by Zee Monodee
“Babe, come back.”
“I can’t,” she said as she pulled on her knickers. “I’ve got to get back home.”
“Why? There’s no one at your place.”
“Maybe not at my house, but my mother is just next door.”
He stifled a chuckle. “Your mother. Right.”
She turned to him with a narrowed glare. “Don’t laugh. You don’t know what Hell she can make of my life if she catches me coming back late. And don’t ask how she’ll know. She just will.”
Upon these words, he pitched his head back and laughed. He stifled the guffaws when a soft thump landed upon his chest.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she said in a growl.
Her hand still lay on his skin. He grasped it and pulled her to him, turning so she lay sandwiched between the mattress and his body. Her eyes became hooded, passion turning them into deep, infinite pools where he could lose himself. He travelled his gaze over her body, marvelling at how her skin appeared so luminous against the dark sheets on his bed.
“You,” he said as he dipped his head and dropped a kiss on her breast, “are a grown woman who is also single.” He sucked the beaded nipple in his mouth, releasing it upon her sharp gasp. “Your mum has nothing to add there.”
“Logan.” She gasped as he returned to laving the rosy tip with his tongue. “Taking a lover is not something I should be doing, let alone advertise everywhere.”
He didn’t pause in his task, instead sucked deeper when soft moans escaped her lips and she arched into his kiss.
She couldn’t take a lover, but what about a husband? Surely, no one would have anything to say about that.
He let his hands roam over her skin, caressing her hips, coming up her waist, until his thumbs grazed the underside of her full breasts. He always marvelled at the softness of her skin there, how the swelling flesh felt like warm silk.
But Neha isn’t really a widow, his mind prodded. Her husband was simply missing, not officially dead. Unless they found his body, she would still be tied to him in the eyes of the law, until the papers became official. She could petition to have the marriage dissolved only after another few years.
All this meant she couldn’t be his wife soon. Anger burst inside him, and he forced himself to remember where he was, with who he was.
The woman he loved, with whom he wished to spend the rest of his days. Never had he thought he’d meet her, but now that he had, he wouldn’t let her go. He’d have her as he could, because ultimately, nothing mattered except that she be his, and his alone.
He released her nipple and trailed his mouth down her belly. He loved how her flesh proved so soft and yielding, how her body showed so obviously that she had borne life. She didn’t resemble a hard slab of skin and bones as most women today. No, Neha was a real woman, and what she saw as ‘flaws’ made her even more beautiful to him.
He let his fingers tangle in the scrap of lace she called knickers and pulled them down as his mouth continued the trek lower. When he touched her core with his lips, a low wail released from her mouth. The first time he had kissed her thus, she had tried to push him away. He hadn’t headed her plea, and had delved in to fully taste her. This time, she opened up for him, begging him with a soft “please” to take her to a climax that would shatter through her.
He brought her to the brink but released her there. Then, in one swift move after he’d ensured their protection, he plunged into her and brought her orgasm to culminate through every inch of her.
Yes, he thought as he watched the rapt pleasure on her features. This is how she is meant to be, where she is meant to be. In his arms, with him inside her, pleasure flooding through her. Damn if he wouldn’t spend his life making sure she lay in this place as often as she needed and desired.
He came, too, his world smashing into a thousand shards of white light as he gave in to the feeling of reaching ecstasy with her.
When he fell back onto the bed, he pulled her to his side.
“Stay,” he whispered against her hair.
She didn’t reply, but soon after, he heard her steady breathing and knew she’d allowed herself to fall asleep in his arms.
Right then, he didn’t need anything more from her.
***
Neha cursed herself all the way from Flic en Flac back to Curepipe. Yet, at the same time, her beating came only half-heartedly. She’d wanted to stay with Logan. All her protests hadn’t been for show, but they hadn’t been so strong, either. Somehow, she couldn’t simply jump into his arms and his bed as soon as he snapped his fingers. No, too shameful.
At the same time, she could kid herself all she wished, she did fall into his embrace with the slightest tug from him. Damn the man. Because he made mush out of her, and something primal switched onto automatic pilot inside her whenever she found herself alone with him.
She could never get the final word with Logan, and it unnerved her. Not because she couldn’t win, but because she’d never been in a position where she ‘lost’ each and every time and as systematically as she did whenever she and he were involved in the same equation. She and Logan equalled heat and making love and damning all the consequences.
How did that turn out for throwing one’s world upside down, especially when said world had always spun upon a very definite axis?
In the only relationship she’d known before him, there had never been any instance where the choice had been taken from her hands. In each and every case in her marriage with Rahul, she had been able to call the shots. If something didn’t suit her, she made sure this thing never had a chance to re-occur. She’d then place this whatever-disturbing instance into a dark corner of her brain and let it lose itself there. Yes, she had bowed to duty and to her husband, but at the same time, she had been at the helm. Rahul had always placed her in the position.
With Logan, things had flipped completely different. She snorted. Different didn’t even start to cover it. Being around Logan was akin to playing Russian roulette blindfolded and knowing fully she bet from borrowed lease.
A recipe for disaster?
She groaned as she slowed the car to allow it to go smoothly over a speed hump.
And the lovemaking ... She could grow so addicted to it. Well, sod it. She was addicted to his brand of loving already. One scorching look from him could have her wetting her knickers. Lately, she’d started wearing panty liners, so much her body gave her away and thus ruined her expensive underwear in the process.
The past few hours had been blissful, she had to admit. He’d taken her to Heaven and back, not once, but thrice. Blast it, she was thirty-nine years old. The mother of two teenagers and a tween. She shouldn’t have it in her to be making love three times in about as many hours and still be left craving more. And with a man younger than her, too. Logan had just turned thirty-seven, meaning she had a good couple of years on him.
What had she gotten involved in, for goodness’ sake? Worse, how could she want this with every fibre of her being? This insatiable need for him, both physically and in her heart, scared the daylights out of her at times when she paused long enough to ponder this fact. Never had she yearned for someone, let alone a man, in this manner. Blast it, never had she thought one could desire someone else with such intensity. What she’d felt for her husband paled against what brewed inside her for Logan, making her feelings for Rahul comparable to infatuation while for Logan, they rumbled more akin to … love?
She gasped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the traffic light ahead of her turn red, and she slammed her foot on the brake to stop the car. A horn blared behind her at the abrupt slowing. She didn’t care, not when she had just realized she felt love for Logan Warrington. The hard, steadfast, and sadly, aching kind.
She should face it. Such love brought hurting and pain. Like the knife slicing through her heart right now. What would she do? What sort of future did a couple like she and Logan have? So much lay unresolved, pending, in her life. She held not a clue as to where th
e mess started, let alone any idea as to how to start clearing anything to bring about a clean slate.
The light turned green, and she eased the car along only to land in a huge traffic jam. Grateful for the fact that cars moved inch by inch, she put all her thoughts on hold as she manoeuvred the vehicle along the main road. Once she hit the motorway, she brought the window down and allowed the cool air of the upper plateaus to bathe her face, to take the edge of the heat in her mind off her skin.
She reached Curepipe and her house half an hour later. A glance at her watch showed close to ten o’clock. Late. She grunted as she cut the engine. When the light of morning had started to filter into the bedroom at around half past six, she’d turned to get out of bed, and Logan had closed a hand around her thigh and tumbled her back onto the covers.
The next couple of hours had been lost in a haze of passion and fulfilment. In the bright light of day, something had ignited inside her, and she’d craved to please this man. So, she’d pushed him onto his back and had set out to seduce him and bring him time and again to the brink of pleasure.
Hot embarrassment at her unbridled, hussy-like behaviour suffused her cheeks. Neha ducked out of the car and headed towards the house. A glance told her everything appeared quiet. She sent a silent prayer out that her mother wasn’t lurking behind a bush and wouldn’t jump out in front of her in the next few seconds.
She made it into the house, and, upon a sigh, dashed up the stairs to her bedroom where she undid her sari and changed into a more comfortable jumper and a wrap-around skirt. Placing the sari away, she couldn’t help but recall how Logan had slowly unwrapped it from around her body. This night, he had taken his time, walking around her as he’d gathered the fabric in his hands and unravelled her emotions at the same time he’d undressed her for his gaze, his touch, his kisses, and finally, his taking.
Neha stopped in front of the standing mirror in the room, checking for any marks on her neck. None this time, and she breathed a small sigh of relief. At least today, she wouldn’t be fighting a lost cause to try and hide any hickeys Logan may have left on her body.
The phone rang as she made her way out of the room, and she reached the landing on the stairs where the handset rested to see a number she really didn’t want to see blinking on the caller ID screen. A groan escaped her. What to do? She didn’t want to answer, but doing so could mean more trouble than what already brewed.
With another heavy sigh, she picked up. “Hey, Mum.”
“Thank God you’re home. I’m coming over.”
Neha recoiled as she put the receiver back in its cradle. She so didn’t need this. Yet, what else could she do but brace herself and meet her mother head-on when she would get here?
Tea. She could busy herself with making the beverage and thus not have to focus on what her mother would reproach her.
Look at you. Thirty-nine, mum to three kids, and your mother rattles you like a Class Four cyclone beats down sturdy trees.
Logan had every right to laugh when she mentioned her mother and the ‘consequences’ of failing to meet Gayatri Hemant’s strict and oftentimes warped standards.
She gave another glance at the phone. The caller ID screen still blinked, indicating unanswered calls. Scrolling through the numbers, she frowned. All three calls came from blocked numbers, each at about an hour’s interval. Had someone tried to get in touch? Why hadn’t they called her mobile, then? And why a masked ID? Unless they’d been calls from abroad. From whom, in that case?
The questions swirled in her mind, battling with the thought that she would be facing a storm very soon. Letting go, Neha decided to face the more imminent conflict for the time being.
She was putting tea leaves into the boiled water when her mother barged through the back door in the kitchen.
“Where were you?” the older woman asked.
Here we go. Grow a spine, girl.
“Out,” she said without taking her eyes off the kettle.
“Out where?”
“Goodness, Mum. Are you keeping watch on me or something?”
I didn’t know I had a curfew, she wanted to add, but didn’t because she shouldn’t rock the boat so much already.
“You are single and without a husband, Neha. People will start talking if they notice you’re not home often.” Her mother paused. “You already work at the station in such a prominent position. You need to be careful.”
This isn’t the Regency era, she craved to snap, but refrained herself. Drat, even in that age, she wouldn’t have needed a chaperone because she was a widow.
“Mum, stop dramatizing, will you? Want a cuppa?”
Her mother pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. “Yes, please. And I’m not dramatizing. It is a fact you are alone, Neha.”
Oh, groans. She had to get this over with and fast. “Mum, by the time the cocktail party ended, it was close to two a.m. I didn’t feel like driving back so late into the night, so I took a room at the hotel and waited for morning to leave.”
The lie slid from her lips as smooth as a knife went through soft butter. Strangely, she didn’t feel any pinch or wince at lying so easily, and so convincingly, too.
Pulling the kettle, she poured the tea through a strainer into two cups and added a spoonful of sugar to each.
Her mother huffed. “You could have gone to Diya and Trent’s place. Their house is a fifteen minutes’ drive from the hotel.”
Neha turned away to roll her eyes without her mother noticing.
“You’re not listening,” she said. “I didn’t want to drive. Not an hour, not even five minutes. And two o’clock is an ungodly hour to knock on someone’s door to ask to spend the rest of the night. Have you also forgotten how I’m allergic to their dogs and their cat?”
“Neha, is everything okay?”
“Of course. Why do you ask this?”
The older woman frowned. “It’s just not like you to talk back.”
Neha busied herself with taking a sip of her tea. The hot liquid burnt her tongue. She welcomed the scalding feeling. “Suzanne won, you know.”
“Yes, we saw it on TV. Her grandfather and I were so happy for her. The dance she did turned into quite something, innit?”
“You got that right.”
She couldn’t help but wonder what part Logan had played behind this whole episode. What had taken place between him and her daughter, and how close had they gotten that he’d talk to her like a caring father figure and headstrong Suzanne would listen to him, too?
“Her father would’ve been happy, too, wouldn’t he?”
The words jarred her from her reflections, and she closed her hands more tightly around the porcelain cup. Rahul. In all this time, she hadn’t thought of him. Oh, she had thought of him in comparison to her lover. Never as Suzanne’s father.
Had he already become so much a distant part of their lives, one they might forget completely with time?
A shiver racked through her, and the tea sloshed over the cup’s rim and stung her fingers.
A soft towel pressed onto her hands. Looking up, she encountered her mother’s head close to hers. The other woman had grabbed a tea cloth and wiped the hot liquid from where it had burnt her skin.
So much like what a mother would do.
Placing the cup down, she grasped her mother’s hand and smiled up at her. “Thanks.”
Her mum returned her smile, and the two of them sat in the quiet of the kitchen under a blanket of peaceful verbal and emotional ceasefire.
The phone rang, and Neha stood and went to the handset on the far wall in the room. A glance at the caller ID screen showed her the ‘unknown number’ message again. Could the person from last night be calling back?
“Hello?”
The click signalling an international call resounded on the line.
“Could I speak to Mrs. Neha Kiran, please?” a man with a thick Indian accent asked.
“This is her speaking.” Pointless to explain she was Ms. Heman
t, especially over a long-distance call.
A sense of ominous dread started to gather in her stomach, and the weak feeling returned to the small of her back. She hitched in a breath to stave off the impending asthma attack the feeling could trigger.
“Madam, I have been trying to reach you since yesterday. My name is Balraj Ahuja, and I work at the Home Office in Mumbai ...”
Neha moved so she could lean against the wall. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother stand up and walk her way.
“It’s about your husband. I am sorry to tell you, but we have found his body ...”
The receiver slipped from her hand.
Chapter Thirteen
“Neha? What’s wrong, darling?”
Her mother’s voice drifted to her from afar. The words mingled with the ones she’d heard over the line. A gasp, more like a sound emitting from a closing throat, escaped her.
An asthma attack coming in. Neha didn’t know from where or how reflex flowed through her. She moved one hand to grab the dangling receiver while with the other, she reached for the drawer to the right and retrieved her inhaler.
The phone between her ear and neck, she breathed a quick, “Hold on, please,” and then pumped a shot of medication inside her mouth. Closing her eyes, she waited for the drug to take effect before looking up again.
“Neha?” her mother asked as she grabbed her arm and shook her gently.
“It’s okay, Mum. I’ve got this.” Her voice sounded calm to her own ears, and she went back to the call. “How ...” she said, but couldn’t continue. “Mr. Ahuja, what happened?”
Who could be this apparently unruffled, competent-sounding, and cool woman talking? She didn’t recognize herself. Blast it, she should’ve been crumbling in a heap on the floor, not quietly listening to the rather jumbled explanations of the man across the line.
After he’d finished with his discourse, she took a deep breath. “So what do I do now?”
Frankly, what did she do as from here? Rahul was dead. Officially. The news didn’t bring much more than surprise. Hadn’t she been considering her husband gone from her life for a long time already?