by Sonali Dev
“In that case, spit it out!” She might have actually bounced on her heels and it made them both laugh.
But that’s exactly what he did. He started at the beginning with how they had moved to Ammaji’s in Southall after Dad died. How he grew up in that Punjabi Indian neighborhood, never relating to any racial identity. There had been a few black children in his school, but they were rich, posh folk, completely removed from his experience.
“The first time I really felt any connection at all with someone my age was when I helped a bloke with his bike when his chains came off. I had just finished school and been accepted into a few universities, but there seemed no help to be had with scholarships and the like. Emma was still in school; everything Mum made went into that, and into putting food on the table. It felt like the end of the road. It was the angriest, most frustrated time in my youth. Which is saying something.
“When I met Gulshan and his friends, it was like finding an outlet to the sudden raw anger that had opened up inside me. They were loud and gregarious and a little bit scary. People cleared out of their way when they walked down the street. Walking by their side felt like finally being able to claim space for myself. I could be angry and still feel safe. I had nothing in common with them, but I was desperate to have something in common with someone.
“It was two weeks. That’s how much time I spent with them. But Gulshan lost it when an old guy who owned a newsstand refused to make some change for him and threw in a slur. It was something that stupid, and he tossed a lit match at the newsstand. There was a car parked too close—an old clunker with a petrol leak—and it turned into an explosion. We scattered, five boys who knew their lives were over.
“When the coppers showed up at our home to take me in for questioning, my mum opened the door. It was more than she could bear. I . . . I remember her face, she was so confused. She had never even heard of these friends. It was the last time I saw her standing upright, or conscious. I heard later that she collapsed when the police car drove away with me. A stroke.
“The boys told the police the truth. That I had nothing to do with it. That they hadn’t even known me until a few weeks before. They let me go, but when I came home, they had already moved Mum to the hospital. A few days later, she died. Never knowing the truth. Her insurance paid for her burial and Emma’s school. Ammaji sold her dowry jewels and sent me to culinary college in Paris.”
He was breathing hard but his eyes were so parched he had to blink away the dryness. A mercy he couldn’t be more grateful for.
Somewhere along the way Trisha had threaded her fingers through his. Her grip was tight, tears were running down her cheeks, and she was opening and closing her eyes in the strangest way. “Crap,” she said, not letting his hand go. “There’s something you should know about me, too. I’m practically blind without my contact lenses. And crying dislodges them because my corneas have a strange curvature.” She started to pat her dress, which was basically the most beautiful blue thing he’d ever seen, but there wasn’t much of it, no sleeves or straps. Nothing to dry her eyes with.
He untied the smock tied around his waist and held it out, thanking his stars that he had switched it out a few times over the evening.
She took it and dabbed her cheeks and the edges of her eyes in frustrated little movements. This was obviously something she hated. “Shit. This is not going to work. You should have warned me you were going to make me cry. Listen, you cannot make me cry, okay?”
He bit his lip to keep from smiling, but it didn’t work. “Sorry. I didn’t realize there was a crying issue. Don’t you carry a pair of spectacles?”
That made her look even more horrified. “You do not want to see me with . . . with spectacles. And, ugh, I think I dropped a lens.” Her head titled at an awkward angle and she looked miserable. “Basically, now I can only see you if you’re six inches from my face.”
“That can be arranged.” He took a step closer and she grabbed his arms.
Holding him seemed to help her balance. “I’m so sorry,” she said, head still tilted. “I can’t believe what that must have been like for you.”
All right, so they were talking about the Gulshan thing again. “It was a long time ago.”
“But she made you relive it.” Her grip on his arms loosened, then turned to a caress, the flames in her eyes burning bright and fierce. “How did Julia find out about this?”
“My assistant, Rajesh, he’s Ammaji’s grandson. Julia slept with him. The guy isn’t really discreet. He’s an idiot, but I didn’t think he was malicious. Even so, I fired him. He didn’t work this dinner. But he only knew what he had pieced together from neighborhood gossip, that Ammaji had saved me somehow after I’d been in trouble with the law, which I hadn’t been. Not really. He probably believed that’s why I was obligated to put up with him. The rest of it Julia probably pulled up from the archives of the local papers. It was a big story when it happened. It certainly can be spun to make me look like a criminal and harm your family.”
Her hand moved to the center of his chest and rested on his heartbeat.
“I’ve never told anyone that before. Any of it,” he whispered.
“I’m glad you were able to tell me.”
He touched one of those springy curls. It bounced against his finger and he gave it a tug and tucked it off her face. “About that other thing I was trying to say earlier.” Her hair was much softer than he had imagined. He touched it again, because he really couldn’t believe how soft it was. She closed her eyes.
He supposed that was a sign that the story of his pathetic childhood hadn’t altered her feelings, which filled him with relief.
“Yes, about that other thing. Could you hurry up and say what you were going to say?” Her eyes were still closed, her voice breathy.
He slipped a hand behind her head, cradling the petal-soft skin at her nape.
She gasped, and her lips parted.
“Okay?” he said against those lush parted lips, tasting her breath, tasting the anticipation at the edge of a precipice.
“Dear God, yes!” She reached up with both hands and pulled his mouth down against hers. And he fell, an anchor sinking to the ocean floor, slow and hard.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Before now, when Trisha had kissed she remembered looking for sparks, searching for heat. She had found both in little, hard-won spurts. Now she swam past the spasms of heat that melted her core, swam past the sparks that exploded where he touched her, and she floated into the comfort of not seeking, just feeling. His lips taking her in, nudging her apart, making her alive and right and known. That hand at her nape, that taste of his tongue, that feel of the stubble on his scalp, the long thick tendons on his neck. The bones of him, magic in her hands.
It was learning, gathering, opening up.
Even the way he pulled away was a connection, different from anything she’d ever known. His hands cradled her face, his breath continued to caress her lips, his chest rose and fell against her heart.
“Could you ask me that again?” she said, her entire body pressed tight against his. “I don’t think I heard you.”
He laughed and lifted her up and onto the railing. Where he did ask her again, and again until she was gasping desperate sounds into his mouth, sounds that she couldn’t seem to control from getting louder and louder.
“Your family,” he whispered.
“Who?”
Holy hell, her entire family was here.
He laughed again. She loved his laugh. She wanted to rub it all over herself.
“Do you have work to finish?” she asked.
“Nope, it’s all taken care of. I wanted to make sure we weren’t interrupted.”
She looked over his shoulder. “Ambitious plan.”
“I couldn’t find you anywhere else.”
“You looked for me?” He had looked for her?
His hand was on her nape again, his thumb stroking the one spot in her body that loved to gather tension
. “All my life.”
She died a little. Because she knew what he meant.
He dropped a kiss at the very edge of her mouth. “I thought you were avoiding me because I’d turned you off so completely with how awful I was to you.”
Only one of her eyes was truly working but the sight of him was still overwhelming; those words he was saying made her want to pinch herself. Her hand stroked his chest. She couldn’t believe she was here, doing this. “It was all true what you said. Well, a lot of it was true. But if you feel differently now, I’m not going to argue with that.”
“I feel differently now.” The man could smile-frown like no one else.
“And I don’t.”
“Does that mean we can start afresh?”
“Please.”
He rested his forehead against hers, his entire body relaxing in relief. “So it would be all right to ask you if I could make you dinner sometime?”
She laughed a little desperately. “I’ll tell you now that you can get me to do almost anything if you feed me your food.” Her stomach felt as full as her heart. Just thinking about the food today made her woozy with wanting. Then again, his hand was moving down her spine, so it might not be the food.
His head leaned back. He was laughing again, and that chin of his, with that evil dimple, was a whisper away from her lips. She was about to kiss it when he met her gaze. “If we’re going to give this a go, you’re going to have to promise me something.”
“That I only can eat food that you cook?” She reached out and touched his chin and he shivered, his pupils dilating in the sexiest way.
“That can be arranged. But what I was trying to say is that you have to understand that we aren’t camels, Trisher. We can’t eat two days’ worth of food in one meal.”
She nodded, a little distracted by his chin. “Not camels. Got it. So are we giving this a go, then?” Yes, she imitated his accent, because it was just so much fun to do it.
He laughed again. She frickin’ loved making him laugh. “I’d very much like to give it a go.”
She touched his chin again, just the tip of her forefinger skimming the deep notch of his dimple. A responding pulse beat between her legs. A tightening in her innermost parts. All that from touching him this way. As if he were hers to touch.
He closed his eyes, dropping a curtain over the intensity, the hunger that had just burned in there. The hunger she had made burn.
She lifted that oversensitive finger and touched his lips. They were lush and wide and still a little swollen from being sucked on just a few moments ago. She traced back down to the dimple in his chin she couldn’t get enough of. He took a shuddering breath.
“Is it always so sensitive?”
He took moments to answer as though it cost him an effort. “It’s never been before.” Lifting her fingers, he kissed them, and then spoke against them. “It’s your hands, they’re magic.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. “I can’t believe I actually asked you if you knew what my hands were worth.”
There it was again, that laugh. Deep and husky and perfect. “If only I’d known.”
The lights inside dimmed and they both threw a look at the French doors beyond which real life waited.
She wasn’t ready to leave the balcony. “I believe we have two problems. One, I can’t see a damn thing. And two, I really am not in the mood to deal with the Animal Farm.” Because they were going to be extra weird about this, she just knew it.
“I certainly hope you’re not trying to tell me that your family turns into animals when midnight strikes. I mean, pumpkins I can handle, but . . .”
“It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in some other time. Right now I just want to get out of here.”
Without taking his hand off her waist—Yes, please, please don’t stop touching me, thank you—he leaned over the railing, which was weird to observe with one functioning eye.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Turn around.” He turned her around on the wide railing, her legs dangling in the air. “Stay there.”
She couldn’t be sure, because she couldn’t bloody see, but she thought he lifted himself up onto the railing next to her, and then, yipes! he jumped off the balcony.
Before she could get a shriek out, she felt the tips of his fingers on her feet. “Come on, jump, I’ll catch you.”
She closed one eye and focused on him. “You’ll what?” It was a good eight feet down.
“I’ll catch you. Trust me.”
And that was when she knew she had lost her mind. Because she jumped. She landed in his arms. Which were very, very nice arms to land in. Bicep-chef, indeed!
She felt like the Disney version of a princess for the first time in her life. Which made her burst out laughing.
“You jumped!” he said, also laughing into her ear, his arms still tightly wrapped around her.
“Well, you said you’d catch me.”
He got all intense and serious again, but then they were smiling into each other’s faces once more. “What on earth was that?” she asked finally.
“I heard that you have a thing for romantic gestures involving balconies.”
“I’m going to kill Yash.” But really she was going to kiss her brother.
DJ scooped her up and carried her around the building.
“You can put me down now.” No one had carried her in at least twenty-five years.
He dropped a kiss on her nose. Then gave her a hard kiss on the lips. “You sure? I thought you couldn’t see.” But he put her down and didn’t do anything that gave away how much his arms might be hurting. And she fell a little bit more in love with him.
“You’ll have to lead me around. Where are we going?”
“To my car first. Then I guess we have to find you some spectacles.”
“CAN YOU PLEASE not look at me until I have my contacts in?” she said as soon as she put her spectacles on. “I’m really not comfortable with you seeing me like this.”
DJ turned away from her and studied the huge painting on the bathroom wall. It was a butterfly intricately rendered in patterns of henna. Vibrant in an almost mythical way. “Will you believe me if I said it makes me like you more?”
The laugh she gave him was more of a scoff. She had all these different laughs. “You have a thing for ugly people?”
“You’re not ugly. You’re beautiful.” He touched the painting. The patterns were thick and raised.
“Shut up. I’m not that stupid, you know.”
Outside the open door of her bathroom, the walls of her room were also lined with paintings. End to end. It was like a bloody art museum. “You’re not stupid at all, you’re an outstanding surgeon, mate.”
“Very funny. I’m an outstanding surgeon who does microsurgeries, who can’t see without her glasses. I’m almost done. Sorry.” She sounded apologetic and entirely too self-conscious. He hadn’t noticed until now how often she did that. Actually, he’d noticed but he’d assumed it was her being uppish.
“Trisha, may I ask you a question?”
She made a sound that he took as a yes.
“You know how you said that day . . . at Naomi’s . . . that you were being someone you aren’t, what did you mean by that?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me. Please.”
Her silence was so thick he could hear her brain working. Over the past hour they had made a leap from strangers—strangers who had hurt each other and regretted it, strangers who had wanted each other for a while but been too afraid and confused by their feelings, but strangers nonetheless—to people who had shared things they’d never shown anyone else. To people who had kissed like they were inside each other, like they’d been wanting this their entire lives.
Now she was arguing with her overactive conscience about living up to her own need to be honest, and broaching something she was incredibly uncomfortable about. She may not know which side would win. He did. So he waited.
“Nisha had prodded me that day ab
out having the courage to let people see what I was feeling,” she said finally. “Because she’d guessed how I felt about you.”
“And when you did that, I was horrid to you.”
“Horrid? Nah, you just told me what an insufferable snobby bitch I was. And I needed that. Because, God, how are you here right now after how I behaved that day?”
“But you’re here, too, after how I’ve behaved.”
“DJ, can this be the last time we talk about that awful day? Please.”
He turned around and stepped close to her and wrapped his arms around her. “My eyes are closed,” he said in her ear. “Sure, let’s never talk about that again. But before we leave it behind, there is something I want to make sure you know. You are most certainly not a bitch and you are only slightly insufferable.”
She elbowed him but she also pressed into him. “I’m done. You can open your eyes.”
He smiled into her cheek and drank in her reflection in the mirror. “I was terribly wrong about you. You are the strongest, most generous woman I have ever met in my life. And you’re also the most beautiful. Inside and out. Although right now it’s the outside that’s making me have trouble breathing.”
He was pressing into her and the proof of how very much he meant those words was probably branding her butt and making coherent thought nearly impossible for him.
Based on the fact that she pressed back into him, harder this time, she didn’t seem to mind. “Maybe you’re having trouble breathing because a different part of your body is taking up all the oxygen in your system.”
She was definitely going to kill him, because even when he was hornier than he had ever been in his life, he laughed. “Maybe. You’re the doctor. You could, you know, investigate?”
She turned around, laughter bubbling from her, and reached for his belt, yanking it off with gusto. “Research is my first love.”
“And thank the good Lord for that.” He grabbed her face and took her lips. Not soft, not gentle. Her response was just as fierce, yet it softened and warmed everything inside him.