He looked at her face—the bruise at her throat, the shadows under her eyes, the absolute openness of her expression asking him for something she'd never asked for directly.
"Okay," he said softly. "Come here."
He moved over her slowly, carefully, his weight braced on his arms. He kissed her forehead. Her temples. The arch of each cheekbone.
"You're safe," he murmured against her skin. "I've got you. Nothing is going to touch you."
"Don't leave me tonight."
"Never." The word came without deliberation. A promise, genuine and complete. "I'm not going anywhere."
He kissed her mouth, soft and unhurried. No urgency. No demand. Just warmth, and presence, and the quiet message of a man trying to replace fear with something else.
She sighed against his lips and her hands moved to his face, holding him there.
He undressed her with the care he should have shown her from the beginning—attention to each small revealed thing, his mouth following his hands. The slope of her shoulder. The inside of her wrist, avoiding the bruise, kissing above it instead. The curve of her waist.
"You're beautiful," he said against her stomach, and meant it as something beyond aesthetics—meant her courage and her grace and the way she'd fought even when she was terrified, even when it was hopeless, even with a hand over her mouth.
"Samarth." His name in her voice was a whole conversation.
He moved back up her body and entered her slowly, with the deliberateness of someone who understood he was being trusted with something precious.
She exhaled—long, shuddering, relieved—her arms wrapping around him and pulling him closer.
"You're safe," he said again, moving.
"I know." Her lips found his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth. "I know I am. With you."
They moved together without urgency, without performance. Just two people in a dark room finding their way back to each other after something that had shaken them both.
When she came, it was with her face pressed into his neck and his name on her lips like something holy.
He followed her, his arms tightening until there was no space between them, her name the only coherent thought in his head.
Afterward, he didn't move. Stayed exactly where he was, her weight against his chest, her breathing slowing toward sleep.
"Don't go," she murmured, already more than halfway gone.
"I'm here." His hand moved in slow circles on her back. "Sleep, Nimisha. I'm here."
He stayed awake long after she fell asleep, her breathing deep and even against him.
Bruno was across the foot of the bed, his eyes occasionally opening to check the room before closing again. A sentinel even in sleep.
Samarth stared at the ceiling.
Kabir Malhotra had planned to take his wife.
Had prepared a location. Had paid men. Had thought, with the staggering arrogance of someone who'd always bought his way out of consequences, that he could reach into Samarth Ranawat's life and take something that belonged there.
Samarth looked down at Nimisha's face, peaceful finally, turned toward him in sleep the way flowers turned toward light.
Tomorrow, he thought.
Tomorrow, Kabir would understand what the word consequence actually meant.
CHAPTER 19
