Chapter 8
Mariyah
I avoided Shehryar like he was the Black Death Plague of the fourth century all through our self-guided tour of the Lyle National Art Gallery, even when Esmeralda and Kai walked off together. I sat myself in the seat next to Esmeralda too at lunch in the small, high-end restaurant Kai had booked out entirely, so I didn’t have to sit next to him. I didn’t interact with him once. Not a single glance.
I successfully kept it up all the way until we arrived at the gorgeous four-storey manor house of the last Duchess of Coparre that had been turned into a museum by Touma’s National Heritage Board. Only then did I manage to bring myself to pierce holes irately into the back of his head.
That was how long it took me to calm down enough to be able to look at Shehryar for longer than a second without wanting to attack him with claws and canines.
That was how fucking livid I’d been for hours. Livid wasn’t even a strong enough word for the shaking, hot and cold, spitting, biting, boiling feeling that flooded through me.
How dare he! Who the fuck did he think he was? The dickhead pinned me against the car and bloody threatened me! And—and then he’d treated me like a fucking child, telling me to behave. The fucking audacity!
There had been something so sinister about his almost calm expression and voice that spread goosebumps all over my skin. I hated how it had made me feel. The way I felt small and feeble trapped by his superhuman strength and the way his dark growls rumbled in my chest. I hated that they’d battered my stubborn nature until I’d given in despite the resistance of my anger.
Most of all, I hated myself. Because despite having despised every second of that interaction, I climbed into the car and sat next to Shehryar in silence with a liquid throb between my legs.
I shouldn’t have felt it. The ache shouldn’t have existed when I despised him. But it did, and it dragged me round and round in anger and hatred directed at him and myself. And those constant circles were what made it ten times harder to calm down.
Other than that minor issue, I was having fun with Esmeralda, and Kai turned out to have a decent sense of humour, though half the time it seemed like he was doing it by accident. A few people did stop to take pictures of the adorable royal couple, but Kai’s security team did a good job of intimidating them away, so not many disturbed us.
“Doesn’t that kind of look like that macro seminar tutor we had?” I said, pointing at the engraved plate in the lit-up display cabinet.
Esmeralda shuffled closer to me. “Which one?”
“The guy in the green dress.”
“No. The tutor, Mar.”
“Oh.” We chuckled together. “Don’t you remember the bald guy we had for the second half of first year, who always wore those rancid green trousers and had that stringy beard on his chin?”
“Oh, him.” Esmeralda leaned in close to the cabinet, and I tapped the glass, pointing at the painted man on the giant, cream plate. She gasped. “That looks exactly like him.”
We snickered like school children, falling and bumping into each other as we walked away. Down the rest of the length of the cabinet, we stopped and pointed out the sixth-century items of tableware on display that we would have liked to have in our own homes.
At the end of the display, we found Kai and Shehryar in front of a display of silverware in the opposite corner of the gothic-style room. They stood out amongst the light crowd in the way two tall, stupidly good-looking men muttering to each other did.
I understood why on the phone Esmeralda had compared Kai to a jock. The man was bloody built. With his and Esmeralda’s coats draped over one arm and his other hand in his pocket, his biceps and shoulders bulged against the fabric of his midnight-blue knit jumper. But he still looked every bit of the modern-day prince he was with the looser fit of his top around his waist and tailored suit trousers, making him look smart and gentlemanly.
Shehryar, on the other hand, wore black-on-black, his collared, ribbed jumper lazily tucked into slim-fit black jeans. He had a black belt cinched around his sturdy waist and clean, white, laced trainers on his feet. His thick, chocolate-brown hair was flowing over the top curves of his ears and over his head as if he’d run his hand through it. It had been like that since the morning, so fucking effortlessly set it was annoying. And with the way he held his black coat, hooked over his left shoulder on two fingers, he really thought he was the main character.
“Hi,” Esmeralda said once we were beside Kai.
Kai’s dimple appeared deep in his right cheek as he smiled lovingly at her. “Hello.” He glanced over her head, offering me a quick smile too. “Did you have a look at everything?”
“We did,” she answered, leaning into him.
Kai pulled his hand out of his pocket and lifted his arm, giving Esmeralda space to slip right under it. He bent his head and dropped a kiss on her hair. It was so damn cute the way he went back for a second like one wasn’t enough.
But all the cuteness was quickly forgotten when I caught TRG’s gaze slip down and linger on his pretty princess’s chest. I didn’t blame him. The dull blue, asymmetrical top she was wearing hugged her boobs, without showing any part of them, in a way that had left me ogling her breasts, so it was no surprise Kai couldn’t keep his gaze away. They— she looked deliciously hot.
“Have you been standing here the whole time?” Esmeralda asked.
“No. We had a look around too.” Kai looked to Shehryar for agreement, and he nodded. “Should we move to the next room?”
Esmeralda looked to me for an answer. “Yeah, let’s go,” I said.
Hand in hand, my adorable royal babies led the way through the large open doorway into the next room. It was in the gothic red and black style of the previous room with gold-painted vines carved all over the ceiling and big Tregency -style windows along the right side, but it was far longer, almost like a massive hallway.
Esmeralda and Kai headed right around a line of black columns with different vases balanced atop them ahead of us, but I stopped to look at them.
“Mariyah?” Esmeralda called softly, twisted slightly away from Kai, waiting for me to join them.
Oh, my sweet little Ez .
I flashed her a smile. “Go with your man, Ez. I’m gonna walk this way around.” I lifted a finger. “Wait! Actually, don’t move.” Swinging my camera into my right hand, I levelled it roughly in front of my chest, then snapped a picture of Kai adoringly staring at Esmeralda like he was in his own little world. If it hadn’t been for the flash, I doubted he would’ve realised I’d taken a picture.
“Okay, you can go now,” I said. “You can collect the picture at the other end.”
I winked and walked off to the glass display case on my left. I held on to the camera until the blank film fell into my waiting hand, then let it hang from the band around my left wrist. With the picture pinched between my fingers as the image developed, I leisurely looked around the display cabinets.
At some point, I swapped the printed photo for my phone and snapped a few pictures of the artifacts, the general room, and some candid ones of Kai and Esmeralda too.
I was slowly rotating around on the spot, taking a three-sixty video of the room to send in my family’s group chat when a black brick wall got in the way and ruined the clip.
My lashes snapped up, and I didn’t mean to, but an irritated grumble vibrated in my throat.
Stupid fucking Shehryar.
Without a word, I turned away to find another spot to retake my video.
“Could you make it any more obvious that you’re avoiding me?”
I stopped. Blinked. And clenched my phone in my hand.
Anger rose up my middle and between my ribs with the speed and agility of a parkour athlete.
I couldn’t bring myself to walk away without reacting to him, even though for the sake of keeping civility, I probably should have. After what had happened in the morning, no fucking way. Walking away meant letting him assume he’d gotten to me, and my pride wouldn’t allow that.
Slipping my phone into my pocket, I stepped back around. The dickhead was facing me, hands pushed into his jeans pockets and coat dangling from his left arm, stretching his bull-sized shoulders.
He was looking at the decorative ornaments sitting inside the display cabinet, but I cocked my head anyway. “Could you make it any more obvious that you’re desperate for my attention?”
He grunted and pinned me down with his penetrating gaze. I hated how it felt like he could see all my thoughts and emotions scrolling like an LED sign across my eyes, but I refused to hide away.
“How did you manage to assume that?”
“Probably the same way you managed to assume I was avoiding you.”
“It’s not an assumption. You are avoiding me. Enough that Prince Kai noticed and asked me about it. And if he noticed, then Esmeralda must have too.”
“Okay. And?” I shrugged a shoulder. “She hasn’t said anything, so it doesn’t matter.”
Mocking amusement danced in his eyes as his lips twitched in one corner, the movement almost disguised by his trimmed facial hair. A speeding train of realisation slammed into me.
Fuck. I unintentionally admitted I’d been avoiding him.
A surge of embarrassed heat zipped through the frustrated current sizzling my face. I straightened my spine as he edged half a step closer. “We agreed to be civil,” he said.
“I didn’t agree to anything,” I retorted through clenched teeth. “And considering you keep changing your mind every five seconds, you don’t get to turn around and point a finger at me for staying away.” I leaned back, staring right up at him. “And it was working perfectly fine until you decided to come over here, begging for my attention.” I grinned. “So, piss the fuck off, Sheri.”
A dark shadow cast over his eyes and his jaw shifted tightly. “You didn’t learn your lesson, did you?”
“What lesson?” I questioned, mock cluelessly. “Oh, you mean threatening me?” I scrunched my nose. “Nah, that didn’t work. Went through one ear and out the other. Maybe try harder next time. You clearly didn’t squeeze my face hard enough.”
I was goading him on purpose despite the reminder in my head of what he’d done warning me not to. But the thrill hammering through my heart with every twitch of his mouth and cloud that formed over his irises encouraged me to keep going.
I wasn’t sure if he stepped closer or just seemed to grow in size, but my breath stuttered in response as a hot poker jabbed through my stomach. Crackles of heat echoed up and down my body, but against my skin, I could feel his body heat prickling me. Plus, his scent…it was nothing special, but it was warm and clean and citrusy and—
“Thank you for letting me know,” he said quietly, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Next time I need to remind you to behave, I’ll make sure to squeeze hard enough.” My stomach lurched again as he shifted even closer. “And it will probably be soon with the way you’re acting.”
There he went with that word again.
Behave .
Said in a deep, unyielding tone that I’d never heard him use before, but it sunk slow and viscous like tar through my core and down my inner thighs. I tried to scrub the feeling off, but it only seemed to smudge further with every desperate swipe.
I hated it. I wanted to snap and snarl and growl at him, but it did the thing it had done before when I’d been pinned against the car. It held me down in submission despite the thrashing roar inside.
After several hard breaths, I finally found my voice. “You don’t get to tell me how to behave, Shehryar,” I hissed, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. “And try something like that again, and—”
“And what, Mariyah?” he taunted, eyes aflame as he leaned in until our noses nearly touched. “What could you possibly do that you didn’t manage to do the first time?”
My scalp burned, radiating out uncontainable rage, and what didn’t make it out of my head vibrated down to the marrow of my bones. I needed so badly to slam my fist in his smug face. I rolled my right hand into a ball, ready to do it, but a voice of reason sliced through the urge.
Actually, it was Esmeralda. My sensible voice.
“What’s going on here? I hope you’re not arguing.”
There was one thing I’d excelled at for as long as I could remember. Revenge. Pranks. Getting my own back. In every form it came in. I had always been able to scheme on the spot in seconds.
As soon as the lightbulb went off in my head, I twirled around and stepped to the dickhead’s side, clasping his bicep in both hands. It was impossible not to notice how thick, strong, and hot his arm was under his thin jumper as I dug my painted nails into him as hard as I could. I wanted it to hurt, but then he flexed, and it felt like I was trying to claw into a fucking boulder.
“No, we’re not arguing,” I chirped, gleaming so hard my cheeks hurt. “Right, Sheri?” I leaned into him, my camera knocking between us. To my satisfaction, he stiffened, his eyes dark with warning. I didn’t wait for his agreement and looked back to Esmeralda. “We were bonding, actually.”
“Bonding over what?” she asked cautiously.
“Sheri was telling me about the time he went on a school trip to a museum and saw an artifact—what was it again?” I pinched my brows, pretending to think. “Oh, yeah!” I snapped my fingers. “It was a ceramic elephant phallus from one-thousand-something AR, right?” Kai choked on a cough into his fist, but I confidently lifted my gaze to Shehryar’s blazing expression. “Sheri was so in awe with the design that he burst into tears.” I patted the dickhead in the middle of his chest twice as if I were soothing him. “It was an emotional experience for him as a fifteen-year-old pubescent boy.”
In the silence that followed, Kai didn’t know where to look as he tugged at his left ear, his dimple playing hide-and-seek on his cheek, and Esmeralda fought so hard not to smile too but failed miserably. I didn’t have to look at Shehryar to feel the anger radiating off him in crashing waves.
“Mariyah,” Esmeralda said, her tone attempting to warn me that my made-up story wasn’t cool, but mirth bubbled through her voice.
“What?” I shrugged innocently. “That’s what he told me. It’s sad, isn’t it? Maybe he’ll have a better story to tell me in the next room.”
I moved a single step before a heavy weight fell across my shoulders. I gasped as I was dragged back and slammed into Shehryar. One arm trapped behind his back, my camera swinging from my wrist, the dickhead squeezed me so close my left breast was completely squashed flat against the side of his wide-arse rib cage—not that I had much boob in the first place.
He smiled, full and bright, but his stare down at me was menacing. I glared, trying to use my free hand to push against his torso. With no give.
I was trapped against him, too close. Like mouths inches apart, gazes zoomed in; I could feel his heat mapping my body, my jaw almost against his shoulder. I was irritatingly disturbed knowing I fit under his arm despite the added height from my boots. That kind of uncomfortable, rage-inducing close.
“What about the story you told me?” Shehryar asked lightly. “We should tell them that one too.”
I bristled. Oh no, he fucking— “I didn’t tell you a—”
His hand clamped painfully on my shoulder. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Mariyah. Everyone wets themselves at least once in their lives.” I blushed, and he nodded his head to the side thoughtfully. “Usually when they’re children, but I suppose, for you, seventeen was still a child.”
I curled my nails, fisting the fabric of his collared jumper, and dug them into his skin underneath. “Sheri—”
But he was focused on Kai and Esmeralda as he spoke. “It was at her friend’s party. She was so nervous, because some boy, Mark, was there too.” Wait. How the fuck does he know about Mark? “She ended up drinking so much apple juice that when she was partnered with him for a game, she got so excited that she…couldn’t control her bladder.” His eyes glinted smugly despite the fury shooting from behind. “She let it out all over his feet.”
Like a bitch.
He didn’t say it. But his smirking expression silently spoke it, and it filled me from top to bottom with black smoking ire. If I’d found a way to unhinge my jaw, a ball of fire would have flooded out from my throat and singed the skin from his face.
“Things didn’t work out with him,” he added calmly, as if he couldn’t feel my fingers trying to rip a hole in his chest. “But he was wrong to judge you for an accident. You know that, don’t you, Mariyah?”
I gritted my teeth to speak, but Esmeralda’s chuckling voice stopped me. “Okay, that’s enough. Whatever you were talking about before, and as funny as those stories were, let’s stop before you take it too far and rip each other’s heads off.”
Too late for that. I was ready to chew his ears off. One by one. Followed by his eyeballs.
“Of course, Princess,” the dickhead said calmly. “Would you like to go to the next room?”
Maybe it was the added frustration of still being plastered to his side against my will and unable to move away, but my brain was frantically thrashing in search for a retaliatory attack after the blow his story had landed.
It found one. Childish though it was, for my own sanity and satisfaction, it was perfect, and with our ideal positions, it was the easiest to enact. Shehryar was a fool for grabbing me and holding me against him as if I wouldn’t use it to my advantage. I had to teach him never to do it again.
In hindsight, I should’ve thought about what I was actually doing, knowing Shehryar always hit back in a similar way. But I was running on too much angry adrenaline to care in that moment.
I straightened my arm trapped behind his back, stretching it down. The coat hanging over his arm veiled some of what I was doing, not that I cared if anyone saw. And if Shehryar clocked my next move when my camera knocked against the back of his left thigh, he was too late to react.
Without any hesitation, I pressed my fingers to his arse cheek and pinched.
As painfully hard as the firm, round muscle would let me.
He jerked upright, the movement visible.
I tore my hand back, pursing my lips to stop a delighted snicker from escaping. Success! I blinked innocently at Esmeralda and Kai as they caught his jolt.
“Are you okay?” Esmeralda asked.
“Yes,” he said, his timbre low and gravelly. Esmeralda narrowed her gaze at me. Knowing the mischief was showing on my face, I quickly thought of something to distract her with.
“Wait, I didn’t show you the picture.” This time when I pushed away from Shehryar, he let me go with ease, and my triumph increased two-fold. I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out the white square photo frame. “It’s so damn cute.”
I handed it to her, and we cooed over it while Kai blushed next to her.
“Do you have any film left?” Esmeralda said, slipping the picture into her purse. “We should take some group pictures too.”
Lifting my wrist, I turned the camera to check. “Crap, no. That was my last one. But we can take some on my phone too, and I’ll print them out with my photo printer for you.”
She grinned. “I love you, Mar.”
I winked. “I know, but you’re gonna make your dear prince jealous if you say it like that.”
She grinned up at Kai, leaning into him as he smiled shyly and tugged at his ear. “I’m not jealous.”
Esmeralda and I laughed. Then I whipped out my phone.
“Let’s get Rocco to take them,” Esmeralda said.
I handed the giant ex-marine my phone when he happily agreed. He moved to stand a couple of metres away and I positioned myself on one side of Esmeralda, while Kai stood on the other. That left Shehryar to stand next to me.
I felt a jab of irritation poke through me when he stood unnecessarily close, leaving the back of my upper arm pressed to his broad chest.
“Ready?” Rocco called.
Esmeralda answered, but my parted lips couldn’t form a single word.
Because Shehryar shifted behind me. And shifted again. Or rather adjusted his arm, and I…
My breath and heartbeat stilled.
Something brushed across the silk of my skirt, over my arse. The lightest of touches. More so a heavy presence I was overly aware of. It spread wide over my left arse cheek, ever so slightly skimming it. Once. Twice. My heart headbutted my rib cage when I felt a faint third touch.
I took a split-second glance at Shehryar across my shoulder.
He wasn’t…touching me, was he?
Shaking off the absurd thought, I smiled at the camera as Rocco took a picture, but…
The presence returned against my arse, and my belly snapped up like a rubber band, shooting pulses in every direction. This time, it was a definite brush of fingers across the left side. Up and down. Then the scrape of blunt nails up again, making the pulses echo harder.
My head whipped to Shehryar. He was looking ahead, the smile on his mouth giving nothing away.
“Sorry, Mariyah.” I nearly jumped when Rocco spoke. “Could you look this way, please?”
“Sorry,” I croaked and forced myself to grin.
The grunting sound Shehryar made was quiet, but the taunting ring to it was loud in my ears. Black lava paved a furious path through me as I realised he was doing it on purpose.
I’m going to murder the fucking dickhead.
Unable to say anything, I swallowed down my rising rage and edged closer to Esmeralda.
But as Rocco announced he was taking several pictures in one go, Shehryar spread his huge, rough palm right over my arse. Not hovering but pressing unashamedly against it.
My airway closed in on itself. Ire exploded through my veins. And the back-and-forth pulsing from my chest to between my thighs turned into a sprint.
I struggled to hold on to my smile when all I wanted to do was turn around and punch Shehryar in the gut. I discreetly edged my elbow back and pressed it into his stomach, though it obviously didn’t have the same effect as jabbing him so hard he couldn’t breathe.
“Okay, last one,” Rocco said, turning my phone portrait again.
I jerked my elbow, poking Shehryar in the stomach, warning him to remove his fucking hand.
He didn’t.
His fingers dug in, and he squeezed. Hard. Mean hard. And it hurt.
I straightened, muscles locking in place, and my smile stiffened to the point I probably looked constipated. There was a war of emotions inside me that I couldn’t hear or think over.
It was only when Rocco lowered my phone that Shehryar tore his hand away. The lack of his onslaught gave way to a charge of fury, driven by the throbbing pain in my arse.
I flew around, huffing through my nose and glaring at Shehryar. Eyes glinting with arrogant amusement, he pushed the hand that had assaulted me into his trouser pocket, a light smirk that could’ve been mistaken for a lazy smile on his mouth.
“Thank you, Rocco,” I heard Esmeralda say behind me, and Kai echoed her words.
Shehryar lifted his brow mockingly. What?
The fucking—
I went to lurch forward to wrap my hands around his fat throat, but Esmeralda said, “Mar, come look at the pictures.”
Grinding my teeth together, I rolled my hands into fists. “You’re fucking dead,” I hissed.
He bent into me, pale eyes tearing me apart. “Learn to keep your hands to yourself, Mariyah.”
Before I drained his blood and stained the hundred-year-old wooden floor, I took three deep breaths and circled around to Esmeralda.
My body thrummed like a livewire as we skimmed through the pictures, and the lingering pinch burning my arse was impossible to ignore. Or forget.
I wasn’t going to forget the feeling of Shehryar pawing my arse any time soon.
And that pissed me off to the moon and back.