Page 214 of Tall, Royal Hater
One corner of my mouth twitched. “Good. That’s my privilege from now on, and only mine. There’s no reason any other man should be touching your hair.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes but lifted her smiling mouth up to meet me halfway as I bent over her and gave her an upside-down kiss.
“Come here,” I beckoned huskily, holding my hand out to help her up.
She took it and followed the pull of my grasp until she was straddling my lap, her thick thighs bracketing mine, my arms cinching her waist, and her own twined around my neck.
Say it. Fucking say it, Shehryar. What are you so scared of?
Instead, I spent a whole minute admiring the scattering of faint freckles against her light olive skin until she pinkened and shrunk back with a hard swallow.
“What?” she grumbled, her shyness bringing out her defensive side. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I swallowed around my pounding pulse. “Do you know what day it is today?” I rasped.
Her brows dipped ever so slightly, and I could see her thoughts racing through her stare, trying to figure out why I’d asked. “As in the date? It’s the twenty-fourth, isn’t it?”
“It’s the twenty-fifth.”
“So?” she muttered, dragging the word out.
My lips quirked at her confusion. “When did we decide to stop fighting and give us a try?”
It took a second, but her features stilled once the information clicked into place. “The day before your mum’s wedding…the twenty-fifth.” Then she bunny scrunched her nose in mock disgust. “I didn’t take you for a romantic, Sheri.”
My smile tilted higher at her tease, but I said, “Do you remember what you said to me?”
She shrugged, her fingers gently scratching against my nape. “I said a lot of things.”
“There was one thing in particular you said about not mentioning love until it had been three months.”
Her fingers froze mid scratch.
I gulped around my jittering nerves, caressing one hand up and down her back as if I were reassuring her, but really touching her was the comfort I needed.
“Technically,” I continued, my voice thickening with the intense emotion flooding my bones, “it’s been four months. But considering I fucked up and we weren’t really…together, I thought I’d add an extra month to your condition.”
“Sheri,” she croaked, her eyes darting between mine, but not in panic, thank Neves.
I gave her nape a little squeeze, wrapping myself around her possessively. “You’re a menace, through and through, but it took me five years to accept that that’s exactly what I love about you.” A warm smile touched my lips as a glaze filtered over her eyes. “You’re a force of nature, Mariyah, confident and unafraid to fight for yourself and everyone you care about. You know who you are, you know what you want, and you’re proud of it. And when your anger and stubbornness aren’t driving me fucking mad, I can admire your strength immensely.”
The corner of her mouth lifted, and I wanted so badly to kiss it, but I lassoed the urge back into a pen. “I wish I’d seen it sooner, but I don’t think twenty-two-year-old me would have really appreciated that your menacing attitude, the way you’ve challenged me and fought me, was exactly what I needed, what I never knew I wanted. It was always you.You were everything I was missing in my life.”
The sheen in Mariyah’s eyes turned liquid, and my heart was wrenched in two in the best fucking way.
“I love you, Mariyah,” I whispered. “So fucking much.”
I wasn’t sure if her awed, teary silence was comforting or if it was something to fear, but I was a thousand per cent sure the sound of my heart could be heard for miles.
When it didn’t seem like she had any intention of ending the silence, I added, “You don’t have to say it ba—”
She crashed her mouth over mine but didn’t give me enough time to respond before pulling back. “I love you too, you fucking dickhead.”
Forget one, my heart missed at least five beats. “You…you do?” I croaked.
“Yes, I do,” she rumbled, almost looking outraged by the idea that I thought she might not. “What the fuck? Why would you think I didn’t? Are you stupid?”
My mouth stretched and stretched until I was grinning from ear to ear so hard my cheeks hurt. “I mean, I know you’re obsessed with me, menace, but I was just making sure.”
