Chapter 24
Mariyah
B eing carried princess-style by Shehryar was a weird experience.
I argued and grumbled against the idea as much as I could in my multiple-orgasm-induced state of exhaustion. But when he rolled me over and landed a vicious smack on my arse, I quickly scooted away from the very real threat of having bruises on my backside for the next couple of days and promised I’d let him carry me and wash me without a fight if he didn’t spank me.
He agreed and I…
Awkward wasn’t the right word to describe the feeling of being in his arms. It was annoying that he picked me up so easily. But it wasn’t. I didn’t like that I was pressed against him, naked. But at the same time, it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was weird having his face so close to mine without any arguing or fucking involved. But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his side profile.
He had stupidly thick lashes, and I’d never noticed before, but the ring of dark green had a wispy, smoky blend to it as it met the rest of his watercolour irises. It was kind of…beautiful.
He sat me on the toilet first and basically demanded that I pee, while he squirted some soap into the bathtub. Then he helped me into the lightly bubbled water and massaged body wash into my shoulders and neck, and down both my arms. He didn’t mock me, berate me, or patronise me, though my defences kept jumping to attention, expecting him to every time he made a subtle movement. Eventually, I found myself relaxing under his touch. I even moaned once or twice.
But then he climbed into the spacious, white bathtub on the opposite side and said, “Move your legs into the middle,” while he stretched his own, keeping them slightly bent at the knees on either side of the tub. The water sloshed against my sternum at his intrusion.
I watched him with my lips curled in disgust and confusion as he ran one damp hand over his thick hair, pushing back the longer locks. He splashed and massaged some water across his chest and shoulders, marred with faint pink scratches that disappeared into the hair and tattoo on his pecs. Then, stretching his arms across the rim of the tub with a lazy arrogance that made my sore lady parts tingle with awareness, he finally looked up.
“Why are you making that face?” he asked.
I kept my eyes locked on his to stop myself from looking at the rivulets of water shaping the indents of muscle on his arms, but I was fighting a losing battle. “Why are you in the bathtub?” I said accusingly with an averted glance to the patterned tattoo banding the very top of his right arm. I gritted my teeth as warmth rocked through me.
Why? Why? Why? Why couldn’t he have just been short and snotty and weird?
I’d always hated how attractive Shehryar was. Built like a warrior, always dressed as a businessman, with the protective instincts of a trained soldier, morals of a ladies’ man, and forever stoic and broodingly mysterious until I got to him. Those things had always rubbed in the wrong way, but now that I knew he talked dirty like a thug and fucked like a pleasure Dom, it was making everything about him stand out in a different way, and it was becoming harder not to notice…him.
Not in any way other than he still irritated me and I didn’t like him…but still.
“To wash off,” he said.
His foot nudged the side of my arse, and I glared down in disgust at the water, then at him. The corner of his mouth lifted so subtly I almost missed it as he tipped his face up to the bright light.
Did he do that on purpose? As like a joke? Him?
I eyed him in the way a cat investigated something new and unfamiliar. “And you couldn’t have washed off in your own room or in the shower?”
There was everything a bathroom could possibly require in the elegant cream and gold ensuite attached to my room. Including a very spacious corner shower made entirely of glass panels.
“I would have had to go to my room and wait for the bath to fill. Whereas this saves both time and water.” His lashes dropped as he dipped one hand under the bubbly surface and let a stream of droplets trickle off his fingers. “This is far more relaxing than a shower too. And I needed it.” There was an undercurrent to the last bit that I couldn’t decipher in the two beats of quiet before he started talking again. “And I haven’t finished taking care of you.” Both his hands went into the water.
I jumped when his fingers touched my ankle and quickly tore my legs back. “What are you doing?”
He scowled tiredly. “Give me your foot.”
“Why?”
“You’ll find out.” He leaned forward, swatting his hands through the water.
When he touched my ankle again, there was nowhere for me to go, and I was forced to stiffen my muscles to stop him from pulling my leg towards him. “Tell me first.”
He gave one hard tug, and I slipped towards him in the tub. Panic exploded through my chest. I flung my hands out, grabbing onto the edges of the ceramic to prevent myself from drowning. Water rocked back and forth between us, splashing up against my neck.
“Shehryar,” I snapped, wriggling my ankle in his grip.
There was a complacent tilt to his small smile as he gestured with his chin towards me. “Lean back and relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I didn’t lean back, and I refused to relax. But under the water, he started kneading the pads on his thumbs around my ankle and up the sides of my calves and holding on to my frustration felt like trying to build a sandcastle with dry sand. Even as he watched me closely as if to guess from my reactions how he was doing, the tension melted off my shoulders like butter.
“Relax,” he said again, working his thumbs down to the heel of my foot. Realising there was no judgement in his voice, I shuffled back against the tub and allowed my body to sink comfortably.
Still, Shehryar was massaging my foot, and it felt weird as fuck. But the more I thought about it, the more satisfied I felt. Having Shehryar Timur, the annoying, condescending dickhead servicing me wasn’t exactly a bad thing.
“How does that feel?” he asked as he rubbed circles into the curve of my sole.
I couldn’t think of any criticism to his technique, so I opted for a quiet, snooty, “Good,” but couldn’t help adding, “So, why exactly are you doing this?”
His eyes remained trained on the water as if he could see through it to what he was doing as he said, “Because aftercare is important to me, and I enjoy it.” I sighed as he pressed against a sweet spot, and his lashes flicked up. “I was rough and crude and pushed you hard, and I want to make sure I give you the comfort you deserve after for letting me be. It doesn’t matter to me if you feel fine as it is, because it’s as much for my sake as it is for yours.”
Can’t argue with that reasoning.
“Hmm,” I hummed, then asked, “Do you do this a lot?”
I didn’t know what possessed me to say it, but I stiffened with regret instantly.
I sounded like I cared if he did. And I didn’t. I fucking didn’t. I didn’t!
But he didn’t pick up on it as he pinched and rubbed each of my toes in turn. The ticklish sensation made me squirm. “If you’re asking if I have a lot of sex, the answer is no,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t always care to find someone or have the time when I’m working. Esmeralda is my main priority. Unless there’s a break in her schedule or I meet a woman wherever we are, I don’t bother.”
I pursed my lips to the side, unable to help wondering what these other women had been like as a green feeling licked across my chest. Were they small and petite? Tall and lithe? Was he rough with them too? Not that I cared, of course. I didn’t. I was just…curious.
“You’re making that face again.”
I blinked and found Shehryar staring at me with curious amusement. Mentally shaking off the stupid direction of my thoughts, I ignored what he said and pulled my foot from his hands. A frown fell upon his brows, but I was already lifting my other leg out of the water.
Soapy bubbles slid off my skin as I wiggled my toes in front of his chin. “Do this one too.”
His eyes narrowed, questioning my impudent demand. I quirked a brow in return. The corners of his mouth spread in an irritated smile, but he clasped my foot in his hands and drew it down into the water. My pride did a smug, empowering dance in victory, in very close proximity to my heart.
“You didn’t answer your own question,” he eventually said, drawing firm lines up my foreleg.
My dancing pride stopped and bristled defensively. “Despite what you think of me, no.”
Shehryar’s fingers stopped around my ankle as confusion fell over his face. “What do you mean ‘ despite what I think of you’ ?”
“Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “Stop acting like you don’t think I’m loose when you’ve accused me of throwing myself at men multiple times.”
“I don’t think you’re loose, Mariyah. And I haven’t accused you of throwing yourself at—”
“Yes, you have. You told me to throw myself at Pierre literally the other day. And you said I had no morals for flirting with Kareem.”
His jaw worked for a second. “I wasn’t implying you were loose either time.” His fingers resumed kneading into my foot. “I didn’t say you had thrown yourself at Pierre, I told you to do it because it irritated me how you two got on, and I was angry already, so I lashed out. But I tried to apologise for that, and you didn’t let me.” I rolled my eyes, but he squeezed my foot, drawing my attention back. “And King Kareem…I shouldn’t have said that, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t mean it in the way you assumed. I wasn’t calling you immoral for flirting. You weren’t fazed by his standing or that he was Esmeralda’s brother, and it irritated me that that was what made it easy for him to like you—”
I scoffed and sat a little straighter. “So, basically, what I’m getting from this is that I was right when I said you don’t like it when people like me. Correct?”
His hands stilled again as his scowl hardened. “You’re a menace to me, Mariyah. When people can’t see that and think you’re this sweet, flirtatious, fun woman, yes, it does irritate me.” I opened my mouth to argue, but he continued. “Can you honestly say that it doesn’t irritate you when people like me?”
I snapped my mouth shut and sneered. For fuck’s sake…
“Exactly.”
Annoyed, I wriggled my foot out of his grasp. “Yeah, well maybe next time, when you’re irritated that someone likes me, try not to make it sound like you think I fuck them all just because I joke around or harmlessly flirt.” I sank back against the tub, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Really?” He leaned forward, narrowing his sarcastic gaze. “Well, why did you lie about going to King Kareem’s bedroom?” Heat smacked me in the face—I’d forgotten about that, but apparently he hadn’t. “And why is it that every time you notice me looking, you lean in closer to Pierre? And the whole act with Candy yesterday?”
“It’s not the same thing,” I bit out. I couldn’t deny it; that would make me look like a fool.
“No, it’s not. It’s worse.” Some sticky, dark heat filled his irises as his tone lowered. “You weren’t trying to irritate me with the fact that they liked you. You were flaunting them in front of me to make me jealous.”
I jerked forward, my skin burning red. “No, I wasn’t. Because I had no idea that your hatred led to some warped fucking claim on me.”
“It’s not a…claim,” he gritted out, though his voice did an odd waver. “But you don’t think that every time you mouthed off, I didn’t want to bend you over and rearrange your fucking insides?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said, trying to ignore the excited flutter my sex gave, and slumped back in annoyance.
We glared at each other in the fuming, huffing silence.
Shehryar let out a long, heavy exhale and dipped his hands back into the water. “Give me your foot.”
“No,” I grumbled, cringing inside at the way I sounded like a petulant child.
He found it under the water anyway, and despite being tempted to, I didn’t pull away and let him continue massaging it. After a while, I let out a sigh too and loosened up. Though I couldn’t help but cling on to something he’d said. It felt like crucial information, and my curiosity got the better of me.
“Since when have you wanted to rearrange my insides?”
His jaw muscles rippled under his trimmed beard. “I don’t know,” he said gruffly.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out what he meant. But nothing about him gave away if he genuinely didn’t know, or if he’d only said it because he didn’t want to tell me.
A weird, tense but not tense quiet fell around us.
“They could never have satisfied you.”
“What?” I said dumbly.
He lifted his lashes, trapping me in his sharp, seeing stare. “King Kareem, Pierre, and Candy. You know as much as I do, they could never satisfy you, that’s why your flirting was always harmless. And in Candy’s case, a ruse to get to me.”
Prickles rushed across my skin as his sure admission sat like a hot weight on my chest. “You don’t know me.” A croak edged into my voice. “So how do you know what would satisfy me?”
“I know you enough, Mariyah.” His eyes tracked down, and though my body was hidden under the foamy water, awareness warmed me all over and my pussy clenched.
I swallowed slowly. “Is sex all you’re talking about? Because you’d still be wrong.”
He paused over his answer. “I’m not, and I’m not wrong either.”
“Well, please.” I threw my hand in a sarcastic flourish. “Tell me how you think you know me better than I know myself.”
His mouth edged up in amusement. “Because you’ve shown me more than you realise.”
Something did a summersault in my chest. I blinked and blinked in confusion.
He set my foot down on the tub floor, braced his hands on the sides, and pushed himself upright.
My mouth went drier than a Jahandari desert as water cascaded down his glorious, golden form, catching on every ridge of muscle, the dark hairs on his body, and his flaccid cock.
I gulped, unable to tear my eyes away from it. Not a peanut even limp.
I forced my gaze up.
The wide smirk on his mouth told me he’d definitely noticed me ogling his dick, and a blush ripped my skin from my cheekbones. I clenched my teeth, waiting for him to say something mocking, but he climbed out of the tub without another word.
I watched him rinse in the shower, wrap a towel around his waist, and then with a stern, “Don’t stay in the bath too long,” he left.