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Can’t focus when the cab smells like his clean, manly skin.
Can’t do anything except breathe shaky breaths, and squirm against my leather seat, and fight to ignore the tickle between my legs.
Just. Friends.
“Surrender,” Darius growls, the hot flick of his tongue making my eyes cross. “Admit defeat, Lucy. Say you’ll let me keep paying. Give in to me.”
And he’s half-teasing, half-serious, but I am one hundred percent cooked. My words are strangled when they burst out of me, and I’m lucky I can still string a sentence together, because my thoughts are so muddled. “Fine, you madman! Fine.”
Darius winks in the darkness, pressing one last kiss to my wrist before lowering it to his lap. He doesn’t release my arm, but goes back to drawing soft circles. Yeesh.
How long is this cab ride?
Will I even make it there with my sanity intact?
Or will I have gone mad with confused longing by then? Falling steadily more and more in love with my fake-date friend.
Five
Darius
There is no way Leo planned a single detail about this party. I call bullshit. Because the man I know better than I know myself, the man who has been my rock since freshman year of college, does notdecorate.No way.
And yet his skyscraper rooftop glitters with string lights, and a white gazebo covers the band on their small stage. As we step out onto the roof, my hand resting on Lucy’s back, I count three pop-up cocktail bars and at least a dozen servers weaving through the crowd with trays of canapes.
“Nice work, Hazel.” I wink at the boss’s assistant where she stands by his side, greeting the guests as they arrive. And Hazel beams at me, but both Leo and Lucy stiffen at our exchange.
What? Why? What did I say?
Hazelhasdone a great job—and we all know this party was one hundred percent her. She’s Leo’s best employee, his right-hand woman. His blonde, perky General with a bright smile. Without her, he’d be even more grouchy and impossible, and that is saying something.
“Yes, thank you so much for tonight,” Lucy says, stepping carefully away from my touch. Squeezing my hand into a fist, I keep my smile fixed in place. “And thank you, of course, Mr Corbin. It’s so kind of you to throw us this party.”
Leo grunts.
And he’s never going to win the Mr Congeniality award, but Leo is grumpier than usual when he fixes me with a scowl, ignoring Lucy completely. “So much for keeping your distance, Amin.”
My pulse races, even as I shrug at my oldest friend, cool as a cucumber. “It’s just one night. No harm done.”
“What are you talking about?” Hazel pipes up, and Lucy’s frowning between us too. She shuffles another inch away from me, suspicion turning down her mouth, and Christ, I want to yank her back.
Want to bury my face in her throat and inhale.
Want to press her perfect, soft body against my front.
Want to twirl her around the dance floor and feed her chocolate-dipped strawberries and lick droplets of champagne off her wrist. Is that so wrong?
Not fit for love.
Not fit for love.
Right.
“Nothing.” Leo glances down at his ball-of-sunshine assistant, and his scowl softens the tiniest amount. Ha! Such a hypocrite. “Would you like a drink?”
“Oh, of course!” Hazel tucks a clipboard under her arm and plucks his empty glass, oblivious to his unhappy frown. Guess I’m not the only would-be provider. “I’ll fetch us some now. You stay here and greet everyone, and remember to smile!”
As her blonde ponytail whips away in the crowd, Leo sighs and turns to me. “Not a word.”
