Read Online In Defiance of Duty by Caitlin Crews - Free Book Online

in his eyes that made her feel small and petulant. But that was unfair, wasn’t it? This was her life, too. “This is who we are.”
    This is who you are, she thought, but did not say.
    She moved away from him, sinking down to sit in one of the heavily brocaded armchairs, blinking back a searing heat, determined that she would not cry. Not now, when she already felt too vulnerable.
    “And maybe they’re right,” Azrin said after a moment. Kiara felt the world tilt beneath her feet, and she wasn’t even standing. She stared at him, unable, in that moment, to speak. He shrugged out of his clothes, baring his beautiful body to her, and for once she felt almost numb. “Maybe we should start thinking about children.”
    She swallowed, panic licking over her skin, making her head feel heavy.
    “Are you saying that as my husband?” she asked, her voice hardly above a whisper. “Or as the king who agrees with his mother that it would foster goodwill with your subjects?”
    His gaze grew cold. Unbearably hard. “Can’t I be both?”
    She didn’t know how to answer that. She didn’t understand what was happening. She only knew she wanted to curl into a ball and sob, and none of this was helping.
    “You told me we could wait until I was ready,” she reminded him, a kind of thick dread making her limbs feel heavy. Making her temples pound. “You promised.”

    promised.”
    “Don’t look at me like that, Kiara,” he replied, his tone harsh. Or maybe it only felt that way, like one more blow in a long series of them. “We’ve been married for five years. You know I must have an heir at some point or another. It’s not entirely unreasonable to discuss it, is it?”
    “Maybe you and your parents and your cabinet ministers should consult with each other, then,” she threw at him, feeling wild. Miserable. Attacked. “You can let me know what conclusions you reach. I’ll just trot along, obeying your decrees like a happy little brood mare, shall I?” She regretted it the moment she said it.
    His gaze turned dark, and his face seemed to tighten. He stared at her, affront and something worse all over him, and Kiara couldn’t seem to do anything but stare back. He muttered something in Arabic that made her flinch even without understanding it, then turned and strode away from her. She heard the water turn on in the adjacent bath, and only then did she let herself breathe, though it sounded more like a sob in the simmering wake of his exit.
    A wave of misery flooded through her, and she couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t even seem to breathe through it. She found herself up and on her feet, then walking into Azrin’s bath without knowing she meant to move.
    She found him in the shower, steam billowing, bracing himself against the tiled wall as the water beat down on him from above. He turned to look at her as she opened the glass door, and her heart seemed to thud too hard against her ribs.
    His eyes were much too dark. His mouth was grim. She felt both reverberate deep inside of her, ripping at her.
    “I am not your enemy,” he bit out, as if this hurt him, too. As if she did. “Why do you want so badly to be mine?” But she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t hurt them both.
    She stepped into the shower fully clothed, and let the hot water wash into her. Over her, wetting her dress, her hair. She put her hands out to touch his slick, hard chest, and when he shifted as if he wanted to talk rather than touch, she gave in to the helpless need clawing at her and slid down to her knees. Slicking her hair back, she knelt before him and kissed her way over the hard ridges of his abdomen, then farther down, her hands gripping the hard muscles of his thighs.
    And somewhere along the way she forgot that she meant to quiet him, to apologize somehow, and simply found herself worshiping him. Tasting him. Testing those delicious muscles, that mesmerizing skin, with her mouth, her hands, her