Page 115 of Storm of Ink and Blood

“Are you?”

She pressed her hands to his bare, warm skin, feeling the vibration of his heart pounding in his chest. “I’m fine.”

“Take these,” Thriti said, thrusting her hand under their noses with four small pills cradled in her palm. “Two each. This should help.”

They nodded and accepted the medicine.

“Did it work?” she asked after she swallowed.

“You tell me,” Thriti answered. “Can you feel anything? You should be able to sense each other now.”

Zarya looked at Rabin again as she squeezed his hand, and then they nodded. She felt it like a second soul was living inside her. She imagined she could almost sense his feelings or thoughts like a phantom shadow.

“I feel it,” she whispered, realizing she was now truly tied to this man forever.

“Excellent,” Thriti said as she began to clean up. “It’s been a while since I’ve done a Bandhan, but I’ve still got it.”

“Thank you,” Rabin said. “How much do we owe you?”

She rattled off a number, and Rabin handed over the coins before tugging his kurta over his head. Zarya slowly worked her arm back into her sleeve and rotated her shoulder to work out some of the tension. It still hurt, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

They thanked Thriti and entered the narrow alleyway again, walking quietly with Zarya in front. She couldn’t help but continue looking back at him. Where she’d been drawn to him like a moth to a flame before, now it was like a lion to its prey.

She stopped and turned around as he came up to her, looking down. The paramadhar wasn’t supposed to be romantic in nature, but all she could sense was this all-consuming swell of emotion and desire building under her skin. She’d felt it before, but it was even more insistent now.

“Rabin,” she whispered, and he must have felt the same because his eyes darkened to pools of ink. He wrapped a hand around the back of her head and tipped it for a kiss. His tongue drove into her mouth, and she looped her arms around his waist as he shoved her against a wall, flattening his body to hers. She felt the angles of his solid form lining up with her softer curves, along with the fact he was already growing hard.

She moaned, wishing, wishing they were alone right now. And that her apartment wasn’t currently full of people.

But Rabin didn’t seem to care. He shuffled her into another alley, this one concealed by shadows where it finished in a dead end. When they hit the far corner, he reached down and lifted her skirt to her hips and then, with his hands under her ass, hoisted her up, pressing her against the rough brick wall.

His fingers dug into her thighs, the tips only a hair away from where she ached for his touch.

“I need to fuck you right here, Spitfire. Unless you tell me to stop.”

“No,” she gasped as he thrust his cock between her legs. “Don’t stop.”

He reached between them, pushing aside the fabric of her underwear to find her wet center, his thick finger slipping in.

“Fucking soaked already, dirty girl,” he said with a malicious grin. He pulled out and ran the tip along her seam before circling her clit. She moaned as her head fell against the wall.

His finger dipped into her again, pumping slowly, going deeper and deeper as her hips writhed against his hand. He added a second finger, stretching her with pain and pleasure.

Then he fumbled with his pants before she felt the wide head of his cock pressing into her entrance. Slowly, he inched into her, making small thrusts with his hips as she adjusted to his size, feeling like she was being split apart.

“That’s it,” he said with pride in his voice. “Take every inch. This needy pussy is mine.”

“Oh gods,” she gasped as he drove into the hilt, stroking every sensitive spot.

She clung to him tight as he thrust into her, her legs clamping around his waist. She forgot where they were. That anyone could come around the corner at any moment. The only thing that mattered was him and this coming together. This melding of their spirits.

“Zarya,” he groaned into the curve of her neck as he thrust his hips harder and harder. “Fuck, Zarya. I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you.” He thrust again, hard and with purpose, as though he were trying to imprint these words into the texture of her soul.

“Today we are bound, body and spirit, and I will do everything I can to be worthy of you.” He gripped the back of her neck, staring into her eyes as he fucked her, slow and deep. “Tell me you feel something, Zarya. Even if it’s not love yet. Just tell me you feel something more than just… this.”

She exhaled a soft breath as she felt her release rising in her core. “Yes. I feel something,” she gasped. “Of course I do.”

He smirked, but the triumphant light in his eyes betrayed the somewhat understated reaction. “Then that’s all I need right now.”