41. Aarti
AARTI
M y eyes glazed in thought, and I fiddled with my ring. He read my signals with ease.
“Tell me,” he urged.
“Will you be upset if I told you I spoke to Tara when I was in Dallas?”
He kissed my cheek again. “I’ll never be upset about anything you do, Aarti. That’s one thing you can be assured of in this relationship. If anything bothers me, I’ll talk to you about it, but I won’t resent you for anything you say or do.”
I rolled my eyes right into my head. “God!” I cried with exasperation. “This was a simple question, and you turned it into a mini-lecture on expectations in our relationship.”
The thunderous sound of his laughter rumbled against my skin as he hugged me tight. “All right, sassy girl. What did you two talk about?”
“Well, you know her better than I do. She just asked me right there at the party, with all eyes watching us, if I wanted to have a drink with her.”
He smiled. “That sounds like her.”
“She apologized for having betrayed my trust. I told her she wasn’t the one who should be apologizing to me.”
I turned in his embrace to face him. “She said you two had a chance at closure that I never did, and she regretted it.”
“Did you get to talk to Sameer, then?”
I shook my head. “I realized I didn’t need to. He wasn’t the one I was seeking closure with. I was seeking it within myself. Talking to Tara helped me with that. And you helped me see it that first night I cried in your arms. When you encouraged me to spell out that my grief was my own doing.”
“Did I do that?” he asked with every bit of sincerity as if he had no idea what that first night meant to me.
His support made me into a person I trusted again. He made me fall in love with my life again.
“Then I told Tara about you,” I said with downcast eyes.
“About me as in about us ?” His voice inflected.
“I thought she would be the perfect person to confide in. And I’m glad I did.” I blushed with another coy smile, then looked up at him. “I like her, Sujit. I’d love to have her in my life. Will you be good with that?”
He returned a smile. “I like her too. I am actually happy she found what she wanted.”
“She said hurting you was something she’ll have to live with, but she was happy for me. Asked me to keep you happy.”
“You already make me very happy. Just by being you.”
“You make me very happy too. You make me laugh like no one else can. But I’m also glad I can cry with you when I need to. Without judgement, without shame.”
“But I’d rather you didn’t have to cry anymore, sweet girl. Your tears wreak havoc on my heart.”
“I can’t promise that,” I confessed truthfully.
“That’s all right too, I’m always here.”
When I paused again, he wrapped his arms around me and kissed my forehead.
“Aarti, you know you never have to think twice before saying what’s on your mind. Just say it, sweetheart.”
He said sweetheart and my heart skipped a beat. How could something so simple, so innocuous, create such strong ripples in my being?
“Tara warned me about Manoj.” I glanced at the phone on the side table by me. “He’s been calling you. I didn’t want to disturb your nap, but I brought the phone in.”
Just then, as if I had summoned the devil himself, the screen lit up again with his name. The whirr of the phone echoed in the silent bedroom. Sujit reached across and grabbed it. He declined the call, and in a second, it buzzed again in his hand. He declined it again.
“I don’t get why you’re ignoring his calls. I would’ve answered the phone and tore him a new one.”
“Because I have nothing to say to him. Why would I waste my words this way? He got what he deserved, and actions speak louder than words anyway.”
I agreed with him. In theory. “But it would be so satisfying.”
The phone buzzed again, and Sujit cocked his head. I wasn’t about to persuade him to compromise on his ethics, but I sincerely wished to see him blast Manoj to smithereens with his words. Giving me his sweetest smile, Sujit answered the phone and put it on speaker.
“Yes, Manoj,” he said in a very formal, distant tone.
“I know it was your doing, you fucker. I thought you were my friend. Do you have any idea what I’ve been through the last few days? I know you can stop it. Stop it, now! ” he screamed like an ill-tempered child.
Sujit’s composure remained unruffled. “I gave you a long leash all these years, Manoj. But this time, you messed with the wrong person. You fucking messed with the wrong person .” He enunciated each word through clenched teeth.
That seemed to have rendered Manoj speechless. There was only silence at the other end. Clearly, he had misjudged Sujit’s determination.
“You were never my friend, Manoj. I only kept you close because Tejal asked me to keep an eye on you. You stole her from me, yet she trusts me more than she trusts you. How’s that for fate, eh?”
“You bast?—”
“I have to thank you for one thing, though,” Sujit said and ran a finger along my jaw.
“I have to thank you for trying to use Aarti to fuck with me. If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have realized the intensity of my feelings for her.
And for that, I’ll leave you with just enough to save you from bankruptcy.
Consider it a gift. But you’re done, Manoj.
You are done.” Sujit ended the call before Manoj could muster up a response.
The words sent pride surging through my heart. This was the kind of passion I yearned for. The kind I’d seen Sameer show for Tara. After years of tolerating him, Sujit destroyed Manoj just because he had targeted me. I took Sujit’s hand and kissed his palm.
“Of course, my love. That is how strongly I feel about you.”
He raised his index finger. “But wait for it. He’ll call back in one minute because he’ll need that time to think about what he’s going to say next.”
In about another minute, the phone buzzed in his hand, and Sujit declined the call. In another few beats, Manoj called again. This time, Sujit powered down his phone and pushed it under the pillows.
“There, that’s taken care of.” He brushed a finger against my cheek. “Now, where were we? Oh yes, naked and in bed. Wasting time talking about futile things.”
“What would you rather do?” I asked provocatively.
“I’d rather spend time kissing my girlfriend.”
“ Girlfriend , huh?”
“Indeed,” he said and leaned in with a kiss.
In only a few minutes, we had knocked the pillows off the bed and rumpled up the sheets.
“It’s safe to say you’ve ruined me for other men, Sujit Rao,” I said this time.
“It’s a good thing then that there will be no other men for you, Ms. Bhatia,” he declared and took my mouth in a possessive, fervent kiss.
It was past two in the morning, but we sat wrapped up in each other’s arms. On his insistence, I had pulled out my laptop to watch the series together.
He sat with his back against the headrest. I sat between his legs leaning against him.
His idle hand caressed my arm and thigh underneath a warm cotton duvet.
“Who’s this guy, again?” he asked as the secondary villain appeared on the screen. I explained, and we returned to watching it.
His hand traveled to my chest and strummed my nipple, distracting me from the very interesting exchange occurring on screen.
I swatted his hand away.
“Hey,” he said. “You keep watching, I’ll keep playing.”
“I can’t focus on the dialogue,” I complained, slapping his hand away again.
“That’s too bad because I can’t seem to keep my hands off you,” he said in my ear and kissed my shoulder. A shiver ran through me instantly. “You have the most beautiful shoulders. I love how perfectly brown they are,” he said and ran a finger along the edge while kissing the side of my neck.
I lay my head back against him and moaned as he kissed the other shoulder and traced his finger along it and down my arm.
On the screen, I saw the heroine walk into the frame to confront the hero in his chambers. There had been a huge misunderstanding brought on by the villain, and this was the scene where the two main leads were expected to have a showdown.
In my bedroom, I felt my hero’s armor getting thicker underneath me. “See what you do to me,” he said. “I can’t get enough of you.”
“Hush,” I fake scolded. “This is an important scene.”
Sujit’s hands now came around me and cupped my breasts as the heroine continued her tongue-lashing on the screen.
I shuffled in his lap and reached behind to grab him. Thick and long, he felt wonderful in my hand.
“What just happened?” Sujit’s grip on my breasts loosened as the couple on the screen was now tangled up in a hot kiss. “They were arguing, now they are kissing?”
“I wouldn’t know because you distracted me,” I teased and slipped out from between his legs.
As the onscreen couple began undressing each other, I turned on my haunches and lay flat on my stomach to face my hero.
I gripped him with both hands as the head glistened in the dim lights of the bedroom, with a perfect drop crowning it.
I ran a slow, firm tongue to lap it up, and he released a loud moan just as the onscreen hero pinned the heroine against the frame of an intricate 19 th -century bed.
Soon enough, he’d have his dick inside her, but we weren’t bound by similar time constraints.
I took my time, sucking, licking, running my hungry tongue along his beautiful length. Meanwhile, the heroine was moaning, more sensual than heated, as the juxtapositional frame showed the villain walking a long corridor toward the hero’s chambers. Heightened music accompanied the frames.
Sujit’s hand slipped into my hair and gripped it gently, guiding me to where he loved it most. I obliged, then ran a firm tongue over his sac, and a hiss escaped his mouth.
I did it again, and his grip on my hair tightened.
I took him in again, attempting to swallow him entirely.
Sounds of wanton moans and rhythmic music flowed from the screen.
Sujit’s grip on my hair moved from the nape to my scalp.
Heat rose up my body, and I sucked harder, feeling the vein underneath get plump and taut.
The temperature in the room shot up several degrees.
Neither said a word. Neither invoked any deity.
Suddenly, a hard cry from the screen made me stop and gawk.
We both burst out laughing just as the villain pushed open the door, attempting to catch the couple red-handed.
Only it was a different room, with a different horny couple going at it hard and strong. Too loud, too coarse.
I tittered and shut the laptop screen. Sujit grabbed it from the bed and gently deposited it to the side table.
The relaxed censorship on streaming platforms had allowed for desire to be openly displayed on screen but it remained arrested in the shadow of binaries.
There was “good people” sex, and then there was “bad people” sex.
One was soft, partially shielded, passionate, tender.
The other, exposed, vulgar, kinky, bawdy.
Nowhere was this more pronounced than in period dramas.
Which category did Sujit and I fall under, I wondered as I lowered myself down on him. His heat and thickness instantly took over me. My head fell back as I rode him with enthusiasm. He gripped my breasts, tweezing my nipples with the same intensity.
“Oh, Sujit!” I cried, out of breath, and paused to kiss him. I drove my tongue deep into his mouth and was reciprocated with vigor. His hands moved to my bottom and squeezed my cheeks, sending a thrill up my spine.
When I found my breath again, I grazed against him, his clean softness rubbing tight on my clit. He felt my pelvis tighten and brought his mouth to cover my breast.
“Yes…tease me,” I urged, hovering at the edge.
He sucked harder and rolled his tongue over my rigid nipple. It was becoming hard for my weakening body to keep up the rhythm. I felt him pulsate inside me. He reached around me and put a moist finger on my bottom.
With his finger teasing my sensitive nerves, he said in my ear, “Come, sweetheart. Come hard for me.”
That was the moment the dam burst open, and my legs tightened around his hips.
I let out a gasp, my voice thwarting inside me.
The sweet spasm contracted all the muscles in my abdomen and pelvis.
His thick dick remained steady inside me, fighting against the contractions.
I loved how he stretched me all the way to my core and touched my soul.
I loved the way my body could swallow him whole and garner that satisfied smile on his face.
My muscles were just about to relax when I felt him throb and come inside me, and they tightened all over again. I was falling in love with the feeling.
I collapsed on his chest, surrendering to the cool of his skin against my raging heat. I wiped the beads of sweat on my forehead with the back of my hand and panted into his shoulder.
He brought his arms around me and softly said, “You are so sexy, Aarti.”
“And you’re so freaking hot!” I moaned.