Page 30 of His Hidden Royal Heirs

So he took Zia’s hand in his, sat next to her on the bed. Trying to find some semblance of the anchor that had once tethered him to earth.

She made a little “oh” noise, then her mouth curved. She squeezed his hand and pulled it to her stomach. She pressed his palm there, right at the side of the swell of their children.

“Do you feel it?” she asked.

But he did not know what he was meant to feel, and not knowingleft him perfectly speechless.

He always knew.

Her mouth curved, even with the evidence of the tears still on her cheeks, as though she understood he was at a complete and utter loss. Unacceptable.

But before he could do anything about that, wrestle control of the situation back in place, she pressed his hand into her stomach with more force, and then he felt it...somethingrippleacross his hand. If he had been untethered before, this became the anchor to everything.

His child, moving, there underneath her skin. This new version of his life. A new reason foreverything.A purpose born of the future rather than the past.

And it all centered on Zia. Not just because she carried these babies, but because she was the mitigating factor. She was...

He did not know. Found he did not want to delve too much into these thoughts scrambling around in his mind, only half formed. So he pushed them out of his mind the only way he knew how.

He pressed his mouth to hers. Like he had those months ago. As if he was finding some new answer to an old question. Perhaps shewasthe answer.

Because she kissed him back. Like the moment had bowled her over, too. Rearranged something inside her, when she’d had all these months to carry this new life and grow it inside her and become accustomed to it all.

Everything had changed and yet she tasted the same. A same he shouldn’t remember quite as well as he did. Still, for all thatsame, she was different under his hands. Ripe and round and lovely. She sighed into him, like she had found respite after a long journey and this intoxicating feeling was new, strange, heady.

Her arms came around him. All the heat and flame they’d been ignoring for these past few days lighting between them.

Not smart, when he was always smart. Not in control, when he was always in control.

Except when it came to her.

Zia felt as though she were drowning in a storm of too many things. Joy. Fear. Hope and anxiety. Need, want, lust.

And the impossible and irresistible chemistry between them. She had been so sure she could resist it. Avoid it. That his sudden and unwanted appearance in her life, complete with overbearing decisions and control issues,clearly, should have taken all of this away.

But no.

It was not as though she had gone about kissing many a man. She’d had her little rebellions, just to prove to her father that he would not have a say ineverythingshe did, even if he had a say in the last things she did.

But nothing had ever remotely felt like this. Like she might die if she did not get to experience that night again.

Just once, she thought to herself. It was the heat of the moment. Zia tried to assure herself of this. She just...hadn’t had anyone with her for any of these checkups. It was just the emotion that always struck her, but she had someone to pour it into.

But he was different, and she knew it. No matter how little she liked it.

The way he kissed her was like altering all the shaky foundations she’d managed to build since she’d left his bed, since she’d found out she was pregnant, and then that there weretwobabies. She had lovingly placed every floorboard in this brand-new life.

And he’d taken an axe to all of them. Hacked it all to pieces.

In the flame of this kiss she didn’t care. Who needed foundations when she had his arms around her and his mouth on her? When his hands smoothed over her stomach as if he sought to protect the little lives she grew?

And then lower, to stoke every fire that had ever existed within her, like they existed just for him.

She wanted him. Again. Even knowing it was a mistake. A temporary madness, really. But who cared in this temporary moment, knowing how good it would feel?

One of the babies rolled, long and hard against her stomach. Againsthim. He startled, pulling back and staring at her stomach in a kind of shock that made her want to laugh.

Notathim. Just at everything. And this strange, dizzying joy that came with it all, when she should know better than to believe in someone, in something. But no matter how hard she tried in this life to remind herself everyone else was living in a competition even if she didn’t realize it, she didn’t want to feel she was at war withhim.

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