The Winter's Widow (ADIYA VERSION)

Part Fourteen~

I would advise listening to the song while reading!

As her nails scratched his scalp and her fingers knotted in his hair, he lost himself to her. The comforting scent of her strawberry shampoo washing over him as if cleansing him from everything that had tainted him before. Her soft body in his arms as he wept kept him safe from the vulnerability of all those years ago that he'd kept on running from, then there was her voice, her sweet, intoxicating voice that would say his name like a prayer as if it was something to behold beside holiness- and he wanted to be pure, just this once, just for her.

The damp raining atop his shirt she wore from the tears he shed bothered her none, all she wanted was to be here for him and holding him to her like the precious, saintly man he was offered her what she'd always been searching for- redemption in the name of Aditya.

His ice-cold hands searched for safety beneath the shirt, creeping towards the warmth only her body could provide, clinging desperately to her thighs then her stomach as he traced shapes neither of them could concentrate on when he was touching her like that. For so long only loneliness had guarded him from flashbacks of blood, gut-wrenching pain and a bare body against his. As the thoughts collided with his racing breaths he couldn't take it anymore, he needed to run, to be away from all of this, to escape once more. Skidding back, he threw her beside him and rushed to the wall where he could see nothing and feel nothing but what the past had done to him. "You need to leave" he growled, droplets of sweat falling from his hair.

Zoya padded to behind him, one hand over his eyes as she spun him around. She'd never been one to force anyone to do anything, but he needed this and she needed to do it for him. For the first time did she feel able to help him, she knew what this was because panic attacks had plagued her too. Lifting his hand to her face, she traced it across her features "What do you feel?"

His brows constricted "What are you doing?"

"What do you feel?" She repeated with a little more pressure.

Focusing on the way his fingertips skirted across her lips, he sighed "You, your lips, your eyes".

Standing on tiptoes she pressed a hand onto his unclothed shoulder to balance herself "What do you hear?"

"You, your voice" his chest began to unclench as his hand found her hip. He inhaled sharply the second she brushed her face beside him "Zoya, I-".

"What do you smell?" She did not know how he would react to any of this, but she knew the importance of grounding him and this was the only way she knew how.

The light scent of fruit mingled with his own aftershave consumed him "Me, me and you". Aditya opened his eyes to her smiling face when her hand dropped.

"What do you see?"

He smiled slowly "My wife" his tone was raspy, eyes painted a bloody red that hid all of the white that swam around his brown orbs.

Zoya cupped his face then pressed her lips in a feather-light kiss to his, eyes shutting at the sensation "What, what do you-".

"You" he cut her off. His chapped lips moved from her lips to her hair to the base of her throat as he whispered somethings and nothings that created a moan from her lips that travelled straight to his chest. Finally raising his head, he blinked through heavy lashes of wet and groaned: "I can't get enough of you, what you do to me is" his head shook.