CHAPTER 22 #2
A silence fell between them for a few moments and she became worried. “What happens if we don’t stay up and talk all night? Will we be unmarried?”
He shook his head and chuckled.
“We won’t be,” he said confidently, reaching to his side. He pulled out a back pack from one side and said, “I brought reinforcements.”
She let out a laugh. “Not fair. You had time to pack?”
He reached into the backpack and pulled out a flask and a small dark colored pack. “I wasn’t warned either. I just grabbed my emergency go bag with this water warming flask and coffee. I had a stinking suspicion Aravinda would do something like this.”
“You knew such a test existed?” She was surprised.
He only scoffed. “My grandparents had to do this too, during a storm. I remember my grandma telling me that the waves were so high they couldn’t see the stars, but they kept talking until dawn.”
“Wow, that’s so fascinating to hear. If they had failed, what would have happened back then?” Isha was curious about Ashok’s culture.
She saw the pride of his tradition in his eyes. “Legend has it that failure means the sea goddess won’t protect the marriage, that we as a couple are not a match made in heaven.”
He mixed the dark powder in the flask and poured it into two cups. He held one cup to her. “This will keep us up for two nights straight.”
“Good!” She winked, sipping strong coffee.
The first few hours passed easily as they drifted with the current and enjoyed what seemed like endless black coffee.
Ashok talked about his childhood on the island and it felt like Isha was learning a lot more about him in the few hours than in the few months she had been living under the same roof with him.
When he pressed her on sharing details about herself, she held back a lot of the details with the fear of awakening the trauma. She did share some of her fears about the future of the kids and how they would be without parents.
“When the kids have all the attention and care they need, they will be fine.” His words put her at ease.
She was so traumatized by her parents’ death that she had shut everyone out. “I hope they don’t end up like me.”
He looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”
In an effort to lighten the mood of the conversation she let out half a smile. “It’s hard to explain, so let’s go with a set of questions.”
“What were your first impressions of me?” she asked, slightly pinching herself to stay alert.
“What? Why are you asking me that?” He didn’t think highly of her at first but there was something he could not deny. How beautiful she looked.
“We still have hours to burn through so keep talking. What did you think of me when you first met me? She insisted.
He took a sip of the coffee they had been remaking the past couple of hours. “I thought you looked like a sea goddess in the teal outfit you wore at Sami and Ravi’s wedding,” he admitted, his own voice showing signs of weariness.
She almost spewed her coffee. “That was the last thing I expected you to say.”
He laughed. “What else were you expecting me to say?”
“Stuck up, adamant, high maintenance, hard to talk to, the list goes on.” She laughed, fully aware of what first impressions people have of her.
“Ravi would talk about you all the time and it was as if I knew you. So, when I saw you, a polite smile on your face and those ‘I will kill you if you approach me’ eyes, I thought you were beautiful in your own way.” He smiled and added, “I did think you were adamant and stuck up.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. “That’s not embarrassing to hear at all.”
“But then I saw you laughing with Ravi and Sami, and I knew you weren’t as scary as you wanted everyone to believe.” His words made her heart tumble.
She had to find a way to distract the conversation away from her, somehow. It was around midnight, and the conversation was starting to lag and she knew both of them were fighting sleep.
She had an idea to take the conversation away from talking about her and also staying awake. “Your dad told me you were a good sailor. About how much you loved rowing in the ocean. You should teach me the techniques.”
He hesitated for a moment, and she caught something flickering across his face in the moonlight. Uncertainty or maybe something else.
“Are you sure?” His voice was rougher than usual. It was obvious she was trying to deflect the topic away from talking about her.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
Ashok held his hand out to her as he stood by the sail. She took his hand and moved closer, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. His arm extended past her shoulder, and she had to fight the urge to lean back into him.
“The first rule of sailing is to not do it alone, until you are a seasoned one,” he said, his breath stirring the hair at her temple. A shiver passed through her despite the warm night air.
“It’s a good thing you are here.” Her mind was suddenly active and very aware of his proximity.
“Have you ever done this before?” His voice dropped to almost a whisper.
The impact of his words settled between them. She turned slightly to look at him, and found his face inches from hers. His eyes dropped to her lips for the briefest moment before he caught himself.
“I should—” He started to pull away, but she caught his wrist without thinking.
The moment her fingers wrapped around his warm skin, she became acutely aware of everything.
The steady thrum of his pulse beneath her thumb, the way his muscles tensed at her touch, how close he still was.
She took in his scent that something distinctly him, processed the way his chest rose and fell with each careful breath even as he stood behind her.
“Don’t.” The word escaped before she could stop it, her voice barely a whisper.
She knew she should let him go. Knew the smart thing would be to create distance, to pretend this electricity crackling between them was just the charged air before a storm.
But his skin was warm under her fingers, and when she slowly turned to look up, his dark eyes were fixated on her face with an intensity that made her stomach tumble.
“Isha,” he said, his voice rough, strained, but he made no move to pull away from her touch.
They stayed frozen like that, her fingers wrapped around his wrist, his pulse hammering against her thumb. The small boat rocked gently beneath them, and somewhere in the distance, she could hear the waves splash at a distance.
“I can’t let you fall asleep.” She released his wrist, but neither of them shifted position. “I needed to make sure you were being attentive.”
She noticed that he swallowed hard. “How do I make sure you are staying awake?”
“I’m awake. Your magical coffee is working.” The caffeine was doing more than what it was supposed to. She wondered if the jitteriness she felt was from the coffee. “But I need another help from you.”
“Sure,” his voice was gravelly like he was struggling to speak.
“Can I get my nightly foot massage, please?” She struggled to form a full sentence, her voice coming out breathy and uneven. The simple request felt loaded with something else entirely new. With him so close she was getting antsy by the second, as if in anticipation of something unknown.
The silence stretched and the tension started to build between them. Finally, he cleared his throat and patted his thigh, gesturing to place her foot up.
“Thank you,” she smiled, lifting her foot to place it on his thigh. Part of her foot landed on his bare thigh and she felt a tremble pass through her.
He looked at her like he felt that shudder that passed through her. “What if you doze off?”
She smiled, easing the tension a bit. The last few nights she had fallen asleep as he massaged her feet, mid-sentence on a couple of occasions. “I’ll keep talking, I promise.”
“Do I pinch you if I see you falling asleep?” She didn’t mind the tease in his voice.
“Fine, get started.” She pushed on his thigh with her foot, playfully.
He kept his eyes locked with hers, as he gently pulled on her toes. It was her favorite part of her evening when he massaged her feet.
“I hear no talking,” he taunted, and the mischievous flicker in his eyes made her stomach clench.
Her mouth went dry and the jitteriness from her high caffeine intake turned into something else entirely.
Something that had nothing to do with coffee and everything to do with the way he was looking at her.
“I–I’m just…” her voice trailed off as she focused on her heavy breathing. His mere touch, combined with that very look, did something to her that she couldn’t name, couldn’t fight.
“Just…what?” His thumb traced a slow circle on her ankle, and she had to bite back a feral cry that threatened to escape her.
The callused pad of his finger against her skin sent electricity shooting up her leg.
All along, she was focused on avoiding an embarrassing situation because she had lost all control of her body.
She tried to form words, any words, but her brain seemed to be short-circuited. All she could focus on was the deliberate pressure of his hands, the way his eyes never left her face, watching every reaction like he was memorizing them.
Every time he dug his finger tips into her foot, there was something new brewing inside her. Gone was the exhaustion and the need to sleep, she wanted something else.
“Still nothing,” he murmured, his voice dropping to that low register that made her pulse spike. His hands moved higher, just to her calf, but the touch was maddeningly slow and purposeful.
“You’re—” she started, then sucked in a sharp breath when his fingers found a particularly sensitive spot.
“You’re killing me, Ashok.”