Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
He had. She’d watched him struggle with it, completely unable to come up with a way to connect to him. When she’d tried stroking him, he tensed up. When she’d softened her words, she got the same response. “I know and it didn’t work. It’s not your fault.”
She was fighting against years of ingrained belief that he couldn’t be a man and show weakness. Oh, he could show drunkenness or promiscuity and still be a man. He could act like an idiot at a party, but this was forbidden. To show this kind of vulnerability was not something he could do and might never be able to accept about himself.
Was she willing to live without a piece of herself? Could she take that part of her soul and wrap it up and put it in a closet somewhere, never to be taken out again? She wasn’t at all sure she could.
“I don’t want you unhappy,” he said quietly.
She reached for his hand. “And I don’t want you unhappy.”
Kash brought her hand to his chest, placing it over his heart. “Do I let you go? I don’t want that, either. If we divorce, I’ll be back in the position of giving up my throne. Maybe that’s for the best. Maybe we should think about abolishing the crown altogether.”
And give the power over to a group of men who thought women should stay in the house and not make waves? Who argued with her over whether or not girls should be educated? “Why are you questioning this? You’re a good king.”
“I haven’t been good for five years,” he said, his tone weary. He let her hand go and started to pace, his body moving with a restless energy. “I shut down after my project blew up. I told myself it was all my fault and I gave up. That’s what I was thinking about tonight. I tried to clear my damn head, but I couldn’t because I knew everyone was watching me.”
Was that really what the problem had been? He’d never shown any issues with their play before, but then they’d always been alone. It was only when Tasha had threatened to out them that he’d flipped out and lost his damn mind.
What would one of the world’s most famous men need to relax, to center himself? Would he need one thing for himself? One piece of his life that was utterly private?
“Kash, stop pacing. Sit down, for a moment, please.” She eased behind him as he lowered himself to the bench, the expression on his face still and sullen. “Can you give me a few minutes? I want to try something. This isn’t sexual play. This isn’t me being your top. Just for a few moments, let me be your wife.”
“I don’t know what that means, Day.”
She needed to show him. She eased the leather vest off his shoulders and put her hands there, stroking out and away, as though she could brush the tension from him. “It means whatever we need it to mean. It means that sometimes I need you to stop being the king for a while and let yourself be a man.”
“I don’t get to be a man. I can be a celebrity. I can be a king, but I can’t be just a man.”
That was where he was wrong. She started in on his shoulders, finding the pressure points and easing them. And perhaps this was where she’d gone wrong. She hadn’t given him true aftercare because the scene had been so stilted and rushed. Day leaned over and kissed the back of his neck. “Who told you that?”
He breathed deeply and she could feel him starting to relax. “My father. He didn’t tell me. He told Shray. He told me I could be anything I wanted because I didn’t matter, though he didn’t use those words, exactly. I got the gist.”
She worked her way down one muscled arm and toward his hand. “I doubt he meant it like that. I know he loved you.”
“Did he? Perhaps then, but I know I wasn’t the one he taught to be king, and I screwed everything up.”
“Because of what happened at the lab?”
He nodded slowly, but already she could see how much easier he was breathing, how he’d started to let her lead his body. “I should have been more careful. I should have known.”
She massaged down his other arm. Sometimes he was like a giant tiger and he needed to be petted or he roared and roared. He needed to be eased into real intimacy because he distrusted it so. “I should have known someone would steal my car last year. I should have known that walking in that parking garage late at night would be a mistake. It’s my fault he stole my purse, too.”
Kash moved quickly, turning and catching her hand. His eyes were cold as ice. “Who?”