by M. V. Kasi
She looked far from the beautiful, glamorous woman he had gone on a date with that night.
But no matter what, he found Shilpa Dasani sexy as hell. He doubted if he would ever find anyone more appealing than he found her, however dressed or underdressed she was.
That thought made him angry. It made him lose the veneer of sophistication and even the bare civilization. He wanted to drag the woman in front of him to somewhere in caveman style and claim her as his own and make her admit they belonged together.
DHRUV WAS YET to say a word. And so was she.
Shilpa didn’t know why, but she was angry with Dhruv. Sure, he didn’t make any promises and neither did she encourage or indicate in any way that she was interested in anything serious, but she still felt betrayed.
“What are you doing here?” she finally asked. “I thought you were on a date—” Before she could finish, he pulled her close, until their faces were only inches apart.
“How did you know I was on a date today?” he demanded.
She hated that she was still following his news obsessively. “Someone at the station told me,” she lied.
He scanned her face, and she knew he didn’t believe her. But he didn’t call her out on it.
“It wasn’t a real date. It was a publicity stunt,” he said. “But let’s talk about your date last night.” His tone held a dangerous edge.
She frowned but didn’t struggle out of his arms. “So what did you have to do during your publicity date?” she asked. She knew her jealousy was obvious, but she made no attempt to conceal it.
“Why do you care?” he demanded. “When you made it loud and clear you have no interest in me.”
“I don’t,” she whispered the lie.
He stared at her with his jaw clenched and ticking. She knew he was angry at her lie.
As she continued to watch him, a realization struck her hard. She had spent the entire week agonizing over him, thinking he gave up on her and moved on to another woman. She agonized even more thinking she wouldn’t be able to talk with him, or laugh with him, or even touch him.
It was too late. She had already fallen for Dhruv. Not just fallen, but fallen hard. She was emotionally bonded with him.
And right now, she wanted him more than she wanted anything or anyone. She raised her hands to run her fingers in his hair while meeting the intensity of his eyes. What she saw shook her. Along with anger, there was hunger that matched the intensity of hers.
Before she could say anything, his hand crept into her hair, and he pulled her closer. “Damn you,” he said in a rough voice before crashing his mouth on hers.
The kiss took her to the edge. She met his lips, teeth, and tongue with her own, drawing heat and passion from him.
After a few breathless moments, his mouth left hers. His eyes more or less sizzled as he spoke. “No more bullshit. And no more interruptions or second thoughts. You are mine tonight.”
DHRUV PULLED THE maddening woman back to him. She drove him insane with the need for her. Her lips and mouth tasted sweet and pliant. But it was the little moans she let out that drove his need towards the edge.
He had wanted their first time to be passionate yet slow and gentle. He had wanted to cherish her to show her how much she meant to him. But the way he was kissing her now was too raw and hard. He couldn’t seem to help it.
Blood roared in his head, blinding all rational thought as he crushed her against him and forced his tongue deeper into her mouth. He realized faintly that her hands had ripped his shirt buttons off and were seeking him the way he wanted her to.
He moved away a couple of inches, still kissing her while sliding his hands under her nightshirt to cup her breasts. She jerked and then pushed her hardened nipples into his palms. She moaned into his mouth, pushing him further towards the edge. Feeling desperate and impatient, he swung her up in his arms and took her towards the bedroom.
He dropped her on the bed and stood up straight. Watching her lying on the bed and breathing fast and hard like him, a dozen thoughts flew into his head about what he wanted to do to her. But only one stood out above all. He wanted to claim her.
He pulled up her nightshirt and tugged the bottom before throwing them to the side. He unzipped his pants and threw them on top of her clothes. He was too impatient to tackle with his shirt. It was already ripped apart by her hands and hanging to his sides.
He moved on top of her and settled his lower body between her legs. He pushed her thighs apart and raised them. He felt them tremble against his hands as he watched her face.
SHILPA KNEW IT was finally going to happen. Her life as she knew it was going to change this instant. The man who filled her mind was going to fill her body soon. And there would be no escape. She didn’t want an escape. Not anymore.
“Look at me,” Dhruv’s voice said in a low, rough tone.
She followed his order. Her breath sped up once again as she met his eyes. And then, almost instantly, she felt on edge. She felt hungry and desperate for him. She wrapped her legs around his waist. “I want you,” she said.
His eyes flared, and with his gaze locked on hers, he drove into her with a single thrust. He groaned as she gasped. It hurt, but she didn’t care. The feel of him inside her overshadowed everything. She closed her eyes as he held her hips and began to thrust.
She kept him locked in place with her short nails cutting into the skin of his hard shoulders, and her heels digging into his back. She could feel him on the brink as the intensity of his thrusts increased.
She splintered. And soon, he followed. She could hear his primal cry joining her ecstatic cries.
THEY LOST TRACK of the number of times they had sex over the next two days. On the bed, in the shower, on her dining table, on the kitchen floor. She kept expecting the fierceness of their need to simmer down. But it didn’t. All they had to do was look at each other and they were at it again.
Sometimes, they didn’t have to look. He woke her up from her exhausted sleep or she woke him.
It was a good thing that it was the weekend and she didn’t get any calls from work. Dhruv had turned his phone off after their first time together on Friday night. The only calls she made was to briefly chat with Ma. The older woman must have sensed something because she hung up within two minutes of the call. Ma had given the excuse of being in middle of a movie.
And soon, and too damn soon, it was Monday morning. Shilpa woke up to Dhruv’s kisses. She opened her eyes just in time when she felt him slide into her. He watched her face as he thrust in and out.
She closed her eyes and kept them shut with the overload of sensations, but when she slowly opened them again, their eyes met, and he smiled tenderly down at her.
It was different from the last two nights when he had taken her in a frenzy over and over. But his tenderness was equally potent because she came hard with a soft cry.
Much later, when she became aware of her surroundings, she realized she was lying on Dhruv’s chest while he played with her hair. She could hear his heart beating steadily under her ear. Raising her head a little, she kissed his chest and lay back on it again. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“For what?”
“For giving me the most amazing weekend.”
“Thank me? I should, in fact, apologize to you.” He pulled her hand towards him and kissed her palm. “I barely let you relax the last two days. I attacked you the moment you let me inside the door.”
She laughed. “Definitely, no complaints about that. And I didn’t let you come in. You barged inside my house, Mr. Jagannath.”
He grinned. “That I did.”
Shilpa sighed and held him a little tighter. “I hated last week. I missed you so damn much.” She didn’t want to play it cool. She wanted to bare it all. “I scanned through social media, looking for snippets of what you were doing. That’s how I knew you were going on a date and that you went on the date.”
He kissed her shoulder. “It was just dinner. Tina is one
of my good friends, too. I did it to make you jealous, hoping you would see it when it came on the news.” They didn’t get a chance to watch TV or follow up on the news. But Shilpa knew Dhruv’s date would be all over the news.
“Tina and I spoke about you.”
“Really?” Shilpa smiled, feeling pleased about that fact. But the next second she was flat on her back with Dhruv staring at her fiercely.
“Let’s talk about the date you went on Thursday.”
Shilpa frowned, not understanding. And then, she understood. “Ah, you meant with Sanjay?”
“Yes. With the great Sanjay. Military man extraordinaire who owns a security firm and the man Rhima thinks could possibly father your children.” He spat the last part.
Shilpa burst out laughing. And then, she watched him with amusement. “Ma was up to no good. She probably knew how that would make you feel. She must have thought that would propel you to seek me.”
“It did. So you didn’t actually go out with that man?”
“Oh, I did.”
That got a growl from Dhruv. A real, honest growl like a rabid animal.
“Easy there, tiger. He came to my station because he needed help from the police for one of his clients. We were discussing that.”
“So he didn’t mention anything personal then?”
Shilpa paused. Sanjay did try to coax her to meet him outside on a personal basis. And he casually extended his marriage offer once again.
“He might have—” Before she could finish, her mouth was captured. And then, the fierce lover was back.
Shilpa had no complaints, except that she was going to be sore for the next few days with their weekend marathon lovemaking.
Chapter 27
Dhruv and Shilpa were right. The media went crazy about Dhruv’s latest love interest aka Tina Raheja.
Since no one knew where Dhruv usually was due to his high security, Tina was followed or rather stalked by the reporters constantly. Reporters flocked her hotel as well to take her interviews. Tina thrived on the attention, and she knew it was a matter of time when good roles would flow into her kitty.
Meantime, that gave enough privacy, however temporary, to Shilpa. She was able to sneak into Dhruv’s penthouse regularly without raising any suspicion. And he was able to sneak into her apartment.
Currently, they were at Shilpa’s place where both of them were getting ready to visit Rhima. Dhruv kept a few sets of clothes at Shilpa’s place since he seemed to spend half of his time there.
Shilpa was still getting ready. While Dhruv waited for her, he went around her apartment.
The now familiar apartment was small and neat. He knew that with her role and benefits offered, Shilpa could have easily afforded a much bigger place. She had told him she didn’t like a huge place because it would mean she would have to spend time and energy hiring more people to maintain it.
Dhruv went towards a shelf filled with photo albums and pulled one out. During the past weeks, he was too busy to explore the place. Whenever he was here, he was busy exploring the woman who consumed his mind.
The album Dhruv held was Shilpa’s family album. He noticed that Shilpa looked a lot like her mother. He smiled at some of the gap-toothed pictures of Shilpa’s early childhood and also the awkward braces phase through her teenage years.
He placed it back and pulled out a few more. Most of her albums seemed to be of the family vacations she had taken.
He pulled another album which looked relatively new. He was expecting to see some of her recent pictures, which he did. These pictures had a man next to her. A man in his twenties.
Dhruv knew it was Pranit because he had seen Pranit’s pictures on Rhima Kumar’s walls as well. Initially, when Dhruv hadn’t known that Rhima wasn’t Shilpa’s mother, he had thought those were Shilpa’s father’s pictures. Pranit looked a lot like his father who had also been a police officer and had died during duty.
Dhruv’s eyes took in the young, happy faces of Shilpa and Pranit. They were smiling in all of the pictures. One of the pictures was taken during a ceremony where Pranit was kissing Shilpa’s cheek while Shilpa was showing off her mehendi to the camera.
Dhruv felt a bolt of jealousy pass through him and immediately felt ashamed.
The other man had died. In fact, he had been brutally murdered at a young age, leaving behind a grieving mother and fiancée. How could Dhruv feel jealous of him?
Dhruv would never begrudge Shilpa for having been in a committed relationship before. Her past made her the person she was. And he loved her.
The word ‘love’ made Dhruv pause. Was it love? He knew it was love.
He also knew Shilpa’s earlier panic attack was warranted when they had broken up. Because he knew he was approaching their relationship way, way too quickly. And despite the outrage he had felt at that time because he thought her feelings weren’t moving at the same rapid pace as his, even he had felt quite overwhelmed.
Being a movie star, he had more than his share of flings and a few short relationships which eventually fizzled. But they all ended because he never felt the need to settle down. He even used his career as an excuse to break off when things got serious, but now… with Shilpa… he wanted to hold on to her and never let her go.
“Ready?” Shilpa’s voice asked, interrupting his thoughts.
Dhruv looked at her as she hastily fastened her ear rings. She had come back from work late and looked dead tired. But he knew she would never willingly miss having dinner at Rhima’s place on Friday nights.
“Yes, I’m more than ready. Just waiting for you to join me,” he said softly. He didn’t just mean those words for the occasion, he also meant them for their state of mind.
But Shilpa just smiled. “Are Shiv and Viren joining us?”
“Yes.”
Since Shilpa spent a lot of time with him, and Shiv and Viren were part of his life even though they were mostly within the shadows, Shilpa struck a friendship with them. Both his bodyguards were totally impressed by her and approved of her. He even saw them with smitten looks when she regaled them with funny tales.
As soon as Dhruv and Shilpa got into the car, Shiv and Viren updated Dhruv with how they have been managing to slip away from the nosy reporters.
“You guys should consider joining the police force,” Shilpa told them. And then, she threw Dhruv a cheeky look. “I’m sure working round the clock with such a high-maintenance superstar is more work than chasing after criminals.”
“Are you trying to lure my bodyguards away, Officer Dasani?” Dhruv growled playfully.
“What if I am, Mr. Superstar?”
He threw her a look that promised a long night of her pleading with him and begging for forgiveness in the most pleasurable way.
LATER THAT NIGHT, they returned to his penthouse where he kept up the promise. He made love to Shilpa and kept teasing her until she alternately threatened and begged him to take her.
Dhruv watched Shilpa’s face while she was passed out asleep, mostly because she had a grueling week.
He stared at her for a very long time. And then, he took a deep breath. “This is it. You are it for me,” he murmured softly before kissing her forehead.
He then got out from the bed and walked into his living room. He dialed a number on the phone while he stood in front of the glass wall of the penthouse watching the twinkling lights of the city. He heard the phone ring a couple of times before it was answered.
“Sweetie, it’s been so long. When are you coming to visit me?” a naturally husky and distinctive feminine voice which was still very popular asked.
Dhruv smiled. “I have something very important to talk to you about. And I want you to meet someone. Can you come down to visit me?”
“Sounds exciting. Can’t wait to see you soon, my love.”
Dhruv chatted with his mother for a few more minutes before he ended the call.
He then went back to his bedroom and slid into the bed, holding Shilpa. He slipped into s
leep, feeling happy, content, and at peace after the longest time.
Chapter 28
“All right team, we are done here. Go back home and get rest. Let’s meet in the evening to discuss the strategy.” Shilpa and her team had done yet another drug bust. This time, it was at an exclusive resort where minors were involved.
Along with alcohol, there were dangerous, very expensive and illegal drugs at the party. And, although the people involved were technically minors, they were old enough and even rich enough to be openly brash and threatening to the police.
Shilpa had to step in personally. And she had a taken great amount of pleasure to put the fear of God in those seventeen-year-olds. To the point that their rich and influential parents also distanced themselves and asked the law to take its course. For now.
Shilpa sighed as she got into her SUV. She checked the time before deciding to drive towards Dhruv’s penthouse.
A week had passed since she last saw Dhruv. The shooting for his movie had started, and he had to fly to the location and stay there the entire week. They spoke regularly over the phone or as much as their professions and time difference allowed, but it wasn’t enough.
She missed him badly. And when she told that to Dhruv, he decided to fly home for a day and leave that evening.
Swiping the keycard of the private lift, Shilpa stepped in and waited with anticipation to finally see him and touch him. As soon as the doors to the lift opened, she rang the bell and waited impatiently, her stomach fluttering crazily.
He had flown back to the city late last night. She was even supposed to wait for him at his penthouse, but she got a call during the night and then she decided to tackle the situation at the resort in person.
She knew she should probably be catching up on sleep before returning to work during the evening, but she had to see Dhruv. She would take a nap at his place. But only after their passionate reunion, that is.