THE TRUE KING OF DAHAAR(71)

                He looked at her then, and the anger that had pushed him to use her like this, receded. He bent and took her mouth; only desire and his cold will was left now. She returned the kiss with equal fervor, with a desperation that tugged at his heart. But the kiss could not reach it.

                He was so hard and deep inside her, her pleasure, her body, her mind, and even her strong will, they were all his in the moment as he wanted, she was his the way he wanted. Absolutely, where they only existed together. He could have happily died in that moment.

                Reaching under her sensuous body, he filled his hands with her breasts and tweaked her nipples.

                She immediately arched into him, losing all thought of that guttural request she had made. And he pulled out and thrust back.

                The sound of that low moan she made in the back of her throat, the drag of his hips against hers, the shuddering in her long legs as he set an unrelenting rhythm, he let himself drown in all the sensations she created for him. She was perfect for him in every way, as he had always assumed, and he took her, slowly, deliciously, until the walls of her sex clamped him tight.

                With every slow thrust, he plundered deeper inside her wet heat, for every coil of pleasure he took, he released the anger, the hurt inside him.

                He searched inside for the last ounce of his control, kissed her spine and breathed the words into her. “I would have found a way, Nikhat, I would have protected you.”

                She gasped, but he didn’t let her recover from his assault.

                He found the center of her swollen heat and tweaked it between his fingers. Her climax broke out of her, and he rode on its waves. Her sex clenched him hard, the contractions of her muscles pushing him into his own release.

                His orgasm reverberated through him, shattering him and rebuilding him at the same time. Still inside her, he clutched her to him for another weak, wavering moment, breathed in her scent, tasted her skin, reveled in the cocoon of her body.

                She cared about him, he knew that. And she was back here; she had helped him see through the darkness into light. But the truth she had hidden, the sacrifice she had made, it unmanned him.

                She was everything he had always thought she was, and by the same token, she had set herself out of his reach.

                His first instinct was to bind her to him, to shackle her with his power until there was nowhere she could go, to leave her with no avenue except him.

                And he fought black the cloud of his selfish desires, the thundering darkness of his heart, welcomed the chill that pervaded him as he finally made his decision.

                To shackle her to him again when it was the very thing she had walked away from with complete certainty, it would break her. And he didn’t want her like that.

                He would agree to Ayaan’s demands, do everything his brother had asked of him and he would do it the way it needed to be done.

                His passionate nature rebelled at the thought of giving her up. His heart had never been denied, he had never learned control.

                And to deny his heart what it wanted while doing his duty, that was to be his penance.

                He picked up Nikhat and took her to the bathtub again. He turned on the water and washed her with the jasmine soap that she loved. He wiped her, wrapped her in a robe and carried her back to the bed.

                And then he saw the tears in her beautiful brown eyes. She clasped his wrist and pressed her warm mouth to it as he pulled the covers over her.