Chapter 18: Zahira bursts into Amartya's suite unannounced, her sheer nightgown doing nothing to hide her hardened nipples. Without a word, she straddles him on the divan, sinking onto his cock with a guttural moan, her nails drawing blood as she bounces violently - this isn't lovemaking, but a territorial war waged with hips and teeth.
The monsoon rain sheeted down over Delhi, turning the palace gardens into a blur of green and gray. Inside Dev’s private study, the air was still and heavy, scented with sandalwood and the faint ozone of the storm.
Dev read the message on the secured tablet once, then again, his expression unreadable. He passed it to Rukmini.
Her eyes scanned the brief, brutal text. ‘Bhaiya. Send Tara to Basra. Permanently. But only if she comes willingly. Ask her. - A.’
Rukmini placed the tablet on the low teak table as if it were hot. “He doesn’t ask. He states.”
“He’s always stated,” Dev replied, his voice a low rumble. He massaged his temples. “But this… ‘permanently’? And ‘willingly’? He knows the weight of that word.”
“He’s clarifying the terms of the acquisition,” Rukmini said, a sharp edge in her tone. “No coercion he can be blamed for. If she says yes, she becomes his responsibility. His property, in all but name. It severs her from our protection.”
“She has never been under our protection, Rukmini. She has been orbiting him since he was sixteen. We merely provided the gravity.” Dev stood, looking out at the lashing rain. “Call for her.”
Tara arrived within minutes, as if she had been waiting for the summons. She wore a jade-green silk sari, modern and cutting, her hair a perfect dark cascade. Her eyes went immediately to the tablet on the table, then to their faces.
“Tara,” Dev began, gesturing for her to sit. “Amartya has sent a request.”
“A command,” Rukmini corrected softly.
Dev shot her a look, then continued. “He wishes for you to join him in Basra. Not for a visit. Permanently. But he is insistent that the choice must be yours, made without any pressure from us. Do you understand what he is asking?”
Tara’s breath caught. A flush crept up her neck. There was no hesitation, only a voracious light igniting in her eyes. “He wants me there. With him.”
“He is not the boy you knew here,” Rukmini said, her voice firmer now. “The news fragments we get… what he has done in Kabul… the woman he holds there… this is a different Amartya, Tara. It is a court of conquest. Not a palace home.”
“He has always been a conqueror,” Tara said, dismissing the warning with a flick of her wrist. “He just has a larger playground now. And he’s asking for me.” She said the last word with a possessiveness that made Dev uneasy.
“You would be leaving everything here. Your life, your friends, our direct oversight,” Dev stated.
“Oversight?” Tara smiled, a thin, knowing curve of her lips. “You mean the gentle prison of being near him but never having him. Yes. I’ll leave that gladly.”
Rukmini leaned forward. “And if he discards you? If you become one more ornament in a gilded cage? There will be no ship to bring you home, Tara. No diplomatic plea. If you go, you go knowing you are his, to do with as he pleases.”
Tara’s gaze was unwavering. “I have always been his. He is finally claiming what’s his. My answer is yes. When do I leave?”
The flight to Basra was a blur of champagne and trembling anticipation. Tara changed clothes three times in the plane’s lavatory, finally settling on a simple, sleeveless dress of cream linen that clung to her curves. It spoke of casual ownership, of being so assured of one’s place that effort was unnecessary.
A silent guard met her on the tarmac, leading her to a black SUV that slid through the surreal, manicured city. The Basra palace was a monstrous ziggurat of glass and steel, a monument to new money and naked power. It felt nothing like home. It felt like the future.
He was in his suite, the one she’d heard described in whispers. The air was cool, dry, carrying the scent of jasmine and something more masculine—saffron, maybe, and clean sweat. He stood by the vast window, his back to her, looking out over his creation. He wore black trousers and a gray shirt, untucked, the sleeves rolled up. He seemed both older and terribly young.
“You came,” he said, without turning.
“You called,” she replied, her voice steady despite the hammering in her chest.
He turned then. His face was harder than she remembered, the carefree softness burned away by sun and decisions. But his eyes, when they met hers, still held that magnetic, knowing light. He looked her up and down, a slow, appraising sweep that felt physical.
“No tears from Dev? No lectures from Rukmini?”
“They tried. I didn’t listen.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Good.”
He closed the distance between them in three strides. There was no preamble, no gentle reunion. His hands cupped her face, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones, and his mouth came down on hers with a hunger that stole the air from her lungs.
This was not a kiss of greeting. It was a claiming. His tongue pushed past her lips, tasting her, dominating the space. She melted into it, her hands flying to his shoulders, her body arching against his. A low moan vibrated in her throat. This was what she had starved for. This absolute, consuming attention.
He broke the kiss, breathing heavily, his forehead resting against hers. “Say it,” he whispered, his voice ragged.
“I’m yours,” she gasped. “Always have been.”
“Say it all.”
“I’m your woman. Your fuck. Whatever you want. Permanently.”
A dark, satisfied sound rumbled from his chest. His hands moved from her face, down her neck, over her shoulders, pushing the thin straps of her dress down. The linen pooled at her waist. He wasn’t gentle. He pulled the fabric lower until her breasts were bare, then lower still, until the dress fell in a heap at her feet. She stood before him, naked but for her heels.
“On the bed,” he ordered, his eyes black with desire. “On your knees, facing the headboard.”
She obeyed, moving with a fluid grace, the cool silk of the duvet under her knees. She heard the rustle of his clothes, the clink of his belt. Then he was behind her, his hands gripping her hips, his bare cock, already thick and rigid, pressing against the cleft of her ass.
“You watched for years,” he growled in her ear. “You wanted this. Tell me how much you wanted it.”
“I dreamed about it,” she panted, pushing her hips back against him. “I dreamed about your cock. I’d touch myself thinking about you fucking me just like this.”
“Dirty fucking girl,” he muttered, and without another word, he guided himself into her.
He was big, and he filled her with a single, deep, punishing thrust that made her cry out. There was no slow build, no tender accommodation. This was a possession, brutal and complete. He set a relentless pace from the start, each hard drive pushing her forward on the bed, his balls slapping against her with every plunge.
“Is this what you dreamed of?” he grunted, one hand fisting in her hair, pulling her head back.
“Yes! God, yes!” she screamed, the pleasure a sharp, blinding edge. This was the culmination of a thousand fantasies—the violence of his need, the sheer physical force of him. Her body was a live wire, every nerve ending screaming. She felt her climax coiling, a tight, urgent spring in her gut.
“You come when I tell you to,” he commanded, his rhythm becoming even more erratic, more savage. “This cunt is mine now. The orgasms in it are mine to give.”
The vulgarity, the absolute control, tipped her over the edge she was barely clinging to. “Please, Amartya… please let me…”
“Come,” he snarled.
The word was a detonation. Her vision whited out as her body seized, convulsing around his driving cock in wave after wave of intense, shuddering release. She screamed into the duvet, her fingers clawing at the silk.
He fucked her through it, his own control shattering. With a final, guttural roar, he slammed into her to the hilt, his body stiffening as he pulsed deep inside her, hot and endless. He collapsed over her, his weight pinning her to the bed, both of them slick with sweat, gasping for air.
After a long while, he rolled off, lying beside her. The room was silent except for their slowing breaths. She shifted, turning to look at him, her body humming, sore, utterly spent and satisfied.
He was staring at the ceiling, his profile sharp in the dim light. He seemed a thousand miles away.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice husky.
His eyes slid to hers. There was no softness there, only a cool, calculating distance. “I’m thinking about Kabul,” he said. “And about how useful a willing heart can be.”
He reached out, not to caress, but to trace the line of her jaw, a proprietor assessing an asset. “Welcome to Basra, Tara.”