“Yes,” he said through a throat full of desire.

“Show me.”

His head jerked up. “What?”

“Tell me what you’d like. Show me.” When he didn’t respond, she pulled up on her elbows and licked his lower lip. “Please.”

“I’d like more,” Virat said, and he could feel her resolve in the way she nodded.

“Okay, more like this?” she said, her one finger turning into her entire palm over his shaft.

“More like your hand wrapped around me without my damn trousers on,” he said on a harsh exhale. Losing any semblance of control when her breasts pressed up against his chest.

The hiss of his trouser zipper was music to his ears. And then her hand was wrapped firmly around his shaft and Virat let out a filthy curse that should’ve woken up even the most inebriated party guest sleeping on the lower floors.

She laughed and her fingers turned into a fist, and she pumped him hesitantly and Virat thought he might have died and gone to heaven.

He lowered himself down, letting her feel his weight. His fingers wrapped around hers on his shaft, trapped between their bodies. He pressed open-mouthed kisses into the crook of her neck and shoulders and he loved how her body molded to his and how she looked at him at that moment and something shattered between them.

They were kissing again, but there was a difference to this kiss. It seemed every kiss of theirs had a different flavor, a new taste, a totally novel experience again and again. This one was full of a strange sort of harmony, even as excitement built in his lower belly. When she gently rubbed the tip of his shaft with her thumb, Virat threw his head back and let out a guttural groan.

“I love it when you do that,” Zara said instantly, her mouth pressed into the hollow of his throat, breathing in and out, as if she didn’t want to miss even a bit of him.

“When I do what,shahzadi?”

“When you let go,” she answered instantly.

“I don’t curtail myself for anyone, Zara. Isn’t that exactly what landed me here?”

“That might work on the rest of the world but not me.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The world thinks you have no control. That you give in to every urge and impulse. Then, of course, it forgives you for most transgressions—as it does most powerful men, because you create such brilliant pieces of work.”

He couldn’t help it. Virat laughed at her dry delivery and kissed her with a tenderness he couldn’t hide. “Ah...cynicism suits you,shahzadi,” he said.

“Oh, thank God! What a refreshing thing it is to meet a man who doesn’t expect me to always smile and pander to his mood.”

He laughed some more and ran his tongue between the valley of her breasts. Her long exhale was a breeze against his cheek. “Oh, you beast, I’m almost distracted,” she said with a gasp.

“Almost is not good enough,” he said, and blew slightly over one puckered nipple. He rubbed his stubble against one soft globe and she jerked as if she’d received an electric shock. Zara was writhing under his touch now, barely holding on. “But the world says, ‘Oh, it’s his uncontrollable impulses and urges that make him brilliant, so creative.’ But I know it’s all a sham.”

Virat stilled. “What is a sham, Zara?”

She gazed into his eyes, hers challenging, even under the cloud of desire. “You’re the most controlled man in any situation. Every impulse you give in to, every urge that you satisfy, nothing is done unless you’re in complete control. Nothing is simply a lark. Nothing gets past the cynical shell you’ve carefully built around yourself.”

The silence in the wake of her words was filled with Virat’s shock.

Zara fell back onto the mattress and studied him with a wariness she couldn’t hide. As if she was afraid she’d crossed a line. As if she was afraid he’d call a halt to the entire thing. Her perceptiveness did make him pause but not enough to forgo this pleasure.

“You think way too much,shahzadi,” he said lightly, and gathered her closer to him. “I know the best way to get you to stop all that unnecessary thinking.”

Without waiting for her response, he sent his palm up her toned calf and knee and past the silky-smooth skin of her inner thigh. Her panties were a flimsy barrier against his probing fingers. She almost came away from the divan as he delved his fingers into her soft folds.

“Oh...” Her pink mouth fell open.

Virat watched her with a hunger that only seemed to grow. Every hitch and gasp of her breath stoked his own need higher. He played with her clit, and she dug her fingers into his bicep. He thrust a finger into her wet heat and her reaction to that—more than anything—interrupted the mindless want that had taken over most of his rational mind.