CWs ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Suggestive, Power Imbalance, Coercive Authority Dynamic, Morally Grey Male Lead, Enforced Disappearance Themes, Unlawful Detention, Religious Elements, Abuse of Authority, Age Gap Relationship, Psychological Tension, War/Violence Context, Emotional Distress, Moral Conflict, Religious Guilt, Post-Sex Emotional Fallout, Internalised Shame, Fear of Rejection, Possessive Behaviour, Identity Crisis, Family Trauma, Fear of Abandonment.
Tags ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Age Gap, Authority Figure x Civilian, Captor x Captive, Forced Proximity, Mutual Attraction at First Sight but They Need to Communicate, Emotional Repression, Emotional Vulnerability, Angst, Misunderstandings, Hurt/Comfort, Interfaith Relationship, Guilt as a Love Language, They're Both a Mess.
Summary ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ After a night of crushing self-doubt and the painful belief she is nothing more than a complication in his life, Dulani finally confronts her fears.
W/C ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ 8.6K~
a/n: This is super long but this is going to be the final chapter so I think it's appropriate. I think I'll write a epilogue too, we shall see.
Series M.List ✦ General M.List
final disclaimer: This story contains mature and potentially uncomfortable themes including power imbalance, age gap dynamics, authority figure romance, coercive undertones and religious elements. The central relationship operates within unequal power structures and explores morally grey territory. While consent exists within the narrative, it unfolds inside an uneven dynamic that may not be healthy by real world standards. Please read at your own discretion.
⏾⋆.˚
Whiplash.
That was how Dulani would describe it.
One night, one mistake, and everything was ruined beyond repair. She had ruined everything.
In the days that followed, she lived in an eerie limbo, suspended between what had been and what had been and what could no longer be undone. Iqbal had changed. It would have been easier if he had reverted to the man she first met–guarded, dangerous, and brutish. At least she knew how to bear it. He was worse, he was softer. Just not in the way she needed.
He came downstairs for meals now, sat a little too close beside her, his touches were gentle and constant–a kiss pressed to her forehead, a hand resting at the small of her back.
Nothing more. Not since that horrid night.
The restraint felt punishing in its own way. A special kind of torture.
Worse still, he had begun to erode at the one sanctuary she had as the walls around her closed in. The quiet but insistent suggestions that she slept in his room, which she agreed to under the idiotic presumption that he might become more affectionate. Then her clothing, her make up and every belonging she had in that suitcase of hers slowly migrated to his room. Everything in her room ebbed away, until it was returned to just another guest room.
He had absorbed her into his space with a quiet, relentless efficiency, erasing the separate room that had been her last bastion of independence.
Her prison had shrunk.
Yara, her north star since she had arrived in Iqbal’s home, has abandoned her. It wasn’t subtle by any means. Dulani was no longer welcomed to help Yara in the kitchen, their conversations cut short. Yara’s gaze lingered on her with an unreadable but certainly negative expression. Disappointment, perhaps. She felt it on her like a stain she could not scrub clean.
Hell was not fire. Hell truly was other people.
She had given herself to him because she thought it was love. A profound, terrifying, all-consuming love that had felt like destiny. A love so deep that it could overcome how they had met, how he took away her freedom. It had been a surrender to this great love, not a transaction.
Now, it felt like the latter. A cold, humiliating exchange. Her body for a taste of freedom.
The memory of that morning, of him addressing her with such detached efficiency, it made her skin crawl with shame. She regretted that night with a bitterness that tasted like bile. Not because of the act itself, but because of what it had revealed about her own naivety.
She sat now in the middle of his large, imposing bed, the sheets that smell of him. The room was too quiet. A gilded cage, its walls decorated with the evidence of her own foolishness. Her suitcase was gone, its contents now neatly folded in his dresser. Her perfume sat on his nightstand next to his cologne. Her toothbrush beside his in the ensuite.
It was a different kind of possession. Not the fiery passion of that night, but a slow, systemic assimilation. He was making her a part of his life, his home and his routine but he was doing it without touching her. Without wanting her.
It was absolute torment.
She found herself dwelling on her friends back in London, to the group-chat she’d muted, the Instagram stories she tapped past with a dull ache of alienation.
Clingy boyfriends.
She could no longer bear listening to their complaints. The eye-rolls, the performative exasperation over boyfriends who were too attentive, too obsessed, too eager to spend time with them. Before all this, she had listened with sympathy. Now, every text about possessive jealousy or a boyfriend who couldn’t keep his hands to himself, even in public, scraped against something raw inside her. It was a language Dulani had never spoken, but she understood its grammar: the desire, expressed as a hunger that was sometimes inconvenient but always present. Always wanted.
Iqbal, by contrast, slept beside her every night like a monk. He held her, yes. His arms were a solid, warm band around her waist pulling her back against the hard plane of his chest. But that was it. A chaste embrace. Night after night.
He didn’t reach for her.
He didn’t try.
At first, she’d told herself it was his age. He was fifty-something, after all. Perhaps his drive was simply lower. A practical, biological explanation that soothed the sting of rejection.
That theory had shattered one night a week ago. She’d been drifting to sleep, lulled by the rhythm of his breathing, when she’d shifted slightly. Her plush bottom pressed more firmly against him. And she’d felt it–the unmistakable, rigid head of his hardened length against her, even through the layers of their sleep clothes. His arms had tightened around her, a reflexive, possessive pull, and she’d felt the faint, suppressed tremor that ran through his entire body.
He didn’t act on it. He simply held her tighter, his breathing deliberately slowing until the tension gradually ebbed away, leaving her confused, aching, and utterly humiliated.
The message was clear to her: he had desires still. Just not for her. Not anymore.
The confidence she had carried all her life–the quiet, unshakable dignity that came from knowing her own worth, from being raised to believe she was precious–began to crumble. It wasn’t a dramatic collapse, but a slow, insidious erosion. Piece by piece, it flaked away like old paint.
‘Was I disappointing?’
The question was a whisper in the dark of her own mind, but it echoed with terrifying force. She had been a virgin. She had no frame of reference. What if she had done it wrong? What if her inexperience had been a turn-off, a cold splash of reality that doused his passion? The memory of his tenderness, his whispered praise, felt like a lie she had told herself.
‘Did I make a mistake?’
Of course she had. The biggest mistake of her life. She had mistaken intensity for intimacy, possession for partnership. She had given away the most private part of herself to a man who now treated her like a burden. She had crossed a threshold from which there was no return, and he had shut the door behind her, leaving her stranded in this strange sexless purgatory.
‘Was I not attractive enough?’
This was the most corrosive thought of all. She looked down at her own body, at the full curves he had once worshipped with such reverence. Had he simply… gotten what he wanted? Had the novelty worn off, leaving behind just another woman whose body no longer held his interest?
She felt it then, a cold, hollow certainty: she had been moved from a woman to an obligation. She was no longer the woman who stirred his hunger. She was just another problem to be solved and disposed of.
A soft, insistent buzzing cut through the thick silence. Her phone lit up on the night stand where she had carelessly abandoned it, casting a pale blue glow against the dark wood.
Dulani stared at the name on the screen. Amma. Her mother, who was probably sitting in her sunlight London kitchen right now, sipping her morning tea, finally settled after hearing from her daughter after months of silence.
She should answer. Her mother’s voice was the only thing in the world that could cut through this fog of shame. But to answer would be to unleash it all–the fear, the confusion, and the humiliation. She would hear the worry in her mother’s voice, and she would have to lie, or worse, tell the truth and shatter the careful, curated image of her life she had always presented. She didn’t want to be a source of worry. She was supposed to be the strong one, the composed one.
Her thumb trembled over the green answer icon.
‘I can’t do this anymore.’
The thought was a surrender. With a decisive movement, she swiped to answer and brought the phone to her ear.
“Amma?” Her voice was thin. She cleared her throat, forcing a lightness she didn’t feel. “How are you? How is everyone?”
There was a brief pause on the other end, the familiar sound of her mother shifting. “Duwa,” (Daughter,) Zaara’s voice came through, warm and steady, a lifeline across continents. “We’re all quite well. Yasiru–well, you know how your brother is–driving me mad with his business ideas, and your seeya (grandfather) is complaining about the rain. The usual.” Her tone softened, becoming more probing. “And you? Has there been any updates on the…legal issues, since our last call? Are you staying safe?”
Dulani closed her eyes, the simple concern almost undoing her. Her mother knew she was being held in a man’s home, the vague, horrid circumstances that brought her here. She had told her family almost everything, with Iqbal’s permission. But she had hidden the romance, the intimacy, and her catastrophic mistake she had made.
“I’m safe,” she said, and it was technically true. She was not in any physical danger at his hands. Not anymore. “It’s just… taking longer than I thought. Bureaucracy.” The words tasted like ash. “How is achchi (grandmother)? Did the roses bloom?”
She was stalling, asking about flowers while her world was crumbling. But she needed the anchor of normalcy, the sound of her mother’s voice talking about mundane things, before the dam inside broke. Dulani had tried to speak more, but the words had caught in her throat, twisting into a broken, wet sound that was unmistakably a sob she couldn’t suppress. She pressed her hand over her mouth, but the damage was done.
The line was silent for a beat, the kind of heavy, listening silence that only a mother could produce. “Dulani,” Zaara said, her voice dropping all pretense of casual conversation. It was firm, direct, a command and an invitation all at once. “Talk to me. What happened?”
“I just… I miss home, Amma,” Dulani whispered, the confession tearing out of her. It was a safe admission, a fragment of the truth that stood in for the whole, ugly reality. “I miss you. I miss everything being… simple.”
“Nothing about this situation is simple, patiyo (cub),” Zaara replied gently, but there was steel beneath the softness. “You’re in a strange country, in a strange man’s house, for reasons that make no sense to me. Tell me what’s really wrong. Is he hurting you?”
“No!” The denial was too quick, too fervent. “No, he’s not… he doesn’t hurt me.” But the unspoken thought weighed heavily in her mind: ‘He just doesn’t want me.’
Zaara picked up on it. Mothers always know when their children hide behind half thoughts. “Then what is it, patiyo?” she asked, her voice impossibly kind. “You can tell me anything. You know that. There’s no judgment here. Only me, and my love for you.”
The silence stretched, filled only by the faint static of the line and the frantic beat of her own heart. “It’s nothing like that, Amma,” Dulani finally managed, voice thick. “Everything’s changed. In the house.” She swallowed, the admission feeling like a betrayal of some unspoken pact. “I’m not in the guest room anymore. I’m… I’m sleeping in his room now.”
There. She had said it.
Zaara did not gasp. She did not launch into a lecture. There was a long, measured exhale on the other end of the line, the sound of a mind rapidly reassembling the pieces of a puzzle. “I see,” she said, her voice carefully neutral. “And this change… was it your choice, patiyo?”
The question was a knife, precise and gentle, cutting straight to the core of her shame. Had it been her choice? She had accepted him. She had surrendered. But in the cold light of this new reality, that choice felt like a trap she had walked into blindfolded.
“I thought it was,” Dulani whispered, the tears finally spilling over, tracing hot paths down her cheeks. “But now… I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what any of this is.”
Zaara’s voice was calm, but the questions that followed were surgical in their precision. “Has he introduced you to anyone? His family? His friends? What has he actually said about your future?”
Dulani’s answers were halting, revealing the painful vacuum where promises should have been.
“Men like him,” Zaara continued, her tone softening with a mother’s terrible wisdom, “do not trade their position in this world, or the next, for a girl.”
“There hasn’t been… concrete talks,” Dulani admitted, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Not about marriage or anything like that. But his actions… Amma, he moved all my things into his room. He wants me here. He’s… gentle. He takes care of me. Isn’t that a kind of commitment? Maybe he’s just giving me time. Space to adjust to… all of this.” The words sounded weak even to her own ears, a desperate defence of the man who had retreated into cold indifference after taking what he wanted.
“Dulani,” Zaara’s voice was soft, but it carried the weight of experience. “Even if he had truly promised you the world, you must know that a lover’s promise is not a promise at all. It is a wish, spoken in a moment. It holds no weight against reality.”
“But–”
“Think about it logically,” Zaara interrupted, not unkindly. “Even if he married you, what kind of marriage would it be? A civil one, perhaps. In the eyes of his society, his faith, you would be… what? Illegitimate. A secret. A black mark on his reputation that he would have to explain for the rest of his life.” She paused, letting the stark reality settle. “And what happens then, Dulani? What happens in ten years, when you have spent your life with him, you have his children, and he decides to take a second wife? A proper wife, one recognised by his faith and his community. Where would that leave you? Who would stand beside you then?”
Dulani felt the blood drain from her face. She hadn't thought that far ahead. She had been too consumed by the present humiliation to consider the future one. But something much worse dawned on her with a slow, sickening certainty. Her mother hadn’t said it out right, but the implication was there.
She would end up like her biological mother.
“I’ll come home,” Dulani whispered into the phone, the words tasting like defeat and the first clear decision she’d made in weeks. “As soon as the legal issues are sorted. I’ll be on the first flight back.”
She didn’t wait for her mother’s response. The connection felt too fragile, the truth too heavy to bear another second of her mother’s careful, loving analysis. Her thumb found the red icon on the screen and pressed down. The screen went dark, reflecting her own warm, tear-stricken face back at her. The silence in the room was absolute, and it felt heavier than before.
She had just drawn a line in the sand of her own captivity. The question now was whether she had the strength to cross it.
She reflected on the night, his passion cooling felt less like a coincidence and more like a truth she’d been avoiding. He’d been injured, they were alone, and she’d made herself available. A warm, willing body to satiate a craving. Nothing more.
Dulani sat motionless on the edge of the bed. Her gaze drifted slowly around the room–Iqbal’s room. It was all in order, every surface polished, every object placed with deliberate precision. Her own things, her perfume, her clothes folded in his wardrobe and her silk scarf draped over his chair… they didn’t look like belongings. They looked like exhibits. Carefully placed accessories in the museum of his life. Trophies. Put away in their proper place–just like her.
The weight of it all descended on her. Her poor mother–the saintly woman who had raised her with such love–had not been able to save her from her blood. She had ended up exactly where her shameless birth mother had: a mistress. A warm body in a powerful man’s bed, with no promise of tomorrow. Her biology was a curse she couldn’t outrun. She truly was just the child of an adulterer and a homewrecker.
A sudden, visceral need seized her. She needed to be clean. She needed to scrub the filth of that bloodline from her skin, to wash away the scent of him, the memory of his hands, and the humiliation of his rejection. She stood up, her movements jerky, and headed for the ensuite.
She didn’t look in the mirror. She couldn’t bear to see the evidence of her lineage staring back at her. Instead, she walked straight to the glass enclosure, turned the dial with a sharp twist, and stepped under the punishing spray before the water had even warmed.
The initial shock of cold was a blessing–a physical slap to bring her back to reality. She stood there, letting the icy needles pelt her skin, as if the temperature alone could scour away the shame. When the water finally heated, steaming up the glass, she reached for the soap. It was his soap, sandalwood. The scent of him was everywhere, even here.
She scrubbed. Her hands moved over her arms, her shoulders, her stomach, with a frantic, almost violent energy. The loofah, scraping at her skin until it turned red and raw. ‘Filthy blood.’ The words were a mantra in her head, driving her movements. She washed her hair twice, three times, trying to erase the memory of his fingers tangling in it, of his breath against her scalp.
But the water just ran, clear and useless, down the drain. The scent of his sandalwood clung. The feeling of his hands on her skin was a memory etched into her nerves, not her epidermis. The filth, she realised with a sinking despair, was not on her skin. It was in her veins. No amount of water, no bar of soap, could ever wash that away.
She finally turned off the shower, the sudden silence ringing in her ears. She was clean, and she was still exactly what she had been when stepped in.
Dulani stood there in dripping silence, steam curling around her. Clean skin, raw and red, but the shame was a stain that soaked right through to her bones. Left more aware of what was left behind–a realisation that she was trapped in a cycle she hadn’t chosen.
She saw it with terrifying clarity. Herself, older, softer around the edges from bearing his children, living in this beautiful, fortified house. And then another woman, younger, proper, welcomed with ceremony and recognition. Herself moved to a smaller room, her children calling another woman mother. A ghost in her own life, just like the woman who had given birth to her.
A sob broke free, a ragged, ugly sound that echoed off the tiles. She slid down the slick glass wall of the shower, her knees giving way, until she was huddled on the cold. The steam was dissipating, leaving her exposed and shivering.
She had fallen in love with a man for whom she was, and always would be, a complication. A sin to be managed. There was no way out that didn’t involve breaking something–her heart, his control, the fragile illusion of safety he had built around her. And she wasn’t sure she had the strength to break anything at all.
So it seems, our end is always self made.
Dulani had been sitting in her own discomfort for far too long. The tears had dried into salt tracks on her cheeks, leaving her face stiff and raw. She pulled herself up slowly, limbs heavy with the weight of everything she had admitted to herself.
She dried off mechanically, wrapped herself in a towel, and padded into the bedroom. Dressing took effort. She chose a simple cotton salwar kameeze, one of the outfits the Major had provided, in a muted olive green that felt appropriately invisible. She combed her wet hair into a loose braid, her movements slow and deliberate, as if each action required conscious thought.
The house was quiet.
The Karachi evening was setting in, the sky bleeding from orange to violet. Soon, he would be home. The thought made her heart curdle.
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded in her lap, and waited.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
The front door opened downstairs, its sound carrying up through the bones of the house. Iqbal’s voice, low and tired, exchanged a few words with Yara. Footsteps on the stair measured and unhurried.
Each one brought him closer.
The door to the bedroom swung open. He was still in his service uniform, the crisp fabric rumpled from a long day, fatigue settling into the lines around his eyes. He stopped short when he saw her sitting on the edge of the bed, dressed and waiting.
For a moment, something flickered across his face, then it smoothed into that familiar, controlled composure.
“You are still up,” he observed, closing the door behind him. His voice was quiet, roughened by the day. “I expected you to be resting.”
Dulani remained seated, her hands clasped in her lap. “I was waiting for you.”
The words hung between them, simple but weighted. He studied her for a long moment, his gaze traveling over her face as if searching her face for something. Then he crossed to her, movements unhurried, and leaned down. His lips brushed her forehead–a ghost of a kiss, chaste and brief.
“I’ll be down for dinner soon,” he said, straightening. The dismissal was gentle but unmistakable. “You should go ahead.” He turned toward the bathroom, already loosening his collar, the conversation closed.
Dulani rose on unsteady legs. She crossed to the door, her hand finding the handle, and slipped out into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind her.
‘Breathe.’
She drew a slow, deliberate breath. Then another. The mask of composure settled back into place, piece by piece, until she looked like herself again–or at least, like the version of herself that could navigate this house without crumbling.
She descended the stairs, her footsteps soft against the marble. The kitchen was warm, lit by the soft glow of pendant lights, and the aroma of spices hung in the air. Yara stood at the counter, her back to the doorway, stirring a pot with methodical focus.
Dulani lingered at the threshold, watching the older woman’s silhouette. There was a stiffness to Yara’s shoulders, a tension that hadn’t been there before that night. She hadn’t turned around, hadn’t acknowledged Dulani’s presence, though she must have heard her approach.
The silence stretched, awkward and unfortunately familiar. Yara, who had always been quick with a teasing remark or a pointed instruction, kept her eyes fixed on the pot, her stirring unhurried.
Dulani moved quietly to the dining area, pulling plates from the cabinet. She set the table for two, like usual, the porcelain clicking softly against the wood. Yara did not ask for help. Dulani did not offer. The absence of her usual warmth was a cold thing, pressing against Dulani’s ribs.
She pulled out a chair and sat down. The wood cool beneath her palms, grounding her. She kept her gaze fixed on the table’s surface, tracing the grain with her eyes, refusing to look up at Yara’s stiff back.
The kitchen fell into a rhythm of silence broken only by the clink of metal against pots, the hiss of steam, the slide of a lid being set aside. Minutes passed. Yara ladled food into a serving dish with methodical precision, her movements efficient but devoid of their usual warmth. She set the dish on the table without meeting Dulani’s eyes. Then another. The spread was generous, as it always was, but the silence that accompanied it was a bitter seasoning.
Dulani’s hands remained folded in her lap. She didn’t reach for the food. Not yet. It felt wrong to eat without him, the hierarchy of the house asserted itself in strange ways now.
Yara busied herself at the counter, wiping a surface that was already clean, her back a wall between them. The quiet was unbearable, thick with things unsaid. Dulani wanted to speak, to bridge the gap, but she didn’t know what words could mend a silence she didn’t fully understand.
She heard him before she saw him. The heavy tread of boots on the staircase, measured and deliberate. Iqbal appeared in the doorway, having changed into a simple white baggy shalwar kameez. His beard was still slightly damp and his hair combed back. He looked younger like this, almost approachable, if not for the gravity that clung to him like a second skin.
His gaze swept the room, a faint crease formed between his brows. “You did not start without me,” he observed, crossing to the table.
“It didn't feel right.” Dulani shook her head. “You must be tired,” she said quietly, her voice barely carrying across the table.
Iqbal’s gaze lingered on her for a moment, something unreadable passing through his eyes. He pulled out the chair across from her. A deliberate distance that had been present in this home for far too long.
“I am,” he admitted, settling properly into the seat. He reached for the naan, tearing a piece off with practiced ease. “The day was too long. Meetings that should have been brief stretched into hours.”
He began to eat, his movements efficient, unhurried. Yara had disappeared into the kitchen, leaving them in their lonesome in the silence.
Dulani picked up her own naan, tearing small pieces but not eating them. She arranged them on her plate, a nervous habit she had developed.
“Heard from your family today?” Iqbal asked, his tone casual, as if he were asking about the weather.
The question caught her off guard. She looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time since he’d sat down. “I… spoke to my mother earlier. She sends her regards.” The lie felt thin, brittle.
Iqbal’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He nodded once, reaching for his water. “Good. It’s important to maintain family ties.”
The platitude hung between them, hollow and strange. He sounded like a stranger offering polite conversation to a guest, not a man who had taken everything from her–a man she had offered everything to.
He set down the cup. “I received news today. One of Rehman’s men, Hamza, is getting married.” He paused, picking at the edge of his naan. “Finally settling down at thirty-five. Took him long enough.”
“That’s wonderful for him,” Dulani said, her voice measured. “She must be a nice woman.”
Iqbal hummed in agreement, lifting his cup. “She is. From a good family. Religious, well-mannered–a proper Muslim girl. Hamza is already wiser than I was at his age.” He took a sip, seemingly unaware of the weight his words carried. “He found someone suitable, someone who fits, and did not drag his feet.”
The words landed like stones dropped into still water.
A proper Muslim girl. Someone suitable. Someone who fits.
Dulani’s hand stilled over her plate, the naan fragment she had been tearing crumbled between her fingers. She didn’t look up. She couldn’t. Her face felt frozen, the composure she had built threatening to crack.
He kept eating, oblivious. “They will marry in two months. Quick, but clean. No complications.”
She set down the piece of naan. Her appetite had evaporated entirely. “I’m happy for him,” she said, her voice thinner now, though she tried to steady it. “She sounds like a good man.”
Iqbal glanced at her, perhaps sensing a shift in her tone, but she offered nothing more. She reached for her water glass instead, taking a long, slow sip, letting the cool liquid anchor her.
The quiet stretched, filled only by the clink of his spoon against the bowl. She stared at the grain of the wooden table, counting the lines to keep herself from shattering. Dulani set down the glass with careful precision, the water inside trembling to a stop. She pressed her palms flat against the table’s edge and pushed herself to stand.
“I think I’ll turn in early,” she said, her voice even, controlled. “The heat today–it gave me a headache. I don’t think I can eat.” She didn’t meet his eyes.
Iqbal looked up, his spoon paused mid-air. “You have barely eaten.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” The apology came automatically, hollow and obliging. “I just need to rest. Please, finish your meal.”
She stepped back from the table, her chair scraping softly against the floor. Her legs felt unsteady, but she willed them to carry her forward, toward the stair case, away from the food she couldn’t stomach and the man whose casual words had cut deeper than any blade.
Iqbal’s voice followed her, quiet but carrying. “Dulani.”
She stopped. Her hand found the banister. She didn’t turn around.
“If you are unwell, I can have Yara bring you something. Tea. Medicine.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, and her voice held. Barely. “I just need to lie down.”
She mounted the stairs one step at a time, her spine straight, her composure intact, her heart a shattered thing rattling against her ribs.
The bedroom swallowed her the moment she stepped inside. She crossed to the bed on numb legs and climbed in fully clothed, the cotton of her shalwar kameez bunching beneath her as she pulled the covers up to her chin. His scent still clung to the pillows, to the sheets they had shared. She lay on her side, facing the window. The curtains were drawn, but a sliver of moonlight slipped through the gap, casting a pale stripe across the floor. She stared at it, willing her mind to go blank, willing the ache in her chest to quiet.
Proper Muslim girl. Someone suitable. Someone who fits.
The words replayed on a loop, each repetition driving the knife deeper. She pressed her eyes shut. She tried to focus on her breathing, tried to find the calm centre she had been taught to access through years of meditation. But there was no calm. There was only this hollow, gnawing certainty that she had been a fool.
‘He never promised you anything. You gave yourself to a man who never asked. And now he’s being kind about it. Kind, because that’s what duty demands.’
A tear escaped, sliding down her temple into her hair. She didn’t bother wiping it away. Another followed. Then another.
She curled in on herself, drawing her knees towards her chest, making herself small. The bed was too big, too empty. He would come to sleep eventually. He would lie beside her, careful and chaste, and they would pretend this was normal. That she was anything more than a complication he was managing.
The tears came silently, soaking into the pillow, a release she couldn’t stop. She lay there for what felt like hours. The tears eventually stopped, leaving her eyes swollen and her throat raw. But sleep would not come. It hovered just out of reach, a mercy denied.
Her thoughts churned. Her biological mother had done this–loved a man who would belong to another. Waited. Hoped. And what had it earned her? A cautionary tale in a family that would rather abandon their own son, their own flesh and blood, than accept her. Dulani had inherited her fate like an heirloom she never asked for. She was the other woman in her own life. And Iqbal–he was no different from her father. A man who took what pleased him, when it pleased him.
Footsteps approached the door. Heavy. Measured.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forced her breathing to slow, and became a statue in the sheets.
The door opened, a soft click of the latch, then a whisper of air as it swung inward. His weight crossed the threshold. The door closed behind him with a gentle thud. He crossed the room with measured steps. The mattress dipped behind her, and the sound of fabric rustling filled the room as he slipped out of his kameez, leaving him in his undershirt.
The bed groaned as he lay down, maintaining a careful distance between them. Dulani lay rigid beneath the covers, her breathing still measured, still steady, though sleep remained a foreign concept. Behind her, Iqbal shifted. The mattress moved as he turned onto his side, facing her. She felt the warmth of him before she felt his touch–the heat radiating from his body as he closed the distance between them. His arm slid over her waist, heavy and deliberate, pulling her back against his chest. He pressed his lips to her hair, a soft, unconscious gesture. His arms tightened around her, his breathing slowing, deepening. Within minutes, the rhythm evened out into the steady cadence of sleep.
Dulani lay frozen in his embrace, her eyes open in the dark.
She focused on her breathing. Tried to empty her mind. But his arm was heavy around her waist. His breath fanned warm against the back of her neck, stirring loose strands of her hair. His chest rose and fell against her spine. She was hyperaware of every point of contact.
Dulani waited. She counted his breaths, matched them with her own, timed her movements to the rhythm of his sleep. When his arms slackened in that deep, boneless way of the truly unconscious, she moved.
Slow. Careful. She shifted her weight by degrees, easing her body forward, creating a sliver of space between her back and his chest. His arm slid from her waist onto the mattress. She slipped her legs over the edge of the bed, feet finding the cool flooring. The contact grounded her. She rose slowly, her joints stiff, her muscles aching from the tension she had held for hours. The room was dark, lit only by the thin blade of moonlight slicing through the curtains.
Her legs carried her forward on instinct, away from the bed, away from his warmth. She moved to the darkest corner of the room, a narrow gap between the wardrobe and the wall where the moonlight did not reach. A shadow within shadows. She lowered herself to the floor, her back scraping against the cool wall, and drew her knees to her chest.
The silence pressed in. Her heart pounded so loud she was certain it would wake him. She pressed her palm flat against her mouth, her breath hot and shallow against her fingers. Her throat closed. The sob she had been holding escaped as a strangled, muffled sound, swallowed by her palm. She curled tighter into herself, making herself as small as possible. Her skin felt numb, distant, as if it belonged to someone else. The darkness around her pulsed and receded, shadows breathing in the silence.
She should not have come to this country. She should not have stayed. She should not have given herself, like an offering, to a man who had accepted her body without accepting the weight of what it meant.
Her mother. The thought of her sweet mother haunted her. The woman who had chosen her. Who had looked at twin infants born of betrayal and took them in. who had sacrificed her youth, her reputation, her chance at a clean break, to raise the children born of the biggest betrayal of her life. And this is how she repaid her sacrifice.
She did not feel like Zaara’s daughter tonight.
She felt like a stranger wearing borrowed skin.
Dulani buried her face in her knees, folding herself into the tightest shape she could manage. Her arms wrapped around her shins, her forehead pressed against the bone, and she closed her eyes.
The moonlight shifted across the floor. Time passed. The house settled into deeper silence.
A subtle hitch in the steady rhythm of Iqbal’s breathing filled the room, not that she noticed in her self-hate filled haze. A shift of fabric as he turned onto his back, his arm reaching out instinctively for a warmth that was no longer there. His hand found empty sheets, cool to the touch.
His hand swept across the empty sheets.
Iqbal’s eyes snapped open in the dark, his body instantly alert. He sat up sharply, his heart slamming against his ribs. His gaze cut through the shadows, scanning the room with the precision of a man trained to find threats even in darkness.
Then his eyes found her, curled in the corner between the wardrobe and the wall. Of course, he found her. There wasn’t a single world where his eyes wouldn’t find his woman. The woman Allah had blessed his life with. The woman who had accepted him into her heart, into her body as he was.
Iqbal rose from the bed, the sheets pooling at his waist before falling away. He made no sound–bare feet against marble, a predator’s instinct to approach without warning. All the while, she remained folded into herself, buried in the dark cradle of her own arms, unaware she had been found. He crossed the room in long strides. The space between them shrank until his shadow fell over her huddled dorm.
The sight of her–so small, so broken, hiding as if she had no right to be seen–pierced something deep in his chest.
He lowered himself before her.
“Dulani.” His voice was low, not harsh.
She did not move. Did not respond. Her face remained buried in her knees, her breathing shallow and uneven, as if she had retreated somewhere far beyond his reach.
He reached out. His hand closed around her wrist, gentle but firm, drawing her arms away–revealing her tear streaked face to him.
“Look at me.”
Her wrist was warm beneath his fingers, fragile bones and trembling. She did not resist, but she did not obey either–her face remained angled away hidden behind the curtain of her hair.
He released her wrist and lowered himself fully to the floor, sitting beside her against the wall. The marble was cold through his shalwar, grounding in its chill.
“Dulani.” Her name left his mouth soft, a grounding thread thrown into her unravelling.
She did not respond.
He shifted closer until his shoulder pressed against hers, then reached out–one hand settling on her back, the other finding the nape of her neck, threading gently into her hair–anchoring her to him.
Her breath hitched, the stuttered, and she leaned into his hand as if her body recognised comfort before her mind could refuse it.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “I have you.”
Iqbal shifted closer. His hand slid from her back to her arm, then to her waist, guiding her with a slow, deliberate patience. She didn’t resist as he drew her forward, coaxing her out of the tight ball she had curled into. He pulled her gently, firmly, until she was no longer pressed against the wall but against him–her side meeting his chest, her legs draped across his lap.
She fit against him the way she always had. Perfectly. As if she had been made to rest here, in the hollow of his arms. But now she was shaking. Sobbing silently, her sorrows soaking into his skin. He could do nothing but absorb it.
He wrapped his arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her head, pressing her face against his shoulder. The other settled at her waist, holding her steady. He did not shush her. He did not question her. He simply held her.
“You are safe,” he said at last, his voice quiet, rough. “You are safe here with me.”
She shook against him. A muffled sound escaped her throat, half sob, half protest. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his undershirt, gripping him like a lifeline.
“No, I’m not.”
Iqbal said nothing in return.
He could have argued. Could have reassured. Could have listed all the ways she was protected within these walls. But he knew she was not safe. Not from him. Not from what he had done–what he had taken without earning, what he had held without claiming. He had pulled her into his world, into his bed, into the wreckage of his life out of pure selfishness. He was just a man, weak in the ways that mattered.
So he simply stayed, a vessel for her sorrow, absorbing the weight of it in silence. Minutes passed. Her sobs softened into shuddering breaths, then into quiet, ragged inhales. The tension bled from her shoulders in degrees, her grip on his undershirt loosening.
She had fallen asleep.
Iqbal did not move her to the bed. He knew he could. The mattress would be kinder to his bones, warmer than the marble floor and the cold wall at his back. He just shifted her weight instead, adjusting her until she was cradled more comfortably against him.
He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. His neck was bent at an awkward angle. His legs were cramping beneath her weight.
He did not care.
This was penance. Quiet. Private. Unspoken. He would sit here and let the discomfort settle into his muscles, let the hard floor remind him of the harder truths he had refused to face.
Sleep came slowly, reluctantly, pulling him under in increments.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
Dawn crept in through the gap in the curtains, pale and tentative as if it was afraid to disturb the fragile peace. The first light touched the edge of his jaw, caught the silver in his beard, and spilled across her hair where it fanned against his shoulder.
Iqbal’s eyes opened. His body registered the complaints first–the ache in his lower back, the crick in his neck, the dead weight of his arm where it had remained wrapped around her through the night. He blinked against the grey light, disoriented for a heartbeat before the memory of the night settled over him like a shroud.
She was still against him. Still asleep. Her face pressed into the hollow of his shoulder, her breath warm and even against his skin.
Slowly, he shifted. His hand found her shoulders, gentle.
“Dulani.” His voice was rough with sleep.”Wake up, meri jaan.”
She stirred against him, consciousness pulling her up through thick layers of exhaustion. Her limbs felt heavy, disconnected. She blinked. Her face felt stiff, dried salt tracks pulling at her skin.
“Easy,” Iqbal’s voice came, rough with sleep. “Slowly.”
Iqbal moved carefully, easing her upright, his hands guiding her with a gentleness that seemed almost foreign to his calloused palm. He scooped her into his arms. She let out a small startled sound as he lifted her, cradling her against his chest. He carried her to the bed and sat her down on the edge, the mattress soft beneath her after the unforgiving floor.
The mattress dipped as he moved away, then returned. A glass of water appeared before her. She looked at it blankly.
He tipped it gently toward her lips. “Drink.”
She did. The water was cool against her raw throat, soothing the ache. She drank until the glass was empty.
He set the glass aside and knelt before her. He looked at her, his dark eyes tracing her face, cataloging the damage–the shadows beneath her eyes, the swollen lids, the dried tear tracks. His thumb rose, brushing gently beneath her eyes, assessing the swelling without commenting on it.
Silence stretched between them, heavy with everything that had not yet been said.
“I want to go home.” Dulani’s voice cracked as she spoke, barely above a whisper. She said it without looking at him, her gaze fixed on her hands in her lap. The words felt hollow. Where even was home anymore? London? Colombo? Some version of herself she had left behind in another life?
He remained kneeling before her, still as stone.
“I know.”
His voice was quiet, stripped of its usual authority. He did not argue, did not deflect. Then Iqbal moved. Slowly, deliberately, reached for her hand. His fingers closed around hers, lifting her palm with a gentleness that seemed almost reverent. He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles–each one lingering, each one a silent apology pressed into her skin.
Her breath caught.
He turned her hand over, exposing the delicate skin of her inner wrist. He pressed his lips there too, warm against her pulse point, where her heart beat frantically. He lifted his gaze to hers, leaning his cheek onto her palm basking in the warmth of her soft touch.
“I have been thinking–overthinking about how to do this properly,” he said, the words deliberate, as if he had rehearsed them in the dark hours of the night. “I have wasted too much time already.”
He paused, lifting his head. His hand found her face, thumb brushing along her cheekbone, tilting her chin gently so she could not look away.
Dulani said nothing. She simply waited, her hands still in her lap, her gaze fixed on him. The silence was fragile, stretched thin.
“I have already begun preparations,” he said quietly. “Everything is in place to keep you safe by my side.” Iqbal’s hand found hers again, fingers threading through hers. “I am fifty-three years old, Dulani. You are only twenty-three. You cannot understand how I have spent most of my life in the shadows, in the spaces between right and wrong, where nothing is clean.” His voice dropped, rough at the edges. “It took me decades to find you. I have you now. I will not lose you.”
The words came before she could stop them, breaking the heavy atmosphere Iqbal had built with his words.
“I’m not a proper muslim girl, like the one Hamza is marrying,” her voice faltered. “You said he was doing the right thing–I’m not… I don’t want to be…” Try as she might, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud.
“No, no, meri jaan,” his voice dropped, rough with sincerity. “I would never compare you to some imagined ideal, Dulani. I was looking at a man who had found his match, just as I found mine. Except he had the sense to claim her openly, quickly and without hesitation. I felt like such a fool for not making you mine the day I saw you, eyes wide and unwavering while your pulse ran wild under my fingertips.” He lifted her hand and pressed it flat, over his heart. “There is no other woman for me, you were put on this earth for me—no one else. And when I am six feet under, my ribs a cage for maggots, they will learn the rhythm of your laughter and mistake it for their own pulse.”
“I thought you regretted me.” Dulani did not look at him. She stared at her hand pressed against his chest. “That night–” She stopped. Swallowed. “You held me. You kissed me. Then morning came and you would barely look at me. You gave me back my phone like it’s some kind of payment.” Her voice broke. “I thought you believed me to be a mistake.”
The silence that followed was heavy, weighted with the grievances she had finally spoken aloud.
Iqbal’s hand covered hers where it rested against his chest. His jaw worked silently, his gaze searching her face with an intensity that bordered on anguish.
“No, meri jaan, how could I regret you?” His words were rough, almost broken. “I woke up that morning and I looked at you sleeping in my arms and you stopped me cold. I did not know how to claim you when I had not yet earned the right. I wanted to earn you. Give you the life you deserve, even with a man like me.”
He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers–soft, warm and deliberate. A kiss that was not in hunger but with a gentleness that felt foreign to him. When he broke away, his forehead rested against hers.
“Call your mother,” he murmured. “I need her consent.”
The words echoed in her mind as she stared at him, her lips still warm from his kiss. Her hand trembled where it rested against his chest.
“You–” She stuttered. “You want to speak to my mother?”
“Yes.”
“You want to ask for her permission.”
“I want to do this properly.” His thumb traced along her cheekbone, gentle and deliberate. “I should have done it before I touched you. Before I held you. Before I–Hnn-gh…” He let out a groan of frustration. “Ya Allah, what you do to me.” He let out a strained chuckle. “Call her, meri jaan, so I can make you mine.”
Dulani searched his face–the exhaustion etched into the lines around his eyes, the sincerity beneath the gravity–and felt something crack open in her chest. Not in pain this time. Something warmer. Something that felt dangerously like hope.
She reached for her phone.
The call connected on the third ring.
“Patiyo?” Her mother’s voice, groggy with sleep, sharpening instantly with concern.
“Amma. I’m sorry, I know it’s early, but–” Dulani paused, drawing a shaky breath. “There’s someone who wants to speak to you.”
There was a long moment of silence. “Put him on.”
Dulani handed the phone to Iqbal. He held her gaze for a moment, silent reassurance passing between them, before he rose and stepped toward the door.
“Wait for me.”
She nodded.
He disappeared into the hallway, her phone pressed to his ear, his voice already low and respectful as he began to speak.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
The minutes stretched.
Dulani sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap, her heart pounding against her ribs. She strained to hear the muffled cadence of his voice through the walls, but the house absorbed sound the way it absorbed everything.
Half an hour passed.
Then an hour.
She paced. Sat. Stood. Sat again. Her mind raced through possibilities, through fears. Would her mother trust him? Would she refuse? Would she demand Dulani come home immediately?
The thought sent a jolt of cold dread through her veins.
She sat down heavily on the bed and pressed her palms against her knees, forcing herself to breathe.
Two hours pass. Then three. The light had shifted, pale morning fading into a soft, grey afternoon when she heard footsteps.
She looked up.
Iqbal stood in the doorway, her phone in his hand. He looked exhausted–the lines deeper around his eyes, his shoulders carrying a weariness that went beyond the physical. But beneath the fatigue, there was something else. A softness at the corners of his mouth. A contentment in his gaze that she had never seen before.
He met her eyes.
And he smiled.
Dulani understood before he spoke. The breath left in her lungs in a rush. Before she knew it, she was moving–crossing the room in three steps, closing the distance between them, throwing herself into his arms.
He caught her. His arms wrapped around her, steady and solid, pulling her against his chest. He buried his face in her hair and let out a long, shuddering breath, as if he had been holding it for hours.
“Your mother gave her blessing,” he murmured against her hair.
Dulani laughed–a broken, wet sound, half sob and half joy–and clutched him tighter.
“You are going to be my wife.”
The words settled into her chest like a key turning in a lock. Like a door opening. Like coming home.
CWs ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Suggestive, Power Imbalance, Coercive Authority Dynamic, Morally Grey Male Lead, Enforced Disappearance Themes, Unlawful Detention, Religious Elements, Abuse of Authority, Age Gap Relationship, Psychological Tension, War/Violence Context, Smoking, Emotional Distress, Moral Conflict, Religious Guilt, Post-Sex Emotional Fallout, Internalised Shame.
Tags ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Age Gap, Authority Figure x Civilian, Captor x Captive, Forced Proximity, Mutual Attraction at First Sight but They Need to Communicate, Emotional Repression, Emotional Vulnerability, Angst, Misunderstandings.
Summary ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ After a night that binds them more irrevocably than either is prepared to face, Dulani mistakes Iqbal's cold practicality for regret while he quietly resolves to make her his wife, setting them on a collision course of guilt, miscommunication, and possession.
W/C ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ 3.2K~
a/n: Happy Birthday, @goodnightkatherine. I hope you enjoy this, sweet girl, I'm sorry that it's angsty. It's a little short bc I have a bunch of deadlines for my LLM this month. ദ്ദി╥ ᴗ ╥)
Series M.List ✦ General M.List
final disclaimer: This story contains mature and potentially uncomfortable themes including power imbalance, age gap dynamics, authority figure romance, coercive undertones and religious elements. The central relationship operates within unequal power structures and explores morally grey territory. While consent exists within the narrative, it unfolds inside an uneven dynamic that may not be healthy by real world standards. Please read at your own discretion.
⏾⋆.˚
Iqbal sat with his back against the headboard, the bed no longer feeling vast and unwelcoming as it once had. The call to prayer echoing in the background.
Dulani slept against his side, exhausted from the night before, curled into him as though she had always belonged there. Half hidden by the breadth of his chest. Bare faced. Hair unruly against his skin. Soft.
The purple bruises blooming along her smooth skin drew his eye. A quiet, undeniable reminder of the line he had crossed. Not in violence, or for power but in possession. In want.
If he was to make her his, truly his, it would require more than hunger and inevitability. There were logistics. Protections.
He had accelerated what he now accepted was inevitable.
His gaze shifted to the prayer mat in the corner of the room.
He couldn’t pray until he performed ghusl.
He drew in a slow breath.
Iqbal’s hand lifted, his thumb tracing the delicate line of her cheekbone. She didn’t stir. The skin under his touch was warm, impossibly soft. He studied her sleeping face, the peaceful slackness of her plump mouth, the faint flutter of her lashes. In sleep, she looked younger, more vulnerable. The weight of what he had taken settled more heavily on his shoulders.
Zina.
The word echoed in the quiet of his mind, stark and unyielding. A sin. A transgression he had committed with full awareness. He was not a man who deluded himself with convenient justifications. He knew his faith. He knew Allah’s law.
He also knew his own heart.
The nikah was a formality. A piece of paper, witnesses, a mullah’s recitation. In his mind, in the space between her sweet whispers and his body claiming hers, she was already his. The contract was written in something deeper than ink. It was etched in the way she surrendered her body and trust, etched in the droplets of her blood that stained his sheets.
He would have her.
Properly.
Legally.
He would bear the scrutiny, the whispers, the complications that would inevitably follow. A Buddhist girl from a foreign land, taken under his roof. It would be seen as a weakness, a sentimental lapse.
He could not care less.
Iqbal’s thumb brushed over her lower lip. A protector. That was what he must become for her. The reckless hunger of the night before was already cooling, hardening into something more deliberate.
He would need to be careful, establish boundaries born of his duty to her. Something beyond being a passionate lover.
There was a knock at the door, firm but quiet enough not to wake the girl by his side. Yara. Right on time with his morning tea.
The door opened without waiting for his permission, the old woman never did wait for his permission to do anything. Yara stepped in, the familiar tray in her hands, her expression one of mild maternal concern. “Chai, Sahib. Woh neeche nahin aaein, to main ne socha–” (Tea, sahib. She didn’t come down, so I thought–)
Her words cut off. Her sharp eyes landed on the bed–on the sleeping girl tucked securely against Iqbal’s side, her dark hair stark against the white sheets, the line of her bare shoulder visible above the covers.
Yara froze. The concern on her face drained away, replaced by a cold, grim understanding. Her lips pressed into a thin, disapproving line. Without a word, she walked to the bedside table and set the tray down with a firm clink of porcelain.
Iqbal met Yara’s cold glare with silent, unapologetic resolve. He didn’t shift, didn’t try to explain. He simply held the older woman’s gaze, his own expression impassive, accepting the judgment he saw there without flinching.
Yara’s eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared slightly as she inhaled, disappointment evident in her features–sharp and maternal.
‘Foolish boy,’ she thought, her heart aching. ‘This is not how you protect something precious.’
She turned her gaze from him to Dulani’s peaceful face. A flicker of something softer, more protective, crossed her expression before it hardened again. She looked back at Iqbal, her voice dropping to a low, firm whisper that carried the weight of a lifetime of authority. “Main aap ka nashta mutaale ke kamre mein le aati hoon,” (I will bring your breakfast to the study,)
It was a summons. A command to present himself and account for what she had witnessed. Her posture was rigid, her back straight as she turned on her heel. She left the room without another glance, closing the door behind her with a soft, definitive click.
For a long moment, Iqbal didn’t move.
Then, with careful, deliberate movements, he began to extract himself from the bed. He slid his arm from beneath Dulani, his movements slow and controlled so as not to disturb her. She murmured softly in her sleep, her brow furrowing for a second before smoothing out again as she curled into the warmth he left behind. He watched her for a heartbeat longer, then stood.
He drank the tea, staring out the window, the spiced liquid grounding him. His mind was already turning to the day ahead, the difficult conversation waiting for him downstairs and his return to work. He moved to the ensuite bathroom to perform ghusl, the ritual washing that felt more necessary now than it ever had before.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
Dulani stirred awake, stretched languidly beneath the sheets, a soft sigh escaping her kiss swollen lips. A pleasant, deep ache radiating from her core, a tender reminder of the night’s intensity. Her muscles felt loose, her body heavy with a luxurious exhaustion she had never known. She basked in the sensation, surrounded by the scent of him–sandalwood, sweat, and the fading scent of tobacco that was now imprinted on her delicate skin.
When she finally opened her eyes, the room was filled with the soft, grey light of early morning. She turned her head on the pillow, looking for him through her sleepy haze.
Iqbal stood across the room, his back to her, pulling a crisp white undershirt over his head. The muscle of his back and shoulders rippled with the movement, a landscape of powerful, disciplined strength. Her gaze unabashedly traced the line of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders, the way the fabric settled over his torso. He looked composed. Solid. Handsome in a way that made her breath catch.
He finished dressing the upper half of his body and reached for his shalwar, stepping into them with efficient practiced movements. As he tied the drawstring at his waist, he turned slightly, his profile sharp against the pale light from the window.
Iqbal finally noticed her gaze.
His dark eyes held hers for a suspended moment, without a word, he finished securing his shalwar. He made his way to her side and sat on the mattress, the dip of his weight pulling her slightly toward him.
“Are you okay?” His eyes scanned her face, searching for any sign of distress.
She nodded and gave him a soft, sleepy smile brimming with affection. The expression transformed her face, smoothing away the last traces of sleep, leaving only a trusting contentment.
His gaze softened almost imperceptibly. He reached out, his fingers brushing a stray lock of jet-black hair from her forehead. His touch was deliberate and tender as he traced her features, coming to settle on her cheek. Dulani leaned into his hand, her cheek pressing against his palm, her eyes drifting closed.
She expected–wanted–his mouth on hers, to feel the deep consuming passion of the night before. She was giddy with anticipation as she felt the slight shift of his weight on the mattress as he leaned closer.
Instead, his lips pressed against her forehead. Firm. Serious. Utterly chaste.
Dulani’s eyes fluttered open as he pulled back, a flicker of confusion passing through them before she masked it. The contrast was jarring.
Iqbal stood up to his full height, his expression composed as a marble statue. Without so much as a second glance, he walked to his bedside table, opened the draw and retrieved her phone.
“You can have this back.” He placed it in her hand, his fingers barely brushing hers. His tone was matter-of-fact.
She stared at the phone in her hand, the sleek black rectangle feeling alien and unnaturally heavy. The pleasant ache in her body, the warmth of his scent, and the memory of his tenderness–all of it seemed to curdle, replaced by a cold, sinking dread. Her throat tightened, choking on her own humiliation.
She had given herself freely, out of a feeling so profound it had felt like destiny. Now, in the clear light of day, he was handing her phone back like a reward for services rendered. Like a bone tossed at a well-behaved dog.
Dulani didn’t look up at him.
She couldn’t.
Iqbal, unaware of the storm brewing inside her, watched her bowed head for a moment. Her silence felt heavy, but he attributed it to morning drowsiness or shyness. His mind already pulled away, toward the study downstairs, towards Yara’s disapproving silence that would inevitably demand his attention.
He gave her shoulder a brief, almost absent-minded squeeze–a gesture meant to be reassuring, but it just felt perfunctory. “Rest,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “Yara will bring you breakfast. I have things to attend to.” The words were practical. Protective. To him, they were an act of care, instructions of a responsible husband. To her, they were anything but.
She watched as he walked to the mirror, smoothing the front of his shirt and running a hand through his hair, taming the slight disarray.
He was leaving.
Just like that.
The man who had held her through the night, who had whispered possessive endearments against her skin, was now a composed stranger buttoning his cuffs. The distance between them felt vast, a chasm she didn’t know how to cross.
His hand stilled on the doorknob, his eyes gravitating towards her figure on the bed. She looked so vulnerable, sitting up in bed, the sheets pooling around her waist and her dark hair cascading over her bare shoulders and torso.
‘Ya Allah, must she be so tempting always?’ he lamented internally. ‘No. She needs certainty. A guiding hand. Structure. Not more of my hunger.’ Iqbal forced himself to walk away, closing the door softly behind him.
Dulani was alone.
The silence of the bedroom stretched, thick and suffocating. She remained motionless, the phone a cold weight in her hand, listening until the last echo of Iqbal’s footsteps faded completely down the hallway.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
In the study, Yara stood by the window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The breakfast tray sat untouched on Iqbal’s desk, the stream from the prathas long since vanished.
He was late.
The image wouldn’t leave her. The girl curled against him in sleep, so soft, so trusting, half-swallowed by the solid, unyielding wall of his chest. It looked…unequal. A fragile thing placed too close to a hard edge.
Yara stared at the cold food on the tray, her disappointment hardened into a sharp, maternal anger. She had pushed them together, believing she was guiding two strong-willed people towards something good, something stable. She had seen the spark between them and thought she was fanning a hearth-fire, not a wildfire.
‘Foolish old woman’, she chastised herself. ‘You saw a girl with steady hands and thought she could brave a storm. You saw a lonely man and thought you could give him a companion. You gave him temptation, and he took to it like a starving man takes bread.’
She had expected honour. A proper courtship, however unconventional. For the Major to bring Dulani into his arms with dignity, not this…this furtive sin in the shadows of his bedroom. Her stomach twisted under the sickening weight of guilt. Dulani had looked to her for guidance, and what had Yara done? She could never forgive herself.
The sound of firm, measured footsteps in the hallway pulled her from her thoughts but she didn’t turn. She kept her back to the door, her posture rigid, her arms still crossed.
Iqbal entered the study, his expression stone-faced. He barely glanced at Yara’s disapproving figure before moving past her without a word, taking his seat at the heavy wooden desk. He pulled the tray of cold food towards him, and began to eat with unhurried bites. The food wouldn’t get any colder, why rush? His dark eyes were fixed in the middle distance. Waiting for Yara to break the heavy silence that had settled over the room.
When Yara finally faced him, her features were grim and she spoke with a sharp, clipped voice. “Aap tirpan baras ke ho gaye hain.” (You’re fifty-three years old.)
It was an accusation, not of lust but of failure. A failure of the boy she had practically raised, the man she had once respected, for failing to live up to his own standards. For taking advantage of a situation she had, in part, created. For doing exactly what he shouldn’t.
He made no attempt to deny what he had done. He refused to be apologetic for the choice he made. He couldn’t pretend he would have ever made another choice.
“Mera irada hai ke main us se nikah karoon.” (I intend to marry her.) The declaration was stark and uncompromising in its simplicity.
Intention, however, to Yara was nothing more than a shield, a way to escape the reality of the present transgression. “Irada aur amal aik baat nahin hotay, beta,” (Intention isn’t the same as action, son,) she said, her tone softening slightly with the familial endearment even as her eyes narrowed with anger. “Jo tum ne us kamray mein kiya… jo tum ne us larki ke saath kiya, woh gunaah tha. Aisa gunaah jis mein tum usay apne saath le doobay.” (What you did in that room–what you did to that girl was a sin. A sin you carried her into with you.) Her voice dropped, weighted with maternal concern. “Aur us ki izzat ka kya? Kya tum ne aik lamhay ko bhi us ke baray mein socha, is se pehle ke tum ne us se woh le liya jo le saktay thay? Is se pehle ke tum ne us ki izzat paamaal ki? Tum is se behtar aadmi ho.” (What of her reputation? Did you even think about her before you took what you could from her, before you dishonoured her? You are a better man than this.)
Iqbal leaned back in his chair, his gaze steady. “Woh be-sochi na thi.” (It wasn’t reckless.) He was more attempting to convince himself than Yara. He had framed it as a matter of timing, not impropriety. As if he was in complete control, a logistical misstep to be corrected soon. “Us ki izzat par harf nahin aayega. Main sab kuch jaaiz kar doon ga.” (She will not be dishonoured. I will formalise everything.)
“Aur jab tak yeh sab jaaiz nahin hota? Tab woh kya hai? Tumhara raaz? Tumhari rakheel?” (And until this formalisation? What is she? Your secret? Your misstress?) Yara pressed him, her maternal anger simmering beneath the surface.
His composed demeanour cracked, the muscle in his jaw ticked. “Aap ko kya tawaqqu thi, Yara?” (What did you expect, Yara?) he asked, his voice low but sharp. “Jab aap ne usay meri taraf dhakela? Jab aap ne yeh qurbat paida ki, usay mere kamray mein bheja, gharelu qurbat ke har lamhay ko khud tarteeb diya? Kya aap ne samjha tha yeh raasta seedha saada hoga?” (When you pushed her towards me? When you created that proximity, sent her to my room, orchestrated every moment of domestic intimacy? Did you think this would be a straightforward path?) He leaned forward slightly, his eyes holding hers. “Aap ke bar-khilaaf, main ne anjaam ke baray mein socha tha. Main ne jahan tak ho saka apni khwahishaat ko dabaye rakha. Main ne mazhabi na-muwafqat ke baray mein bhi socha, us ke meri haisiyat par kya asraat honge, us ki salaamati par kya guzregi, sab kuch. Yeh bhi ke us ke liye meri umr ke mard se nikah ka kya matlab hoga. Main yeh bojh in sab mahinon apne saath uthaye phira hoon. Aap ne mujhe aazmaish ke saamne la khara kiya aur ab hairaan hain ke main gir para? Shayad mujh se behtar aadmi is par qabu pa leta, wohi karta jo baa-izzat tha. Main woh aadmi nahin hoon” (Unlike you, I thought of the consequences. I disregarded my wants for as long as I could. I have thought about the religious incompatibility. What it would mean for my position, for her safety, for everything. What it would mean for her to marry a man my age. I carried that weight with me all these months. You gave me the temptation and are now surprised I succumbed? Perhaps a better man than me would have overcome it, done the honourable thing. I am not that man.)
Yara’s anger softened, mixing with a flood of other emotions–guilt, worry, a deep protective fear. She looked at him and saw the boy, she had helped raise in all the ways that mattered, that he had buried deep within himself. He was nothing more than a man trapped by his own heart.
Iqbal stood up, his food only half-eaten. He didn’t look at her again–storming out of the room, shoulders tensed under the weight of it all.
The door closed with a sharp click, leaving Yara standing in the centre of the room, the silence absolute. The guilt was a physical weight in her chest, cold and leaden. She couldn’t bring herself to dwell on the chain of events her meddling had set in motion–the tea, the nudges, the deliberate creation of proximity. She had facilitated a fall. With trembling hands, she had begun to clear the half-eaten breakfast from the desk.
Meanwhile, Iqbal strode down the marble hallway of his own home as if it were a military camp, his mind partitioning the mental unrest. His thoughts were a cloud of practical necessities: documents, intermediaries, security assessments, the complex, delicate machinery that would need to be set in motion to make Dulani legally, irreversibly his. The weight was immense, but it was a weight he chose to carry. The guilt, Yara’s disappointment, his sin–these thoughts were luxuries for another time.
No matter the inner turmoil, he had a country to serve.
His driver was waiting. The black SUV pulled away from the fortified house, carrying him back into the world where he was Major Iqbal, the Angel of Death.
At headquarters, colleagues welcomed him back with open arms and grim smiles, already pushing files across his desk, talking of missed intelligence, pending operations, the endless, shadowy war that required his attention. He nodded, his expression one of focused authority. But beneath the surface, his mind was elsewhere, already building a future, stone by heavy stone, around the girl he had waiting for him alone in his bed.
⏾⋆.˚
Tag List ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ @chocolate-and-trouble, @wan2bey-n, @mariaaysbusjs, @noone1233nobody, @goodnightkatherine, @rehmandakaitswife, @hyacinthusssss, @dumbassdictionarysds, @bloo3moon, @akshaykhannadilf, @cloudyparadoxqueen, @geometric-circle, @tanipartner, @rini4everdreaming, @stoicepochmaw.
CWs ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Explicit, Mentions of Graphic Injury (gunshot graze), Pain & Physical Trauma, Power Imbalance, Coercive Authority Dynamic, Morally Grey Male Lead, Enforced Disappearance Themes, Unlawful Detention, Religious Elements, Abuse of Authority, Age Gap Relationship, Psychological Tension, War/Violence Context, Smoking, Emotional Distress, Moral Conflict, Loss of Virginity, Unprotected Sex.
Tags ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Age Gap, Authority Figure x Civilian, Captor x Captive, Forced Proximity, Mutual Attraction at First Sight, Emotional Repression, Emotional Vulnerability, Hurt/Comfort, Caretaker Intimacy, Smut.
Summary ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ A quiet confession in the comfort of the night leads to much more than Dulani could have bargained for.
W/C ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ 5.6K~
a/n: Sorry about disappearing off the face of the planet, it's exam season and your girl is dealing with way too much stress. Anyways, here's my attempt at smut. Be warned, I barely read smut previous to writing this and I am a virgin soooo inaccuracies are probably abundant. Also, I'm apologising in advance for the badly translated Urdu.
Series M.List ✦ General M.List
final disclaimer: This story contains mature and potentially uncomfortable themes including power imbalance, age gap dynamics, authority figure romance, coercive undertones and religious elements. The central relationship operates within unequal power structures and explores morally grey territory. While consent exists within the narrative, it unfolds inside an uneven dynamic that may not be healthy by real world standards. Please read at your own discretion.
⏾⋆.˚
Dulani had fallen into an uncomfortably comfortable domestic rhythm.
She had assumed the quiet responsibility of Iqbal’s care. Each morning she changed his bandages, her hands growing steadier with each passing day. She brought his meals and ensured he ate, pressed water into his hand when he forgot. When the hours stretched too late, she would appear in the doorway of his study with a cup of tea, a silent, stubborn reminder that he was meant to be resting. If it were not for her insistent presence, if it were any other time he was injured, he would be buried deep in his work by now.
As the weeks passed, the raw graze along Iqbal’s ribs closed, leaving behind raised, inflamed skin that joined the scattered constellation of scars across his body.
The physical pain faded.
The turmoil in his mind did not.
She moved through his space with quiet authority, as though she had always belonged there. As though she had authority over him. As though she was his wife.
It unsettled him.
What unsettled him more was that he liked it.
He found himself resenting his own recovery. Each bandage change was a step closer to losing her easy presence in his space. The faint scent of jasmine would no longer linger against his sheets, mixing with his own. It would be replaced by the familiar scent of sandalwood, tobacco and solitude. The idea made his heart drop.
Dulani was no better. As the days went on, her initial desire softened in its entirety into something warmer. More dangerous. Fondness, perhaps. Would she dare to call it love? She wasn’t so sure.
She had seen beyond the heavy stares that pinned her in place, and beyond the hands capable of violence. She had seen the smaller parts of him. The way his features softened when sleep claimed him. The habitual roll of his sleeves. The precise way he took his tea. The constant, instinctive scan of any room he entered.
To be loved is to be known. To love is to know.
And she was beginning to know him.
If only she knew what he was thinking when his gaze lingered on her just a second too long.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
Dulani stood in the kitchen, dressed in a simple long summer dress of pale blue cotton that fell in soft folds to her ankles. The fabric was light, the sleeves short and capped, leaving her arms bare. It was a dress for a warm English garden, not a fortified Karachi home, but it was comfortable, and it was hers.
She was helping Yara with dinner, her hands busy chopping onions into fine, even pieces.
Yara watched her from the corner of her eye as she stirred a pot of simmering dhal. The girl had a certain natural grace, a quiet focus that made even mundane tasks seem deliberate. ‘She looks like a newlywed bride already,’ Yara thought with a private smile. ‘All soft and waiting.’
“Your hands are steady, beti,” Yara remarked, her voice warm. “Not like some of the fluttery city girls I’ve seen.“
Dulani glanced up, face growing warm at the unexpected praise. “My grandfather taught me. He thought that everyone should know how to cook.”
“Smart man,” Yara nodded approvingly. She lowered the flame under the dhal before facing Dulani fully. “You know, when I was your age, I was already married. A big wedding that lasted three days. My family was not rich, but they made sure it was done properly.”
Dulani set the knife down, giving Yara her full attention. She had learned that when Yara began to reminisce, it was best to listen.
Yara’s eyes grew distant, a soft smile playing on her lips. “The most important part was the ceremony, very simple but very romantic. The maulvi asks you if you agree to take this person as your spouse, your partner for life. And you say, ‘qubool hai’.” Yara let out a dreamy sigh. “Three times, you must say it three times. So it can never be called a mistake. It means you accept the person before you as they are. It means you are choosing your path, knowing it cannot be undone lightly.”
Dulani turned the phrase over in her mind, the Urdu syllables settling in the warm, spice-scented air of the kitchen. The certain declaration seemed, to her, strangely beautiful.
“It sounds very different from Sri Lankan weddings,” Dulani remarked, her voice thoughtful as she resumed chopping. “It can go on for days too, but the ceremony itself…it’s less about verbal consent in that way. More about rituals, blessings, and the family coming together.”
Yara nodded, going back to stirring the pit with a slow, rhythmic motion. “Every culture has its own way of binding two souls. Either way it stays with you.”
“The dhal smells ready,” Dulani said, changing the subject.
Yara smiled, recognising the deflection but allowing it. “It is. Now, help me plate this. Major Sahib’s portion needs to go up.” She began ladling the fragrant lentil curry into a bowl, then added rice and a piece of fried fish. She placed it on a tray alongside a glass of water and a small bowl of yogurt. She turned and held the tray out to Dulani, the unspoken expectation was clear in her eyes.
Dulani took the tray without meeting Yara’s eyes, her fingers closing around the cool edges. A silent acknowledgment of the routine that had taken root in this house.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
The hallway was cool and quiet, the only sound was the soft swish of her cotton dress against her legs. Iqbal’s door was left slightly ajar, a sliver of lamplight spilled onto the dark wood floor.
She stood there for a long moment, basking in the juxtaposition of the simple domestic task she is performing and the man she is doing it for. Dulani took a slow, steadying breath, then pushed the door open fully and stepped through the threshold.
The room was dim, lit only by a single desk lamp that cast long shadows. Iqbal was on the bed, lying on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. The steady rise and fall of his chest was the only movement in the room.
He was asleep.
Dulani placed the tray quietly on the bedside table, the ceramic bowl making the softest clink against the wood. She straightened, her gaze drawn irresistibly to the man on the bed.
Though, in sleep, the harsh lines of command and vigilance were smoothed away but the furrow between his brows remained, a permanent crease even in unconsciousness.
‘He’s so deep in thought, even in his sleep,’ she thought, a faint smile touching her lips. After a moment of deliberation, she made no move to wake him, deciding his rest took priority. Her duty was complete; the food was within his reach if he wanted it. She could leave now.
But she didn’t.
Instead Dulani bent down, her movements slow and silent, leaning over the bed, bringing her face closer to him. The scent of him–sandalwood, faint traces of tobacco, and something so uniquely him–filled her senses. From this intimate distance, she could study the details she was usually too flustered to appreciate. The patterns of the faint pockmarks on his sun-weathered skin. The dark, thick lashes resting against his cheeks. The lines of strain radiating from the corners of his eyes and the stubborn, almost petulant set of his mouth.
He has been alone for a long time.
Her heart ached with the realisation, born of recognition–not of pity. This fortress of a man, with his control and violence, carried a solitude so deep it had etched itself into his features even in his rest. The tenderness that washed over her was so profound it stole her breath. This was a quiet, devastating understanding of his isolation, and her own foolish, willing heart tumbling headfirst into it.
Her hand lifted, seemingly of its own volition, fingertips brushing against the rough texture of his beard. She traced the line of his jaw, a feather-light touch, the skin beneath the coarse hair was warm under her cool, trembling fingertips.
He didn’t stir. Emboldened by his stillness, she let her thumb skim over the scar that marred his cheek, feeling the raised, uneven tissue. ‘This is him,’ she thought, her heart swelling with painful, undeniable certainty, ‘and I have fallen for him.’ There was no point in denying it any longer, no use in hiding behind confusion or fear. These feelings weren’t just a fleeting sexual awakening; they were roots digging deep into her soul. They wouldn’t leave her for a long, long time–she was sure of it.
Before she could stop herself, she felt herself whispering into the still air.
“Qubool hai,”
A pause, filled only with the beating of her own heart.
“Qubool hai,”
Another breath. She looked down at his sleeping face, adoration softening her features.
“Qubool hai,”
Acceptance of him. Of the danger he represented. Of the impossible cost. Of her own foolish, traitorous heart. A quiet confession that was only for her to hear, only for her to know.
With a soft sigh she began to lean back, to straighten up and slip away.
His hand shot out.
It wasn’t a sleepy, reflexive movement. It was swift, precise, and utterly controlled. His strong fingers wrapped around the back of her neck, his rough palm warm and firm against her skin. The grip wasn’t painful, but it was unbreakable, halting her retreat completely.
He was awake.
He was awake, and he had felt every touch.
He was awake, and he had heard every syllable.
For weeks, Iqbal had told himself she deserved safety, normalcy–that he would not be selfish, and would not bind her to his shadowed world. Yet, here she was willingly walking into the vipers’ nest and making herself a home in it. All without pressure or his manipulations, she had chosen him.
His eyes burned dark with a hunger that stole the air from her lungs. He pulled her closer by the neck, the pressure controlled but persistent, and slammed their lips together.
Dulani gasped against his mouth, a sharp intake of breath that he swallowed whole. Her hands flew to his shoulders, fingers digging into the solid muscle beneath his shirt, to anchor herself as her world tilted on its axis.
The kiss was everything she had imagined and nothing she could have prepared for. It was rushed, hungry, possessive, and demanding, yet there was a reverence in the way his lips moved against hers–a fierce, almost worshipful claim of her very being. His beard scraped against her sensitive skin, a rough, delicious friction that sent shivers down her spine. His other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her fully onto the bed, her body collapsing against his with a soft thud.
He broke the kiss only to breathe, his forehead resting against hers, his eyes blazing into her soul.
But before she could form a coherent thought, his mouth was on hers again, deeper this time, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until she opened for him with a helpless whimper. The taste of him–a strange mix of mint and nicotine–invaded her tastebuds. One of his hands slid from her waist to her full hips, his fingers splaying possessively over the curve of her body through the thin cotton of her dress.
Her fingers slid into his hair, threading through the thick, dark strands. She pulled him closer, a silent, desperate pleading for closeness.
A low, approving rumble vibrated from his chest into hers. He took the invitation, deepening the kiss until she was drowning in him. His hand on her hip tightened, his thumb stroking a slow, deliberate circle against the soft, plump flesh. He broke away to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw, down the column of her throat. His teeth grazed the sensitive skin where her pulse hammered wildly.
“SubhanAllah… aap to bohat narm hain,” (Subhanallah…you’re so soft,) he muttered against her skin, his voice rough, reverent whisper. “Resham aur phoolon ki pankhariyon ki tarah.” (Like silk and flower petals.) His other hand came up to cup her face, his thumb stroking her cheekbone as he looked down at her. His gaze was brazen, memorising every detail–the heaving of her chest, the parted swell of her lips, and the wide, dark pools of her eyes. “I have dreamt of this far too much…about the sounds you would make under me.”
He captured her mouth in a slower, more deliberate kiss, one that felt like a promise. His body shifted, rolling her gently but firmly beneath him. The solid weight of him settled over her, pressing her into the mattress, one of his knees nudged between her thighs–not forcing them apart but creating a space.
He was everywhere, invading every one of her senses.
Pinned beneath him, Dulani was momentarily stunned. Then, with a surge of courage, she kissed him back. It was enthusiastic, clumsy with inexperience, but utterly sincere. Her lips moved against his with a desperate, tender hunger that made him groan into her mouth.
He broke the kiss, pushing himself up on his arms. Her eyelids were heavy with affection, her lips, kiss-swollen, let out a soft, needy sound and chased after his lips, her head lifting from the pillow.
A ragged breath escaped him. ‘She wants this. She wants me.’ The thought was a wildfire in his veins. He caught her face between his fingers, holding her still for a moment, just drinking in the sight of her–flushed, wanting, his.
Only a moment passed before he pulled away fully, grabbing the hem of his own shirt, pulling it over his head in one swift motion.
Dulani’s eyes roamed over his bare chest, her breath catching in her throat. In the dim light, his torso was a landscape of hard-earned strength and brutal history. Defined pectorals, a stomach ridged with muscle, and the dark trail of hair that disappeared into the waistband of his shalwar. But it was the scars that held her gaze–slivered lines, puckered marks, and a constellation of old violence. And there, along his ribs, the fresh line of pink skin where her own hands had tended to him.
Without a word, Iqbal grabbed her wrists, his grip firm but not harsh, and guided her soft hands down his torso. Her palms flattened against his warm skin, and she could feel every defined muscle, every groove, every raised ridge of scar tissue–including the freshly healed one.
The sensation was electric. She couldn’t help but sharply inhale, her heart skipping a beat as her fingertips traced the evidence of his world. “So handsome,” she whispered, the words escaping her in a rush of awe, her gaze fixed on the map of his skin. Every scar was a reminder of the kind of man she had entangled herself with.
A low, rough sound escaped him at her words. The reverence in her voice, the soft wonder in her touch, struck him deep like a blade. He had to stop himself from ripping her clothes off right then and there. ‘I am in control,’ he attempted to convince himself. He would be careful. He had to be, for her.
Iqbal’s eyes constantly trailed back to her face, watching her reactions as his hands moved to the straps of her summer dress and pushed the sleeves off her shoulders. The pale cotton easily gave way to his rough hands, his fingertips trailing behind the fabric her skin in featherlight touches as the fabric is pulled lower and lower.
Her eyes fell shut, surrendering to his touch. The world narrowed to the feel of his calloused hands on her skin, the warmth of his body radiating above her, and the sound of his ragged breathing. He pulled her completely free from her dress, tossing the soft fabric aside without a second glance.
He took a moment to take in the image before him, his gaze slowly and deliberately travelling from the soft curve of her calves, over the generous swell of her hips and the dip of her nude waist. He lingered on the heaving fullness of her breasts, barely contained by the white cotton bra, her dusky peaks visible through the material.
“Tumhein dekho,” (Look at you,) he murmured, his voice thick with awe and barely leashed desire. “Mashallah, tumhein dekho,” (Mashallah, look at you.) One hand came up to trace the lace edge of her bra, his thumb brushing over the sensitive peak beneath. She gasped, her back arching off the mattress at the contact. A low, satisfied sound rumbled in his chest. “So responsive. Kamaal hain tum.” (So perfect.)
He bent his head, his lips replacing his thumb, kissing her through the fabric, his tongue tracing a damp circle. The sensation was shocking, electric. A soft, broken cry escaped her lips. His hands went to the clasp of her bra, his movements efficient, undoing it with a soft snick.
He peeled the scrap of fabric off of her, leaving her breasts bare before him. His breath hitched. For a long moment, he just looked, his dark eyes drinking in the sight as if committing it to memory. “Shandaar,” (Perfect,) he breathed, the word a reverent exhale against her skin. “Kitni lanati kaamil ho!” (So fucking perfect!)
Dulani’s hands lifted from where they had been clutching at the sheets. With shy, tentative movements, her palms cradled his rough cheeks, her thumb stroking the line of his beard. She guided his gaze back to hers, pulling him gently away from her breast and up to her lips. Her eyes were wide, dark pools of trust and burgeoning desire. “Kiss me,” she whispered, the request barely audible.
Iqbal let her guide him, lowering his head until their lips met again. This kiss was different–softer, slower, a deep, searching connection that felt more intimate than anything that had come before. He poured everything into it: his possession, his lust, his terrifying need. His hand slid from her waist to the curve of her hip, his fingers slipping beneath the fabric of her cotton panties, kneading the soft flesh of her ample bottom.
He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against hers, his breathing harsh. “Dulani,” he whispered, her name a prayer and a curse on his lips. His free hand moved to the tie of his shalwar, with one sharp, practiced tug, he undid the knot. The fabric gaped open, but for a long moment, he didn’t move. He simply stayed above her, his dark eyes drinking in the sight of her almost completely nude body laid out beneath him–flushed, breathless, and drunk on his touch. The lamplight gilded her dark skin, highlighting the soft swell of her hips, the deep curve of her waist, the heavy, tempting weight of her breasts rising and falling with each rapid breath.
‘Well worth the wait,’ he thought, a deep, possessive satisfaction settling in his bones.
Her eyes fluttered shut, overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of his gaze.
His calloused palms, rough from years of conflict, began to trace the contours of her body with a reverence that bordered on worship. He started at her shoulders, his thumbs stroking the delicate hollows of her collarbones, then slid down the outer swell of her breasts–just tracing their heavy, full shape, his touch feather-light.
“Ya Allah,” he breathed, his voice a low rumble of pure approval. “Kitni narm, jaise garam resham pake phal par lipta hua ho.” (So soft, like warm silk over ripe fruit.) His hands continued their exploration, skimming over the deep dip of her waist, his fingers spanning the narrowness before smoothing over the generous curve of her hips. He squeezed gently, testing the give of her soft flesh, and an involuntary sound escaped her lips–a cross between a gasp and a sigh.
“Sorry,” she whispered, her voice breathy and unsteady. “I can’t help it…”
The admission sent a jolt of pure heat straight through him. “Good,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a husky, intimate register. “Never try to.”
His hands moved back up her body, this time with more purpose. He finally cupped the full weight of her breasts which were barely contained in his palms, his thumbs sweeping over the taut, dusky peaks. He let out a noise of deep, visceral approval–the sound of a man presented with a treasure he’d long coveted. “Bilkul kaamil mutthiyan,” (Perfect handfuls,) he muttered to himself, his gaze fixed as the soft flesh spilled over his scarred hands.
Iqbal leaned down, drawing her into another, deep suffocating kiss. He poured his approval into it, his tongue sweeping against hers in a rhythm that mimicked the slow, deliberate circles his thumbs were tracing on her breasts. He only broke the kiss to trail his lips down her neck, his beard scratching deliciously against her sensitive skin. He lingered at the hollow of her throat, then moved lower, leaving a dark, possessive mark on the soft skin above her breast. He let out a shaky breath against the fresh bruise, fighting himself for control.
A soft cry escaped her lips as his teeth continued to graze her sensitive skin, the sensation a sharp, electric mix of pleasure and possession. He moved lower, leaving a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses and bruises down the slope of her breasts. His beard was a delicious, rough friction against her softness.
He took a taut nipple into his mouth, sucking deeply, his tongue swirling. The sensation was so intense, so foreign, that her back arched off the mattress, a louder, more desperate sound torn from her throat.
He released her with a wet pop, his breath hot against her damp skin. Iqbal was drowning in her. The taste of her skin, the weight of her in his hands, the symphony of soft cries and gasps she made. He kissed a path down the center of her torso, his tongue dipping into her navel, making her jolt.
“Look at me,” he demanded, his voice low.
She did, her eyes wide and trusting, her lips parted.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head. He caught the fabric of her panties with his teeth, right at the centre where the soft cotton met the apex of her thighs. He held her gaze as he began to pull the panties down, the movement slow, controlled, and unbearably intimate.
Dulani watched him with hooded eyes, her lips parted in a silent gasp of shock and raw desire. The sight of him–this formidable, dangerous man on his knees between her thighs, his dark eyes locked on hers–was the most intimate thing she had ever witnessed. It stole her breath and set her blood on fire.
He didn’t rush, as the cool air of the room kissed her most intimate skin, setting her free from the last piece of fabric preserving her purity. He took a moment to drink in the sight of her, completely bare and trembling beneath him. “Breath, meri jaan.” His voice was a calming rumble, shifting to settle more comfortably between her thighs. His hands came to rest on her inner thigh, his thumb stroking the soft skin there. He leaned forward, his breath warm against her wetness. “Just feel me,” he murmured, his head dipping and tasting her for the first time.
Dulani’s eyes closed tightly, surrendering to the unfamiliar, overwhelming pleasure. His mouth was hot, his tongue skilled and deliberate, exploring with a focus which felt deeply reverent. He took his time, learning her, tasting her salty sweetness, mapping every sensitive fold. A low, approving hum vibrated against her, sending another shockwave of sensation through her core.
His hand, rough and sure, slid under her thighs, lifting her hips slightly to give him better access. He held her open and accessible for him, his fingers sinking into her flesh and leaving dark marks. Every flick, every suck, was calculated to draw out more of those soft, helpless sounds he didn’t want her to suppress.
A hand broke free from its place, coming to trace her entrance, testing her readiness. He found her slick and swollen, and a deep groan of satisfaction escaped him. He pressed one thick finger inside her, stretching her gently.
The intrusion was startling, a sharp, full sensation that made a broken sob tore from her throat, the sound raw and unfiltered.
Iqbal shushed her, “I have you, meri jaan, just give in to me,” he murmured against her, adding a second finger and stretching her wider. He kept his movements slow and deliberate despite the urgency she could feel in the tension of his body.
The dual assault was merciless, building the pressure inside her to a fever pitch. Her breath came in ragged pants, her hands scrabbling for purchase on the sheets. She was trembling violently, caught on a precipice she didn’t understand.
“I can’t,” she whimpered out, the words a desperate plea as she teared on the edge of something vast and terrifying.
“You can,” he insisted, his voice an unwavering anchor. He refused to relent, his tongue pressed harder, his fingers curled, finding that perfect, devastating spot again and again.
The coil inside her snapped.
A wave of pure, blinding pleasure crashed over her, so intense it stole her breath and her sight. Her body convulsed around his fingers, her thighs trembling against his shoulders. He held her through it, his mouth gentling but not stopping as the silent moan broke free in a ragged broken cry, drawing out every last shuddering pulse until she collapsed back onto the sheets, boneless and gasping.
He lifted his head slowly, his beard glistening. His dark eyes heavy with satisfaction as he watched her come down from her high. He withdrew his fingers, lapping at them with an unhurried lick.
Iqbal shoved his shalwar down his hips, freeing himself.
Dulani’s eyes widened, taking in his size with a mix of awe and apprehension. His cock was thick, veined, and intimidatingly large, the flushed member rested heavily, twitching against her soft stomach. Her post-climax haze was replaced with a sharp, thrilling spike of nervous anticipation.
His fingers tightened around the base of his cock, giving it a slow, deliberate stroke as he watched it twitch against her skin. “See what you do to me?” he murmured, leaning back into her space–the heat of his body enveloped her as his weight settled over her again. She was so soft, pliant, and so completely his.
With his free hand, Iqbal guided the swollen tip of his cock, dragging it through her soaked folds, coating himself in her arousal. He positioned himself at her tight, virgin entrance, watching her face as he began to push forward. He willed himself to go slow, to give her every inch by agonising inch with excruciating care.
The stretch was immense, overwhelming. A sharp gasp tore from her lips, her nails digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders. “Breath, meri jaan.” He waited until the tension in her face eased slightly, until he felt the initial resistance give way. “Just breathe through it.” He leaned down, capturing her mouth in a deep consuming kiss, swallowing her whimpers as he finally, completely, bottomed out inside her.
She let out a shaky breath as her body adjusted to this impossible feeling of fullness, and the deep, aching pressure that felt both foreign and strangely right. Her inner muscles fluttered around him involuntarily, a reflexive clench that drew a low, guttural groan from deep in his chest.
“Subhanallah,” he breathed against her lips, basking in the sheer perfection of finally being one with her.
Iqbal began to move, withdrawing slowly until only the tip remained enveloped in her perfect heat, then pushing back in with the same deliberate pace–each stroke a study in restraint. He watched her reaction with a hawk-like intensity, every silent gasp, every flutter of her lashes, and every expression of pleasure, looking for any sign of discomfort.
It was such delicious torture.
His large callaused palms found the generous swell of her breasts, his thumb brushing her nipple lazily. The other slid down slowly, taking the time to appreciate the softness of her sweat soaked skin, to settle on her the soft flesh of her hip with a bruising grip–pulling her into each agonisingly slow thrust.
Dulani’s hands slid down his back, her fingertips tracing the powerful ridges of his muscles that flexed and corded with each slow, deliberate thrust. She could feel the sheer strength in him, the controlled power that moved his body with such devastating precision and pressed her into the mattress under his weight.
He lent his forehead against hers, the steady pistoning of his hips never wavering, letting out a breath that sounded like a cross between a chuckle and a groan. He could spend the rest of his life surrounded by that sweet scent of jasmine, and buried deep inside her fluttering walls. “Meri jaan…” he released her breast in favour of running his hand through her silken locks. “Tumhein kabhi khud ko mere hawalay nahin karna chahiye tha.” (You should never have given yourself to me.)
With a sigh he reluctantly pulled himself away from her warm embrace, taking handfuls of the flesh of her plush ass to angle his thrusts differently. He was seeking something, Dulani could tell by the furrow in his brow, and the way his eyes would constantly flicker between her face, and where his length was splitting her open.
When he found it–that spot deep inside that made her eyes roll back with a sharp, startled cry–a dark, satisfied smile touched his lips. “There, just like that, meri jaan, take every last inch of me.” He let out a chuckle, breathless and triumphant. “Clenching around be like a fucking fist.” His head lolled back, hips stuttering as he aimed for that same sweet spot over, and over, and over, drawing a continuous breathy melody of pleasure from her. “You are the closest thing to heaven I’ll ever touch.”
Her hands clutched at his arms, fingernails digging into the hard muscle as she instinctively attempted to pull him closer and deeper, seeking more of that devastating friction.
The action, so raw and needy, shattered the last vestiges of his control, his thrusts lost their measured pace, becoming deeper and more urgent. He buried his face in the crook of her neck–almost crushing her under his weight, not that Dulani cared when she had him in her arms like this–his hot breath puffing against her skin, his beard scraping so deliciously. The bed creaked softly with the force of his movements. “Ya Rabb… tu ne aisi kaamil takhleeq ki… aur phir bhi mujh se munh morne ki tawaqqu rakhta hai…” (O Lord…you created such perfection…and still expect me to turn away…) Between panting breaths, he softly muttered to himself, his voice a rough, possessive litany.
One of his hands slipped from the pliant flesh of her ass, moving between their joined bodies. His thumb circled her clit, already swollen and sensitive from his prior handiwork, with firm, deliberate pressure, matching the rhythm of his thrusts.
It was all too much for her.
The coil inside her, which had been steadily tightening with each masterful stroke, snapped with sudden, violent intensity. She mindlessly babbled his name and clawed at his back, her body convulsing with unfamiliar pleasure.
“Ya Allah, mujhe maaf kar de… maaf kar de… is jaisa sheereen gunaah kabhi na tha,” (O God, forgive me…forgive me…there has never been such a sweet sin as her,) he grunted out as her inner walls fluttered and clenched around his cock in rapid, rhythmic pulses, milking him dry. The sensation was his undoing. With a guttural moan of her name, his own control shattered. Iqbal drove into her one last time, burying himself to the hilt as he climaxed. Hot pulses of his release filled her, spilling deep inside her as he shuddered with satisfaction.
For a long moment, he remained as he was, basking in the afterglow until the sensation of her wet muscles fluttering around his softening length became borderline painful. Slowly, carefully, he withdrew, rolling to lie beside her on the sweat-dampened sheets.
Dulani was barely conscious, her eyes closed, her dark lashes fanning over her flushed cheeks. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, exhausted breaths. The sight of her, so utterly spent and trusting in his bed, sent a wake of fierce, protective tenderness through him that was all too foreign to him.
With a deep, steadying breath, he willed his trembling limbs to move. He reluctantly pushed himself up and left the warmth of the bed, returning a moment later with a soft, damp cloth. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he began to clean her with a tender touch. He wiped the evidence of their lovemaking from between her thighs with meticulous care, his movements bordering on reverent.
Once she was cleaned, to his satisfaction, he climbed back in beside her. He pulled the sheet over them both, gathering her sleeping form and tucking her soft body into his.
‘Her body fits so perfectly against mine.’
He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her hair, inhaling the scent of jasmine and sex that now clung to her. His decision, once a tangled knot of conflict and strategy, was now a simple and solid as the beat of his heart.
It was set.
With her warmth seeping into his bones, Major Iqbal closed his eyes and fell asleep by her side.
⏾⋆.˚
Tag List ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ @chocolate-and-trouble, @wan2bey-n, @mariaaysbusjs, @noone1233nobody, @goodnightkatherine, @rehmandakaitswife, @hyacinthusssss, @dumbassdictionarysds, @bloo3moon, @akshaykhannadilf, @cloudyparadoxqueen, @geometric-circle, @tanipartner, @rini4everdreaming.
Summary ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ A gambling goddess of death loses her life to a lucky mortal, unleashing death upon the world.
W/C ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ 779
a/n: This literally came to me in a dream.
General M.List
⏾⋆.˚
Long before the skies parted from the earth and the oceans swallowed the world, there stood a kingdom beyond the colossal mountains of Ipuk, where gods walked openly amongst mortals.
Among these gods was Umias, feared and loved in equal measure. She delighted in merriment and games of chance, yet she was the mighty goddess of death.
In those days, death did not wander the world as it does now, a wild beast uncaring who bloodies its boney jaws. Umias had its long, jagged leash wrapped tightly around her rosy fingers. She chose who death was allowed to feast upon, and though men and women feared her, they trusted her hand to be just.
Most wondrous of all, the children rarely met an untimely end. For Umias had a weakness that all the land knew well. She loved laughter, wine, and the rattle of dice upon a wooden table. If a grieving parent came before her when illness clung to their child, like a leech to delicate flesh, they might beg for a wager.
Umias would rarely disagree.
A throw of dice, a turn of cards, a simple game of chance. If the parents won, the child would rise from their sickbed as though the fever had never touched them. If Umias won, the parents would take the place of their child.
Many mothers and fathers, with trembling hearts, sat across from the goddess of death and casted their dice. For even the weakest of animals are ready to fight with the strongest and die for the sake of their young.
For many years this was the way of things.
Until a certain man came to be among the people.
Carius was a clever man, and sharper still was his tongue. But more than that, he had become beloved by Esin, the god of luck and fortune, who watched over him as a proud uncle does over a favoured child. Wherever Carius cast his dice, fortune followed.
One night, as he sat beside a shimmering hearth, an idea formed in Carius’s mind.
The next morrow, he stood upon the rostra and made his declaration to all who feared death’s approach.
“Why should a child live without the love of a parent to nurture them? Why should a grieving mother cast a die before the goddess?” he said, his voice echoing across the bustling crowd. “Let me wager in your stead. I will face the rosy-fingered Umias, it will be my life she takes, not yours.”
The mothers and fathers of this land, desperate and weary with fear, agreed readily enough.
But the man was not a fool, he knew there was fortune to be made.
“For such a risk, I must be paid,” he had told them, palms already itching to feel the weight of gold and silver.
He sought out the goddess, his pockets heavy with glittering jewels of sorrow, and laid his dice before her.
Umias laughed at the boldness of the mortal who dared challenge her, laughter–after all–was never far from her heart, and the promise of a good game pleased her greatly.
Umias agreed.
They played once, and Carius won.
They played twice, and Carius won again.
Now she was a proud goddess. Though the man’s victories stung her pride, she would not refuse him. Each loss only made her zealous to win the next throw, making her reckless in her wagers.
At first she wagered away small things–a purse of gold, a blessing upon a harvest, silk and spices. Yet the dice favoured the mortal again and again.
Soon she wagered treasures from her own hall.
Then divine boons that kings begged lifetimes to receive.
Still the man won.
The fires of pride burned brightest in the goddess then, as she had nothing left to place upon the table.
“Very well,” said Umias, lover of laughter, her eyes shining like embers in the dark. “One final throw. My life for yours.”
The man cast the dice.
And fortune, as it always had, stood beside him.
When Umias fell, there was no hand left to guide death. No goddess remained to measure the hours of men or decide when a life should end.
Death slipped its leash from her rosey-fingered grip and ran wild across the world.
It took old and young alike. The healthy as easily as the sick. It would gnash its teeth without warning and without reason.
And that is why we keep laughter and merriment in our homes, even on the darkest of nights. For when death comes to the door, bearing its bloodied teeth, it remembers its old master, and runs from the house, fearing it might be leashed again.
CWs ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Suggestive, Graphic Injury (gunshot graze), Blood, Pain & Physical Trauma, Power Imbalance, Coercive Authority Dynamic, Morally Grey Male Lead, Enforced Disappearance Themes, Unlawful Detention, Religious Elements, Abuse of Authority, Age Gap Relationship, Psychological Tension, War/Violence Context, Smoking, Emotional Distress, Moral Conflict.
Tags ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ Age Gap, Authority Figure x Civilian, Captor x Captive, Forced Proximity, Mutual Attraction at First Sight but Someone's Happy About It (Just Not Them), Emotional Repression, Emotional Vulnerability, Hurt/Comfort, Caretaker Intimacy.
Summary ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ In the quiet aftermath of the night's intimacy, Dulani struggles with the terrifying realisation that she has began to care for the man who holds her captive, while Iqbal wrestles with whether to release her or keep her at any cost.
W/C ⋆⭒ ࣪ .⋆ 4.0K~
a/n: I really enjoy putting my characters through a little suffering, ngl. I'm thinking the next chapter might get a bit smutty, but I've never actually written smut before, and I've only read maybe two pieces of smutty lit in my entire life, so I'm a little hesitant about it. We'll see if the inspiration strikes.
Series M.List ✦ General M.List
final disclaimer: This story contains mature and potentially uncomfortable themes including power imbalance, age gap dynamics, authority figure romance, coercive undertones and religious elements. The central relationship operates within unequal power structures and explores morally grey territory. While consent exists within the narrative, it unfolds inside an uneven dynamic that may not be healthy by real world standards. Please read at your own discretion.
⏾⋆.˚
Iqbal had been awake for some time, his body too disciplined to surrender his routine to the injury. Pain pulsed along his side, dull and insistent, but stubbornness held him upright.
Morning light streamed through the windows, catching the curve of Dulani's shoulder, outlining her in a quiet, almost reverent glow.
She slept in a leather chair, feet tucked beneath her, head resting on her arm. Her hair spilled over her like dark water. The straps of her silk nightdress had slipped slightly, the fabric fabric clinging to her body where dried blood had stiffened it. His blood. A twisted mark on a body he had no right to claim.
She snored. Not loudly. Just enough for him to hear.
He found that he liked it. It ruined the illusion of perfection, made her real, and not just a mirage he had concocted in his head.
'She looked exhausted.'
He had watched her for nearly thirty minutes, listening to the even rhythm of her breathing, memorising the careless vulnerability of her sleep. He told himself it was an assessment. Nothing more.
The bedroom door clicked open, following a loud knocking.
Iqbal turned his gaze away at once, adopting an expression of deliberate indifference, as though he had not been looking at her at all.
Dulani startled awake, dragging in a sharp breath as sleep was torn from her. She stiffly unravelled from her position in the chair, wincing. Her neck protested. Her back ached. Silk clung to her skin with an uncomfortable, cold stickiness.
Yara entered carrying a tray, two cups of tea instead of the usual one. She set it down gently on the bedside table, her face still tight with worry. "Beti, did you sleep well?" She asked with a tone of soft concern.
"I'm fine, aunty," Dulani replied, her voice thick with sleep. She blinked slowly, like a kitten emerging from a sunbeam, and stretched her arms above her head, arching her back. The movement pulled the silk taut across her chest and shoulders, and her stiff muscles protested sharply.
"You look like you slept on a rock, beti. Go. Freshen up, I will be done with breakfast soon." Yara gave Iqbal a pointed look, that only he seemed to understand and chose to ignore, then left–closing the door quietly behind her.
The silence that followed was different from the night before. It was filled with the distant sounds of the city waking and the chirping of song birds.
Dulani rubbed her eyes, then focused her gaze on Iqbal. He was watching her with an expression she couldn't read. She felt suddenly, acutely aware of her own dishevelment–the wrinkled nightdress, the sleep-mussed hair, and the dried bloodstain on her nightdress. She self-consciously fixed the straps, eyes fluttering away from his intimidating presence.
"The bandage needs changing," Iqbal said, his voice low, the delivery carrying the same detached authority that she had grown familiar with.
Dulani's sleep-fogged mind cleared instantly. The intimacy of the night before–the sponge bath, her hand on his–felt like a dream in the harsh morning light. This was reality. He was her jailor, injured, and she had made the careless choice of tasking herself with his care.
'Fucking hell.'
She pushed herself out of the chair onto her stiff legs, moving to the adjoining bathroom without a word, gathering the medical kit from the cabinet. She returned to the bedside, the small metal box in hand. She kept her gaze lowered, focusing on arranging the supplies on the nightstand.
“Is the pain better?” she asked quietly.
“Manageable,” he said, his voice flat. It was a lie. The pain was a constant, grinding presence, but admitting it felt like surrendering ground. Iqbal watched her. The morning light caught the fine hairs on her arms, the delicate line of her neck as she bent her head. The bloodstain on her nightdress was a dark, accusing smudge. He felt a strange, possessive irritation at the sight of it.
She nodded, finally looking at him. Her eyes looked clearer now, the sleep gone from them, but the shadows beneath remained. There was a crease on her cheek from where she’s slept, and a faint tremor in her hands as she worked.
Dulani leaned over him, her focus shifting to the bandage taped to his side. Her scent–jasmine, now mixed with the scent of antiseptic, dried blood and his sandalwood–drifted over him. Iqbal’s body tensed from the proximity, forcing himself to remain still, breath evenly, as her fingers peeled back the tape.
Her breath caught as the old bandage came away. The wound was a raw, angry line across his side. The bleeding had reduced to a faint, weeping ooze, but the flesh around it was inflamed, a deep, painful-looking red against his skin. It was cleaner than last night, but no less severe.
Iqbal watched her face. He saw the flicker of distress in her eyes, the way her lips pressed together. Her composure was thinner this morning, more transparent. The detachment she’d managed last night was fraying at the edges. A part of him felt satisfied by the understanding of exactly what she is touching settling into her mind, but another more troubling part made note of the genuine concern. It unsettled him.
Dulani’s gaze travelled from the wound across the expanse of his torso. She could see every detail she’d missed in the dim light of the night before. The map of old scars–pale silvery lines, a puckered bullet hole near his shoulder, the rough texture of skin that had seen too much sun, the dense muscle definition, and the dark trail of hair leading from his navel down beneath the sheet. He was a study in controlled power, even in vulnerability.
A hot flush of shame crept up her frame, so acute it made her dizzy. He was injured, in pain, and here she was, studying his body like some voyeur. She quickly refocused her wandering eyes back on the antiseptic.
“You need to keep it dry,” she muttered, her voice barely above a whisper as she avoided his eyes. She focused on dabbing cream along the inflamed edges of the wound, her touch feather-light.
Iqbal’s jaw tightened as the cold liquid met his skin, but he made no sound. His gaze remained fixed on her face–so close he could see the way her lashes cast shadows on her skin. Her delicate fingers brushed against the hard plane of his stomach as she positioned a fresh square of gauze. The contact was brief, but his muscles contracted involuntarily as if he’d been burned.
Dulani froze, the movement startling her already skittish mind, her hands trembled slightly as she reached for the medical tape.
“Is it too tight?” she asked, her voice low, still refusing to look at him as she smoothed the last piece of tape.
He tested the bandage by taking a slow, deep breath–the pull was firm, secure, but not constricting. “It is fine.”
She quickly packed away the first aid kit, her movements quick, almost frantic. The intimacy of the moment forcibly cut short. Without another word she picked up one cup of tea from the pair that Yara had brought for them, and held it out to him.
Iqbal took the warm cup, watching her over the rim as he took a slow sip. His heavy gaze pinning her in her place.
“You should rest.” Her voice was unsteady, the words a breathless rush. His dark eyes on her felt pleasant–warm, heavy, and focused entirely on her–and she didn’t know what to do with that. So many emotions swirled in her head: shame, confusion, a treacherous thread of affection, and beneath it all, a deep, aching fatigue.
“I am resting,” he replied after a pause, his tone flat. He was in bed, bandaged, and drinking tea. What more could she possibly want?
“R-right,” she stuttered out, flustered by the domestic normalcy she was confronted with. She was supposed to be his prisoner, not his nursemaid.
She made an unconscious retreat towards the door.
For a heartbeat, she hesitated–her hand on the cool brass handle. Then, without a word, she turned the handle and slipped out, closing the door softly behind her. Leaving her own cup of tea untouched and cooled on his bedside table.
Dulani walked with hurried steps to her own room, closing the door behind her with a definitive thud. She leaned back against the cool wood, her heart pounding, and finally allowing herself to breath–a deep, shuddering inhale that did nothing to calm the frantic rhythm of her heart.
She was finally alone again.
Her eyes lifted, and she saw herself in the full-length mirror opposite the door.
The girl–the woman that stared back at her was a stranger. Her hair was a wild, tangled cascade around her shoulders. The delicate silk of her nightdress was wrinkled and stained–a dark, rusty smudge of his blood marring the pale fabric over her torso. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and a faint crease still marked her cheek. She looked exhausted, dishevelled, and utterly changed from the composed girl who she had always been.
Her hand rose slowly, almost against her will. Her fingertips brushed the stiff, rust-coloured patch. It had soaked through, dried onto her skin like an unwelcomed brand. The texture was rough, brittle–’funny, even his blood behaves like him’.
A part of him had sunk so deep into her skin that she fears that she may never be rid of it.
She let her hand fall. With a grimace, she reached behind her back, fumbling for the small silk buttons. Her trembling digits worked the buttons, unsuccessfully, before she lost her composure and pulled roughly at the fabric. With a rough groan she shrugged off the straps of her shoulder and slithered the fabric down her body–fighting the tightness of the fabric. There was no point in trying to salvage it. She glared down at the heap of ruined fabric at her feet.
Why did she even think being stripped of her nightdress would solve her problem?
She stood in the nude, staring at the mirror once more. The bloodstain was stark, a violent contrast against the even tone of her tanned skin that stretched from her heaving chest down to her soft lower stomach. It creeped down her soft flesh like a virus corrupting her previously uncomplicated life–and her own innocent nature.
A hot flush of shame washed over her again, mixed with a strange, defiant anger. None of this was her fault. None of it. Then, why must she be the one to bear the consequences? She was the one who was imprisoned. She was the one who was cut off from everything she knew and loved. She was the one developing feelings for her jailer. It just wasn’t fair.
She stepped out of the puddle of silk, rushing to the ensuite bathroom, and stepping into the tiled enclosure. The cold water shot from the showerhead, the shock of the temperature helped clearing her head.
As the water cascaded over her skin, she tilted her head back, closing her eyes. The white noise of the flowing water drowned out the outside world.
She reached for the soap, working the jasmine scented bar into a lather on her washcloth and began to scrub at the bloodstain on her torso. The dried mark resisted at first, turning the lather pink. She scrubbed harder, her skin tinging red and tender under the constant friction. Pink water swirled at her feet in a, seemingly, never ending stream that disappeared down the drain.
It took several passes before the last of the traces of brown were gone. Her soft chest and stomach felt raw, the skin inflamed but clean.
The feeling remained.
Dulani’s barely maintained control began to fracture around her. A choked sob escaped her lips, the first she’d allowed herself since arriving in this awful, awful place. The emotions she’d pushed down and denied–fear, confusion, shame, and that treacherous, unwanted attraction–flooded in.
She leaned into the spray, letting the water drum against her scalp and shoulders in a desperate attempt to find stillness within the storm. Yet, the thoughts haunted her, sharp and accusing.
‘It wasn’t fair.’ The words echoed in her head, a silent scream. It wasn’t fair for her heart, her mind, and her body to betray her like this. None of this was right. She was a prisoner, and he was a beast holding her captive in his lair. The attraction she felt was a violation of her own principles, a foul twist in a situation already completely devoid of justice, a sickness that had infected her very being.
Why him? Why was he the first man to stir this dormant, confusing heat in her blood? Why did his controlled violent nature feel magnetic, and not repugnant? She had spent twenty-three years, untouched and unmoved by every other man that came across her.
So, why him?
She felt nauseous at the memory of the abject horror she’d felt last night, seeing him slumped and bleeding in the hallway. In that horrific moment, she hadn’t thought of escape, or freedom. She feared for his life. Not hers. Not at the prospect of possibly being stuck here, but at the prospect of losing him. A primal, cold and absolute terror that clutched her heart and refused to let go.
A man she barely knew. A man, by his own admission and reputation, had done far worse to others. Who was willing to do far worse to her. Still, the idea of his death had made her feel like a void opened beneath her feet.
She felt complicit. In what? She didn’t know.
She pressed her forehead against the cool tiles. The attraction was one thing–a confusing, physical betrayal. But this…this felt dangerous. It wasn’t just about his dominance or his body. It was about the tenderness she had afforded him, the prayers she recited over him.
Her mind drifted back to his sleeping face in the moonlight. Stripped of its usual severity. He looked younger. Not the fifty-something-year-old man, but whatever he was before he became Major Iqbal–before the weight of whatever shadows he carried. She caught a glimpse of the man Yara spoke of with such fondness.
Dulani had no choice but to surrender to the truth. She had grown fond of him, too.
Somewhere along the way– between her captivity, his absence and Yara’s fawning–she had grown to care for him. The thought of him being hurt again made her stomach clench and twist uncomfortably. It was a quiet, creeping attachment that had taken root in her.
She turned off the water. The sudden silence was deafening. Dulani wrapped the soft cotton towel around herself, stepping out of the tiled space. The bathroom mirror was fogged, her reflection a blurred, ghostly shape.
It felt as if she was beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of even the most merciful and most terrible god.
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
In his bedroom, Iqbal sat propped against the pillows, a breakfast tray across his lap. He ate methodically, but his mind was elsewhere–stuck on her. The food was tasteless on his tongue. His thoughts churned, relentlessly in a spiral he could not escape.
She is innocent, unstained by the hardship that defined his life. A soft girl, curated in privilege and held prisoner by him. Left waiting, caged in his fortified home, for a bureaucratic confirmation of her innocence that he could have manufactured or denied with a single phone call.
‘She was incompatible. Her faith was incompatible.’ He reminded himself. Making her permanent in his life–making her his wife–was an absurd idea. It would be seen as a profound weakness, a dangerous indulgence. It would cost him too much within the precarious hierarchy he navigated. The influence he had built on appealing to the fanatics and through ruthless competence would erode.
He set his fork down with a soft click.
The alternative was to keep his distance. To maintain the professional detachment of a jailer until her release could be arranged. To lock away his quiet fascination with her. Nevertheless, the memory of her kneeling at his feet, her voice soft with a prayer for his safety, her touch so addictive…it refused to be locked away. It felt more real than anything else he had in his miserable life.
He needed to decide. Make her his, consequences be damned, or to build a wall so high he could never reach her again.
Iqbal pushed the tray aside, the ceramic rattling softly. From a drawer of the bedside table, he retrieved a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit a cigarette between his lips, the familiar ritual grounding him, the lighter flared casting a brief orange glow across the sharp planes of his face before inhaling deeply.
He exhaled a slow stream of smoke towards the ceiling, watching it curl and dissipate in the morning light.
Incompatible.
Bringing her into his world would be a profound act of selfishness, a vulnerability his enemies would take pleasure in exploiting without mercy.
He took another drag, the nicotine doing little to settle the restlessness in his blood.
‘If I decided to keep her, what would that entail?’ He couldn’t help but wonder.
The logistics were a minefield. Her documentation would need to be altered. Her family, wealthy and connected, would have to be managed–threatened, or deceived. A Buddhist wife to an ISI officer would result in a social cost that was too immense. He would have to hide her. Not just from his enemies, but from the prying eyes within his own ranks. A story would need to be constructed, one that explained the disappearance of Dulani Fonseka and the appearance of an unknown woman in his life.
Was it worth the risk? To do all this just to avoid the unquantifiable loss of her leaving.
He ran a hand over his face, the rough texture of his beard scratched against his palm. The fatigue was a familiar, unfamiliar ache in his bones.
‘I could,’ he supposed, ‘convince her to stay.’
The thought was seductive in its simplicity. The mutual attraction was evident, a tangible current in the air between them. He was a man who understood leverage, who knew how to apply pressure to achieve a desirable outcome. He could nurture her physical attraction to him into something more enduring. He could offer her protection, a twisted vision of safety within his walls. He could make her choose his cage.
The idea tasted bitter. It would make her complicity a manipulated gift, something in him rebelled against that. He wanted to be genuinely chosen by her.
He stubbed the cigarette out in the ceramic ashtray. The movement was abrupt.
‘A genuine choice? What would that even look like?’
Dulani, this unmarred girl, would have to truly see him. She would have to accept the blood on his hands, the moral compromises that had grown routine, and how easily he could sleep at night after a day of inflicting violence upon the guilty and innocent alike.
It would require her to weigh that reality against whatever fragile moments of lust that he had sparked within her. It would mean choosing a life of confinement over the world of freedom she had grown accustomed to.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought as a laughable fantasy. What woman in her right mind would choose that? Who would willingly walk into a cage, no matter how gilded he could make it seem?
Still, he could not afford ambiguity. Not in his line of work. Not with something–someone–who threatened his control so completely.
Iqbal reached for his phone. His thumb hovered over his contacts. He had people who could handle this discreetly. He could have her out of the country, out of his reach, within hours.
He scrolled to a contact, a trusted subordinate who asked no questions. His thumb remained still, suspended over the screen.
This was the only clean choice.
The only sane choice.
The only choice.
Just a press of a button.
That's all.
A surge of raw frustration shot through him. He threw the phone aside, it bounced across the large bed.
He could not make the clean, surgical cut required of him. He was not going to call for her release. The cost weighed too heavy on his heart. He leaned back against the pillows, closing his eyes.
A human life, regardless of how wretched, should be lived, gazing upon whatever beauty they are afforded.
Why should he deny himself?
⋆˚𝜗𝜚˚⋆
The morning passed in a tense, quiet blur within the walls of Dulani’s room. By the time the sun was high, the gnawing need for something resembling normalcy drove her from her solitude. She made her way towards the kitchen, drawn by the craving for the steadying presence of the only other woman there to keep her company.
Yara was at the kitchen counter, her back to the door, but she’d heard the soft footsteps. “Beti,” she said, her voice warm with concern and care. “Come, I will make you a cup of chai.”
“No, thank you, aunty,” Dulani said quietly, hovering near the doorway, her hands clasped in front of her. “Is there anything I can help with?”
Yara glanced at the girl over her shoulder, spotting the tension that she carried with her. ‘Poor thing, caught in a spider’s web and starting to like the silk.’ She mused internally. “Always so eager to be useful,” she said, turning back to her work. “Major Sahib’s lunch needs to go up soon.” Yara was testing the waters, waiting to see if the girl would lean into the silk tendrils or try to break free.
“Ok-okay…I could take it up to him.” The words left Dulani’s mouth against her better judgment.
“Ah, you are a good girl,” Yara said, a flash of triumph settling into her old bones. “It would be a great help, this old back of mine is not what it used to be, and the stairs…” she trailed off, wiping her hands on her apron. Someone had to make the first move–it wouldn’t be the brooding man upstairs or the trembling fawn downstairs–so it might as well be Yara. She ladled steaming chicken curry into a bowl, and placed it on a tray alongside a warm naan, a small salad, and a glass of water. “Here, beti. Before it gets cold.” Yara placed the tray in Dulani’s hands.
Dulani looked down at the tray, a sense of uncertainty seeping in.
“He is a man, beti, he needs to eat and I think he…will be glad to see you,” Yara said, making a gentle shooing motion with her hand.
Dulani nodded, turning to walk out of the kitchen into the quiet hallway. Each step felt measured and deliberate. She paused outside the door to the room she had escaped that morning in a clumsy rush.
She took a shallow breath, the warm scent of the food filling her nostrils. She raised her hand and knocked softly, three tentative taps that sounded absurdly loud to her ears.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, his voice came from within, low and rough. “Come in.”
She slowly pushed the door open. The room was dim, the curtains still partially drawn against the midday sun. Iqbal sat in bed, propped against a mound of pillows, the same position she had left him in the morning.
The door clicked shut behind her.
“Yara aunty, sent lunch,” she said, her voice soft and quiet.
“I see that.” He watched her cross the room, his gaze tracking her movement.
“You should eat while it’s hot.” She carefully set down the tray, within his reach but not so close as to invade his space. She didn’t meet his eyes, focusing instead on arranging the bowl and the glass of water.
A line had been crossed in that dim bedroom. Neither of them knew what to do with the feelings that grew in the quiet space between them. Thus, they had no choice but to exist in a suspended state, orbiting each other in a loud silence that rang in their ears.
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