They were nearly at the Pune expressway when Melissa finally spoke.
‘Can we stop for a bit?’ she asked.
Samir gave her an impatient look. ‘I’d like to get on the expressway before traffic builds up,’ he said. ‘Can you hold on till we get to the first toll? There’s a food plaza there, and it’s only around an hour off.’
‘I’m hungry,’ she said in a small voice.
She’d missed dinner the night before, and the hostel breakfast service only started at seven in the morning. It was all very well for Samir, she thought resentfully. He probably had a retinue of cooks who would have a piping hot breakfast on the table even if he decided to leave home at four a.m.
Unwilling to explain that she was actually feeling light-headed with hunger, she said, ‘And I need to use the loo. Right now.’ Ha—that wasn’t something he could argue with.
It didn’t look as if he was fooled, but he pulled into a burger joint.
‘D’you want anything?’ she asked, and he shook his head.
‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said.
‘I’ll be quick,’ she promised, and darted into the restaurant.
The queues were long, and after almost an hour in the car Melissa found that she was feeling distinctly dizzy—her ears were buzzing, and by the time she got to the head of the queue she knew she was in no state to order.
‘You can go ahead,’ she muttered to the woman behind her.
‘Oh, thanks,’ the woman said gratefully—she had several kids in tow, and they had been bouncing with eagerness to order their second round of burgers. Then she looked a little more closely at Melissa. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked.
Melissa had just enough time to shake her head before black spots started dancing in front of her eyes.
Samir finished sending out a couple of urgent e-mails on his smart phone and looked up, thinking that as they’d stopped anyway a coffee might be a good idea.
The restaurant had plate-glass windows on three sides, and just as he was about to start towards it he saw Melissa sink gracefully into the arms of the middle-aged woman standing next to her. He took the next few steps at a run, bursting into the restaurant just as the woman helped Melissa to a sofa.
‘What’s happened to her?’ he asked, his voice harsh, and the woman looked up in undisguised relief.
‘Oh, are you with her? Thank heavens. I didn’t know what to do! I think she’s just feeling a little faint. Rishu, give me that soda! And the rest of you kids, go and sit with Vishal Uncle. I’ll be with you in a minute.’
The kid she’d addressed gave up the drink without a peep, though he looked rather upset. Melissa was trying to sit up now, and the woman held the paper cup to her lips.
‘Thanks,’ Melissa said after a few sips. ‘Sorry about this.’
‘No worries,’ the woman said comfortably, straightening up. ‘I’ll be right over there in case you need help,’ she told Samir. ‘I think she’s OK now, but a check-up might be in order once you guys get home.’
Melissa thanked her again, and gave Samir an awkward look once the woman went away.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘This hasn’t ever happened before.’
He was frowning. ‘Do you feel OK otherwise? Should I take you back to Mumbai? That woman was right—you need to see a doctor.’
But Melissa was already shaking her head. ‘There’s no need,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll be fine once I eat something.’
His frown deepened. ‘Did you have breakfast?’ he asked abruptly, and she shook her head. ‘Dinner last night?’
Feeling hideously embarrassed, she shook her head again.
‘Why not? What time did you leave work?’
‘Nine-forty,’ she muttered. ‘The hostel curfew is at ten on week-nights, so I had to rush back. And I forgot that I was out of instant noodles.’
‘We’ll talk after I get some food into you,’ Samir said grimly. The interested onlookers in the restaurant waved him to the head of the queue and he came back with a chicken burger and a milkshake.
Melissa took the burger, but shook her head at the milkshake. ‘Lactose intolerant,’ she explained before biting into the juicy bun. The rush of flavours had her feeling a little sick for a few seconds, but the nausea soon receded and she tore enthusiastically into the burger.
‘I’ll get you another one,’ Samir muttered, rejoining the queue. It took him a little longer this time, but he came back with another burger, a soft drink and a coffee for himself.
‘So did you have lunch yesterday?’ he asked conversationally.
Melissa paused mid-bite. ‘I did,’ she said cautiously. ‘At least I think I did. Yes, of course! I remember. Dubeyji ordered a plate of pav-bhaji, and I shared it with him.’
‘You do know that you’re allowed time off for meals, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘And that the agency won’t shut down if you leave early enough to have dinner?’
She laughed. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘This must be the first time I’ve missed dinner because of work. It’s just that I hadn’t originally planned on going to Goa, and I had a bunch of stuff to finish before I could go.’
‘So essentially it’s my fault?’ Samir said.
Melissa said, ‘Oh, no!’ before she realised he was teasing her. Blushing hotly, she buried her face in her paper cup of soda.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Finally, you have some colour in your cheeks.’
‘I can’t have colour in my cheeks. I’m too brown,’ she retorted.
‘Rubbish,’ he said, and lightly patted her arm, sending a little tingle through her, all the way down to her toes. ‘Tell me when you’re feeling better and we’ll leave. No hurry.’
‘I’m good to go,’ she announced, bouncing to her feet.
Samir put a steadying arm around her. ‘Careful, don’t jump around,’ he said. ‘We can’t have you collapsing again.’
‘I won’t,’ she protested, intensely conscious of the strong arm around her waist.
He didn’t let her go till he’d handed her into the passenger seat of the car. Even then he waited till she was properly belted in before he went around to the driver’s seat and got in.
‘I need you to let me know if you’re feeling the slightest bit unwell,’ he said. ‘And I’m relaxing the no food in the car rule—you can have what you want as long as you don’t collapse again.’
In spite of her cynicism about rich playboys Melissa felt rather touched by Samir’s awkwardly expressed concern. It had been a while since someone had cared enough about her to fuss. Even if the fussing was being done in an off-hand, ultra-macho kind of way.
Samir connected his MP3 player to the car’s music system before they drove off. Melissa had assumed he’d be into rock or heavy metal, but surprisingly most of the tracks were ghazals or Bollywood oldies.
She hummed along to some of her favourite songs—she had a sweet and unexpectedly strong voice, and Samir found himself listening more to her than to the original song playing through the car speakers. She seemed so completely unselfconscious that he felt himself relaxing a little. It was a surprisingly liberating change, being with someone who didn’t have an agenda either to impress him or to get information out of him.
‘Who do you keep texting?’ he asked as he watched her type out her third or fourth message since she’d stepped into the car. ‘You’re like a stenographer on steroids, the way you keep hammering into that phone.’
The second the words were out of his mouth he realised that he’d let himself relax a bit too much. Making personal remarks to someone he hardly knew was completely uncharacteristic of him—no wonder she was staring at him as if he’d grown a third eye in the middle of his forehead like Lord Shiva.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said immediately. ‘None of my
business—forget I asked.’
Melissa laughed, showing a perfect set of teeth, small, white and very even.
‘I’m texting a friend back at the hostel,’ she said. ‘We just passed the turn-off for that new amusement park that’s been built here. One of the girls is coming next weekend with her latest boyfriend—she wanted to know how long it would take to get here.’
‘Won’t it be more suitable for kids?’
‘No, there are rides for adults as well. And the tickets are quite expensive—it’s a rather cool place for a first date. For regular people, I mean.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘As opposed to irregular people like me?’
Refusing to be embarrassed, Melissa said, ‘You know what I mean. If you took a girl out for a date you’d probably go to the theatre, or to a restaurant in a five-star hotel. The guys my friends date don’t even own cars—they don’t have many places to take a girl to.’
‘Where does your boyfriend take you?’ Samir asked, half jokingly and half because he wanted to know for sure that she was unattached. This asking questions thing was pretty addictive—especially when the other person was as cool about it as Melissa.
‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she said, but there was something rather weird in the way she said it, as if she was mocking herself.
Samir wouldn’t normally have given himself credit for being perceptive, but instinctively he knew he needed to change the topic.
‘Do you like your job?’ he asked, and she gave him a startled look.
‘Yes,’ she said cautiously, and then, ‘Why? Is there any chance I mightn’t have it any longer?’
This time Samir looked startled. ‘Not that I know of. I’m not making any changes in the agency structure—not for now at least. And when I do it definitely won’t be at your level.’
‘Too junior?’ she asked, giving him a cheeky wink. ‘Or is my salary not big enough to dent the profit figures?’
It probably wasn’t, but Samir could hardly say so without sounding impossibly condescending. He hesitated for a second, and she let him off the hook by jumping to another subject.
‘I just found a pack of candy in my purse,’ she announced. ‘I’d forgotten I had them. You want one?’
Samir shook his head.
‘They’re nice,’ she persisted. ‘Tamarind and sugar.’
He took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced at the small packet in her hand. ‘I haven’t seen that stuff in years,’ he said. ‘They used to hand them out on flights when I was in college—I used to stuff my pockets full of them.’
‘Does that mean you want one, then?’
‘Yes, please. But you’ll have to unwrap it first. I can’t take my hands off the wheel.’
She took a sweet out of its wrapper and waited for him to take it from her. They were near Lonavla now, and at a rather tricky section of the road. There was no way Samir could let go of the wheel, and the candy had begun to melt in Melissa’s palm.
‘This is going all sticky,’ she warned, and then, feeling very daring, ‘Should I pop it in your mouth?’
He nodded, and she immediately wished she hadn’t been quite so forward. He parted his perfectly sculpted lips a little and she leaned across to pop the sweet into his mouth. The candy stuck to her fingers for a few seconds and finally he sucked it off, the feel of his lips and tongue incredibly erotic against her skin.
Pulse racing, Melissa sat back and shot him a covert look. He was as unruffled as ever, but there was a slight smile playing about his lips. Until that instant she hadn’t thought of him as someone she could actually get involved with. There were so many reasons, but right now she couldn’t think clearly about them. All she could think about was how easy it would be to lean a little closer to him, breathe in the heady scent of his cologne, drop a kiss on his lips when he next turned to speak to her...
And probably make him drive the car into a road divider and kill them both. She sighed. Having a pragmatic side was all very well, but it did have a bad habit of popping up and ruining her best fantasies. So, all right, perhaps trying to seduce him while he was driving wasn’t a good plan.
She stole another look at Samir. He had the kind of good looks that grew on you. The first time she’d seen him she’d thought he looked gorgeous, but rather cold—not her type at all. But the more time she spent with him, the more she noticed things—like the way his smile reached all the way up to his eyes when he was amused, and how he pushed his unruly hair off his forehead in an unconsciously sexy gesture every few minutes.
* * *
At around the end of the expressway Samir pulled out an electronic tablet and handed it to Melissa. ‘I’ve plotted the route on this—the car’s GPS isn’t terribly reliable in this part of the world. Will you keep an eye on it to make sure we’re on track?’
Melissa looked at him in horror. ‘Don’t you know where you’re going?’ she asked.
He laughed. ‘Goa,’ he said. ‘We’ll get there eventually. Sooner rather than later if you’re a good navigator.’
She proved to be an excellent navigator—though more than once Samir found himself getting distracted by the way her hair fell across her face as she pored over the map, and the way her brow wrinkled up with concentration.
Even the first time he’d met her he’d thought that she had lovely eyes, but it was only now that he noticed the flawlessness of her dusky complexion and the near perfect shape of her lips. Her slim figure curved enticingly at all the right places, and in the few seconds he’d held her after she fainted he hadn’t been able to help thinking how soft her skin was, and how right she felt in his arms.
* * *
‘We’ll be in Kolhapur in another hour or so,’ Melissa said, effectively breaking into his thoughts. ‘Are we stopping there or going straight on?’
‘We could stop for lunch,’ Samir said. ‘There’s another burger place on the highway, and a couple of coffee shops as well.’
Melissa wrinkled up her nose. ‘I had two burgers for breakfast,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can look one in the face for a while. Can we go somewhere else? I’ve often seen Vegetable Kolhapur on restaurant menus—would it be a kind of speciality here?’
‘Along with Kolhapuri chappals,’ Samir agreed solemnly.
Melissa made a face at him. ‘I wasn’t planning to buy footwear. But do let’s stop somewhere in the city.’
It would add another hour to the drive at least, but Samir complied. After Melissa’s fainting fit his attitude towards her had changed. Not normally indulgent towards other people’s whims, he found himself unaccountably wanting to fall in with whatever she wanted.
They chose a small restaurant in the centre of the city—the food was spicy, and not really to his taste, but it was worth the delay just to see Melissa savour the meal. Unlike the perpetually dieting women Samir normally dated, she genuinely enjoyed her food, just about stopping short of licking her fingers after polishing off everything on her plate.
‘Dessert?’ he asked after she was done. ‘There’s ice creams and gulab jamun. Or, no, you can’t have the ice cream if you’re lactose-intolerant. Gulab jamun?’
It was the first time anyone had actually remembered she was lactose intolerant—people who’d known her for years, including her own sister-in-law, continued to ply her with milkshakes and ice cream every time they met. Maybe he just had a good memory, but she couldn’t help feeling a little flattered.
‘Gulab jamun,’ she said.
Samir watched her as she dug a spoon into a gulab jamun, golden syrup gushing out of the round sweet. It was a messy dish to eat, and she paused a couple of times to lick the syrup off her lips. His eyes were automatically drawn to her lush mouth and the way her little pink tongue ran over its contours. She was the first woman he’d met whose simplest gesture ended up bei
ng unconsciously sexy. Or, then again, maybe he was just turning into a horny old man.
‘How old are you?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Twenty-four,’ Melissa said, and her brow furrowed up as she polished off the last bit of gulab jamun. ‘Why?’
Why, indeed? She looked so young that for a second he’d wondered if she was underage.
‘I was thinking about the ad you wrote,’ he said. ‘I’d assumed it was written by an older woman—someone with kids.’
‘Oh, that,’ she said, looking embarrassed. ‘I spent a lot of time with my sister-in-law after my nephew was born. She didn’t have anyone else to help her with the baby.’
‘Still, it was a very insightful piece of work. I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t win something.’
Feeling more and more embarrassed, Melissa said, ‘Has Brian been brainwashing you?’
Samir laughed, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in a particularly attractive way. ‘He happened to mention it a few times. But I don’t get easily influenced by other people’s opinions. Are you done? We should leave if we want to get to Goa before it’s dark.’
He put a hand under her elbow to guide her out of the restaurant and Melissa felt all her fantasies come rushing back in full force. Of course he was probably just being polite. Or he was worried she’d keel over and faint once again, and he’d have to carry her out on his shoulder. Either way, her insides were doing weird things at his touch, and the temptation to touch him in return was immense.
She tried to kill the fantasy by imagining his reaction. Shock? Embarrassment? Then she remembered the feel of his lips on her fingers as he’d taken the sticky candy from them, and she couldn’t help thinking that maybe, just maybe, he’d reciprocate. Bend down and kiss her. Tangle his big strong hands in her hair and tip her head back to get better access to her lips...
‘Melissa?’
Brought back to earth with a thump, she realised he was holding the car door open for her.
Twelve Hours of Temptation Page 3