Chapter 16
Sixteen
OLIVER
The party bus's bass vibrated through the floor, but I barely registered the music. All I could focus on was Zahra's weight in my lap, the softness of her thighs against my hand, her intoxicating scent surrounding me like a gravitational field I had no hope of escaping.
She'd ended up there when the driver took that last turn too sharply. At least, that's what I told myself. A logical explanation. Physics. Momentum. The natural consequence of an object in motion meeting an unexpected change in direction.
But physics couldn't explain why I hadn’t let her return to her seat, or why her fingers were now playing with my collar, tracing the edge with featherlight touches that sent sparks cascading down my spine.
Her eyes darted across the aisle where Ryan watched us, his expression dark despite the party atmosphere. I pulled her closer, nuzzling the soft skin where her neck met her shoulder. She inhaled sharply, the sound cutting through the cacophony of music and drunken laughter.
It was for show , I reminded myself. A performance. Nothing more .
But when her head tilted to give me better access, my rational mind short-circuited. I trailed kisses up the column of her throat, tasting the salt on her skin, breathing in the jasmine notes of her soap. Her pulse hammered beneath my lips, matching the thundering of my own heart.
"Oliver," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the music, yet somehow the only sound in my universe.
Hearing her say my name like that—half plea, half surrender—unraveled something tightly coiled inside me, something I'd kept locked away since the moment I recognized her in that coffee shop.
“Yes, Zahra?” I rumbled into her ear before tracing the shell with the tip of my tongue.
Her barely suppressed whimper wound me up even tighter, and I was thanking my lucky stars when the bus jerked to a stop in front of the hotel.
Zahra slid from my lap, smoothing her dress with trembling hands. I adjusted my glasses, which had gone slightly askew, and tried to regulate my breathing.
Control. I needed control.
But control was becoming increasingly elusive as we filed into the hotel's elevator with the rest of the wedding party. Bodies pressed together in the confined space, forcing Zahra to press her chest against my flank, my hands finding her waist.
We had seven floors to go, the elevator stopping on each one, and we were just one before the last.
Ryan stood behind us, even though he was set to get off before us, and then his floor came and went. Then another. And he was still there, lingering, his sneer caught in the reflection of the elevator doors.
I slid my hand lower, letting it rest on the curve of Zahra’s ass, and looked down at her with a grin that had her breath catching. I bowed my head, licking into her mouth, muffling her escaped moan.
“Jesus, Oliver, some of us are going to sleep alone tonight,” Darryl’s brother, his best man, said from across the elevator, and collective laughter broke out, the entire wedding party jumping in on the teasing.
But I barely heard them, and didn’t care enough to listen.
I was wrapped up in her —the way her pupils dilated, darkening the brightness of her irises, and the way her lips parted, glistening, begging me for more.
My nose slid across Zahra’s cheek, mouth pressing to her ear. "Ryan's still watching."
She nodded, leaning into me. "We should keep up appearances."
In truth, I'd lost track of him two floors ago.
Each floor emptied a few more people, but I maintained my hold, never taking my eyes off her. By the time we reached our floor, only Parisa and Darryl remained, but the pretense had become a convenient fiction we both clung to, a justification for not stepping away, for not breaking contact.
Parisa said something as we exited the elevator, but I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my thundering pulse.
In the hallway, Zahra turned to face me, her expression unreadable in the dim lighting. We'd gotten good at these moments, these performances. A casual touch here, a lingering gaze there—small gestures that made our relationship seem authentic to observers. We knew exactly how to make it look real.
But when her lips found mine this time, something fundamental shifted. Her fingers threaded through my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp. My grip tightened on her waist, pulling her flush against me.
The hallway blurred. I wasn’t walking anymore—I was being dragged under, caught in her orbit, spinning toward impact.
Zahra’s back hit the door. I pinned her there, hips pressing, teeth clanking. God , I was already half-drunk on her, on this.
She yanked at my belt. My hands— fuuuuuck —were everywhere, sliding up her thighs, gripping her waist, tracing every curve I’d spent the past several weeks pretending I didn’t want to memorize.
I fumbled with the keycard, my pulse hammering in my ears. Shit. Dropped it.
I bent to grab it, Zahra’s mouth at my throat, kissing, biting, testing me. And I snapped.
I lifted her off the ground, her thighs locking around me as I shoved the keycard into the slot while her hands worked at the buttons of my shirt with such urgency, one popped off, pinging against the wall.
By the time the door opened and we tumbled in, I was half undressed.
Every touch felt like crossing a line we couldn't uncross. Every gasp sounded like surrender.
This wasn't in the script, but we were too far gone into our roles, too deep into this act that had stopped feeling like acting somewhere between the bus and our door.
A breathless whimper, her body trembling under my hands, and I forgot how to breathe.
“Dammit, Zahra, do you even know what you’re doing to me?”
She exhaled, slow and unsteady, her lashes fluttering. Her lips, already swollen from my kiss, parted like she was about to answer.
But she didn’t.
Instead, her fingers dragged down my stomach and hooked into my waistband, teasing with a barely-there touch— fuck, fuck, fuck . It was deliberate, wild, and it sent my brain into freefall.
I claimed her mouth with a hunger that shook me, backing her toward the bed with purpose.
Tomorrow, we could blame the alcohol, the adrenaline, the need to maintain our cover.
Tonight, I let something deeper take over—something primal and possessive that had been building since the moment I saw Ryan's eyes on her.
My shirt hit the floor, then Zahra's hands worked my pants down my legs, my meticulous control disintegrating under her palms. Everything I'd pushed down, ignored, kept bottled up inside came flooding out all at once.
She’d turned me from a logic-driven man to a man possessed.
I unzipped her dress, letting it pool at her ankles.
The sight of her in black lace—delicate, barely-there, clinging to her curves like a second skin—ignited something feral in me, a hunger so deep it felt like it had been carved into my bones.
My breath came in ragged gasps, my vision narrowing to her and only her.
Zahra, real and solid in my arms, her golden skin flushed with desire, her eyes dark and molten as they met mine. She looked at me like I was something worthy, something she wanted, and it released something dormant inside me.
I didn’t think about stopping. I couldn’t. The rational part of my brain—the part that calculated orbital trajectories and contractual clauses—was gone, drowned in a tidal wave of need. I needed her, needed to taste her, to feel her, to claim her in a way that left no room for doubt.
With a growl that tore from my chest, I grabbed her by the hips, my fingers digging into her soft flesh, and threw her onto the bed.
She landed with a gasp, her hair fanning out across the white sheets, her chest heaving as she looked up at me with wide, wanting eyes.
The sight of her sprawled out, vulnerable and mine, sent a surge of possessive heat through me, my cock throbbing painfully in my boxers.
I dropped to my knees at the edge of the bed, my hands rough as I yanked her thighs apart, the black lace of her panties already soaked through, and I licked my lips.
“Look at that pretty pussy, so wet just for me.” The scent of her arousal hit me like a drug, musky and sweet, and I groaned, my mouth watering with a thirst I’d never experienced before.
I tore the lace aside, too impatient to remove them properly, and buried my face between her thighs, dragging my tongue up her slit, pulling a long, needy moan from her.
“Fuck, Zahra,” I rasped against her, my voice muffled as I licked another long, slow stripe. She was sweet and tangy, her taste coating my tongue, and I groaned again, driven to the edge of reason.
I hooked her knees over my shoulders, hands stretching to cover her perfect tits as I proceeded to eat her out like it was my first meal in decades, my tongue plunging into her, swirling around her clit, sucking hard until her hips bucked against my face.
Her hands fisted in my hair, pulling hard, her nails digging into my scalp as she moaned my name, the sound raw and desperate.
“Oliver… Oh God… Please…” Her thighs trembled around my head, her body arching with a wide-eyed gasp, and I doubled my efforts, my arms pinning her to the bed as I devoured her.
It was like her cum was the only substance in the world that could quench this uncontrollable thirst, the only thing that could sate the primal need clawing at my insides.
I sucked her clit into my mouth, flicking my tongue against it in a relentless rhythm, my fingers plucking at her pebbled nipples.
Her essence coated my chin, my lips, and dripped down my throat.
I wanted more— needed more. More of my name bouncing off the walls of our room in desperate cries, more of her back arching off the bed, her thighs squeezing my head, her fingers clutching my hair like it was her only anchor to this world.