Chapter 29 There’s Only One Bed （Or Sofa Bed, in This Case）
There’s Only One Bed (Or Sofa Bed, in This Case)
Goa, Monday
When we get back to our room after a long, harrowing, quiet drive, Priti shoves past us both, stomps straight to the bedroom,
slams the door shut, and locks it. I let out a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a scoff. Then I march up to the door and rap the wood sharply. “Priti,
open the door!”
No answer.
“Stop being so childish!”
Still no answer.
I bang my fists on the door, letting out a groan of frustration. “Priti, for god’s sake, I need to sleep! Open the fucking door!”
When I’m met with radio silence, I press my ear to the wood. I hear shuffling inside, followed by the creak of the bed.
Priti’s getting into bed. The goddamn audacity—
“ARGH!” I try the knob furiously, ramming my shoulder into the door.
She’s locked me out for good.
I turn to Rudra, slumped on the couch, looking so exhausted I feel sorry for him. His spine curves with how much he slouches,
just sinking into himself. He was weary even before Priti convinced—no, coerced—us to head out, and now that it’s past three a.m., I have no idea how he managed to drive us back here after the terrible
night we’ve had.
That’s when it occurs to me that I am left with no choice but to sleep next to him. On the creaky, tiny sofa bed. What is wrong with Priti? First she wants me to avoid Rudra, and then she locks me out with
him, leaving only one bed?
I don’t think Rudra fully registers the gravity of the situation, because his voice is lacking any hesitation at all when
he says, “You can sleep out here.”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” I say, pushing my hair off my face. I’m so sapped, and so fed up with Priti. I just want
to go home.
If anything, Rudra looks more worn out than I do.
“You should get sleep,” I say softly. “You’ve been up the whole day.”
Rudra turns to look at me, and his eyes are flitting closed. His movements are so slow it’s like he’s glitching. “Yeah.”
I hesitate for a second, then walk over to him. “Rudra.”
“Hmm?”
“You need to sleep.”
“Hmm.”
I stare at him, sleeping with his eyes half open, and inhale deeply. My anger just seems to dissipate entirely around him, because I feel nothing but concern as I reach forward and help him out of his leather jacket. He mumbles something about how the bed needs to be pulled out and I shush him.
I might as well get us settled in so I can sleep my anger and disappointment off. I would’ve rather done it after removing
my makeup and brushing my teeth, but the bathroom is inside the bedroom, and, well, Priti’s claimed the space now.
God, she’s just so irritatingly immature sometimes!
Once Rudra’s jacket is discarded to the side, I reach down and pull his feet out of his boots. I place one hand on his shoulder
and one on his arm, slowly helping him up. He protests and collapses against my side, but I hold him up, guiding him to the
corner.
I make him stand there, leaning against the wall for support, and walk back to the sofa to pull out the bed. It takes a bit
of effort, and the metal frame squeaks and groans in protest, but the bed springs out. When I’m beside Rudra again, he’s drifting
in and out of slumber.
I gently guide him back to the bed and lay him down, adjusting his head on the pillow, his hair silken under my touch. There’s
a blanket on a shelf below the glass table, so I grab that and spread it out on top of him, tucking the edges under his body
so he’s snug inside.
He stirs, looking up at me through half-lidded eyes, and I look away, knowing if I look too long, I’ll probably end up doing
something I will regret later.
I start to pull away, ready to walk to the other side and sleep as close to the corner as possible. But Rudra grasps my wrist,
and a tiny current shoots through my arm and along my body.
“Krishna,” he whispers, stroking the inside of my wrist, eyes still half closed. “Could you . . . Would it be too much to ask you to lie down with me?”
I stare at him, confused, his lean form curled up under the blanket, exuding warmth. “I am going to lie down with—” My voice trails off when I realize he isn’t suggesting what I was already about to do. He’s suggesting
I lie down close to him.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” he says, his words tripping over one another. “You don’t have to.”
“Maybe for a bit,” I find myself saying, even though I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t . . .
I pull up the edge of the blanket and gingerly get in bed next to him. The springs creak under my weight and I drag some of
the blanket up over myself. I turn my back to him, facing the glass windows staring out at the indigo night sky and sea. He’s
so warm I automatically snuggle closer.
My back presses against his front, a kaleidoscope of butterflies thrashing around within my stomach. He lets out a gravelly
sound, right into my ear, and my body trembles with how cozy and mellow he feels.
His arms hesitate behind me, and I grab them, hooking them around me, inching closer to him. My stomach is practically assaulted
by sensation. A moan involuntarily rips from my throat, and Rudra reacts by brushing his lips against the nape of my neck,
his breath sweeping over my skin.
I have never ever felt this way in my life. So out of control with my own body, incapable of establishing a connection between
my brain and my limbs. Some other, fervent attraction, drawing me to him, is at force.
“I keep thinking about our kiss,” Rudra whispers, trailing kisses along the back of my neck to the spot behind my ear.
“You need to sleep,” I whisper back, eyes shutting with pleasure.
“I can’t. Not with you so close to me.” His hand trails down my stomach, and I feel self-conscious, worried about my tummy
and whether he hates it. But the thought doesn’t even seem to occur to him. He just wants to hold me. His fingers spread and
rest right on top of it, the spot where the butterflies are going gaga.
My neck arches, giving him more space, and he kisses the curve of it. I readjust myself under him just slightly so his lips
are now against my jaw, his kisses like the gentlest whispers of the wind. I shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be letting
myself do this. But I can’t think beyond how well our bodies fit together under the blanket, legs tangling. I could spend
weeks like this.
“How are you not already asleep?” I ask him as his lips pause under the curve of my cheekbone, both of us trying to catch
a breath.
“Honestly, I don’t know,” he says throatily. “Perhaps this wasn’t the best of ideas.” But there’s not an ounce of regret in
his voice.
I adjust myself again, this time rolling over entirely so we’re lying facing each other. My arms slide around his waist to
his back, and the muscles there flex under my touch. His lips brush my forehead and mine skim his neck. I tilt my head up
to find him looking at me, eyes dark in the dim gold lights of the room.
“Rudra.”
“Krishna.”
“I should move away.”
“Why?”
“Because Priti will flip if she finds us sleeping together. She’s already pissed with us.”
His wandering hands come to a stop at the base of my spine. “That will be a problem.”
“Which is why—” I start.
“One of us should probably move,” he says.
Next thing I know, we’re kissing again.
I didn’t know every kiss with him could feel so different from the last. This one is not soft, but not rough either. It’s
somewhere in between, and so unhurried it drags on for what feels like hours. His lips achingly tug on mine, and my head swims
with disequilibrium. I kiss him back, drawing closer to him, if that’s even possible.
His fingers trail my spine, hitching on the bare skin revealed by the halter-neck top. As we kiss, they lazily stroke my back,
up and down my vertebrae, and then they’re in my hair again, tugging at my scalp.
“Rudra,” I gasp in between lagging, sultry kisses. “You need to sleep.”
He nibbles at my ear. “I’ve never been more awake.”
I lose myself in him, wrapped around him, his mouth ravaging mine like he can’t get enough of me. And for a second, as his
leg thrusts up between my thighs, I think I might be able to get away with it. Because Priti is asleep, and there’s no way
she’s going to come out here and see us right now, is there?
But all the terrible thoughts, all the things Priti said, which momentarily left me, replaced and quashed by desire, come
back. All at once. They rain down on me like a hundred tiny stones.
I’m doing exactly what she said I would. I’m treating this as a one-off thing, unsure whether I might ever be with Rudra after this. I do want
more than that. So much more.
But if I keep going, whatever little chance there is of Priti forgiving me, that will be gone too. And despite everything
she said to me tonight, I still want a relationship with her. I want her to accept us and this. I don’t want to be the cause
of a rift between them.
I rip away from him, gasping for breath.
Rudra’s lips are parted, swollen from all the kissing, and he stares at me, eyes widening in question. Tears overcome me again,
prickling my eyes, and I get off the bed, away from him, away from the irresistible heat of his body.
“Krishna?” he says, sitting up, his hair tousled in a manner that makes me want to leap back into his arms and resume what
we were doing . . . put his thigh back in between my legs and move against it until I lose myself in bliss.
But I’ll only be hurting myself in the process, because now I know what it’s like to have Rudra. I would’ve rather never known
any of this, because I now must live with the pain of knowing and the possibility of never being with him again.
“We can’t,” I say, brushing away the tears with the backs of my hands.
“We don’t have to,” Rudra says, shaking his head. “We don’t have to do anything. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you had
to, or that I wanted—”
My heart lodges in my throat, making it difficult for me to breathe. “You didn’t want to?”
“No, I didn’t mean it that way. I do want to. I’ve wanted to for so long—but we don’t have to do anything.”
“I know,” I croak. “I’m sorry.”
Rudra takes my hand, stroking it. “Don’t apologize.”
“I’m going to move away, okay?”
“Okay.”
This time, I don’t let the attractively boyish, utterly kissable sight of him faze me. I crawl into bed, sticking to the corner, even though it feels like there’s a hook embedded in my skin attached to him that snags as I move away, sending pain shooting through me.
There are kajal-stained tears and snot running down my face, but I clamp my hands over my mouth, swallow my silent tears,
and will myself to sleep.