“It’s okay,” she said.
She didn’t sayI love you, but she didn’t need to. He heard it. And, hearing it, he broke open.
It began as a faint crack in the dam that held back the deep black. His hands thrust out to cup either side of her face, his fingers wrapping around her skull while his thumbs tilted her chin up. His internal structure began to give way as the crack raced across its surface, branching out at rapid speed, freeing the rage of waters held back too long.
Their lips met. Hers were soft and pliant and open, not only willing to absorb the weight and wrongness of his sin, but asking for it, begging him to bury it deep inside her, where she could turn it into something better—something good.
He pulled her into his lap with the force of a wave off the sea. Like so much flotsam, she tumbled into him, ever willing to be swept up in the fierce power of his embrace, open to him whenever he had need. And wasn’t that the problem? She was a drug, offered freely, over and over, her only price the abandonment of his honor.
He wanted to push her away.
Instead, he absorbed her.
He demanded her entire focus with his lips, controlled her body, gripping her thighs on either side of him with no intention of allowing her to move, decimating her shields with his will to own and command her entire being.
The car pulled into the palace at some point. He lifted her out, unwilling to break their kiss, and somewhere along his route, carrying her to the Queen’s Wing with her legs locked around his waist, the hot core of her scalding even through the fabrics that separated them, he waved off her guards and shooed away the staff.
But he made sure she wasn’t aware of any of that. As far as she was concerned, the only thing that existed was him and the sensations he aroused. He would have it no other way. Here, he would be the master and commander. She would experience the feeling of being completely unmoored, completely at the mercy of another human being, her very behavior tethered to whims of another.
He pressed her against the wall in her bedroom, the rigid steel length of him teetering between threat and promise as she leaned into him with force to match his. And then it wasn’t enough to press, to be separated by barriers, even those as insubstantial as clothing.
Her carried her to the bed, where he placed her gently on her back before placing his hands on her hips and turning her around until she faced away from him, on her hands and knees. Impatient to have the glorious curves of her at his full disposal, he unzipped her suit and pushed it off her shoulders from behind.
Breathing heavily, she pulled the top half off before he took over, pulling the suit over her hips before lifting her to remove it the rest of the way. Her thong winked at him from between the round globes of her derrière, flimsy and audacious at the same time, like something a French harlot might wear in a bygone era. The image aroused him and gave even greater form to the beast inside him, lending it claws with which to break its way out.
And then he was scraping his teeth along the same trail his caressing palms had taken, tasting her from behind while she cried out his name, the sound an entreaty and a plea at the same time. He happily obliged until she trembled, her body shaking as it dove into bliss.
It wasn’t enough to taste her anymore. He needed to possess her. To break her into a thousand pieces and make each and every one of them irrefutably his.
Pulling away from her, he realized he was still fully clothed, but rather than delay to remedy the fact he simply unbuckled his belt and slipped himself free of his trousers. He was straining and hard and ready.
He made quick work of positioning himself behind her before sliding in, thick and heavy meeting wet and tight, against the backdrop of her helpless moans.
He managed to make three long, slow strokes before the beast demanded more. More speed. More pressure. More intensity.
The fire burning inside him was stoked to an explosive level as Mina’s cries echoed in the rounded architecture of her bedroom. His hips became pistons, moving in and out of her, helpless to do anything but return over and over again.
Her body was slick with sweat and he sensed her peaking. But he wouldn’t allow her release until she felt like him: weak-willed, insatiable, and selfish. Hammering deep inside her, their bodies in a single rhythm, he refused to take them both over the edge until he knew he wasn’t alone and never would be—not in this.
And when she gasped, crying, “Please, Zayn!” and her inner muscles desperately clenched around him, he knew it was true and they detonated.
Hours later, well past midnight, she lay deeply asleep, un-haunted by the ghosts of her father and the wreckage of the evening. He envied her. He was not faring so well on that front, and lying in her bed, listening to the quiet sounds and murmurs of her sleep, wasn’t going to make it any better.
What he really needed was a drink. A drink would be the answer to the gnawing craving inside him that seemed to return the instant it was satisfied. He refused to let it be anything else. It was absolutely not the woman who stole his breath, and his attention, and his focus by her simple existence.
Sliding out of her bed, he ignored the tight squeeze the motion brought to his chest. There was no point lying beside her, drawing her into his arms, trusting they would sort everything out in the morning. That was foolish and, worse, neglectful.
He had a job to do.
And he would do it with a drink.
He would call for one as soon as he was out of her rooms. It would be waiting for him on his desk—sharp, no ice, and doubtless strong, just the way he liked it—when he got to his office.
“Where are you going?”
He spun around. She lay on her side, sheets drawn up to cover her breasts. Her head was on the pillow and her stare was wide open.
The image of her like that—relaxed, trusting—clawed at his throat like a choking bramble.