Free In Defiance of Duty by Caitlin Crews

believe that something is not wrong,” he pointed out, his gaze narrow on hers, “it has failed. Miserably.” She only shook her head again, and smiled that perfect, empty smile. And what could Azrin do? He was the King of Khatan. There was no scenario in which he could have any kind of intimate conversation with his wife in the middle of a dance floor. He couldn’t even kiss her the way he wanted to without causing the sort of commotion he preferred to avoid.
    He found he hated it.
    But he waited.
    And as he waited, he watched her, feeling as if he somehow hadn’t seen her in a long time, though they had traveled all over the world together in these past weeks, with the whole of their necessary entourage. She was pale beneath her expertly applied cosmetics. And there was a certain kind of brittleness about the way she moved.
    “Are you ill?” he asked abruptly when they were finally alone in a suite set aside for visiting heads of state in an exclusive Georgetown hotel, all rich, old wood and faint gestures toward something more art deco.
    Kiara stopped walking away from him—toward the master bedroom at the far end of the suite and the sumptuous bath, presumably—her gown whispering around her as she turned back to face him. He watched her for a moment from his position at the top of the steps that led down from the formal foyer into the long, elegant room, trying to see behind that smooth mask he realized she’d been wearing for weeks now.
    Trying to understand how she could feel so far away when she was right there, within reach. The tension between them pulled taut, making the vast room seem to contract around them. He hated that, too.
    “Of course I’m not ill,” she said, her forehead allowing the slightest frown.
    “Pregnant?” He didn’t know why he’d asked that. To poke at her?
    He could see her swallow almost convulsively as he walked down the steps, closing the distance between them. Her mouth flattened. Her eyes flashed with what he took to be temper, but at least it was better than that mask.
    “No. Still not pregnant, should you care to alert the media.”
    “If there is something wrong—” he began, hearing the impatience in his own voice and unable, somehow, to curtail it.
    “What could be wrong?” Her eyes were too bright. She turned her head as if she wanted to hide it, looking out toward the brick terrace that stretched the length of the suite on the other side of the glass windows, the rooftops of Georgetown spread out before them. Deceptively inviting, Azrin thought darkly, in such a of the suite on the other side of the glass windows, the rooftops of Georgetown spread out before them. Deceptively inviting, Azrin thought darkly, in such a deceitful city. “You are a success by any measure. You have been hailed as an innovative and modernizing force for good in a troubled region. A worthy successor to your father in every respect. Surely all of this has turned out exactly as you wanted. As you planned.”
    “Kiara.”
    He didn’t know what he wanted. He didn’t feel like any kind of success, not when she looked away from him, when she seemed so closed off, so far away. He didn’t know what moved inside of him, tearing at him. He only knew he couldn’t stand this. Whatever this was.
    “What else can you possibly want?” she asked him, her voice the faintest whisper. From me, he thought she added, but he couldn’t be sure. And he didn’t know he meant to move until his hands were on her shoulders and his mouth was hard against hers.
    “I want you,” he growled. He tasted salt and something else, something bitter, but beyond that was simply Kiara, and it took so very little of her to make him drunk. “I always want you.”
    He dragged his hands through her hair, scattering the diamonds that had nestled there, digging his fingers into the long tresses, holding her still as he took. Tasted.
    And took some more.
    He was desperate then, and she met him with her own heat,