Page 14 of Trapped By the Maharaja

The early rays of dawn streaked the sky outside the tall windows, casting shadows across the master suite.

Ram lay on his side, listening as Sanjana’s restless movements finally quieted, her breathing turning deep and even as she fell into exhausted sleep.

Slowly, he turned towards her.

Her face was softened in sleep, a strand of hair falling across her cheek, her lips parted faintly and her brows drew together as if she had drifted into uneasy dreams. Even in sleep, she seemed wary, her body curled as though still guarding itself from him.

His chest tightened, and his jaw clenched hard.

She was here. In his bed. In his palace. As his wife.

His thoughts dragged him back to the temple, to the moment he tied the sacred yellow thread around her neck.

The fire had burned between them, but the blaze in her eyes had been fiercer, burning with anger, hatred, and defiance.

At the Rewa Palace, his grandmother had threatened consequences, and his mother conveyed her silent disapproval, but none of it mattered.

He had chosen Sanjana, and nothing could stop him. Not even Sanjana herself.

Yet darkness clawed at him. He remembered the night ten years ago when he had made his decision to give it all up—the titles, the palaces, and the luxuries because the royal decree didn’t allow him to marry a commoner. He hadn’t cared. All he had wanted was Sanjana by his side.

And then she had betrayed him cruelly.

The betrayal had turned the boy willing to sacrifice everything for her into the cold, ruthless, and relentless man who forced her into a contract marriage.

But now that the contract was signed and the marriage was registered, all that was left was for her to give him an heir.

When he saw her earlier that night in a silk gown clinging to her soft, damp skin, the outline of her body glowing in lamplight, he had almost lost the reins on his control.

He had wanted her with a hunger that clawed at his insides, raw and relentless.

Desire for her was a beast, pacing inside him, straining at its leash.

But he held back.

Not because he didn’t want her. He wanted her too much.

But if he had given in tonight, he would have destroyed her.

His need for vengeance ran too deep. His rage at her betrayal, his fury over the years lost, would have made him brutal.

Merciless. He would have hurt her, not just claimed her.

And no matter how much he hated her for the past, some buried line inside him refused to break her completely.

So he had forced himself to stillness, keeping his breathing even until she believed he slept.

But he knew it couldn’t last.

He couldn’t lie beside her night after night, close enough to touch, close enough to taste, while the beast inside him grew hungrier.

His gaze lingered on her sleeping form, the soft rise and fall of her breath. His hands curled into fists to stop himself from reaching across the sheets.

It wouldn’t be long. He knew it with the certainty of a man who always took what he wanted.

Soon, he would claim her as his.