Dark Eros

11

"When you gazed upon me on our first meeting, you wanted me." He said.

She stiffened, "That isn't true..." she whispered.

"I held you in my arms, Ife. I felt you the moment I touched you...the moment I looked into your eyes I knew you were mine. You felt the same."

Her breath caught in her throat. "No...I..." Her thoughts wandered to the countless dreams of him she had had. Dreams that had left her baffled and yet, excited. Dreams that had left her heart pounding and her mind reeling because deep down inside herself she had seen him as hers. Before she knew his name, he had been her blue eyes. Hers.

"I am just as much your claim as you are mine, Ife."

She shook her head, "You are trying to sway me. To twist my thoughts."

"How can I know what you think?" He admonished feverishly.

Her breathing escalated suddenly. She was feeling so incredibly trapped now. She could not deny having claimed him in her mind. Because she had claimed him, the minute he had become a presence in her dreams he had been hers. The moment she saw him in the flesh, he had still been hers.

"I know you see me." He whispered against her skin. "I have never lacked anything. Never needed anything. Respect is given to me before it is due and merely because I am a prince. I have been idle in life because of it. Why work or achieve or try when I do not have to? When everything is given to me on a silver platter before I ask?" There was a bitterness in his admission.

"When I am denied nothing because of a title that I had no choice in receiving?"

He gazed down at her and the need to soothe him was stronger than anything she had ever felt. Looking down on her were familiar sad blue eyes. Her sad blue eyes.

"The moment I laid claim to you...you told me no. Maybe I only want you because you defy me. And maybe one day, when you no longer defy me, my fixation of you will disappear. Or maybe...it will not matter, I may still crave you just as much as I do today."

She looked away, trying to fight the foreign feelings he was igniting.

"No, Ife. Gaze upon as you always do. Look at me." He demanded as he cupped her cheek, forcing her to face his direction. "Really, look at me." He seemed to plead in his drunkenness.

She did as he asked, hating to hear the tremor in his deep voice. And so she looked at him, hers meeting his. She saw what she always saw. The same mixture of emotions that mentally brought her to her knees. Sadness. Melancholy. Anger. Desire. Lust. Idleness.

But this time...somewhere deep down in him, there was joy and satisfaction. She looked closer, her eyes searching for the answer to the very question that had plagued her since the night she dreamed of him: Where did his happiness lie?

She scrutinized the depths of him, until finally she heard laughter ringing in her ears, saw him with a smile on his face, a genuine look of happiness. There was darkness and then there was light, the sound of a baby's tears, one child in his arms and then two and then three and then four. And then he was embracing someone, love in his eyes, their blue depths shining, almost blinding in their glow.

He whispered a name, softly, tentatively, sweetly, "Ife."

She gasped, turning away from his eyes, refusing to see anymore. Her heart was pounding. But deep down inside her she had known exactly what she would see. Deep down she had known that she was the happiness that he was missing. That she was what would fill the void in him, that she would be the alacrity to his idleness.

She refused to believe it and yet she knew better than anyone that the eyes did not lie. Fumnaya's hold on her tightened and then he was kissing her. A gentle kiss, a soothing kiss, a swift brush of the lips that left her reeling before he was fast asleep, his weight warmer than it should have been.