Page 18 of Don't Date Your Nemesis

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t say whatever you’re about to say.”

“Why not?”

“Because we hate each other.”

“Do we?”

Her eyes dropped to my mouth. “Yes.”

“You’re a terrible liar, Sharma.”

“You’re a terrible person, Fish Boy.”

“Probably I am.”

I was terrible because I was having inappropriate thoughts about my nemesis. About her. Which involved little to no clothes and her pretty face flushed with sweat and blush.

The elevator doors tried to close when we didn’t step off. I held them open, my other hand braced against the wall behind her, not touching but close enough to feel the heat radiating off her skin.

“We’re drunk,” she said, but she didn’t step back.

“Very.”

“This is a bad idea,” she said.

“The worst,” I agreed.

Her hand came up, fingers ghosting over my collar, not quite touching but close enough to make my breath catch.

“Two beds?” she asked.

“Two beds,” I nodded.

Neither of us moved.

The elevator alarm started beeping, angry that we were holding it.

Deepika’s eyes met mine, dark and endless and full of want.

“We should—” I started.

She kissed me.

Or I kissed her.

I wasn’t sure who moved first, just that suddenly her mouth was on mine and my hands were in her hair and seventeen years of hatred combusted into something else entirely.

6

YOU’RE A NIGHTMARE

DEEPIKA

The elevator was too small, too bright, and the air between us crackled like a live wire. He smelled delicious, a devastating mix of spicy cologne that smelled like cedarwood and the sharp, sweet taste of the champagne he’d been knocking back all night.

My head was spinning from the way his storm-gray eyes darkened as the elevator climbed, the numbers blinking too slowly, teasing us with every floor.

I didn’t think. I couldn’t. The space between us shrank until there was nothing left but the sound of his ragged breath and the way my body betrayed me, leaning into his heat like a moth to a flame.