I’d just saidI hate you. He’d just saidI love you. My mind was still a semi-mushy pile of desire, but the other half was very much aware that Khalifa’s mouth—his smug, infuriatingly calm,only-capable-of-dry-wit-and-sarcasm but stilldeliciouslywarm mouth—was on mine.
And before I could overthink it, I was kissing him back. Probably too fast, too eager, too terrible at it, and with a sound that could only be described asembarrassinglyappreciative, but I didn’t care. Our noses bumped, our teeth did too, and we both sort of laughed into it before the laughter dissolved into something reckless and urgent. My hands fumbled up to his hair, his hands slid down to my waist, gripping me so tightly like he was afraid I’d pull away, which was ridiculous, because pulling away was the last thing on my mind.
The kiss deepened, slow and sure this time, like he wanted to rewrite the first one—to show me what it could feel like when it wasn’t born out of frustration, but out of choice.
When he finally drew back, just enough for our foreheads to touch, his lips captured mine one last time. “You taste like artificial strawberries.”
I blinked at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and amusement. “It’s my lip balm,” I said breathlessly. “I’d offer you some, but—” I tilted my chin, smirking. “Looks like mine transferred just fine.”
I swiped at the corner of his now shimmery mouth, and he laughed, all warm and throaty, making my stomach hiccup. Before I could retreat, he bit the tip of my finger lightly, teasing.
“Sorry, I forgot you have a sugar problem.”
His grin curved. “You’re the only sweet thing I’ll happily be addicted to.”
I groaned. “That’sdisgustinglycorny, Professor.”
“I know,” he said, and the humor in his tone gave way to something heavier, almost fragile. “Do you really love me, Lillian?”
I nodded, a little dazed, a little dizzy, my heart trying to beat its way out of my chest.
“Say it again,” he pleaded.
“I love you, Khalifa.”
He exhaled slowly, the tension melting out of him. His thumb brushed my slightly swollen bottom lip, and then he leaned close again, his breath a shiver against my skin.
“I’ll be so good to you, Lillian,” he whispered. “I swear I’ll love you better than anyone else ever could.”
You already dorested right on the tip of my tongue, intimate and traitorous and dangerously sincere. But I didn’t release the words, mostly because at that exact moment his other hand had wandered from my waist to the seam of my jeans, popping the button open with an effortless flick.
We never did make it to that indoor picnic.
Chapter Thirty-Six
SINCE I NEVER GOT Ahoneymoon, we decided to take one now. I took three weeks off from delivering babies, Khalifa took three weeks off from yapping about historical conquests that only a herd of blushing, undergrad girls cared about, and together, we went absolutely nowhere.
We skipped the beaches, the passports, the awkwardly posed photos in front of fountains we didn’t care about. Instead, our slightly-too-small, perpetually sun-drenched, questionably clean apartment became its own kind of paradise for two emotionally unstable, not-so-newlyweds having one never-ending sleepover.
It wasn’t glamorous. There weren’t any matching robes or breakfast trays with roses. There was limited clothing worn, takeout eaten in bed, mismatched mugs of coffee gone cold, and a pile of laundry begging for attention while we pretended not to see it. But there were also lazy mornings tangled in sheets while he catalogued every inch of me with sultry eyes, gentle hands, and slow kisses, afternoons spent talking until our throats were sore, and a bubble of tender silence that only existed between two people who couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other long enough to remember basic human survival needs. It was messy and imperfect and completelyours.
I felt possessed. I was physically incapable of being away from him for more than a few minutes without going into some sort of Khalifa-shaped withdrawal. My parents were never touchy-feely; their arranged marriage had stayed firmly in the“arranged” column, all polite silences and efficiency conducted from opposite ends of a sofa. I didn’t realize it could feel this good, that being inlovecould feel this good. My whole body felt completely rewired with butterflies, like it had finally caught up to what my heart had been yelling about for months, and now that it had a taste, it refused to shut up. It was borderline absurd. I’d gone thirty-plus years perfectly content with my organs minding their own business, and suddenly my nervous system had turned into a lovesick teenager with a caffeine problem.
It was all Khalifa’s fault.Obviously. We already knew I had poor impulse control and a “do first, apologize to my future self later” attitude. He was supposed to be the responsible one—the calm, collected professor with discipline made of steel. But apparently even steel melted under the right conditions, and judging by the way he’d been attached to me for the past three weeks, Khalifa Nasser was a full-blown puddle.
“This was the best vacation I’ve ever had,” he said on our last day.
“That’s...honestly kind of sad,” I told him, perched on his lap while I smoothed a cold, slippery sheet mask over his face.
He chuckled softly. “Maybe. But it’s true.”
We were tangled together on the couch, abandoned takeout containers crowding the table, his hands playing with the strings of my silk cami shorts, tugging and teasing. Every so often, he skimmed the hem, slipping a fingertip into the gap. I tried to keep the mask from shifting, failing spectacularly at maintaining a straight face at howserioushe looked beneath the cartoonishly glowing skincare.
“You’re so pretty,” I murmured before I could help myself.
He snorted under the mask. “Pretty?”
“Sorry,” I said, fighting a grin. “I meant...handsomelypretty. Very masculine. Extremely rugged. Like a lumberjack who moisturizes.”
