STIFLED
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"I can't believe you didn't tell your parents!" Shruti said. She was still very weak and had strict instructions not to get out of the bed but was declared completely out of danger, shifted from ICU into one of the private rooms a floor higher and hoping to get discharged by the end of the week. The only bad moment had been when she had come to know that Sanika was attacked. Runal had had a hard time reassuring her that her friend was absolutely fine. But once he swore by her that Sanika's life was in no danger, she had settled down.
Sanika noticed the changes in the room since her last visit. Runal had reorganised everything. Shruti's phone was charging on his side of the bedside table, screen facing down. The get-well-soon cards from colleagues had been stacked and moved to the windowsill, out of Shruti's reach. When Shruti's phone had buzzed earlier -- a WhatsApp notification -- Runal had glanced at the screen, read it, and put the phone back without mentioning it. When Sanika had asked Shruti if she wanted anything from the canteen, Runal had answered for her: "She's on a restricted diet. The doctor said only what the hospital provides." Shruti had opened her mouth, then closed it. A small thing. But Sanika had seen that particular closing of the mouth before -- in her own mirror, during her second engagement, when Varun had started answering questions on her behalf at family dinners.
The contrast with Samar was stark. When Samar had been protecting Sanika, he had taught her self-defence -- given her the tools to protect herself. He had moved into her house uninvited, yes, but he had never touched her phone, never screened her visitors, never answered questions on her behalf. He had stood between her and danger while making sure she could stand on her own. Runal was building a wall around Shruti and calling it love. The question was whether Shruti could see it -- and whether she would tolerate it once she was strong enough to push back.
"Well, my dada did," she grumbled, drawing a small giggle from Shruti. "Their plane lands tomorrow. Honestly I don't know why he couldn't have waited another week..." she tried to lean back in the chair, winced, straightened and winced again.
Sanika had been brought to the same hospital as Shruti. The injury on her upper arm had been relatively minor, requiring only six stitches. But the knife slash on her back had been longer and deeper, narrowly missing her right kidney, requiring eighteen stitches and a bottle of blood. The bump on her head meant she had been put through a round of CT scan, twenty-four hour observation and two-day hospitalization. All this excluding the minor bruises that she had gained while punching and hitting that bitch who had tried to kill her. But one advantage of being in the hospital was she didn't have to face the media circus that was currently surrounding Prisma. Now that the killer was caught, the whole story was out. Including the damn cursed video of theirs. Sanika was seriously contemplating leaving the hospital in a burka and keeping it on until the heat died down and it became old news.
"He would've been disowned by them if he hid something like this," Shruti retorted with a grin. "Anyway, what's your hero saying?"
Sanika's grumpiness disappeared. "He's been to Mumbai the day after this happened. Had it been only three days?" Sanika asked in surprise. Shruti's nod was wry. So much had happened that she had lost track of time. Her fingers absently traced the thick bandage wrapped around her arm. "Anyway, he went to Mumbai day before yesterday for I don't know what."
"Aaah, so that is the reason for your glum face," Runal remarked with a grin as he entered Shruti's room carrying a bunch of red roses which he extended to his wife and added a gentle kiss on her forehead as his greeting.
Bye-bye marital problems, Sanika thought, looking at the couple. At the naked devotion in his eyes and contented smile in hers. Then Runal's comment registered. "Glum? I'm not glum. Runal Gokhale, there are two injured people here and only one gets the flowers?"
With a grin he brought the hand that had been behind his back forward, extending a small rectangular box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates with flourish. "Since you have no diet restriction..."
"How the hell did you know these are my favourite?" Sanika asked, grabbing the box. "Uh, thank you," she added as an afterthought, making him laugh out loud.
"I don't know... maybe because Shruti gifted you with a huge box for your last birthday?"
"And you remember that?"
Runal exhaled on a grunt. "A 48-chocolate pack that got lost and I had to order it online again? Not easy to forget something like that." Perching himself beside his wife, he said, "Back to the topic at hand, your hero is back and is on his way up. I think your brother is seeing to the discharge formalities."
Shruti waited until Sanika left the room after a round of farewells, get well soon wishes and promises to be on WhatsApp before asking her husband, "Since when did you and Su become friends?"
"Since the night we sat in that hall, waiting, praying for your life," he said, and kissed her. He felt her smile when he gently hugged her.
"So she was pissed off because her father had been a devoted husband and yet her mother hadn't stayed with them?" Sanika asked. "She thought we were like her mother? Tearing men apart, discarding them?" She was back home from the hospital, relaxing in the downstairs bedroom. Her dada had gone out to get some groceries and veggies, a time that Samar used to update her on Ruhi's case.
"Yes," Samar said, leaning back in the chair, stretching his legs out. "From what I think, she had become paranoid. In her view, you three were like her mother, wanting someone without any intention of staying with that someone. A man like her father. I spoke to the doctor of the institution where her father had been admitted. They had put him on medication a few weeks back. He had been more aware of the surroundings but when it finally sunk into him that his wife was indeed dead, how he's been all these years..." he trailed off. "Combined with the fact that his daughter, his only connection to the world, was arrested for murder..."
"He killed himself," Sanika said softly.
Samar nodded. "He didn't want to live without the women in his life. Vandana was dead and Ruhi was gone. There was nothing left for him."
Silence wrapped around them like a thick blanket. Sanika's eyes filled, not for Ruhi -- she would never forgive the woman who took Mira from her and nearly killed Shruti -- but for Anuj. For a man who had loved too much and a daughter who had been destroyed by that love's failure.
"That video," she whispered. "That stupid, silly, harmless video. All we wanted was to let off some steam." Her voice cracked. "And Mira..."
He was beside her before the first tear fell, gathering her against him, careful of her back. "Listen to me. You did nothing wrong. The three of you did nothing wrong. That video was raw, it was honest, and the whole world saw it for what it was -- three friends letting off steam. What Ruhi did, she would've done sooner or later. Something would've triggered her. If not that video, then something else. Her hatred towards women had been building for years. You were not the cause. You were the catalyst in a reaction that was inevitable."
She pressed her face into his shoulder and let herself cry. For Mira. For Shruti's months of recovery ahead. For the girl she had been before all this started -- carefree, sharp-tongued, fearless. That girl was still in there somewhere, buried under grief and scars and eighteen stitches. But she would claw her way back. She always did.
"Thank you," she said, pulling back to look at him. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her nose was running. She looked, in Samar's biased opinion, absolutely beautiful.
"For what?"
"For not saying 'I told you so.' For the tea. For the self-defence training. For being the most annoying, overbearing, bossy, infuriating man I've ever met." She took a shaky breath. "And for loving me despite my best efforts to push you away."
He went very still. "Is that an acceptance?"
"It's an acknowledgment. The acceptance has conditions."
One eyebrow rose. "I'm listening."
"One, I am not growing my hair. Two, I will continue to work. Three, I reserve the right to be sarcastic, grumpy, and generally difficult without it being held against me. Four..." she faltered, vulnerability flickering across her face. "Four, don't break my heart. I've already given three men the chance and they all let me down. I don't think I can survive a fourth. Especially not from you. Not from you, Samar."
He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing the tear tracks on her cheeks. "I will keep your hair exactly the way it is. I will support your career even if it means you move to another city. I will treasure every sarcastic word that comes out of your beautiful mouth." His voice dropped to that rough timbre that made her insides melt. "And I will spend every day of my life making sure you never regret this moment."
"That's a lot of promises," she managed.
"I'm a man of my word Mrs Rane." His eyes crinkled. "Too soon?"
Despite everything -- the grief, the pain, the fear, the eighteen stitches, the four stitches, the bump on her head, the lingering taste of terror -- Sanika Joshi laughed. It was a sound that made Samar's heart stumble and restart in a different rhythm. A rhythm that would beat for her for the rest of his life.
"Way too soon," she said. But she was smiling when he kissed her.
Three months later.
"Damn! My butt looks fat Shratz!" Sanika said, staring bug-eyed at her reflection in the full-length mirror, as Shruti giggled, caught one end of the sari and started pulling.
"I think once all these yards come off, your butt will resume its normal size."
Sure enough it did. She was looking like her usual self. Well, her usual self in a blouse and cycling shorts since the nine-yard sari didn't need a petticoat. The jewellery had been the first to go. After the last three days, she probably wouldn't be able to look at saris and jewellery without shuddering. First the Maharashtrian wedding in Pune, then the traditional wedding the next day in Pune, followed by reception, followed by the second night of the post-Maharashtrian wedding, kaalratri, which meant separate bedrooms for the couple. Then Samar's mom wanted them to do some puja before they left for Mumbai but since Samar couldn't spare any more time off and Sanika had to collect her luggage, the venue of the puja got shifted to Pune. This morning they had come back to Pune. She had wanted Sanika to wear her wedding sari again for the occasion. One look at her mother-in-law's hopeful face, Sanika had caved in and agreed. After all, it was just the once. They were going to spend the night at the JW Marriott and leave to Mumbai by tomorrow afternoon flight since that was all the leave Samar could spare. Her job hunting would start once she settled down at her new home in Mumbai.
"Look at it this way. You didn't have to deal with the floral arrangements that go with long hair," Shruti gestured to her own long straight hair.
Sanika couldn't resist rolling her eyes. "I can't believe he picked a fight with his mom about my hair. I mean come on, she is a nice, gentle lady yaar and considering everything, she was warm and welcoming. And that man had to go..."
"You know, I like the fact that his mom and dad speak in English when you're there. It's a small gesture but a sweet one," Shruti remarked with a fond smile.
Shruti had still been in the hospital the day Samar's family had come to meet Sanika and her family, hence missed out on some major fun element of the whole event. Both sets of parents and siblings had been genuinely happy and pleased, not to mention relieved that Sanika was safe and recovering well from her injuries. No one had objected when Sanika and Samar wanted to forgo the engagement and it had pleased them no end when the couple didn't object to getting married twice. First in Maharashtrian style, followed by a traditional wedding. Sanika had wanted to wait until her friend got discharged and recovered well enough to be there. They had been OK with that too.
Everything had been relatively stress-free until his mom had gently asked if she would be willing to grow her hair at least shoulder length. It had resulted in a volley of words between her and Samar. Sanika didn't understand any of it. Her knowledge of Marathi was limited to very few basic words. Samar's brother, Manohar, had laughed at her wide-eyed, slightly tense look.
"Relax vahini," he'd said, "Dada is winning the argument."
"But what are they arguing about? My hair?" He'd nodded. "I don't mind growing it back. Honestly," she added hastily. "This was just more convenient..."
"Save your breath," he replied with a grin. "Dada just said there would be no traditional wedding if you grow your hair even an inch more."
"Point to be noted, he didn't say no wedding," Shruti wriggled her eyebrows, bringing Sanika back to the present.
"As if!" Sanika snorted.
"And I can't believe you wanted to wait until after the wedding to go ahead with you know what. No, wait. I can believe you wanted to wait but him?" It was Shruti's turn to get the bug-eyed look until both snickered. "No re, honestly, we can coin the phrase eating up with his eyes to your Mr Rane, Mrs Rane."
"Oh man! I'm Mrs Rane now, aren't I?" Sanika looked genuinely taken aback. "Wait, isn't there a movie by that name? Mr and Mrs Rane?"
"I don't think there is any resemblance other than the title. She is the Rane in that."
"Well, technically now, so am I and as for him waiting, I hardly said, look but don't touch." And he never lost a chance to touch, she silently added. Well, neither did she. Together they had done quite a lot in the last three months. Just not everything.
"That's worse. Poor guy! Showing him the feast, allowing him a taste but no meal. And thank God you guys got to sleep the previous two nights or all this would've been for nothing."
One look at each other, the friends started their laughter riot once again, this time almost collapsing on the bed but managing to stop themselves at the last nanosecond, instead falling to their knees on the carpeted floor beside the huge king-size bed. Neither wanted to disrupt the temptingly beautiful floral arrangement on it. They weren't die-hard romantics who flapped their hands at gooey stuff but hell, who could resist red roses on creamy white sheets!
In the ensuing hilarity, they totally missed out on the slight sound of the keycard being swiped or the door being pushed open.
"And here I was anticipating a white sari, complete with a glass of milk in hand," Samar drawled, with his hands in his trouser pockets, leaning against the wall. In his dark green shirt and cream trousers, he didn't look like a groom except for the horizontal line of vibhuti and small round kumkum below it on his forehead.
It was a toss-up who screeched louder. Mrs Rane or Mrs Gokhale. "What are you doing here?" Sanika almost yelled, instinctively swirling away, showing him her back, arms crossed over her chest.
Shruti didn't miss the roguish look in his eyes at his bride's very typical feminine reaction. She quickly gathered her handbag and phone. "I think he's the one you're supposed to spend the night with buds and that's my cue to disappear."
Samar extended his hand to Shruti. "Thanks for everything Shruti." They shook hands and then with a small grin, exchanged a small hug. "Runal is waiting for you in the lobby."
"OK. Goodnight to you both and I'll see you... well... when I see you." With a wave, she practically ran out of the room, into the lift and down to the lobby, straight to her husband. "Aaah, so you were assigned the duty of dropping the groom, did you?" she asked with a grin.
"Salim's wife looked as if she was ready to pop out her kid so I offered," he said, looping an arm around her shoulders as they walked to their car. Having become friends with both Sanika and Samar, Runal had actively taken part in the wedding right along with Shruti. He had even laughingly told Sanika that since his wife was on the bride's side, he would be on the groom's.
"You won't believe the scene that greeted Samar up there," she giggled.
Runal covered her mouth. "I don't want to know. I don't need that image, no matter what it is, in my head." Shruti's giggle turned into laughter.
"I miss Mira," she said, her laughter slowly fading, leaving behind a sad smile. "She would've loved all this. She was a sucker for happily ever afters."
His arm tightened, pulling her into an almost-hug. "I know," he said quietly. "I keep thinking about how she would have been the one organising everything. The decorations, the playlist, the embarrassing speeches. She would have made Samar do karaoke."
Shruti laughed through the tightness in her throat. "She would have. And he would have done it, too. For Sanika." She was quiet for a moment. "Do you think she knows? Wherever she is?"
Runal wasn't a man who believed in the afterlife, or in spirits, or in any of the metaphysical frameworks that his own mother embraced with unquestioning faith. He believed in what he could see and measure and verify -- balance sheets, quarterly reports, the tangible architecture of a life built on numbers and logic. But standing in this hotel lobby with his wife in his arms, wearing a suit he had bought specifically for his friends' wedding, having spent the last three months rebuilding a marriage he had nearly destroyed through his own carelessness and cowardice -- he found that his certainties had shifted.
The rebuilding had not been smooth. In the weeks after Shruti's discharge, his protectiveness had curdled into something darker -- something he hadn't recognised until she'd named it. He had started checking her phone "to make sure no one was harassing her." He had insisted on driving her everywhere, then sulked when she took an Uber to meet Sanika instead. He had rearranged her medication schedule without asking, cancelled a physiotherapy appointment because he thought she was "pushing too hard," and once -- just once, but once was enough -- had told her mother that Shruti was "too tired for visitors" without consulting Shruti herself. It had taken her six weeks to recover enough strength to sit him down and say, very quietly, very firmly: You are not protecting me, Runal. You are controlling me. And if you don't stop, I will leave you. Not because I don't love you, but because I refuse to trade one cage for another. The words had hit him like a physical blow. He had wanted to argue, to defend himself, to explain that he was just scared of losing her. But something in her eyes -- the same steel that had made her the best sales manager in her division, the same steel that had kept her breathing while a knife was being pulled from her abdomen -- told him that this was not a negotiation. This was a boundary. And he could either respect it or lose her for real this time. He had chosen to respect it. It had been the hardest and the best decision of his life.
"I think," he said carefully, "that the people who love us never really leave. They become part of how we see the world. Mira is in every Friday dinner you'll ever have. In every bad joke Sanika makes. In every time you laugh so hard you cry." He kissed the top of her head. "She's here, Shratz. She's always been here."
It was a good thing they were moving out of Pune, he thought. His wife needed a change of place and Pune would be a pleasant change. The apartment they had chosen was in Baner -- modern, airy, with a balcony that faced west and would catch the sunset every evening. Shruti had spent hours on the phone with the interior designer, choosing colours and fabrics with the same meticulous attention she brought to her sales presentations. She was already planning a herb garden for the balcony. She was already scouting the neighbourhood for the best vegetable vendor and the nearest temple. She was already making it home, and the fact that she could do this -- that she could look forward to a future instead of being trapped in the past -- was the most hopeful thing Runal had witnessed in months.
Since Sanika and Samar were going to be in Mumbai, it hadn't been hard at all to convince Shruti. She had in fact jumped at the chance. Mumbai was only three hours by train, two by flight, close enough for weekend visits and far enough that the two couples could build their own lives without living in each other's pockets. It was, both women agreed, the perfect distance for a friendship that had survived murder, betrayal, and eighteen stitches.
"You know," he said, "once we settle down in Pune, in that nice apartment you chose, I think we should plan for a kid. What say Mrs Runal Gokhale?"
Her answer was there in her joyous hug and in the smile that chased away the shadows in her eyes.
Three broken engagements. A murdered friend. Eighteen stitches and a killer's knife at her throat. Sanika Joshi had survived all of it. And on the other side of all that wreckage, she had found this: a man who had seen her at her most shattered and loved her not despite it but because of it. A man she trusted enough to be naked with -- not just her body, but her grief, her fear, her fierce and terrified heart. Tonight she would give him everything she had left, and for the first time in her life, she was not bracing for the fall.
It was past midnight. Sanika lay naked amid the tangled sheets and crushed rose petals, her skin flushed and damp, every nerve ending singing. A dim light from the lamps outside forced its way through the closed slats of the blinds, painting amber stripes across the bed, across her bare breasts, across the dark marks Samar's mouth had left on her neck and collarbone. A gentle breeze from the air conditioner wafted across her skin, and the cool air on her overheated flesh raised goosebumps that made her shiver. Her body was so acutely sensitive that she could feel the silk of the sheets against every inch of her -- the brush of fabric against her nipples, still swollen and tender from his mouth, the whisper of it between her thighs where she was slick and sore and throbbing. Her heart was beating in slow, heavy thumps, her pulse thick and languid in her veins.
Samar lay sprawled on his back beside her, magnificent and unashamed in his nakedness, his broad chest heaving, eyes closed. She let her gaze travel the length of him because she could, because he was her husband now and she was allowed. The hard ridges of his stomach. The V-cut of his hips. His thick thighs, still gleaming with sweat. The dark trail of hair below his navel. He was half-hard even now, even after everything, and the sight of him made something deep in her belly clench with a hunger that should have been impossible after the last four hours.
Four hours. She pressed her face into his shoulder and breathed him in -- sweat and sex and sandalwood -- and replayed every minute of it in her body's memory.
The first time had been slow. Painfully, achingly slow. He had stood in the doorway of the bridal suite, still in his wedding sherwani, and the look in his eyes when he saw her -- sitting on the bed in the red silk nightgown Shruti had insisted on buying -- had made her breath catch. Not lust. Or not only lust. Something deeper, something raw and reverent, as if he couldn't quite believe she was real and his.
He had crossed the room in three strides, cupped her face in both hands, and kissed her so gently that her eyes stung. Then he had undressed her. Slowly. The nightgown first, sliding the straps off her shoulders, letting the silk pool at her waist, his eyes darkening as her breasts were bared to him. He had cupped them in his large hands, his thumbs brushing over her nipples until they were stiff and aching, and when he lowered his mouth and sucked one into the wet heat of his mouth she had gasped and arched into him, her fingers digging into his shoulders.
He had laid her back on the bed, knelt between her thighs, and kissed his way down her body with a thoroughness that left her writhing. Her ribs. Her navel. The jutting bones of her hips. The soft, sensitive skin of her inner thighs. And then his mouth was on her -- on her, there -- his tongue parting her folds, finding her clit with unerring precision, and the sound she made was not a sound she had ever made before. A keening, desperate cry that she muffled with the back of her hand because there were other guests on this floor and she had some dignity left.
Not much. Not when his tongue was doing that.
He had brought her to the edge with his mouth alone, lapping and sucking and circling until her thighs were clamped around his head and her hips were lifting off the bed in helpless, rhythmic bucks. And when she shattered -- her first orgasm at his hands, at his mouth, on their wedding night -- she cried out his name and didn't care who heard. He worked her through every last tremor, his tongue gentling as her body pulsed, and when the aftershocks faded and she lay gasping and boneless, he rose over her and positioned himself between her thighs.
"Look at me," he said. She opened her eyes. He was braced above her, his arms trembling with restraint, the head of his cock pressing against her entrance but not yet inside. He was thick and hard and she could feel the heat of him against her slick, swollen flesh. "Jaanu. I need you to look at me."
She looked. And he entered her. Slowly, inch by inch, watching her face, giving her body time to stretch and accommodate the size of him. She was wet -- God, she was soaked -- but he was big, and the sensation was overwhelming. A fullness she had never experienced, a stretching, an aching pressure that hovered on the border between pleasure and pain. Her nails dug into his back. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp. And when he was fully seated inside her, their hips flush, his pelvis grinding against her clit, she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him deeper.
He had moved slowly that first time. Long, deep strokes that withdrew almost completely before pressing back in to the hilt, each thrust deliberate, each angle calculated to drag against that spot inside her that made her vision white out. He kissed her the entire time -- deep, drowning kisses that swallowed her moans. His hand slid between their bodies and his thumb found her clit, circling in time with his thrusts, and the dual sensation built a second orgasm so powerful that when it hit, she clenched around him so hard that he swore against her mouth and came with her, pulsing deep inside her with a groan that she felt in her bones.
The second time had been anything but slow.
She had barely recovered -- was still catching her breath, still feeling the warm trickle of him between her thighs -- when he pulled her on top of him. "Your turn," he said, his voice rough, his eyes dark, and his hands gripped her hips and positioned her over him. He was hard again already -- impossibly, insatiably hard -- and when she sank down onto him, taking every inch, they both groaned. She braced her hands on his chest and rode him. Hard. Fast. Watching his face contort with pleasure, watching his jaw clench, watching his hands tighten on her hips until she knew there would be bruises. She didn't care. She rolled her hips, grinding her clit against his pelvis with every downstroke, and the angle was different from this position -- deeper, more intense -- and she could feel every ridge and vein of him inside her. His hands slid up her body and cupped her breasts, pinching and rolling her nipples between his fingers, and the sharp jolts of sensation went straight to her core.
"Harder," he rasped, and she obliged, slamming her hips down, taking him so deep she could feel him hitting the end of her, and the sound of flesh meeting flesh was obscene and perfect and she never wanted it to stop. She came first, throwing her head back, her inner muscles rippling around him, and he grabbed her hips and thrust up into her -- once, twice, three savage strokes -- and followed her over the edge with a shout that he muffled against her breast.
The third time was against the wall. He had carried her there -- her legs wrapped around his waist, his hands gripping her ass, his mouth on her neck -- and pinned her between the cool plaster and the furnace of his body and fucked her standing up with a ferocity that left scratch marks on his shoulders and bite marks on her neck. She had come twice more, helpless, sobbing, her body wrung out and oversensitive, every thrust almost too much and not nearly enough, and when he finally emptied himself inside her for the third time, they slid to the floor together, shaking and gasping, tangled in each other.
Now, hours later, she was curled against his side, her head on his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest over his hammering heart. Her thighs ached. Her breasts were tender. Between her legs she was sore and swollen and wet with him, and she had never felt more thoroughly, devastatingly, completely fucked in her life. And she had never been happier.
As his breathing slowed, Samar stirred beside her. He rolled onto his elbow, cradling her head in the crook of his arm, and smiled down at her -- that half-smile, lazy and satisfied, the smile of a man who knew exactly what he had done to her. "I missed you," he told her, his fingers ruffling her already destroyed hair, then trailing down her throat, over her collarbone, to close over her breast. His thumb circled her nipple -- already sore, already sensitive -- and even now, even after four hours and three rounds and more orgasms than she could count, her body arched into his touch.
He had to leave for Mumbai a mere ten days after their marriage date got finalized. Though he did make a few trips during the last three months, it had been tough on them both. Her dad had been the only one who understood that and gave them all the privacy that he could despite her mom's flustered objections. If left to her mom, Sanika knew they would have had to content themselves with phone or worse, her mom acting as a chaperone. The phone sex had been good -- his voice alone could make her come, that deep rumble describing exactly what he wanted to do to her, what he was going to do to her the moment they were alone again -- but it was nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to his hands and his mouth and his body and the reality of him.
She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, her eyes closing as she luxuriated in the feel of him, warm, solid and vital. "I love you Samar," she said softly, kissing his shoulder. She could taste the salt of his sweat on her lips. "Thank you."
His eyes lost their lazy contentment as he frowned. "For what?"
She gave an awkward shrug. "For everything."
"Paagal," he murmured softly, gliding his thumb over her cheek. Mad. But even in the darkness, he could see the shadows creeping into her eyes. Realized her mind had wandered again into the past.
"I miss Mira," she said, her lips trembling before firming. "She would've loved our wedding. She had been with me all through and when I'm finally..."
"Shhh," he said, and rolled on top of her, settling between her thighs with an ease that spoke of how completely her body had learned to accommodate his. He entered her again -- gently, slowly, because she was sore and swollen and tender from the night -- and she caught her breath at the fresh intrusion, her muscles clenching around him, a mix of ache and pleasure that made her eyes sting. He braced himself on his elbows and cradled her head in his hands. "She is with you Jaanu. Will always be with you," he whispered, his voice a deep rumble that she felt vibrate through his chest into hers. Then he looked into her eyes, smiling that half smile of his. "But left to your dadas, I wouldn't have been here now."
She tilted her head to the side, her hips shifting to take him deeper, a movement that was instinct now. "Why?"
"You came here ahead with Shruti and considering that my bike is in Mumbai, I needed someone to drop me. Your dad told your brothers." His body shook with silent laughter, and the movement shifted him inside her, drawing a soft gasp from both of them. "They had this disturbed, slightly horrified look on their faces..."
Her frown deepened. "But why?"
"They are your annas. I'm the guy who is going to see their little sister naked," his hand tracked down her body, fingers tracing the curve of her waist, the flare of her hip, the outside of her thigh. "Not to mention doing other things..." He punctuated the word with a slow, deep thrust that made her eyes flutter shut.
After a look of sheer disbelief, she burst out laughing. And laughed so hard, he slipped out of her. "But this guy is already married to their little sister," she pointed out, smacking his cheek with a loud kiss before running her finger over his moustache, brushing it so it curved just so.
He bent his head, tickling her neck with it, making her squirm and gasp. "A mere technicality Mrs Rane. A mere technicality." His lips tasted her laughter. His love chased away the shadows in her eyes. And when his mouth found hers again, soft and slow and achingly tender after the ferocity of the night, she knew that this was what she had been waiting for her entire life. Not just the sex -- though God, the sex -- but this. This man. This moment. The safety of being held by someone who would burn the world down to keep her whole.
End of Chapter Fifteen.
© 2025 Atharva Inamdar. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Free to read and share with attribution.