58. Naina
Chapter Fifty-Eight
NAINA
“In the spirit of revealing all our secrets, there’s something I have to tell you.”
It was hours later, and Kash and I were lying in bed in my favorite position. With my head on his chest and his arms around me.
I was exhausted from crying and my eyes seemed swollen. I’d cried until I thought I couldn’t cry anymore and Kash had held me close, somehow knowing that I needed to cry it all out.
If I cried out all the pain, then I could start new. This was catharsis. A new dawn. This was it.
At least, it was until Kash said he had something to tell me.
I looked up at him.
“Kash, this is supposed to be the start of our happily ever after. There are no more secrets here.”
He smoothed a hand down my hair.
“I know. Which is why I need to tell you this tonight, so we can start new tomorrow.”
Technically, it was already tomorrow. But it was still dark outside so we could pretend.
“Go ahead.”
I shifted, resting my head on my pillow. Now, we were facing each other. Kash’s eyes appeared a dark blue in the shadows of the room. I smoothed a finger across his brows.
“I was never going to ask you out on a date,” he said.
“I already knew that. You said you were scared.”
Kash shook his head.
“I was, yes. But I was never going to ask you out.”
I sat up, pulling the duvet around my bare legs.
“Okay, this is making me feel like you’re telling me you’ll go along with this relationship because we’re married, but you’re not really into me. Which is confusing because you said you love me, and also because of the escaped convict sex.”
Kash sat up as well, crossing his legs. His hair was mussed, and he ran a hand through it.
“I do love you. Which was why I was never going to ask you out. This was my plan all along.”
I tilted my head curiously. “To not ask me out?”
“To marry you,” Kash said. “There are too many ifs, ands, and buts with dating, I wasn’t going to take the risk.”
I was so confused.
“You asked me to marry you because you didn’t want to marry Crystal.”
“My father would have gotten over that, he has in the past. He couldn’t risk anything coming between him and his creation.”
He waved at himself, and my stomach soured at hearing him refer to himself like that.
“If you didn’t need to marry Crystal, why did you ask me to marry you?”
Kash’s eyes glowed in the dark.
“Because I love you. I couldn’t risk dating you, but I couldn’t risk you dating someone else as well. I wanted to keep you safe from me, but I also wanted to keep you safe from everyone else. I wasn’t interested in love or marriage until you. I told you it would be six months and to be honest, I was lying to the both of us when I said it. I never intended for it to be only six months. I couldn’t take the risk that my father wouldn’t change his mind.”
I took a breath, unsure how I felt about this news.
Did I get myself Stockholm Syndrome-d?
Kash didn’t kidnap me, but he also didn’t leave me a choice.
“You manipulated me into marrying you?” I asked, just to be sure I had it right.
“Yes, exactly.”
“That is so fucked up,” I breathed. “Do I not have autonomy in this relationship? I don’t get to chose what’s right for me?”
Kash looked troubled. He probably hadn’t expected that I would be this upset.
How could he do this to me?
Was he any better than Victor Blake?
Even as I asked myself the question, I knew the answer.
Kash was so much better; he was the best. While I didn’t condone his actions, I believed that he did them out of love for me.
If he hadn’t been raised by Edward Sutherland, maybe he would be a different man.
“You have autonomy. You can do anything you want,” Kash said.
“I can leave, then?”
His face remained blank.
“Sure.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Did you just lie to me?”
He looked chagrined. “Sorry, was that not good? Let me try again.”
Clearing his throat, he put on an earnest expression.
“Yes, you can leave.”
I shoved at his shoulder.
“This is not funny. You took away my right to say no.”
Kash scoffed. “I understand why you would think that. You chose to marry me, Goldie. You made that choice. I didn’t force your hand, I didn’t kidnap you. Really, the only thing I lied about was letting you leave. I lied to myself as well, the whole time. Because I kept thinking I had to let you go, that this couldn’t last, when I knew all fucking along that I wasn’t letting you go.”
How did he not see that was a problem? If I hadn’t fallen in love with him, I would be still stuck with him because he would never let me leave.
“What if I never fell in love with you? Would you have let me leave?”
Kash’s face shuttered, all the anger and earnestness gone. It wasn’t that I wanted to leave.
I just needed to know that I had a choice in this relationship, that I was here because I wanted to be, and not because I didn’t have a choice.
“Do you want to leave?”
“That’s not that I asked.”
He jaw flexed, and he thrust a hand through his hair.
“Fine. If you hadn’t fallen in love with me, I would have let you leave.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, closing my eyes. Okay, I still had a choice.
“But I wouldn’t have left you alone.”
My eyes snapped open, meeting his. Oh. When Vera said Kash looked at me like a sinner who had found heaven, I wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
But it was this.
The way he was looking at me right now, like I was his very reason for existing.
“I wouldn’t have left, Goldie. Because you won’t leave me. You have burrowed deep into my psyche. You’re my first thought of the day, and the last thing I see before I close my eyes. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night to watch you breath because I need to know you’re alive and here with me. Do you think I would ever be free of you? All I ever fucking think about is you. I have everything I could ever need, and all I want is you with a desperation that makes me feel like I’m coming out of my skin. Where’s my choice? Because I never asked to need you like a madman. You trapped me, and I don’t want to be free.”
A fissure of something akin to fear ran down my spine. Because this wasn’t normal.
This was big, and scary.
I wasn’t sure it could be contained by my heart and body.
I shifted restlessly on the bed. Kash’s hands were gripping the duvet tightly, the veins on the back of his hand standing out.
My eyes focused on his wedding band, the one he had never once taken off since we got married.
“You’re scared,” Kash said tonelessly. “It’s why I never wanted you to know all of this. I’m just tired of keeping it inside, and you need to know the man you married.”
I nodded, refusing to look up at him.
Because if I did, he would probably know exactly what I was thinking.
He raised his arm, tucking his fingers under my chin and lifting my head to look at him.
I watched his eyes darken because of what he saw in mine.
“Fuck, Goldie. Really?”
“It’s so messed up!”
Kash laughed, his tongue peeking out to lick his bottom lip.
“It’s not messed up, Naina. It means you understand that you deserve to have someone utterly obsessed with you and devoted to your every breath. And here I am, your humble devotee.”
I shifted to my knees, reaching for Kash. My mouth collided with his roughly as I straddled his hips.
What did it say about me that hearing him say all that only got me wet and aching? Something about how feral he was for me made me feral about him.
We poured all our desperation into the kiss. It was sweet and aching and desperate. Kash kissed me like a soldier going off to war and I returned it with fervor, knowing this man has never wanted anyone as much as he wanted me.
Kash slipped a hand under my shirt, fluttering across my stomach and up to cup my breast.
He thumbed my nipple again and again, plucking at it with his fingers.
I jerked my hips forward, rubbing myself on this thick shaft. The friction created by the thin cotton between us was delicious, but it wasn’t enough.
I pushed him until he was lying flat on his back. He watched me with heavy lidded eyes as I climbed off his lap and slipped off my panties.
I started to throw them on the floor when he took them from my hand and shoved them under his pillow.
“Seriously?”
“Don’t judge me, we all have our obsessions.” He grinned at me because he knew I was also obsessed with him, with the idea of him being obsessed with me.
This man would do anything for me. I could stand on a moral high ground and tell him he went about it all wrong. But I wasn’t going to. If I deserved to have someone obsessed with me, then so did he.
“Are you going to help me?” I motioned to his pajamas.
Kash tucked his arms under his head, still wearing that grin.
“Take what you need, baby. I’m all yours.”
Yeah, he fucking was.
I yanked at the waistband of his cotton pajamas, and he did help me by lifting his hips up so I could pull them off.
His thick cock flopped against his belly, and I squeezed my thighs together to dull the need in my pussy.
Kash kicked off his pants as I admired his cock. It was really so beautiful, thick, hard, and veiny and it fucked me so good.
I ran a finger along the vein on the side and it twitched. I looked up at Kash to see his expression strained.
Keeping my eyes on his, I leaned forward and licked at the head of his cock, tasting his pre-cum.
Kash cursed silently. “Fuck, baby, didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with your food?”
I giggled, shifting to straddle his hips again. I rubbed my bare pussy on his cock, slowly rocking back and forth.
He felt delicious against me, hot and hard.
Each time I rocked forward, the head of his cock nudged my clit, making me moan.
“Fuck, Naina,” Kash groaned, thrusting his hips up a little.
I opened my eyes to look at him below me. Every muscle in his body was straining.
“Do you want me to fuck you? You like the way my pussy fucks you?”
“Best thing I’ve ever felt, baby.”
Lifting my hips, I grabbed his cock, slick with my wetness, and positioned him at my entrance.
Slowly, so slowly, I lowered myself onto him, keeping my eyes locked on his the whole time.
My muscles protested against the intrusion even though I was dripping wet. My thighs shook from the strain.
The fullness from having him inside me had my eyes rolling into the back of my head. I was right. His cock was made for me.
I leaned forward to brush my lips on his and Kash gripped my waist, his fingers making divots in my flesh.
“Tell me you’re mine,” I whispered.
I hovered over him, our eyes locked. His eyes tender, the lust clearing.
“I’m yours, Naina. Yours to do with as you please. If you want to keep me locked in a room to fuck whenever you please, I will happily give up my life to service you.”
My pussy clenched, causing him to hiss.
“Careful, or you’re going to give me a big ego.”
Kash smirked lazily. “My big cock will be around to fuck your ego any time you need.”
Laughing, I sat up, bracing a hand on his chest as I rocked on his cock.
“Wait,” he stilled my hips, “take off the shirt. I want to see your tits.”
Gripping the shirt with both hands, I whipped it up and over my head. Kash’s hands went to my breasts immediately, cupping and squeezing them.
“Your skin is so soft,” he murmured.
He sat up, wrapping his mouth around one nipple, sucking and nipping. I gasped, thrusting my hand into his hair.
He moved to my other breast, giving it the same treatment. He tongued the underside of my breast, his teeth sinking in.
The bite of pain had my hips jerking forward quicker.
“Slow down, baby. It’s just you and me.”
His mouth met mine.
“We have the rest of our lives together, and I promise to worship you for every second of it. My world will revolve around you.”
His hands gripped my waist, controlling my movements. Even though I was fucking him, he was the one in charge.
“Kash, I can’t give you anything other than myself, and you have me. All of me, for the rest of our lives. I love you.”
These vows we made as I came apart in his arms meant more than the vows we took when we got married.
We didn’t know each other back then, not really. But everything had changed now. We had tied ourselves to each other irrevocably.
Maybe we were tied together from the night we first met, and it took us this long to get here. Now that I had him, I was never letting go.