20. Aarti
AARTI
T he snowfall was mild, but I spotted a look of worry on Sujit’s face.
“Is it the weather, or is it something else?”
He threw me a glance.
“I’m trying to figure out the reason for that frown,” I explained.
“Ah!” he responded with a grin. “It’s the weather. I’m trying to figure out if we might be able to make it to the city safely.”
“What’s the other option? I asked.
He hesitated and gave me another glance.
“What?”
“I’m trying to compute if a detour to my family’s home might spare us the inconvenience of being stuck in a storm somewhere.”
It was the first time I had heard about his family home.
“Do your parents live there?” I asked, wondering how comfortable he’d be taking me home to his family.
“No, it’s empty. It’s a vacation home that we use during the holidays and when we have out-of-town guests. Mostly, Cathy loves to plan and throw elaborate parties there.”
Interesting , I mused.
“Tune in to the road advisory,” he suggested and gave me the frequency for an AM channel.
Sujit’s suspicion was spot on, probably based on his experience.
The advisory said a blizzard was set to cause whiteout conditions along the highway we were on. The projected snowfall was about two to three inches, it said.
“At least that’s a silver lining,” Sujit commented.
“What’s a whiteout?” I asked.
“It’s when the visibility is severely compromised,” he explained and added, “Apologies, Aarti, but this calls for an executive decision, and I’m making one. I think it’d be best if we drove to my family home rather than risk being stranded somewhere.”
I wouldn’t mind being stranded anywhere with this man, but being adrift on a tropical island sounded better than risking a frozen death on the roads.
“I trust you, Sujit,” I said like I had several times before.
“And I hope never to disappoint you,” he added with a grim look as he took an exit and got on the off-ramp.
Driving effortlessly without any prompts from the navigation system, he pulled up in front of a giant house. It had snowed in the area a lot more than it had in the city, or so it looked. The driveway and the entrance were cleared out, but mounds of snow heaped all around the house.
“At least the property managers are taking care of the shoveling. I hope they have stocked the pantry after my last visit,” he said as we drove around the house to the garage in the rear.
He accessed the garage with a pre-programmed button in his car, and the door lifted up.
“How often do you come here?” I asked.
“Whenever I need to get away from people,” he said with a quick grin. “Sometimes being here helps me think.”
He led me in through a side door attached to the temperature-controlled, four-car garage. We entered through a mud room to a large living area. It was dimly lit and a bit chillier than I expected. Maybe because I had shed my layers before sitting in the car, but Sujit commented as much.
“Darn, the temperature is set to vacation mode. I should have changed it on our way here.”
When I returned a questioning look, he explained, “The heating and cooling is connected to an app on my phone.”
“Of course it is,” I said. “You techies have a compulsion to automate everything, don’t you?”
“It’s just convenient. Don’t you love it when you can turn off the lights with a voice command?” he said, and stepped over to the windows. “It’s not bad yet, but the visibility is decreasing. This was a good decision.”
I stepped closer to him and peeked outside.
The heap of snow beckoned me. Growing up in a region where it doesn’t snow seemed to bestow it with a magical feel.
Even when severe weather conditions brought snow to Dallas, it never stuck around.
It melted away in a day or two. That winter wonderland feel of a soft snowfall had always evaded me, even when I had travelled to snow-capped regions.
“Can we step outside for a bit?” I asked, and he looked at me with a frown.
“It’s biting cold.”
“I just want to feel the snow on my face. We’ve got our coats, gloves, and hats in the car,” I pleaded like a child. “Please?”
When he assented with a smile and a nod, I rushed to the garage and heaved back our winter clothing.
I had already pulled the front door open and was out while Sujit was still putting on his gloves and hat. The light snow drifting around in the mild breeze made for a great winter greeting card image.
“Damn, it is cold!” he said with his teeth chattering as he stepped out beside me.
It was, but I was enjoying it. Sujit stuck his hands in his coat pocket, waiting patiently while I soaked in the beauty around me. My body trembled slightly as I closed my eyes and put my hands out, allowing my senses to take in the soft snow drifting over me.
“Have you played in the snow before?” he asked.
“Once,” I said with my eyes still closed.
Suddenly, something soft hit my arm. Taken by surprise, I looked at Sujit, who stood without his glasses, tossing a snowball in his hand.
“Did you just pelt me with a snowball?” I asked, my voice screeching with incredulity.
Sujit smirked. “I did.” He tossed the ball in his hand again. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked in a challenge.
I gasped at the dare, then frowned at his audacity before digging both my hands into the mound to grab snow for a big ball.
“You just made a big mistake, mister,” I said. “You forgot how much I hate to lose.”
The gloves I had on weren’t meant for snow play, and I could feel the cold seeping in. But I didn’t care. I flung a hurriedly packed ball at him. With a weak thump, it hit his chest and disintegrated into powder against it.
“Is that the best you can do?” he teased, and I frowned more. He was pushing all the right buttons, and he knew it. “Let me show you how it’s done,” he said. “Catch!”
I did. The tightly packed, solid ball did not break in my hand.
“And that’s how you make a snowball, sweet girl.”
I hurled the ball back at him, but he ducked, and it landed in the snow, making a nice, deep crater.
“Well, well, Ms. Bhatia, looks like you are terrible at this,” he said, adding fuel to the fire.
When I turned around to gather snow, a soft ball landed on my back while a firmer one smacked my butt with some force. I jumped with a squeal.
“Oh, you’re in trouble, Sujit Rao. You want war? You got war,” I announced with misplaced confidence.
“Let me see it,” he said and tossed the ball in his hand.
The reason behind his arrogant smirk was the three snowballs that lay at his feet, ready to be launched into an assault as needed.
In the time it had taken for me to gather enough snow to make one, he had made four, including the one in his hand currently.
With quick calculations, I realized that this was his game, and I couldn’t beat him at it.
But nowhere in the snow-pelting war manual did it say that I couldn’t change the rules.
Or the game itself.
Shunting off the lousy ball in my hand, I sprinted toward him. Before he could react, he was on his back in the snow with me on top of him.
Hmm, maybe I hadn’t thought it through enough.
I lay on him, pelvis-to-pelvis, stomach-to-stomach. Our chests were separated by the sheer strength of my core muscles because there was nothing I could use to lift myself up. The snow gathered around us, sinking us deeper into it.
“You think that’s going to deter me?” he said softly. This kind of proximity to him was disorienting.
Lost in the depth of those warm eyes without the glasses, I failed to notice that his arms at my side were moving.
Before I knew it, I felt a cold trickle on my neck.
The villain had put snow on the exposed part of the neck.
I shrieked, squirmed, and shifted, but he was quicker.
Locking me between his thighs, he pulled his arms around me and flipped us over.
I lay under him, with my back buried against the snow.
Fuck! If he could do that in the snow, I didn’t even want to imagine what he could do if we found ourselves in bed together.
He pulled himself up on his knees, his legs holding me tight. His fingers swiftly came around my wrists to pin me down completely.
“You were saying…” He smirked, but I had forgotten how to breathe.
The world froze into stillness. I lay under his spell, mesmerized by his beauty, captivated by the dent in his cheeks as he teased me. My body was turning numb from the cold, but I felt his warmth against the heat rising below my belly.
The wind had picked up, casting the loose snow flying all around us. The world seemed to fade away, and it was just me and him. No judgmental eyes, no heartache, no exes. Just Sujit and me wrapped in a warm blanket of mutual admiration and love.
Love! The thought reverberated through my body. Was I falling in love with him?
“Let me up,” I pleaded softly as his eyes pierced into mine.
Quick as a flash, he jumped from his position and offered me his hand. I grabbed it eagerly, and he pulled me up.
“Let’s go inside. You are shivering,” he said.
I was trembling, but it was no longer the effect of the snow and the cold. My shivers stemmed from the thought that I had lost myself—heart and soul—to this man.
We shed our outer covers in the foyer, and I realized that my clothes were damp.
“Sujit, I don’t have anything to change into.”
“I keep extra clothes here. You can use my warm sweats.”
Quivering in my skin, I followed him as he led me to the second floor and into the first room along a long corridor.
“This is me,” he said. “I suggest taking a warm shower.”
I nodded.
“Don’t put your hands in hot water first,” he warned. “Let them warm up in tap water before turning up the heat.”
“Okay.”
It felt surreal to take orders, however well-intentioned, from him.
I had always been the one to give orders, and I had wielded that right with responsibility and pride.
It was unsettling that not only did he care about me this way and knew how to show it, but also that I had little reservations about following his instructions.
I had repeatedly said I trusted him, but when had I entrusted myself to him completely in this way?
It was a freedom akin to peeling away the layers of uncomfortable clothing from one’s body, like I was doing right now.
I turned the shower knob to cold and let the water run on my extremities while diligently protecting the rest from the chilly blast. When I could feel my fingers and toes again, I gradually turned up the temperature and stayed under the shower until the bathroom fogged up.
Wrapping myself in a generous towel, I found a hair dryer, a fresh toothbrush, and body lotion, and got to work.
Back in the room, I looked through a neatly kept closet and found several sets of sweatpants and warm sweatshirts.
I also found some formal clothes and a bottle of cologne.
I sneaked a quick sniff of the scent and got a heady rush from the memories of his smell.
Then my prefrontal cortex took over, and Aakash’s words rang in my ears.
My phone dinged with a text at the exact moment. Slipping the cologne back in the closet, I stepped over to the bed where I had dropped it to find Mary Beth asking if we had made it home safely.
I texted her back.
We took a detour to his family home and will be here until the visibility improves.
Mary Beth
He took you to his family? Isn’t that something you both have been trying to avoid?
Not family. Family home. No one lives here.
So you both are alone together on a stormy night?
Yes, but before you suggest it, nothing is going to happen.
You’re so boring. Make it happen.
No
I pressed send, locked the phone, and started toward the stairs. What I saw when I reached the landing made me stop in my tracks.
Sujit was at the fireplace, without a shirt, trying to kindle a fire.
The light from the hearth reflected off his strong torso.
His toned biceps curved as he poked the wood.
He wasn’t as sculpted as I had imagined when I felt his arm around me.
His lines were gentle rather than harsh, their shape more inviting than intimidating.
The low-rise pants sat at the hips, and when he stood upright, I caught a glimpse of his tight abs and smooth muscles defining the V.
My nipples wrinkled promptly and turned to stone, the heat in my core sending a jolt up my body. I stood motionless, my mouth dry, my hands cold, with goosebumps covering every element of mine. If I was attracted to him before, right now I stood devastated.
An easy remedy would be to sleep with him and get him out of my system, like Mary Beth had suggested. But Sujit Rao wasn’t someone you wanted out of your system. He was someone you wanted buzzing in your nerves, rushing through your veins. He was someone you wanted to lose yourself in.
I wished for us to meld until the boundaries between our bodies disappeared. I wanted to languish in his admiration. I yearned to cherish him, dote on him, spoil him, relish him.
I wanted to be consumed by Sujit, and it was the opposite of getting him out of my system.