Against All Odds

by Aarti V Raman

  “Then I was thinking, if it’s okay with you. Would you come ashore with me? To my hotel room? That bed is large enough for an army. And we could catch up on some sleep.”

  “Bharat, no,” she whispered, distressed.

  Bharat immediately raised his hands, physically not touching her. “I won’t do anything, I promise. I won’t touch you. I just think you’re tired and you need to sleep in a proper bed with decent air conditioning and mine is going to waste,” he paused heavily. “I’ll sleep on the couch if you’re not cool with it.”

  Unexpectedly, her eyes shone with some great emotion as she swallowed thickly past a full throat. She looked so small and vulnerable, he wanted to scoop her up and carry her away so she didn’t ever get hurt again. Like he had hurt her father.

  Fuck.

  He shook his head, shoved his hands in his pants pockets. “Forget it. I am an idiot,” he muttered.

  Bharat turned to leave.

  His heart nearly stopped when Sophia caught his arm, a hard grip he didn’t think she was capable of. She tugged at it so he was forced to look back at her. The tears were gone but she looked even more fragile than she had just moments ago.

  Something, he realized, was very wrong with her. And he needed to fix it.

  “Sophia,” he said. “Tell me what’s wrong, please.”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong. The idea of actual air-conditioning sounds like heaven.”

  Bharat gave a relieved grin. “There’s a Jacuzzi, too. If you’re into that kind of thing.”

  ~~~~~

  In the end, Sophia had to pack an overnight bag, cancel brunch with Tessa before they disembarked. Sophia was too tired to even bother with her friend’s good-natured ribbing about why she was going to miss brunch. She just wanted to lay her head somewhere and sleep.

  Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky when the ferry deposited them on the jetty edge and the cab Bharat had efficiently called for, was already idling at the beginning of the parking lot.

  They climbed in, Bharat carrying her stuff and she put her head against the window. He didn’t disturb her, content to let her be as the cab pulled away from the jetty and towards his hotel.

  The Aria was right beside Sydney Opera House and was a stunning architectural wonder.

  But Sophia hardly paid any attention to the hotel or its magnificent surroundings as she followed Bharat inside the lobby, waited while he dealt with the formality of having a guest stay with him. They asked her for ID, she gave them her passport, and then stood like a zombie while he signed a few forms in order to allow her entry.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Why was he being so nice to her? Why was her well-being so important to him? It didn’t make sense that he’d figured out something was wrong with her and she hadn’t been able to prevent herself from wanting to sleep with him. Just sleep with him on the same bed.

  Maybe do more. A whole lot more.

  Sophia wondered at her lack of shame and guilt. Wondered if it had something to do with the ten-thousand dollar chip Harrison Grant had left for her at the table, anyway. The chip she’d cashed out because she wanted to send more money back home and if that made her a bad person, then so be it.

  Then she stopped wondering because Bharat came to where she was leaning against a giant palm tree and tapped a golden key card against her stomach.

  “That’s your access card.”

  “I don’t need an access card.”

  “Keep it, please?”

  Sophia was exhausted, so she shoved it in her overnight bag zipper and followed him to the elevator banks. One pinged open as if on command and they got in. Soothing music played on as Bharat pressed the floor button and the cage started rising up. Within seconds they’d reached their desired floor and he escorted her out.

  Sophia stumbled once against the carpet and he grasped her more firmly.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled and made an effort to straighten herself. But now she was beyond tired – operating on autopilot. By now, she was usually snug in bed, the doona drawn up to her chin, drifting off to sleep.

  Bharat propped her next to him as he opened the door to his room, and gave her a gentle push in. She didn’t bother looking at the lovely room or the stunning Harbor Bridge view.

  She located the bed, it was large enough to house an army, kicked off her shoes and crept in.

  Sophia was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

  Chapter Eleven

  Bharat couldn’t stop staring at the beautiful woman snoring softly on his bed. This was not unusual behavior He was always impulsive. What he wanted, he had to have. Sure, over the last few years he’d ruthlessly controlled his impulsive nature. Until now, with her.

  He’d wanted Sophia before he’d seen her. When he’d heard her laugh.

  But this was different. This was a level of want he didn’t know how to experience, much less fulfill.

  His conscious brain took in her disheveled hair and the haggard face, understood she was exhausted. But his animal brain, the primal part of him that lived for the taking, saw a lovely body. Breasts encased in a jacket that hid nothing from him. Her toes were red and a bit sore from wearing those mind-destroying shoes.

  Plus, she had pretty sexy legs for someone of average Indian height.

  Once again, from somewhere other than himself, a need for concern took over. Bharat lowered the central air’s temperature, remembering a time when he’d sweated for seventy-two hours in Gurugram summer heat during a coding session. The blast of frigid air did nothing to cool his heated blood.

  Then he went and drew the soft, cotton sheets over her, taking care to not touch her more than necessary.

  Sophia curled into the sheets, making a soft murmuring sound that unmanned him like her laugh had.

  Bharat sighed loudly.

  He stowed her bag next to his inside the fancy closet. It looked so normal next to his own stuff. Okay, he had to stop acting weird.

  A quick cold shower took care of his immediate ‘problem’ and he came out dressed in pajama bottoms and an IIT Kharagpur Alumni tee-shirt. The room was infernally cold. Bharat hissed out a breath as the cold tile numbed his toes. He increased the temperature by two degrees and then looked at the huge bed.

  There was nothing else to do. He had to go to sleep.

  So, with the greatest care, Bharat slipped in the other side of the bed, the wrong side (he didn’t have the heart to wake her) and placed the sheet over his chest. Her body warmth drew him like a moth to flame. He placed a pillow between them, pretended it was the India-Pak LOC.

  Do not cross this line.

  Bharat contemplated checking email.

  Turned around and saw her back. Only a cloud of hair was visible over the sheets. The image made him smile whimsically. He stretched one hand out and touched a lock of her hair. Yeah, it was as shiny and soft as he’d known it would be.

  Bharat closed his eyes and went to sleep then.

  ~~~~~

  When Sophia woke up, she realized two things. Thing one, her bed was insanely, beautifully, comfortably soft. It was soft as a cloud. She could sink into this bed and happily never emerge.

  Thing two, someone was in bed with her.

  Sophia checked the urge to scream and turned. She saw Bharat sleeping.

  His hand was stretched out between them, hugging a pillow to his chest. The covers were tangled over his hips and he wore a faded tee shirt with raggedy holes at the seams. She wondered what he’d do if she touched his hair, smoothed it away from his forehead.

  Sophia smiled. This was such a lovely thing to wake up to, it made her want to go back to sleep again.

  “This is not at all creepy,” Bharat murmured lazily. “You staring at me is not at all creepy for me.”

  She chuckled loudly. He blinked his eyes open at the sound. He had perfectly brown eyes.

  Sophia was afraid she was imagining the want she saw in them. It would be so easy to project what she was feeling ins
ide, all over her body like a new layer of skin added to her own, onto him. It would be so easy and so foolish.

  “Bharat,” she said.

  “Sophia,” he said.

  She smothered a yawn behind her palm.

  “It’s only twelve. You can sleep some more if you want to,” he said.

  “How do you know the time?”

  Bharat grinned and sat up, dislodging the pillow. He scratched his belly unselfconsciously. She found it ridiculously charming. Her fingers itched to touch him there. Everywhere, wherever she could.

  “I don’t, I took a calculated guess.”

  “Ah! I see.” Sophia sat up too and the sheet fell off her.

  ~~~~~

  Bharat sucked in a breath. The button that had held the jacket together had come undone in her sleep to reveal the thin silk camisole she wore underneath. He was instantly horny, the AC be damned.

  Sophia, unaware of the state of her undress, rolled her neck and stretched her shoulders. It pretty much put her boobs out there.

  Bharat swore quietly, under his breath.

  It made her stop lolling and look quizzically at him. “Is everything okay?”

  Bharat smiled mechanically. He nodded in the general direction of her chest. “Your jacket…you should button it up.”

  “What?” Sophia looked down and laughed huskily. An unexpected reaction. With deft movements she’d covered up her torso. “I am such a klutz. I didn’t even realize I went to sleep in my uniform. They’re going to kill me tonight if I show up with wrinkled clothes.”

  Like the horny dog he was, he felt deprived. “We can get them ironed here.”

  She shook her head, and desire took hold of his thinking cells as her hair fell over her shoulders. “No way. Do you know how expensive laundry is in places like these? I can’t afford it.”

  “I…okay.” He stopped himself from offering to pay for it, not wanting to intrude on her space – personal and financial. “Fair enough. We’ll figure an economical option out.”

  She smiled, it was a funny smile. “I know you probably think I am one of those rich bitch, Lutyens girls who grew up really fast when dad went broke and left me poor and that’s why I am acting so cheap.”

  He was stunned. “I don’t think --”

  Sophia stood up. “I lived in New York for a year. It was fucking expensive. I learned to do my laundry there. I want you to know that.”

  Bharat rubbed a hand over his face and felt a prickle of beard. “I promise you I wasn’t thinking that at all.”

  She frowned. “Then why are you frowning like Batman?”

  Bharat cocked his head. “I beg your pardon?”

  Sophia shrugged. Her boobs moved under the jacket.

  His groin pulsed with want and he mentally started reciting the decimals of pi in order to keep his thoughts in order.

  “You know. ‘Why so serious’?” Sophia growled the line from one of their mutually favorite films.

  Bharat shook his head. “I wasn’t serious. I was just wondering how to kiss you without scaring you off.”

  Sophia opened her mouth but nothing came out as his words registered. She cocked her head and made a floppy gesture with her right hand. “Huh?” she asked, stupidly.

  Bharat smiled, took a step towards her. “You’re not stupid or oblivious, Sophia. You know I want to kiss you.”

  Her jaw dropped open, as if the thought really hadn’t occurred to her. “But…but…” she said.

  Sophia shook her head and her hair fell forward.

  Bharat couldn’t help himself. He touched the ends of it with his fingertips. Twined them around his fingers. And pulled her forward. She came without much resistance. Her eyes huge and a bit apprehensive.

  Sophia put her hands on his shoulders. “Wait just a second.”

  He waited, although it was killing him by inches.

  “I have really bad breath right now.”

  He pulled her close, grasping her by the elbows in a rough movement that had her breathing out in a gasp.

  “I.” Bharat came an inch closer. “Don’t.” His breath puffed out over her lips. He thanked god when she shuddered and pulled him that last inch closer. “Care.”

  And they kissed.

  ~~~~~

  As first kisses went it was soft, a little slow. Bharat explored the shape of her lips with tiny kisses, until her breath hitched and she cupped the back of his neck. So he took it a little deeper, a little truer and she kissed him back.

  Sophia gave him an incredibly open kiss and he dug his fingers into her back, as the slow melt began inside of him. It was she who went in search of his tongue and took it, squeezing it slowly, carefully, erotically until his head spun and he pressed her closer, changing angles on their mouths, their breaths rasping out between kisses.

  Hot, wet, incendiary kisses.

  Sophia shoved her hands inside his tee shirt and touched his belly. He sucked in a breath and pressed her even closer, burying his fingers in her hair, so it settled like a curtain around them.

  She rose up on her toes, and he came forward so he was half-leaning over her and they kissed without pause.

  It was the world’s longest, first kiss.

  They broke for air when Sophia tugged at his tee shirt. He pulled it off neck first and her eyes glazed with warmth and desire.

  Bharat pulled her closer and tugged off her jacket. He moved his inside the camisole. They were still kissing as he brushed his thumbs against the outer edges of her breasts.

  Sophia moaned, and he slowly, systematically lost his mind in the absolute wonder of kissing her.

  They fell back on the bed in a sort of slow grapple, her legs trapped between his, arms around his neck as they kissed ravenously. Endless.

  Bharat moved down to the side of her jaw and she turned her head slightly to the side, kissed his bicep. Her thigh fell open as he sucked on the pulse at her throat and he settled more fully against her.

  She sighed, a broken sound and he went back to her lips.

  When he broke for air, she asked him, softly, “What are we doing here, Bharat?”

  He stilled in his exploration of her willing warm body. His hand hot against the planes of her stomach. Itching to go either way, up or down.

  She was pretty. Really pretty, not Bollywood pretty. Her beauty was real – the little gap in her front teeth, the color of her skin, the small shy smile she gave him. Her cheeks were flushed with arousal and her eyes, were warm, melting brown.

  He wanted to lick her up like she was a Cornetto cone, slow and delicious. A special treat to savor.

  “Apart from that.” She mock-punched his shoulder.

  Bharat got off her, laying down beside her with an arm thrown up over his eyes.

  “You’re an amazing kisser,” he informed her.

  “I wasn’t the one who spent New Year’s Eve 2012 with the porn star,” Sophia reminded him dryly.

  He looked at her from beneath his arm, his eyes twinkling with a devilish light. “She wasn’t good at kissing.”

  “Then what—never mind,” she added hastily as he lewdly winked at her. “I don’t want to know, actually.”

  Then she pulled him closer by the simple move of crooking her finger.

  One bend of her fingertip and he was on her like sambhar on rice. Their kiss was long and lush, and her camisole rode up as his hands followed the path of the silk. When he cupped her breast she arched into his arms, their legs tangling together as they strained to get closer.

  There was a knock on the door right when he was about to slide down and continue with making a meal out of Sophia.

  ~~~~~

  “Go the fuck away,” Bharat called out.

  Sophia’s hands stilled in his hair. Awareness slid into her eyes, replacing the desire.

  “Yo, B.” It was Donald. “You asked me to call you when we go for lunch. We are going for lunch.”

  Sophia shrugged. “You have a lunch meeting?” she whispered.

  Bharat
shook his head. Then sighed. He nodded, frustration clear on his hard face. “Fuck.”

  Sophia smiled. “It’s okay. I’ll go back to the ship and see you later.”

  He sat up and pulled her up with him. “No. No way. My lunch will be thirty minutes, max. You can relax and shower, maybe have some coffee and I’ll be back. We can go for lunch then. A delicious, desi lunch? And I’ll take you to see the best place in the whole world.”

  “The best place in the whole world?”

  He nodded. “If you don’t agree, I’ll give you whatever you want.”

  Sophia grinned. Winked at him. “Even that very expensive technology you invented on the phone you built?” Her heart almost stopped at the casual phrasing but she wanted to test it out. See what he had to say.

  Bharat shrugged. An arrogant gesture. “Sure. Yes, I’ll give you Caliban if you don’t agree.”

  “Now that,” she whispered as she kissed him. “Is an offer I can’t refuse.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Aria was grand.

  As Sophia investigated Bharat’s double executive room she discovered that grand was the best adjective to use. The bed was enormous and comfortable, the carpet was real shag pile, not synthetic. The balcony (small but with a stunning view of Sydney Harbor) had original marble carvings on the balustrade and the silverware was actually silver.

  But the bathroom had Sophia sighing in sincere pleasure. With a color scheme of pale on turquoise blue, the fittings were a mix of glass and chrome. The toilet was a silent whooshing presence that stopped just short of being creepy.

  Best of all, a toiletry kit had been left on the counter - a taupe mini tote with the logo of the hotel stamped on both sides. It contained hand lotions, shampoos, conditioner (leave in and rinse out) as well as shower gels in no less than three flavors. There was a bath bomb for the Jacuzzi that she longed to try out and a sewing kit as well as a mini tooth brush and travel hairdryer that Bharat had already plugged in.