in the world, he said, “We’re married.”
My heart stuttered. “Oh. Right.” My voice sounded foreign to my own ears, quivering between disbelief and surrender. “Okay.”
And then he kissed me, his lips claiming mine with a frantic hunger that stole my breath away. The word “okay” dissolved against his mouth, and every barrier, every argument, every carefully constructed defense crumbled in that single moment. The kiss wasn’t gentle—it was months of bottled-up tension and denial andwant, burning through everything in its path. His hand slid to the back of my neck, mine fisted in his shirt, and the walls seemed to shrink until there was nothing left but our breath and the insistent pull between us. I could taste the confession on his tongue, the relief, the fury, theneed—all of it a heady mix that left me dizzy with desire.
It wasn’t supposed to happen, itshouldn’thave happened, and yet it felt inevitable.
He deepened the kiss, his hands roaming over my body, tracing the arc of my waist, the small of my back, everywhere at once. He reached blindly for the panel, yanking the emergency stop free. The elevator jolted back to life, but neither of us broke apart. His hand curved around my hip, pulling me flush against the solid contours of his torso as the numbers above the doors blinked rapidly, rising too fast, too soon.
When the elevator shuddered to a stop on our floor, he groaned into my mouth, a low, guttural sound that sent shivers down my spine. He tore his bee-stung lips from mine, and for a heartbeat, we just stared at each other, breathing hard. Then he caught my hand and started running, his urgency infectious.
I couldn’t stop the chuckle that burst out of me, wheezy and wild, echoing through the hallway as our footsteps pounded against the floor. He didn’t look back, didn’t slow down—just yanked me after him like he’d finally decided there was no point pretending anymore.
We reached the door, both fumbling for the handle, both laughing now, his mouth finding mine again in a desperate, clumsy kiss before he even managed to get the key in. When thelock finally gave, he pushed the door open and guided me inside, slamming it shut behind us.
I hit the wall with a soft thud, his body pressing against mine, his lips already tracing a scorching path down my cheek. His grip reached for my hijab, tugging impatiently until the fabric ripped free, the pin clattering to the floor.
“That was my favorite hijab, you ass,” I whispered, voice half-laugh, half-moan.
His lips trailed across my jaw and down my neck. His fingers threaded into my hair, undoing the bun until the long waves spilled through his hands. “I’ll buy you another one.”
“Two,” I said, pouting.
He lifted his head, eyes dark and shining. “Fine.”
“Really? Hijabs are very expensive.”
He leaned in, capturing my pout with a fierce, passionate kiss. The corner of his mouth curled against mine. “Yes,” he replied, amused, “because how am I supposed to resist this?”
He sank to a crouch at my feet, and the sight alone knocked the air right out of me. His fingers claimed the strap of my heel, brushing the inside of my ankle, dragging over the slope of my foot, the curve of my arch, the hollow beneath my ankle. Each touch was a lit match, setting a flame low in my belly that threatened to consume me.
