Redemption of Royals (Royal #1: Book 3) | ✔

39

-• into the frenzied night •-

surprise bitchessssss ✨

cw: as it's infamously called by a reader, this is a smut trilogy 💀 so reader discretion advised for the next two chapters including this.

Taranya

I had been unable to ebb off that night from my memories. It happened so naturally, his touch, my reciprocal, our bodies enclosing like they were always ready, only waiting for our minds to catch up. I had never allowed a man so close, and I had a perfect reason why. He'd engrafted his touch into my skin so deep, my body knew no other man's intimacy. Another man's body never evoked the desire, the hunger, and the feral need of a flesh in me. I was never another man's, not even in my blissful pretense of hatred towards my husband, neither in reality.

And that night, I gave in. I gave in because I was tired of pretending his proximity doesn't faze me. I was tired of pretending I was only acting every time I kissed him. I was tired of letting another woman think she'd ever have a chance with my husband. And I was so fucking tired of pretending he's not mine, and that the thought of him being with another woman does not make me want to set the whole damn world of fire. It does, and I'll watch it on the sidelines, warming my hands as the world he's not mine in reduces to a pile of dust and ashes.

I don't know whether I love him or not. I don't know what I feel for him is enough to last a lifetime or not. I don't know if I can keep him happy for the rest of his life or not. I don't know whether I trust him or not. And I don't know a lot of things, but in all of those questions, I'm certain that he's mine, body and soul, from the tip of his toes to the ends of his hair, he's all mine. And I'd not allow him to have the freedom of choosing someone else. Even if I'm helpless to give him all of me, I want all of him. And I want him to wait until I take my world to bits, take his along, and piece them back to perfection, never to break apart ever again.

Him, as Rudra, as Shourya, as anyone he becomes, is mine.

"I'm not dreaming, am I?" A sheen layer of tears curtains his eyes.

I bask in the glory of power this man allows me to have on him. I can ask him to drop to his knees, right now, at this moment, and he'd do it at the drop of a hat, without a question, without any reluctance.

"Do you dream of me that often?" I tilt my head to the side.

He takes a step forward, shuddering, deep breaths and low gasps, his chest rising and sinking, like a stranded ship, in the claws of a restless sea, broken and despaired, lying in its lover's ruin, ruining itself along.

"You've no idea," he whispers, tremor in his tone, his lower lip wobbling. "I've never had dreams. Never. All I had were nightmares. Still do. I didn't know what it feels to dream. Greed? That I do. Fear? Oh, so closely, like blood streaming through my veins." He speaks with every cell of his body, he's him in his words, through his thoughts. "I used to think I've felt everything there was to feel, only for you to come and prove me wrong. When I heard of dreams, I called them empty vessels, noisy, but useless. I believed in reality. But that's until I could no longer have you in reality. That's when dreams took me in, showed me what we can create together, and how happy I could be with you. That's what kept me going, trying, waiting. I had you in my dreams far before I could have you in my reality. I'm a man wronged by the world, but just right by your side. You've given me something nobody else can, not even me. You've given me a world beyond money and power and ambitions and status. You've given me a world where flowers bloom tenderly. Where winds sway not to uproot the trees but to dance with the leaves. Where houses have sheltered roofs and cobbled driveways, not four walls and a metal door. You've given me the world where childhood can grow, quietly, beautifully, kindly into adulthood. You've given me the world so pretty, it's sad that I never got the chance to exist there before."