Rags To Royals (Royal #1: Book 1) | ✔

68

-• will your lips spill your sins if I kiss them? •-

I lean back, my hands finding comfort on his strong shoulders, and he's pulled into the gravity of my urge, closing the distance between us as I sit up on the bed and bring him to the edge of it, my hands gliding to settle around his nape.

"Let me see you through my touch," I whisper. To my pleasant surprise, he allows me, his hand coming to rest on my eyes, closing them gently. I hear him shuffle a little to removes his mask. My hands embark on a journey they never expected and as they graze the stealthy sharp cut of his jawline, a shudder roves across my body.

I feel like a ship stranded in the middle of the sea, dancing to the tunes of the waves, struggling to find the shore. So I search it in his dense, black hair as they tug between the gaps of my fingers, across his cheekbones carved like halves of symmetrical mountains, between his full lips that suck my thumb in, eliciting a gasp of shock from my mouth. I flush and drop my hands to my lap, my eyes still closed, afraid if I open them, I'll see something ethereal and mourn the separation before it physically happens.

"You're playing a very dangerous game, Tara," I feel him lean in, his breath a stroke of brush in the nook of my neck, barely there, but drenched in my favourite color, melting like a scented wax, spilling across my skin, warm, tickling, a sensation that moves me from deep within my soul.

His hands plant on the either side of my tucked knees and I rest back on the headboard, incapable of sitting straight as my heart runs erratically inside my chest.

I hear him groan slightly. "I've never seen a more beautiful sight than this in my life before," he closes the distance between us, his body hovering over mine, so close but still not touching.

"Nobody has ever said that to me before," I murmur.

"That means nobody saw you like this before," and his eyes rake down my body, I know they do. I might not be able to see them, but I can feel them rest on every inch of mine, studying me, learning me. Like a reader bookmarking his favourite paragraphs. "What are you doing, Tara?" He asks suddenly.

I shrug. "I don't know. I'd rather stumble across it than try finding it."

"I should go," the bed releases his weight and sends a flicker of panic surging through me. My eyes fly open as I sit straight and my hand shoots out to grab his wrist, stopping him from leaving.

"Don't,"

He looks over his shoulder, his dark ebony eyes narrowed in confusion. "Is something wrong?"

"Let me take you on a date," I say to him, fighting through the embarrassment and holding a delusional shield of courage.

He recoils back like he heard me blabber a foreign language. "What?"

"A date, Rudra. I want to take you out on a date." I say to him.

He frowns and removes his hand from my grip so he can turn around to face me. I allow him. Then his eyes cast downward, uncertainty flashing through them, a fear floating like a mirage across the lines on his forehead. "Tara,"

I get up from the bed to match his stare as much as I can. "You already know I like you. It's not a secret anymore."

"You shouldn't-"

"I don't want to hear your answer." I shake my head.

"Tara," he steps closer.

"Just pretend to be mine for tonight." I hold his hand in mine and his eyes drift to witness the action. "Be mine for tonight." I hold him tightly to me, as though building a temporary bridge to connect our parallels before I'm compelled to divert.