Taken [Zayn Malik]

ch.17- The Malik

Zayn kept his arms around me more comfortably, more gently than from weeks before. He didn't need to use any force or chains or anything to keep me with him. I was staying on my own terms and out of my own desire.

I knew that I had only been fighting him these past couple weeks because I wanted to stay, but wanting to stay meant that I was being disloyal to Sebastian. But Sebastian is nowhere to be seen and may never come back to find me.

And, for some strange and horrible reason, I didn't want to think about Sebastian or anything before the shipwreck. I wanted to be here with Zayn, right now and for a very long time.

I wanted to make up for all the times that I had hit him and cursed at him and been so downright rude. I also wanted to take a hot shower because I was sore.

My chest tightened.

I realized that my pearl wasn't there anymore and it was around Zayn's neck now. I looked over at Zayn as he slept and remembered all the times I had tried to sneak out from the possessive grip of his arms. But, also how stunningly beautiful, how exotic he looked, how much his face, his body, his heart was in need of admiration and adoration. 

I leaned close and kissed his cheek and pressed my lips to his softly so as not to wake him. I watched as his chest rose and fell smoothly, seamlessly as his heart beat freely.

He could leave the castle now. He could leave the island. And so could I. But I didn't want to. And I don't think Zayn was any closer to letting me go now than he was the moment he kidnapped me.

I got up slowly, slipping out of Zayn's grasp for the slightest moment, but he grabbed on tighter, thinking I was leaving him, just like the weeks before. 

He opened his eyes quickly and rubbed them as he looked up at me. I kissed his cheek, letting him know that I wasn't leaving him. Zayn smiled up at me from the web of his dark lashes. 

"Where are you going, princess?" he asked as he sat up right quickly. I tugged the covers up to my chest.

"The shower" I mumbled. 

Zayn smiled, "ok."

He was still tense and weary from the time I had tried and almost succeeded in escaping, but he was slowly letting go of those fears. He was hesitantly letting himself relax as I carefully let myself love him more directly and comfortably.

I took the covers up with me to the bathroom and turned the shower on. 

Zayn lay there on the bed, bare to the world and uncaring that he was flashing his precious and dangerous princehood. He grinned as he watched me close the bathroom door.

Then I heard a noise and I jerked back. Madame Linelle was eyeing me eagerly and the smirk on her soft, puffy face told me she had heard the crying from last night had how it had turned into moaning.

She looked down at the sheet I held tightly around myself and she patted my shoulder. 

"You let him love you" she nodded.

I looked down anxiosuly at my feet.

"Yes" I muttered quietly.

"You freed his heart, my dear" she smiled softly and took the covers from me. She helped me into the shower and handed me more delicate soaps and lotions to help with the sore spots 

"And he freed yours" she added with a slight grin.

My cheeks burned under the steam of the shower and out of embarrassment. It was awkward enough that it was both me and Zayn's first times and now his maid/mother/nurse was being a bit nosy about it.