Chapter 32 #2
He’s still not moving, so she comes to him. She puts her hands on his chest, fascinated with how unsteadily it rises and falls. She looks at his face. The hunger in his eyes thrills her.
“I still don’t know how to kiss,” she whispers, the confession unembarrassed. He’s never made her feel ashamed for these things.
Slowly, Rajan slides his hand over the side of her neck. “Then let me teach you something for a change.”
He leans down to her. It’s a closed-mouth, simple kiss.
Long enough for her to get comfortable with the press of his lips.
When her hands fist the material of his hoodie, he lifts away and then comes back, head tilted the other way, his mouth coaxing hers with gentle brushes, nibbles.
Like this, he seems to be saying, before returning from a different angle. And this.
A part of her she didn’t know existed rises up to this challenge, matching him in counterpoint and pace.
Like this, and this, and this. Mouths together and then apart, together and apart.
Together, for longer this time. Much longer.
..His fingers sink into her hair. She wraps her arms around his neck, on her tiptoes, him bending her back slightly to accommodate their height difference.
His tongue brushes hers. Heat sweeps through her, and she seeks it again, wanting to learn this part, too. And, oh, this is something different.
Her lungs burn, but he doesn’t seem to have the same oxygen demands as her, he keeps kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, and eventually she has to turn her head away and gasp for air. It’s a good thing he’s holding her up because she’s not certain she could stand otherwise.
Worry overtakes her then. Is he enjoying this as much as she is? She clutches his arms. “Am—am I doing this right?”
Rajan goes still, and for a second she fears the worst. Then he grabs the backs of her thighs and hoists her up. She squeaks as he raises her just above his eye level.
“Sahiba.” His eyes are bottomless. “If that’s what you’re thinking about, I’m the one who’s not doing it right.”
And then he throws her onto the bed.
Well—he doesn’t throw her, exactly, but it happens rather fast. He carries her over in two long strides, and then the mattress bounces as her back hits it, her hair fanning around her.
She doesn’t have time to process how he does it so smoothly because then he’s crawling over her, her mattress bowing to accommodate the additional weight.
From above, his mouth descends on her again. His kisses take on a frantic edge, like he’s on the clock. Like at any moment a bell might sound, a clanging Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! that makes him desperate to wring as much out of her as he can in the time they have. And it’s infectious.
She wants more. He’s not being daring enough for her liking—one hand cradling her jaw, the other on the pillow beside her head.
Keenly aware of this unknown, terrifying clock counting down on them, she voices her urgency in the least intelligible way possible.
“Touch me,” she gasps between kisses. “Touch me touch me touch me—”
He pulls away to ask, “Where?”
“Anywhere,” she replies, and marvels at how safe she feels saying that to him. “Anywhere you want.”
However, Rajan’s eyes flutter shut as if in pain. “Simran.”
Her own name sweeps over her skin. Not Sahiba. Not Auntie. Certainly not dude. Just...Sim-ruhn, the syllables of her gently pried apart so he could place a kiss between them. She wonders if this is why he’s never said her name by itself before. If it was always going to sound like this.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he says roughly, and then he touches her.
And she feels like she’s jumped from the pot into the fire.
Because she was right—his unleashed hands do absolutely scandalous things under her shirt, over her body, each touch warm and wanting and teasing and taking.
He touches her with the certainty of someone who studied her map and plotted his route years ago.
He’s not exploring; he’s confirming. And she. Could. Drown in it.
“Say my name again,” she pleads, clutching the back of his neck and staring at the ceiling, feeling completely delirious. She’ll probably be embarrassed with the things she’s demanding of him later, but she doesn’t care.
He obliges her. “Simran.” He noses the collar of her shirt away to press his lips to her bare shoulder. “Simran. Simran. Simran.”
Each utterance of her name is another kiss. Each one feels like another barrier between them that they’re recklessly destroying, that can never be rebuilt. When his teeth tug down her bra strap, an involuntary noise escapes her. It’s breathy and sort of embarrassing. But he stills.
“You’re not playing fair, making sounds like that.” His voice is ragged. “You know that shit’s never gonna leave my brain.”
In response, she tugs at his hoodie. “Take this off.”
He shucks his hoodie off easy, without comment, the white undershirt beneath momentarily rucking up with it. She can only admire how he makes even this thoughtless motion incredibly rewarding to her eyes.
His hoodie makes a dull thud as it joins her mess of clothes already on the floor. She hungrily takes in the acres of brown skin she’s unearthed—the delicate lines of his throat and collarbones, the bolder ones of his arms and chest, and that tattoo crawling over his jugular.
While she’s running her hands all over him, Rajan says, unevenly, “See? No gunshot wounds.”
She pauses, remembering how he’d clutched his shoulder earlier. She prods the joint with her thumb. And there. A sharp intake of breath, subtle but noticeable without the hoodie.
Her haze of see-want-touch instantly washes away. She sits up, forcing him up, too. “You are hurt!”
“It’s nothing.” He smooths Simran’s hair back. “Just my shoulder, that’s all, I can keep going—”
“Let me see.”
With a sigh, he rolls off her and onto his back. This view is surreal: Rajan in her bed, her strawberry-patterned sheets twisted around him. She swings a leg over his torso to straddle him. Funny how she suddenly feels completely comfortable doing this.
Rajan seems to think so, too, because he raises an eyebrow. Before he can comment, she prods his shoulder again, making him wince. “What happened?”
“It got dislocated.”
“It got dislocated,” she repeats. The passive voice is doing a lot of work in that sentence. “Spontaneously?”
He winks. “Exactly, Auntie.”
It’s clear he’s not planning to discuss it. Well, at least it’s back in place. Her eyes are again drawn to the black tattoo that crawls up his neck. It’s jagged and bold, partially obscured by his shirt.
“Can I see?” Her fingers hover over him.
He laughs softly. “You can do anything you want.” He turns his head into her pillow, baring his throat.
The tattoo is a stylized crest: a lion’s head silhouette, laurel leaves flaring over his collarbone, wickedly sharp lines surrounding it that flow into the base of his throat, almost touching the furious pulse usually obscured by a hoodie.
She leans down, her hair falling in a curtain around them, and presses her lips to it.
He jerks a little, but she keeps going, and eventually, he settles back.
She kisses up his throat, jaw, cheek—everywhere she can reach.
She’s wanted to do this longer than she can admit.
When she pulls away, he’s staring at her wide-eyed, like he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Warmth fills her chest. How does he not realize how much she adores him?
He must. He must. She kisses his mouth again.
His arm circles her waist, and he moves up so they’re kissing against the headboard.
The only way she can think to describe it is drunk; she feels absolutely drunk, and she’s certain of this despite never having been drunk before.
Her thoughts are foggy, her body out of control, and she is acting on every impulse that fires through her brain.
The door downstairs opens.
It does not sound at all like a warning bell. Just a chirp—of the security alarm system.
But they move like it was a gunshot. Suddenly they’re on opposite sides of her bedroom. Rajan’s flattened himself against the closet door. Simran’s scrambling to hook her bra. She doesn’t even know when it came undone. Her hands are shaking too much, so she gives up after wasting precious seconds.
Neither of them has to voice the obvious: They’re not alone anymore. Rajan grabs his shoes and moves toward the window. Simran stops him.
“You can’t go from here,” she whispers, frantic. “There’s nowhere to fall. Go from my sister’s room. She always snuck out from there.”
“Show me.” His voice is urgent. No trace of anything but business. Like earlier tonight, when they were fighting for their lives.
Her knees buckle a little when she stands. She feels his hands in places he didn’t even touch. He doesn’t comment, just follows her to Kiran’s room. Her sister’s window overlooks a patch of gently sloping roof. Perfect for Kiran’s midnight getaways.
Rajan slips through the door without another word. Simran leaves him and walks down the hall just as her father calls, “Simran putt?”
She leans over the staircase. “You’re home early.” She’s amazed at how steady her voice sounds.
“We brought some dinner from the gurdwara. We’re going back soon, so come eat.”
“Coming.” She hurries to the bathroom to look into the mirror first. The first thing she notes is how red her lips look.
Then her hair; now mussed every which way, the neat middle part gone.
Her eyes glitter and her skin glows as if with fever.
The cut on the side of her nose is glaringly apparent. And her cheek is starting to swell.
She parts her hair in the middle with her comb and fixes her bra. After yanking on a cardigan to hide her cut-up arms, she heads downstairs.