“Haan, Rahul?” She tilted her head, gaze narrowing as she tried to suss out his mood…and how could she divine that when even he didn’t know? “Kya hain? What is it?”
“Come away with me.” It was stupid, impulsive, something he should’ve said at twenty-three. What he needed to say at thirty was much more grounded, basic, hungry. “Come home with me. Let’s get out of here.”
Her thumb caressed the side of his. He counted a beat. Then another. Her gaze, as dark and hushed as Mumbai at dawn, betrayed nothing of what she was thinking. But she didn’t strike him or throw a battery of Bengali insults at his presumptuous head. She let the moment stretch like a taut thread, vibrating and ready to snap. And then she released it. “Yes,” she whispered against his open mouth. “Yes, take me home.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Yes,” she whispered, fingertips curving against the lapels of his coat. This wasn’t the yes of the hotel in Premnagar, something born of bitterness and some hasty wish to get the inevitable over and done with. This was a yes of her soul. It was as though a great block of ice had dislodged itself from her heart, tumbling down the side of the glacier that had crept up through her ribcage for all these years. “Take me home.”
Rahul took her hand, tugging her through the gaudy entrance hall—more appropriate for a disco than a house—and down the front steps, into the drive. His car was already waiting. Did everything just fall into place for him? Was that what this was? Just as her fingers began to slip, eager to follow the zigzag path of her thoughts, he tightened his hold, making a soft sound of reproach. “No backing out, Pree. Come with me. Stay with me. Aaja.” He held the passenger door for her, like they were playing flirtatious tug-of-war in front of a camera.
But it wasn’t a performance. This was a show for two persons only, a private dialogue, with a soundtrack of hushed breaths barely audible over the engine of his luxury car. She busied herself adjusting the folds of her lehenga and dupatta beneath the seatbelt as he pulled round the drive. Her fingers caught on the silk, on the sharp edges of her gold jewelry set. But her gaze constantly returned to Rahul. Even in profile he was handsome. Not hero handsome, but man handsome. The sharp line of his jaw, lightly shaded with beard, the proud slope of his nose, the impossibly long sweep of his eyelashes…she saw tiny portions of those features in Shona every day. But his hands, gripping the steering wheel with such confidence, such grace, they were completely and only his. And they’d so easily undone her, na?
He caught her observations from the corner of his eye. “Kya dekrahe ho?” A smile pulled at his mouth. “What are you looking at?”
Everything. The past, the present, the immediate future. “You’re not a boy anymore, Rahul,” she murmured, half in fond memory and half in regret. “Any more than I am that girl. Hain Apna Dil To Awara was lifetimes ago.”
“I don’t want that girl. I want the woman. Who you are now. Who you will always be. Har janam main. In every life.”
There was nothing to say to that. There was only something to feel. The race of her heart. The leap of her pulse. The rest of the journey passed by in a blur, until they were finally on Bandstand Drive. “Woh dekh, over there…it’s Mannat.” There was a hushed reverence—purely mocking—in Rahul’s tone, as though pointing out King Khan’s sprawling bungalow was like looking at the Taj Mahal. No, at something far holier. Like a Birla mandir, complete with statues of Radha-Krishna. When she explained what caused the sudden giggles to choke her throat, Rahul burst out with matching laughter. “Should we name my house, too?” he suggested. “But it’s not a temple, I’m afraid. Only a shrine.”
“Because you’re only a minor devta, na?” she teased. It had been so long since she’d teased him. Since she’d teased anyone. “Handsome or no, you’re not a full god.”
“Right. You’re the goddess, Priya. My goddess,” he stressed as he took the car through the gate and up the path to his home. But he was not teasing. He was serious. Just as he had been that day after the Na-Insaafi shoot…dark with wanting, so close, too close, almost crawling into her skin. She’d run from him then. But there was no escaping now. Yes, she’d said at Nina’s place, and it meant so much. All she could do was accept his hand as he helped her out of the car…teetering on her sparkling heels, tangling in her skirts and falling against his chest anyway.
They stood together as though someone had asked them to hold the shot. Her cheek brushed the collar of his expensive coat; his breath whispered along the fall of her hair. They were a picture of yesterday…of those silly children they had once been…and a video of tomorrow: the morning where she would awaken in his arms, having re-learned his older, stronger, body and memorized the new places that made him weak. Being with him during The Raj was a reel best left on the cutting room floor…something she could barely recall now, so distant was it from the immediacy of his touch, his husky growl of, “Come in. Andar aao.”
He was inviting her not just into his home, but into his heart. Priya’s soul was equally open for occupation, its doors thrown wide, and yet she still hesitated following him over the threshold. Rahul didn’t miss a beat; he simply tugged her flush against him and then swept his arm below her knees, lifting her easily despite the heavy brocade of her lehenga adding kilos to her weight. When she should’ve taken stock of his home…of whether they were going upstairs or downstairs, into the darkness or into the light, she instead focused on the furnishings of his beloved face. Of how he gazed back at her with the same mix of wonder and fear.
“I’m not letting you go this time,” he said to her. “And I won’t allow you to let me go. Samjhe? This is our chance.”
No, she thought as she arched up and shushed him with a kiss. This is my penance. For she was coming to him stripped, bare, resigned…except for one thing. One thing she couldn’t confess to him, and the most important thing between them.
“Pree?” He could feel her hesitation. This close, he could feel everything. “Kya hua? What’s wrong?”
She simply shook her head, slipping from his arms as they crossed into what could only be his bedroom. She fumbled with pins and hooks, batting away his attempts to help, until her dupatta fell free and then her short, choli-style blouse. Her skirt came next, until she was standing before him completely naked and clad only in her heavy necklace and earrings. “Love me, Rahul. Sirf aaj raat ki liye. Just for tonight and tomorrow.”
His brows rose. “What about next week? Can I love you next week?” When she answered with a shaky laugh, he closed the space between them, gently reaching for the jhumka pulling down on her earlobe. He removed the backing quickly and efficiently, dropping the earring into one of his pockets. Then, he moved on to the second one, doing the same.
All the while, Priya held still, breathing in the sandalwood-spice scent of his skin and counting the time. When at last he was done with her necklace, he pressed his lips to her throat. “Ami tomake bhalobashi.” His Bengali was atrocious. Atrocious and beautiful. “I love you,” he repeated in perfect boarding-school English. “Main tumse pyar kartha hu,” he finished in Hindi.
When Priya fell upon him this time, it wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate. And the only tangle was that of their limbs. She pulled his shirt from his trousers, pushed his coat away and rendered him as vulnerable, as needy, as he’d made her.
Yes. A thousand times yes.
The Priya made of ice had melted, leaving behind a creature of fire. Rahul burned all over from where skin met skin. He’d never felt so alive. They staggered backwards toward his bed, a king-sized affair that had been lacking a queen for far too long. But no more. After tonight, everything would be different. After tonight, Priya was definitively his. He repeated his Bengali I love you, knowing it was terribly pronounced but utterly sincere. Her eyes shone with mirth, with joy, and the heat of her mouth was, for this moment, enough of a response.
She pushed him back onto the mattress, straddling his thighs. The last vestiges of her party wear…the jeweled clips in her h
air…were ceremoniously removed and unceremoniously pitched into the ether. Fully loosed, her hair spilled around them like a sheet of silk. A goddess, he’d called her…but he’d been wrong in that. She was all woman, flesh and bone and sweat-laced muscles. A gorgeous, vibrant human who marked him with the tips of her nails, the nip of her teeth, the sensuous trailing of her tongue down the center of his chest. The Priya she’d been had always loved him with shyness, with hesitance; this Priya had no such qualms. She took control, finding the condoms in his bedside drawer—a box that had practically grown a layer of dust for all the use he’d made of it—sheathing him, holding him hot and throbbing in her palm until he was begging for her to take him.
She didn’t, of course. She drew it all out, as if she was afraid to let the night pass by in a blink. Priya bathed his body with kisses, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. She lingered in every hollow, every crevice and curve. Only after she’d licked and bitten him into frenzy did he finally snap and grasp her by the shoulders. “Bas,” he rasped hoarsely as spots swam before his lust-addled eyes. “Please, Priya, bas. Enough.”
“Oh. You’ve had enough? Should I go?” She made as if to rise, her lips curved in unmistakable feminine triumph.
“Never.” He smoothly rolled so their positions were reversed, with her pinned beneath him, breathing hard and wanting more. “I will never have enough of you. Don’t forget that. Not ever.”
Rahul pushed into her with less than finesse and more than desire. He tormented her with short, rhythmic strokes, until she was the one begging. Until he was skating the very edge of insanity from denying himself release. Until he had no choice but to sink in to the hilt, immersing fully in her fire and setting himself ablaze. God willing, neither of them would ever feel the chill of loneliness again.
Chapter Eighteen
She expected daylight to change everything, like the lights coming up in the cinema hall, destroying the illusion. But when she awoke, it was to find a tray of fragrant, steaming coffee and toast dusted with sugar crystals within arm’s reach on the bedside table…and Rahul sitting at the foot of the bed. It appeared as though he’d been awake for hours; he’d pulled on a faded cotton panjabi shirt and track pants, and he wore them as handsomely as a suit.
“Good morning.” He greeted her as though it was an everyday occurrence, this waking up together and starting the day. “It’s a beautiful day, na? Have breakfast, restore your energy, and we’ll spend the rest of it in bed.” His eyebrows danced with deliciously lewd intent.
Perhaps it was the actress in her who instinctively responded in kind, teasing and domestic, holding the sheets to her chest as she studied the contents of the tray more thoroughly. “Breakfast kyu? You know I have to work out. I have an appointment with my trainer in two hours.”
Rahul flicked his hand as if shooing away a mosquito. “Badh main. Later. Your discipline can be delayed, Pree. Let me take care of you today…let me feed you…and don’t worry about how many sit-ups you need to make up for it.”
“A-ha.” She made a face and tossed a pillow at him, hitting him square in the chest. “So easy for you to say, Mr. Rahul Anand. It’s a midriff, not a midrough, na? You don’t have to wear a choli blouse in your next dance number.”
He frowned, pulling up his shirt to study his belly—her fingers remembered the flat-hard expanse, the soft dusting of hair, and her mouth easily recalled the salty taste of his skin. “Who says I don’t? In Khoon, I will wear the choli and you will wear the jeans. Let me call KK…” Smoothing the panjabi back into place, he pretended to look for his cellular phone.
“Khabardar! Don’t you dare!” she gasped in mock horror.
“Why not? My mobile is magic, you know. Almost as magic as my—”
“Rahul! Don’t be vulgar!” She sent another pillow sailing at his head, only for him to catch it square in the chest and then fall from the bed in a stunt roll.
“Hai Rama, you’ve killed me.” He pitched the melodramatic dialogue from the smooth tiles of the floor. “I’m dying. I made you breakfast, and now I’m dying. You’re a cruel woman, Priya Roy…but at least I’m going to Swargha having known the pleasures of your—”
“My what?” She watched him flail and stagger his way back to the bed, infinitely amused.
“—item numbers,” he finished, blinking innocently. “You’re a bloody good dancer, you know.”
Her shoulders shook with laughter, and when he crawled across the mattress and pulled her against him, her whole body rocked with joy. “Anand”, after all, was happiness.
Sunny allowed herself a scant few hours in Shaw’s arms before she gathered her things and went home to her flat. Lingering the whole night was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Jai was old enough to be home alone, but he did not need to wonder where his mother had spent her evening. “Stay,” Davey had murmured sleepily into the crook of her neck. “He won’t know the difference between you coming in at three and coming in at six. I promise.” But she would know, and that was enough to propel her from the warmth of his body, from the curve of that blade-like smile.
It wasn’t until she’d returned the last pin to her hair and reapplied her lipstick—as if the taxiwallah would take notice—that Shaw sat up against the pillows, his drowsy sensuality replaced by seriousness. “Are you truly all right, Sunita? After everything that happened tonight?”
It wasn’t a question she could answer, not when her emotions were still tangled in the love they’d made…so fierce and possessive and fleeting. “Perhaps Sam and I will be all right,” she allowed. “It was the most honest we’ve been with one another in years.”
“Fair enough.” He propped his knees on his elbows, uncaring of his nudity…but perfectly aware of how it drew her eyes to him, how it made her hunger. There was nothing Davey did that was spontaneous or unknowing. He measured every word, every action, with tiny brass scales. “I’m not like him, you know. You can trust me.”
He spoke of trust so easily, as though it was sold in every corner chai shop and laced with sugar and cardamom. She wanted to give it to him. She very much wished she was capable of it. More than her body, more than even her constantly warring heart, Sunny wanted to offer him this fragile thing that he gave to her so freely. But all she could gift him with before she left was a kiss goodbye. She took his face between her palms, skimming his morning beard with her thumbs, and pressed her mouth to his. Open, unabashed, paagal and carefree, the kiss was everything she didn’t dare put into words. It was a conversation that went on for minutes, until her carefully applied lip liner left a red smudge against his mouth and his tongue left a mark on her soul.
Was she truly all right? Nahin. After meeting this impossible, infuriating man—meeting him, craving him, shagging him till dawn and desiring so much more—Sunita knew that she would never be right again.
Chapter Nineteen
It was amazing to her how quickly her defenses melted. How touching Rahul, being near him, made the snow in her veins turn to mercury. Hot. Unstable. Sitting beside him on the soft guest sofas at the Sunny Days studio was like curling against him naked in bed, like tasting the place where neck met shoulder. Priya didn’t think of the secrets she should keep. She was obsessed only by his nearness. How moving one centimeter would align their thighs and shifting just slightly would brush their shoulders.
Perhaps that was why she was weak when the cameras actually began to roll. When Sunny-ji began with the questions they’d approved beforehand, Priya’s walls were nonexistent, replaced by the girlish passion she’d thought banished years ago. Surely the cameras recorded her bewakoofi, how she gazed at Rahul with moon-sized eyes. Surely they captured her glowing with the aftereffects of loving him for the past several nights. When they edited the roll, they would see the imprints of his fingers around her wrists, the star maps drawn by the rub of his beard stubble against her skin.
Fortunately, Sunita quizzed them on subjects she could speak to without much thought. As they chatted
about the premise of Khoon, Priya allowed herself the pleasure of reaching for Rahul’s hand, for entwining their fingers and squeezing tightly. When they were asked how much they’d changed in the years since Hain Apna Dil To Awara, she let her fondness shine in full strength.
“Rahul’s become a man.” She smiled, offering a flirtatious tilt of her head. “He was just a silly boy then. Now see…he’s a big producer. He writes, he directs…he does everything.”
Rahul took his cue like a professional. “Priya…she’s half the woman she used to be,” he sighed, clicking his tongue…and lest the audience think it was an insult, he added, “You know, Sunny-ji, this modern trend of the size-zero heroine is very dangerous, na?” They’d had a long chat over a breakfast of toast and chai, agreeing that it was a nice publicity platform to climb on—a social issue that could balance the gossip about their love affair. “Beauty comes in all sizes. Priya was as lovely before as she is now. But yeh weight loss ka trend in Bollywood…it should only be done if the heroine is happy to do so. To say otherwise sends a bad message to our young Indian girls.”
“So, Rahul is sending a message to my stomach,” she laughed. “He has been cooking for me nonstop. I’ve forgotten the direction to my gym!”
Their hostess looked at them, first one and then the other, her gaze almost shrewd. As if she could see them sharing Rahul’s cooking while wrapped in nothing but cotton sheets. “So, your dil is no longer awara, na? It sounds like your wandering hearts have found home.”
This, Priya knew, was Sunny-ji’s segue into airing an old clip from HADTA. Something young and fun and light. Perhaps their frolic in the Simla snow with a dozen backup dancers wearing unwieldy winter coats. But her thoughts caught on the word home and clung there. Home. Ghar. Sangsar. A real family with Shona. All of these years, she had denied herself the hope, the dream. She met Rahul’s eyes as the screen came down behind them. Mirrored in them was, surely, the same sudden longing. Nearly the same. Priya choked on the tightness in her throat, even as she twisted to look up at the footage.
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