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.
“Sleep, habeebi,” he whispered, and walked out of her suite without looking back.
His heart, finally, felt like a hard rock inside his chest. Something he had been struggling to achieve for six long years.
CHAPTER TWELVE
NIKHAT JERKED AWAKE from a fitful sleep and struggled to find her bearings. Her eyes were gritty. Sweat beaded her brow and her sheets were tangled around her hips. Unease weighed in her stomach and she turned to check the time. The little digital alarm clock said 5:00 a.m. Pushing the sheets away, she stepped down from the bed, lethargy making her slow.
Her body ached between her legs. Her abdomen was stiff, as if she had done a hundred push-ups, her arms hurt, too.
But it was more an exquisite soreness than any real pain and worth every bit.
For several seconds, she stood there, her vision dizzying, everything Azeez had said slamming back into her like pieces of a puzzle. The picture that emerged knocked the breath out of her.
I deserved the truth, Nikhat.
How did he know?
Her heart stuttered, struggling to keep up with her emotions. She changed into a caftan and leggings and grabbed a shawl to wrap around her torso.
The palace corridors were empty, eerie, and she couldn’t shake off the impression that she was going to her doom.
No, she wasn’t going to think like that. She shoved aside the anxiety and hugged the relief that danced under that. Somehow, Azeez had learned the truth now. He was entitled to his anger.
But when his initial shock receded, he would surely understand why she had made the decision to leave him all those years ago. He had to. She wouldn’t think about it any other way, she couldn’t bear to.
Halting outside his suite’s door, she sucked in a deep breath and clutched the edges of the shawl tight.
Everything inside her felt as if it hung in the balance, every minute of her life, every decision she had made falling away like sand sinking away under one’s toes.
She pushed the door and struggled against the dazzling glare of light.
Approximately twenty men were inside the room, talking in small groups, some at laptops, some taking notes from Ayaan, she realized.
Had she been so lost in her own fears that she hadn’t even heard a single voice?
Her heart pounded so loudly that for a few minutes all she could hear was the thundering beat of it in her ears. She felt her face heat as a sound escaped her mouth. One by one, the faces turned, the hushed whispers died down, shock and astonishment and even disapproval at her presence marring the strange faces.
For a dizzying second, Nikhat thought she would collapse under the weight of her own anxiety. Run, move, hide.
Her brain was issuing the standard flight responses, triggering fear in her, because she was standing outside the prince’s wing, a wing that was forbidden to women, at the crack of dawn, her hair flowing behind her, clad in nothing but an old caftan and leggings, her eyes red-rimmed with the tears she had shed, her mouth and neck still bearing the evidence of his kisses.
And behind all of them, sitting in a gold-edged armchair covered in red velvet, his dark gaze calmly observing her, without anger, without any expression, really, was Azeez.