15. The Deal
15
The Deal
Vera
F rown lines marred her forehead.
“What?”
“You’re here to find your next sexual conquest, aren’t you?” Vihaan enquired.
She stiffened in his arms, eyes flashing murder. “I swear to god, if you give me some judgemental bullshit about the limits of female sexuality, I will cut your balls off with my heels and play tennis with them.”
“Imaginative threat,” he snorted. “Completely unnecessary. Limiting female sexuality is a social construct that needs to be left in the 1800s. I don’t care if you sleep around. I am telling you to sleep with me. Tonight.”
Vera wasn’t sure if it was his agreement that threw her off or his offer.
“You want to find someone to get off with and you know I can give you an orgasm. I’m also clear, which is more than any other one-night stand can promise.”
She’d cut her tongue off before admitting most of her one-night stands, of which there weren’t many, had been planned. Multiple forms of protection had been non-negotiable. Her need for control had always surpassed any desire she’d felt for a good-looking man, her responsibilities bogging her mind even then. Having a friends-with-benefits situation might have been ideal, but she’d never allowed it. She couldn’t risk an attachment to anyone.
She’d eschewed the traps of feelings and relationships for all of her adult life, avoiding expectations she wasn’t sure she could fulfil. Her first and only priority would always be Nanu, and she didn’t think any boyfriend would be ok with that. Which suited her fine.
Her toys gave her orgasms enough, so she didn’t need men for even that. Sometimes though, she craved the touch of another human.
Like today.
But Vihaan? He’d been her first. He’d taken her virginity, her heart, her respect and crushed them all without care. How could she let him get close again?
“What do you say, Talwar?” he pushed, unused to silence from her. “Will you sleep with me?”
She scoffed at his delicate terminology. “Charming, I’m not looking to sleep.”
“Fine. Let me fuck you,” he enunciated, clearly having no qualms about saying this around people who could very well have heard him.
“You’re obnoxious,” she mumbled, relieved when the music played louder, the bass matching the thumping beat of her heart. She pushed away, only for him to grip her hand and twirl her back towards him .
Coffee brown eyes caught hers, glittering with a determination she recognized from a time long gone. Under the hard angles of the flashing lights above, he seemed more dangerous. His hair was swept off his face, leaving nothing to distract her from his piercing gaze. The way he was looking at her—like he was seconds away from wrapping his fingers around her throat and crushing his mouth to hers—had Vera’s pulse trembling in response.
“You know as well as I do that we can’t ignore each other,” he said, his matter-of-fact tone getting her hackles to rise immediately.
“I can ignore you just fine,” she sniped.
Except, a little voice in her head piped up to remind her, she’d never truly forgotten him. Oh, she had tried. She had scrubbed his name off every page of her book. But after a few weeks around him, her decade-plus-long effort had fizzled like old pop. She deliberately glanced away, her gaze picking up nothing in the throng of dancing people around them. She was determined to not give in.
Her breath hitched when his cheek came to rest against hers, so soft that it almost made her pause at his gentleness. They swayed, looking for all the world like they were a couple lost in the heady enchantment of being in each other’s arms. Warm, callused fingers trailed the skin of her back, pressing her closer and closer into him, until the rise and fall of her chest was locked against his. His nail scraped gently along the base of her spine, causing her fingers to tighten around his biceps with a soft gasp. Goosebumps rushed across her skin, her nipples tightening instantly, and Vera knew that she’d been unsuccessful in hiding her reaction.
“You forget, Princess,” Vihaan murmured, raising his head to look at her, their faces separated by just a few inches, “I’ve known you without this cloak of disinterest.”
One large palm slid along the curve of her waist, down to the back of her exposed thigh before squeezing the muscle firmly, causing furious flutters in her belly. “I know when you’re lying. Your mind wants to ignore me, but your body?” he continued, his fingers trailing up slowly, slipping just inside the slit of her dress, resting dangerously close to the crease under one buttcheek. “Your body still reacts to my touch.”
A simmering fire lit deep within her, spreading to every part of her body that was in contact with him. He pressed his thumb into her flesh, sending a jolt of need right to her core. She was unable to ignore the embarrassing realisation that if she tilted her hips a little, he’d have proof of what he’d just claimed on his fingers.
“I can sense it, you know? The hunger. The need for an explosion and the relief afterwards.”
“I don’t need to fuck you for an orgasm.” She hoped that the music would mask the tremble in her voice. “I can get myself off with a vibrator, too.”
His thumb drew a lazy path on the inside of her thigh, back and forth, his touch as distracting as his words.
“But it will be me you’ll think of—my cock sliding into your wet cunt when you push that vibrator in. You’ll be imagining my mouth on your breasts, sucking your pretty nipples till you don’t know pleasure from pain. And Princess, no vibrator or dildo will make you orgasm like I will.”
Vera’s stomach flipped at the images he’d painted in her head. The pulsing ache between her legs intensified.
“Maybe you’ll get yourself off once or twice?” he continued, his voice washing over her like the honeyed whispers of a devil bent on corruption. “I could make you come until you can’t see straight. Until your body is spent and you beg me to stop. And I still wouldn’t show you mercy.”
Knowing eyes met her dazed ones.
“Because you don’t want mercy, do you?”
The fact that Vihaan could sense this about her was frightening. Vera had always been strong-willed. Perhaps she'd subconsciously picked pliable men to sleep with, making it easier for her to walk away after that momentary indulgence .
Vihaan though? He refused to be cowed by her. He was like a tornado—wild and destructive. She had no clue how to contain him and he was the only one with whom she lost control. Her mind flashed back to how thoroughly he’d fucked her against the storage shelves, and how hard she’d orgasmed because of it. The fact that they were in the office, that the door was open, and anyone could have heard them, that she was supposed to hate him—none of it had mattered. Her body and mind had submitted to his demands and in that submission had been a pleasure she hadn’t experienced before.
Every single day of her life was filled with things to worry about. She controlled the smallest details: her expenses, her flings, her schedule. It was all by the book. Vihaan? He was out of syllabus, and he’d follow no rule. The idea was exhilarating, and to her consternation, more appealing than she wanted to admit.
Though she tried to hide her conflict, he read her desire easily.
“You just imagined us, didn’t you?”
She huffed, still putting up a valiant fight against the surge of lust he’d summoned in her.
“So what?”
“Maybe scratching this itch will finally douse this tension. If we need to work together, we need to find a way to do it without killing each other. The program launch and its success is important to me, and evidently to you as well.”
She blinked, his words slowly cutting through the fog of hormones.
“You want us to fuck each other out of our systems until we stop hating each other? That’s—” she floundered, looking for an appropriate word, “. . .stupid.”
One thick brow arched up. “Got a better idea?”
She wanted to decline. Immediately. But a part of her conceded despite her initial inclination to smack Vihaan upside the head for suggesting such a silly thing, it was worth a try. It would give her the closure she’d never been able to get before .
This time, she knew exactly what their interaction would mean—a one-time fuckmania. She would have no other expectations, and she would begin and end it on her terms. She would leave and write him off, the way he did her. Then, maybe then, she could finally move on from that moment when his words had branded her heart with shame.
The idea took root in a way that was impossible to shake off. She bit her lower lip, glancing up to find him watching her with an indeterminable look.
“Make no mistake,” she warned him. “I’ll probably still hate you.”
Her announcement didn’t phase him.
“Right back at you, Princess. We relieve the tension in the bedroom, and just maybe, it’ll help us keep a civil head in the boardroom.”
“Even if I learn to tolerate you at work, this will never be more than casual sex. It’s for one night only. Understood?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Hotel?” she asked, coming straight to the point.
He shook his head slowly, his eyes gleaming in silent victory.
“My apartment. Now.”