“I thought you were repressed,” he went on, voice rising. “Or religious. Or conservative. Or just plain frigid. But you were just waiting for marriage, weren’t you? So, I figured I’d give it to you. After all, it worked for me.”
Her breath hitched, a small, involuntary sound that only seemed to fuel him further.
“I knewyou’d never marry me without a little… encouragement.” His smile twisted. Tani looked like something cold had crawled over her skin. Jay leaned in, fury turning his face red. “I needed to drug you to make you love me, to make you accept me.”
Then his voice dropped into a sneer so venomous it made Kabir’s stomach lurch. “Yet you turn into nothing but a bitch in heat the second he walks into a room.”
The slap of the words echoed in the room, unforgivable words that could never be taken back. And Kabir’s control shattered, rage tearing through him with the force of a storm breaking its own leash.
CHAPTER 32
TANISHA
Jay’s wordswere still ringing in her ears, ugly and hateful, when the door slammed open.
Kabir stood there.
For a split second he didn’t move, just stared at Jay with a stillness that made every hair on Tani’s body stand on end. She’d seen Kabir angry before, snappish, annoyed, furious even but she had never seen this.
Not the silence. Not the dead calm. Not the violence simmering behind his eyes like a fuse burning down.
“Kabs,” she began.
Too late.
Kabir exploded into motion. One heartbeat he was at the door, the next he was across the room, crashing into Jay with the full force of a man who’d finally reached the edge of what he could endure. The sound of their bodies colliding cracked through the room like an explosion.
Tani gasped, stumbling back as Jay toppled to the ground under the impact. He went down hard, Kabir driving him into the floor with a snarl that didn’t sound human.
“Kabir!” she choked, but he didn’t hear her.
He straddled Jay’s chest, fist slamming into his jaw once, twice and then once again, the blows heavy, sickening, fuelled by every ounce of venom Jay had just unleashed into the world, their world. Jay’s head snapped to the side, blood blooming along his lip.
Tani’s hands flew to her mouth as she looked frantically around the room for something to break them up with.
Kabir grabbed Jay’s collar and hauled him up, eyes blazing, breath heaving, muscles trembling with barely contained fury.
“You don’t talk about her like that,” Kabir growled, voice low and shaking. “You don’t even breathe in her direction after what you just said.”
Jay coughed, choking on blood, trying to twist away. “She’s…she’s mine-”
Kabir slammed him back down so hard the floor seemed to shudder beneath them.
“Say it again,” Kabir hissed. “I dare you.”
Tani’s heart hammered against her ribs, breath coming in quick, uneven bursts. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Could only watch as the man she used to trust with her heartbeat turned into something fierce and unrecognizable.
Except…he wasn’t unrecognizable. She knew exactly what this was. This was Kabir with his walls gone, his restraint shattered, his need to protect her so deep it stole the air from the room.
This was the boy who once fought anyone who made her cry. This was the man who had walked away from her to keep from ruining her life. This was the love he’d never admitted, burning him alive right in front of her.
“Kabir,” she whispered, voice trembling, “stop. Please.Please.”
He froze.
Just a fraction. Just enough for a breath, for sanity.
And then, slowly, like he was dragging himself out of a nightmare, his head turned toward her.
