I would advise listening to the song while reading!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj9fumMPE9o

As her nails scratched his scalp and her fingers knotted in his hair, he lost himself to her. The comforting scent of her strawberry shampoo washing over him as if cleansing him from everything that had tainted him before. Her soft body in his arms as he wept kept him safe from the vulnerability of all those years ago that he'd kept on running from, then there was her voice, her sweet, intoxicating voice that would say his name like a prayer as if it was something to behold beside holiness- and he wanted to be pure, just this once, just for her.

The damp raining atop his shirt she wore from the tears he shed bothered her none, all she wanted was to be here for him and holding him to her like the precious, saintly man he was offered her what she'd always been searching for- redemption in the name of Aditya.

His ice-cold hands searched for safety beneath the shirt, creeping towards the warmth only her body could provide, clinging desperately to her thighs then her stomach as he traced shapes neither of them could concentrate on when he was touching her like that. For so long only loneliness had guarded him from flashbacks of blood, gut-wrenching pain and a bare body against his. As the thoughts collided with his racing breaths he couldn't take it anymore, he needed to run, to be away from all of this, to escape once more. Skidding back, he threw her beside him and rushed to the wall where he could see nothing and feel nothing but what the past had done to him. "You need to leave" he growled, droplets of sweat falling from his hair.

Zoya padded to behind him, one hand over his eyes as she spun him around. She'd never been one to force anyone to do anything, but he needed this and she needed to do it for him. For the first time did she feel able to help him, she knew what this was because panic attacks had plagued her too. Lifting his hand to her face, she traced it across her features "What do you feel?"

His brows constricted "What are you doing?"

"What do you feel?" She repeated with a little more pressure.

Focusing on the way his fingertips skirted across her lips, he sighed "You, your lips, your eyes".

Standing on tiptoes she pressed a hand onto his unclothed shoulder to balance herself "What do you hear?"

"You, your voice" his chest began to unclench as his hand found her hip. He inhaled sharply the second she brushed her face beside him "Zoya, I-".

"What do you smell?" She did not know how he would react to any of this, but she knew the importance of grounding him and this was the only way she knew how.

The light scent of fruit mingled with his own aftershave consumed him "Me, me and you". Aditya opened his eyes to her smiling face when her hand dropped.

"What do you see?"

He smiled slowly "My wife" his tone was raspy, eyes painted a bloody red that hid all of the white that swam around his brown orbs.

Zoya cupped his face then pressed her lips in a feather-light kiss to his, eyes shutting at the sensation "What, what do you-".

"You" he cut her off. His chapped lips moved from her lips to her hair to the base of her throat as he whispered somethings and nothings that created a moan from her lips that travelled straight to his chest. Finally raising his head, he blinked through heavy lashes of wet and groaned: "I can't get enough of you, what you do to me is" his head shook.

But tonight she needed this, needed him. Tipping his chin up, her soft eyes searched his drenched ones "What do I do to you?" Her voice was light in the biting air, laced with uncertainty that pushed her to realise he would soon push her away because as Saul had made so perfectly clear, she was not worth it. But oh God she wanted to be, she wanted to be worth him.

Pulling her down onto his lap as he fell onto the bed, he framed her face with his hands "This, Zoya, this, you're driving me crazy" and she was, once sane now he was insane and at her feet in just a matter of days, he hated it, but he loved it too.

She flinched "I've made you angry?" Pulling away, she gasped when he rolled her over so her body was imprisoned beneath his. "Aditya, please" she squirmed beneath him, halting only when his eyes shut and his forehead creased with lines she couldn't help but reach up to wipe away.

"Don't go, not now, not ever, we don't" he rested his head against hers, "We don't have to do anything, just stay, stay with me, I need you to stay" all he had ever wanted was someone to do just that and it had to be her, it had to be his innocent, clumsy, beautiful Zoya, if it wasn't he wasn't sure he'd survive. "I have never" Aditya's voice tore until raspiness wrapped its way around his words, "Never needed or wanted anyone like I do you" the honesty in his words made both their breaths heavier and their hearts faster. "What you've done for me today, no one has ever" he swallowed painfully. With one last plea, he rolled off her "Stay" he begged, so close to bowing at her feet in despair and desperation.

Zoya pulled herself up to sit beside him, then before she could think too much about it, she crawled onto his lap so her legs were either side of him and her hair brushed his cheeks. "I need you too" she gulped back her own tears at the confession, her hands shaking as they rested on his face.

"Oh God, Zoya" he wrapped a muscular arm around her waist, squeezing her so tight to him that it became hard to breathe. "I don't want to see him, Zoya, I don't want to" he couldn't say more, not now when he had her so close, he couldn't stand to see the disgrace in her eyes when she found out the truth.

"Then see me" she pushed his head so he could see her, "Just see me, I'm here".

"You won't go?"

"I won't go" the promise was one she had no choice but to make when he looked at her like that.

"You'll stay?"

"I'll stay".

"With me?"

"With you" there really wasn't anywhere else she'd rather be. Her nails dug into his shoulder blades as he pressed open mouth kisses across her chest in the opening of the buttons she hadn't done up in haste. Hanging her head back, she clamped her hand on the back of his head and allowed him to serenade her with kisses and her name.

"Zoya, Zoya, Zoya" he stopped at her neck, tongue running a line across a bone that he soon began to suck. Smiling into her skin when she bucked into him, he continued the assault that would show everyone just how much she really was his.

Too far in she grabbed his face, lips against his like water over flames, her tongue coiled around his, teeth smashing together in her frenzy to just taste him, her moans enveloped them both, hitting his mouth and landing back in hers. Gasping, she pulled away "I, I shouldn't have" she'd never gotten carried away like that before, never would she ever risk taking so much control in the bedroom area, but he'd set her on fire and she just needed to sate the burn.

"Oh, you should have" Aditya cupped her cheek, thumb lining her plump lips. "I liked it, Zoya, I like you, but before you ran, I thought maybe you didn't want this, us" his smile dropped, "That you didn't want me".

"I do" she rushed out, head dropping in shyness at her own eagerness. Placing a hand atop his to stop his invasion of her thigh, she smiled, he made it far too difficult to concentrate. "I thought maybe that you didn't want me, I thought that if you had me once you wouldn't want me, then I needed to go and get something and Noor said that if I wanted you I had to show you, then that woman came and I".

"You were jealous?" His grin was wide, he'd never had someone jealous over him before.

She nodded, a small smile playing on her lips "I just wanted to keep you safe, you looked so sad and I wanted to comfort you, not her" she rested her hands on his shoulder. "Is that okay?" She'd never risked being so honest before, but she needed to be today, for him.

"More than okay, you don't know how much I want you to want all of that" he squeezed her leg. "You make me happy, Zoya, I only hope I do the same, I will never meet anyone as brave as you, teach me to be brave, Zoya, I want to be" he let out a whooshing breath, "Brave".

"You think I'm brave?"

He nodded then leant closer "Will you kiss me again?"

Giggling, she pecked his lips then leant back, arms wound around his neck.

He pouted "One more" he kissed her again, pushing her back against the duvet before he leant over her. "I'm tired, can we do that again? Maybe I imagined it" his eyes glimmered with excitement as she laughed into his chest. Snaking his arms around her, he led back and pulled her on top of him "Will you hold me tonight?"

Sliding away, she opened her arms, holding him close as he curled into her, chin resting atop his head and her arms wound around his. Peering over his body she reached for his buzzing phone, careful not to wake him as she scanned the words that made her heart stop 'Is she asleep? I'm here now, no need to pretend, I have the contract, you're free'.