Chapter 34
Shehryar
I felt more composed than I had since arriving in Touma by the time everyone left and dispersed back to their rooms for a good night’s rest before the bustle of the wedding tomorrow. I had my case to Mariyah drawn up and all my thoughts were for once aligned.
As I quickly changed and washed up in my bedroom, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would’ve felt like this the whole time if I’d just stopped fighting my attraction to her. But twenty-two-year-old me had been too thick-headed to try.
I was still stubborn to a fault, but maybe the way my world had tipped on its axis in the last year had given me a bit more perspective. In the grand scheme of things, it felt a lot easier to accept that I wanted to try something exclusive with Mariyah. The prospects of that option felt far better than the idea of going back to the way we were and watching her be with another man again.
I rolled my bent hairpins in one hand as I switched the light off in my room and left. They weren’t a last resort thing. Neither did I plan to knock. If her door was locked, I was using them to pick it.
Unsurprisingly, when I pressed on the handle, I found her bedroom door to be just that. Aligning the two pins into the keyhole, I jiggled the straight one back and forth, but—
It wouldn’t turn. Fucking Neves, what had she jammed under the lock?
I jerked the door handle in annoyance and slammed my fist in a demanding knock. “Mariyah.”
“Stop fucking with my door, Shehryar,” Mariyah’s muffled yell came from the other side.
“Open the door.”
“No. Knock like a normal person.”
I tucked the pins into my hoodie pocket. “Nothing about us is normal.”
There was a long pause. “I never said anything about us .”
“I want to talk about us.” She was quiet again, so I tried my luck. “Let me in, Mariyah.”
I waited. And waited. Just when I thought I’d have to convince her further, the door opened.
Mariyah stood makeup-free in a fitted T-shirt and leggings with a pout that made her appear somewhere between annoyed and uncertain, causing my heart to squeeze.
“You have five minutes,” she grumbled and stepped back, letting me in.
She closed the door behind me, and then we faced each other. She cocked her hip and crossed her arms, everything about her demeanour saying, go on then .
“I should start with an apology,” I said. “But I’m going to start by saying I want you to be mine.”
Her gaze narrowed immediately. “I don’t belong to any man, Shehryar.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.” I took a step towards her. “I want to give us a chance. I want us to stop pretending we don’t like each other or don’t want more.”
“You’re assuming a lot there.”
I moved another step closer, shaking my head. “I don’t think I am.”
Colour rose through her cheeks as she dropped her fists to her sides. She wasn’t angry, I was sure of that. She was being defensive, questioning my motive, demanding reasons to believe me.
“Not long ago, you were singing a very different tune,” she accused. “You couldn’t have emphasised more that you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“And I said to you—one day, let alone a whole week, is long enough for someone’s opinion to change. Though you’re wrong anyway.”
“Was that not what you pretty much said to me?”
“I did.” I stopped in front of her. “But I wasn’t being completely honest. Nor was I five years ago.”
She stilled, then eased a step back. “What do you mean?”
“That night, by the river, I wanted to kiss you. But kissing you meant accepting a lot of things I didn’t want to accept.” I paused, and her eyes darted between mine, searching for more. “You wanted to know why I said what I did…I said it because you were Esmeralda’s only friend, and the idea of ruining your friendship when she was already going through so much made me feel guilty. But I also did it because, despite finding you beautiful, I thought you stood for everything I didn’t like.
“You were this rich, carefree girl with no filter and an attitude bigger than the moon, so I labelled you as spoiled, conceited, and childish. You irritated me, and I wanted little to do with you, but when you and Esmeralda were together, I kept finding myself drawn to you and hating that I was.”
Her brows knotted, but she carried on listening quietly. “I knew you felt the same way, and for some reason, that made it worse. So, when you leaned in, waiting for me to kiss you, I wanted to do it, but that made me panic. I said the harshest thing I could think of to ensure it wouldn’t happen. Because I had convinced myself we were wrong for each other, and for Esmeralda’s sake, I wanted to avoid making things messy and uncomfortable for her.”
There was one, two, three seconds of silence, and—
“That is the shittiest fucking reason ever,” Mariyah snapped, her eyes igniting in flames. “Like, I get that you did it for Esmeralda, that makes sense, but you hated the fact you liked me because I reminded you of your dad? Are you fucking serious?”
It was the wrong response, but the corners of my mouth lifted. “No, you didn’t remind me of my dad. I doubt I would have found you attractive if you did.” I nodded to the side. “You did, however, remind me of the money he came from.”
“I am not from a family of billionaires!”
“No, but you still seemed spoiled and bratty to me.”
She opened and closed her mouth, making incoherent noises of frustration. “So, you’re blaming me for what you did?”
“No. I’m explaining to you what I saw. But I was wrong…mostly.” She narrowed her eyes, and I felt my lips twitch again. Had she always looked so cute when she glared? How had I missed it for so long? “You were a cocky, bratty menace around me, Mariyah. All the time.” I eased half a step closer. “But you were never spoiled. And deep down, I know I saw glimmers of the truth, but I was stubborn and angry, and it was easier to purposely misjudge you according to all the things I’d assumed badly about you than it was to face the fact that I was a judgemental dickhead.”
Her gaze flicked up and down in a slow, thoughtful perusal, then she stepped back and fortified her shoulders. “None of that really explains why you thought it was necessary to be so fucking rude about it. Even judgemental dickheads add, ‘ no offense, but’ in front of the shitty things they say.”
“I…” I shifted on my feet, rethinking my next words. “I was lashing out for the conflicted way you made me feel.” Mariyah’s expression hardened. I swallowed slowly. “And I wasn’t convinced letting you down easily would have worked. Because those feelings still would have been there if I’d said Esmeralda was the reason we couldn’t try anything. The temptation of you would have lingered and it would have felt too much like a real possibility to ignore.”
I moved towards her again. “Making you hate me was the only way to ensure that possibility died, so I made a split-second decision that night to do just that.”
I tentatively caressed my fingers against her cheek, and her brows twisted together. “No,” she bit out, shoving at my chest. I stumbled back on one foot, and she spun away.
“Mariyah,” I said as she paced back and forth in short lines. “Let me—”
“No, Shehryar.” She halted abruptly and threw a hand towards the door. “Did you even ask Esmeralda what she would’ve thought of us before deciding that we couldn’t happen?” She turned that same hand and jabbed a finger into her chest. “Did you fucking ask me what the plan was if we didn’t work? No, you didn’t. You just decided for yourself that neither of us could be adults about it and actually fucking talk before getting involved.”
“I know,” I muttered, walking slowly towards her.
“And you had no fucking right to lash out at me for the feelings you felt. It wasn’t my fault you couldn’t figure out what you wanted.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying ‘ I know.’ And stop moving closer!”
I stopped, but I latched onto her elbow and pulled her the rest of the way to me. She was ready with her palms against my chest to push again, so I cupped her face in my hands, keeping her close.
“Sher—”
“I’m sorry, Mariyah,” I said, my voice deep with sincerity. “You’re right. The way I took my feelings out on you was a shit thing to do. I should never have insulted you like that, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I should have handled it better. I should have been mature about it, but I wasn’t. And I can’t take it back but know that I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry.”
Some of the anger from her brows lifted. “You should be,” she grumbled.
“I am.” I dropped my head, giving her plenty of time to pull away. She didn’t, and I aligned my mouth over hers, pressing soft, slow pecks to her lips. “I’m sorry, little menace.”
After the fourth one, she let out a weighted exhale and kissed me back. “For what it’s worth.” Kiss . “So am I.” Kiss . “For what I said.” She eased back and her throat bobbed. “About your dad. I lashed out too, and I’m sorry.”
At the time, when she said I had a “ poor boy abandoned by his dad” complex, it fucking stung because I saw the truth in it. That was how I felt, and having her call me out on it rankled beyond words. I couldn’t say I’d grown out of it completely, but it was a journey. A slow one.
I brushed my nose across hers. “It’s okay. I deserved it. But I won’t lie and say I didn’t use what you said to further justify my dislike for you and everything else I thought of you.”
She scoffed. “Yeah, well, me too. You called me a spoiled brat, so I decided to act like one.”
“And that’s how five years of torture started,” I said with a playful growl.
“Eh, excuse me?” She pulled back. “You were an equal participant in all of this.”
I curled one hand around her nape and dragged her back closer. “You always started it. Giving me sarcastic smiles and snarky comments or throwing insults. I had no choice but to defend myself.”
She gave me one of her signature sarcastic grins, which were rapidly growing on me. “Your presence irritated me, so I had to defend my sensibility against it.” She quirked a brow. “And what do you mean I always started it? Every time there was another man around me, you were spitting fire.”
“That was equal parts jealousy and irritation at the fact I was jealous,” I admitted. “But you had a way of rubbing it in my face, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, because you acted all fucking smug like my relationships were a joke.”
I smirked. “The two guys you dated were a fucking joke, and your dates weren’t any better.”
“And you were? Or are?”
“Aren’t I?”
“Hard to say when you’ve been a fucking ass for five years.”
“You were no less of an ass, little menace,” I growled. “You drove me fucking mad day and night. I spent half the time wanting to wring your neck, and the other half wishing I could fuck the brattiness out of you.” I angled my mouth over hers. “You have no idea how often I had to recite all the reasons I couldn’t act on either feeling, only to then imagine our conversations after I’d fucked you sore.”
A slow, gorgeous grin blossomed on her lips, and I felt the strongest urge to trace it. “You imagined talking to me?” She shrugged. “I imagined all the ways I could kill you.”
I grunted out a laugh. “Bullshit, little menace. You thought about all the ways I could make you come while you fucked yourself with your fingers and toys.”
Her cheek heated under my palm. “You wish.”
“Oh, I know,” I purred and moulded my lips to hers.
Mariyah sighed as the weight of my kiss forced her head further back against my hand on her nape, but I stuck to a slow pace, tasting her mouth in deep, languid strokes and thorough tugs on her lips. She quite happily kept to my pace, but at some point, she teased my tongue into her own slow dance until I was panting and clutching on to her for more.
But when it started getting out of hand, we both pulled back as if coming to some silent agreement that the conversation wasn’t yet over. Though I didn’t plan for anything more than kissing tonight. Sex wasn’t all I wanted, and if we were turning a new leaf, I didn’t want it to start with sex either.
“So,” Mariyah breathed out, her eyes glazed, and cheeks flushed. “What now? Because let’s be real, Sheri; I don’t forgive and forget that easily.”
I smiled a lopsided curve, tracing my thumb across her swollen bottom lip. “You can say that again once I actually begin earning your forgiveness.”
Her eyes narrowed at the challenge in my voice. “And then? We act like the last five years didn’t happen? Because no thank you.”
“Never,” I said, tugging at a strand of her blonde hair and earning myself an open-mouthed glare. “I would rather we kept arguing every so often. I enjoy punishing you for it.”
She tried to tame the tilt of her lips as she angled her chin higher. “I also don’t do long-distance.”
There was that. We lived in different states, and I travelled a lot because of my work with Esmeralda, which we’d return to after leaving Touma. Mariyah and I weren’t close to being in a serious relationship where we could consider the idea of one of us moving. We were only just separating ourselves from our dislike. But I’d had a feeling she would bring it up, so I had prepared an answer.
“We can take things slow, but I’m not backing away just because there’s an ocean between us.” I gave her nape a possessive squeeze. “We’re dating now. Or we’re exclusive. Whatever you want to call it.”
She was smiling and glaring all at once. “Why do you have an answer for everything?”
“I had all day to think about it.” I smirked. “And I know you. I knew what you’d complain about.”
“Then you should’ve fixed your attitude too, because it’s shit.”
“Deal with it,” I said against her lips. “Because you’re not getting me any other way.” I kissed her.
I didn’t want her any other way either. I wanted the whole menacing, sassy Mariyah package.
She pulled back first, sucking in a heavy breath. “I have a condition.” She lifted her index finger between us. “No mentions of love for the first three months.”
I plastered on a wolfish grin. “Scared you’re going to fall in love with me too quickly?”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes, but a faint pink washed across her cheeks. “I have too much self-respect to do that.”
“We’ll see about that.” I captured her mouth again, silencing whatever snarky comment of disagreement that had been about to come out.
Halfway through kissing her, I remembered something I was still pissed about.
“Oh,” I breathed against her swollen lips, then pulled back just enough to look her right in the eyes so she could see the possessive fury tumbling through mine. “If you ever dance on Candy’s lap again, you’re going to be in so much fucking trouble, Mariyah. Is that clear?”
Realisation sparked over her dazed expression before triumphant amusement lifted her brows and lips. “You saw that?” She cocked her chin. “Not my fault he’s got the perfect lap to dance on.”
Something clicked into place inside me.
Not jealousy—that threw a raging fit through my blood. But understanding.
Understanding that this was what it was going to be like between us. Mariyah pushing my buttons, me losing my head. Me riling her, and her getting all snarky on me. All for the enjoyment of tugging and grappling and bantering together. Only together.
But it would be during dates, late-night phone calls, and weekends spent with each other. It would be while we learnt what we were together and what we could be when we stopped arguing…scrap that. The arguing was unlikely to stop, but there would be no purposely hurting each other anymore.
Hurting for pleasure and punishment though? An entirely different story.
“Perfect lap?” I echoed with a growl, lowering one hand from her cheek. “Really?”
I lifted it over her backside and— slap .
Mariyah gritted out a choked sound as my palm connected with her leggings-clad arse.
“Now, remind me again who had the perfect lap.”