**Winner 2024 Amby Awards**
Fiza has everything planned-medical school, a respectable future, and an engagement she never wanted. Determined to escape a loveless match, she creates a checklist to find the perfect husband her father will approve of.
...
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His fingers laced tightly with mine as we stepped into the quiet of his house. Then I saw his parents. His father's keen eyes dropped to our joined hands, and lingered there for a second before exchanging a look with Alan's mother. My cheeks flushed.
Alan's mother approached, her face soft with concern as she took in her son's strained expression. "Alan, is everything okay, mone?"
"Yeah!" he replied, his voice pitched a little too high. He cleared his throat, trying for nonchalance and missing by a mile. "Fiza and I are going to study for a bit. She might be staying over tonight." The words tumbled out in a rush.
Instinctively, I rubbed his back, feeling the tense muscles under my palm. Then I remembered his parents were watching. I snatched my hand back quickly, my eyes flying to his mother's. She frowned as though questioning me but I gave a tiny, helpless shrug.
He didn't let go of my hand and he led me straight to his room. And then he closed the door. My heart began to hammer against my ribs. This was new. This was different.
He turned, and in one quick motion, he pressed me gently against the closed door, his arms caging me on either side.
I gasped. I was trapped between the solid wood that felt cool against my back, and the heat radiating from his body.
Our lips were just inches apart. I could feel the warmth of his breath, see the dark intensity in his eyes, and it sent jolts of pure electricity straight through me.
"Let me go, Alan," I whispered, but my voice trembledm. My body was already swaying toward his, every inch of me pulsing with a need I barely recognized. My breath came in shaky little pants, and a fine tremor ran through me.
He didn't let go. Instead, he cupped my face, his touch impossibly tender. He pressed himself closer, the hard lines of his body aligning with mine, and his lips brushed against mine. It was the lightest touch, a whisper of a kiss, but it shattered me. A breathy moan escaped my lips before I could stop it, my resistance crumbling to dust.
"I can't," I managed to force out, turning my face away, though every cell in my body screamed in protest.
"Why not?" His voice was a low murmur against my ear now. The sensation of his lips brushing against my ear was torture.
The room, the world, the rules—everything else blurred into a meaningless haze. There was only him, his heat, his touch, and the overwhelming, terrifying allure of giving in completely.
"I'll do whatever it takes to be worthy of you, Fiza." His hands slid from my face, down the sensitive column of my neck. They moved along the length of my arms in a slow deliberate caress before settling on my waist, his thumbs pressing into the slight dip there.
He pressed himself against me harder. I felt his manhood pulse against my abdomen that sent a corresponding, aching throb straight to my core. My own hands moved of their own volition, sliding up the hard planes of his sides, over the muscles of his back, and into the soft hair at the nape of his neck. I gently tangled my fingers in it.
