Chapter 25 Aaditha - Circle of Love
Aaditha
Circle of Love
The Presidential Suite is a ginormous space, big enough to host an empire and its cousins.
Vedveer opens the door, holds it open and follows me in. My eyes roam the rooms before I turn to face him.
My heart is hammering madly.
He shrugs off his blazer lazily, his eyes caressing my bare arms.
For a moment, I stand before him transfixed. The devilish grin he wears snaps me awake. I dash around and relieve him of his coat.
‘At your service, Your Highness,’ I say, tossing his blazer aside and wrapping my arms around him from behind.
I hold him tight, crushing him to me. I want to devour him.
This ache of wanting to be around him, feel his warmth, touch his taut muscles, knot fingers, brush lips… say everything, say nothing, scares me.
I never allowed myself to acknowledge what I feel for Vedveer, the attraction, the desire, the electricity… It was crazy, but I controlled it.
Maybe because I didn’t have a good enough answer to why me. Not until he walked through my door this evening, breaking walls and putting his heart on the line.
Is this how love feels?
‘I was thinking of changing, but I’m having second thoughts,’ he says, breaking my hold.
He pulls me up on his back; my legs flap behind us as he heads in the direction of the bedroom.
I nibble at his ear. ‘Go on, change. I don’t want to be accused of being unfair.’
Vedveer puts me down and grabs me by the waist. He looks at me, not like he’s reaching into my soul but like he is stoking a fire that is already wild with longing… I feel my heart, but I shush it.
‘Feel free to join me,’ he says, stretching out his hand.
I shake my head. ‘At the very least, I hope I’m marrying a man capable of throwing on his own clothes.’
Vedveer’s laugh is a hoot. ‘I enjoy conversations about ability and capability.’
‘I rather prefer the action,’ I say, pulling the door hard behind me.
I look around me. The place is so roomy, the million impulses running riot in me have enough space to get lost here.
Soft amber light pools from wall sconces that wash over the polished wooden floor. Cream curtains frame tall windows that look out onto busy thoroughfares scattered with gold dots.
The air smells of sandalwood and candle wax.
I make my way into the lounge.
At one end is a heavy bar counter on which a matt gold ice bucket sits. It carries three bottles of wine. Different brands of the same grape.
Vedveer joins me in the lounge area. He is wearing a dark-chocolate linen shirt on blue denims. He has sports sliders on his feet.
‘Who’d have thought you royals know how to dress like regular people!’
‘I’m regular.’
‘Very regular.’
As I move further into the room, Vedveer clicks on the remote, and the curtains pull away. A plunge pool is chilling in the evening light.
Norah Jones’s ‘Come Away With Me’ comes alive on the sound system.
Vedveer stretches his hand out, asking me for a dance.
My heart stills, and my stomach turns as I put my hand in his. He tugs me, and I fall into him. His chest is hard, and his arms are tight as they wrap around me. There’s just enough space for air to pass between us.
His breath warms my neck as we turn, slow and close.
The thickness of my fitted denims clings to me, and I feel the pressure of his hand on my waist. We aren’t dancing – not really – just swaying, lost in rhythm, in sentiment, in what we’ve said… and maybe something unsaid.
Come away with me, and we’ll kiss
On a mountaintop
Come away with me, and I’ll never stop loving you
Vedveer adjusts my hair, moving invisible strands behind my ears as we move. He’s looking into my eyes, and I look at his coloured irises.
He’s a spectacular physical specimen.
The more we move, the more I get into him. His tall frame, his lithe step, his warm breath and his freshly worn fragrance.
I could run away with him, but right now, it feels like I have run to him.
Norah’s sweet notes run out of words, and Vedveer takes a deep breath. I wonder if he’s inhaling fragrant Jasmine.
He leans into me and kisses my lip.
His groan makes me giddy. I giggle.
‘I can’t get over how you have no recollection of the kiss,’ he says.
I kiss his lips back and enjoy the luxury of gazing into his eyes.
‘Lavanya, who was also quite high that evening, thought we had kissed, but she couldn’t really tell,’ I say.
‘Should I take offence? Or maybe I’ll just remind you.’
‘You could just refresh the page,’ I say.
Vedveer brushes my cheeks with the back of his hand.
The strokes aren’t rushed; it is like he’s memorizing texture, the physical and the emotional. Trying to mediate between every unspoken thought I have held these past weeks and months.
His eyes are bright.
He takes my hand in his, dropping kisses on the inside of my wrists, on my bare shoulders, on the corner of my mouth and on the tips of my clavicle.
I feel a rush of stirrings inside me. I’m delirious with desire and longing and everything in between.
Vedveer lifts me onto his lap, and we kiss, his lips taking mine in an urgency I recognize inside me.
He is telling me something that can’t be communicated in words, awakening sweet sensations that lie entrenched in my visceral being.
It isn’t delicate or hesitant – it’s a tempest taking shape, flying free and wild.
I’m making little noises that seem to encourage Vedveer, and just when I think there’s nowhere else in me for him to go, he reaches for more before pulling back slowly.
His palms frame my face; our eyes lock in a barter until our mouths meet again.
The world around me drops like irrelevant bits of pottery.
This time, the discourse is fierce, the ache and the tenderness we are too wary to put into words. His arms are knotted tight around me. My breasts are buried in the brown of his shirt, and we cling to each other, determined that nothing will separate us.
‘This is not the first time we’re kissing,’ he says, forcing a giggle out of me. Vedveer is on his feet, and I’m in his arms.
‘You keep saying that,’ I say, flirting with my body, ‘but is there proof?’
‘The proof is in the reminder,’ he says. ‘Delighted to remind you again and again.’
I swallow something, and it tastes like a rush of emotion.
‘You want to try the bed?’ he asks, his eyes darkening. I feel a shiver shoot up my thighs.
Vedveer strides across the room; I’m in his arms. He puts me down on the bed and sits next to me.
We are quiet beside each other, if you discount the breathing.
My breath is rough, something like the wind outside, which rustles through the trees, coaxing and stirring, while Vedveer may be panting. Like a runner who has just crossed the tape.
The city lights blink, casting a golden shadow across the marble floors of the bedroom and the crisp white of the hotel sheets. Vedveer picks me up again, climbs on the bed, strides across it and places me in the middle of the cloud of white.
He leans over me to unzip my dress. I inhale his deliciousness as he peels it off me.
I arch my back, pushing my finest lingerie, eyelash lace, maroon, at him.
His eyes widen in appreciation before they caress my body lazily.
Oxytocins are swimming vigorously inside me. I move forward and reach for his shirt. His fingers fumble as he helps me take it off. He leaves the bed for a moment, and I watch as his erection rises and his jeans fall around him with his underwear. In his nakedness, he is king.
My nerves are tied in messy knots, and my breathing is erratic. His eyes are devouring me, and I’m feeling self-conscious. ‘Can you dim the lights?’ I plead.
Vedveer laughs. ‘She, the lover of bright and brighter lights, is asking for bulbs to be dimmed. How can I not oblige?’
‘You remember our first meeting at your office? I wanted to sit out in the café, and you looked horrified?’ he asks.
I laugh. ‘You were so judging me!’
‘I’m not going to pretend to deny it.’
He reaches around me and patiently unbuckles my bra before easing me onto the bed.
I’m covered by his warmth, until he kneels to leave a trail of hot kisses from my lips, down my neck, to my scapula, before he moves inwards and finds the mounds of my breasts with his mouth and then his hands.
He kisses my nipples after teasing them with his fingers.
My body is burning. I moan, thrusting myself against him, and reach for his lips just as he whispers my name.
‘I can’t stop myself,’ he says.
‘I don’t want you to hold back, Ved Rathore.’ I have so many names for him, and I’m not holding back.
He groans. ‘Ved,’ he repeats. ‘No one, literally no one, calls me Ved.’
I snuggle deeper into him in response.
‘Ved,’ he repeats. ‘If it is a nickname, it is Veer.’
‘That’s the obvious one,’ I say, ‘but Ved is beautiful.’
‘You are beautiful,’ he says, sliding up against me.
‘Ready?’ he asks, pulling back and spreading my legs, his thumbs massaging the insides of my thighs before he relieves me of my underwear.
I want to scream yessssss, not for the promises our families may have made to each other, his palaces or his position, but because, in that moment, his hands trembled slightly, just like mine, before they dug into his forearms with an intensity I didn’t know I possessed.
I moan as his tongue flicks across my vagina, going back and forth, teasing me open before moving inside me. When he pulls out, my nails dig into his arms.
‘Please,’ I beg.
‘Jaan,’ he cajoles, his passion naked.
What has Ved just called me? Jaan. I feel my heart expand exponentially, balloon-like; my eyes are tearing up.
‘I’m in love with you,’ he says. ‘I feel so full in this emotion that I don’t think I could love you any more than I love you at this point.
It is beyond anything I have ever felt in my life.
I’m not sure it’s a good thing in my position, but there’s not a thing I can do to stop how I feel for you. ’
I pull Ved down on me, throw my arms around his neck and listen to his heartbeat.
When he finally lies over me, length over length, our bodies meeting and moving almost instantly, my hips rising to envelop his thrust, it feels like a door we’ve both been waiting to walk through has opened.
There’s a wildness to the movement. He’s reaching further and further; he is deep, deep inside me when I hear myself call out, ‘Ved… Veeed… Vee... eed…’
The night is still, and my voice echoes.
We move together like we’ve been holding our breath for weeks and have finally remembered how to exhale. It is tender, even a little shy, yet powered by the currents of the emotional tide we are wading into – it’s the duality that makes it more real. More us.
I feel the hesitation, the hope, the unsung notes that press into that one lingering moment. And just like that, something shifts between us and explodes inside me, and I cry into the night.
It’s just us – two humans, from worlds so apart you can’t help but wonder how they may ever be bridged. Still, the only sensations are those of breath and skin and something that feels like an emotion that could stretch to infinity.
My parents don’t know where I am, nor do Alia and Lavanya, but no one needs to know, because I’m home.
In this time we have together, I forget the weight of who we are – the Coffee Queen, the daughter of a senior politician, and the crown prince.
There’s no palace, no headlines, no eyes watching us from behind heavy curtains.
Just he and me, his lips on my cheek and the strange, aching beauty of being completed in this togetherness.
I smile against his mouth, tasting relief, nerves and the beginning of something neither of us has the words for yet.
‘I love you, Aaditha,’ he says, trying to steady his ragged breath. The space between us has slowly melted – layer by layer, kiss by kiss.
My heartbeat knocks on my ears, louder than the city outside.
‘I love you, Ved,’ I reply as his fingers stroke my naked leg, pressing against the inside of my thigh.
Later, in the hush that follows, I realize it isn’t fireworks; it is something quieter and softer, but it is everything.
It is where I feel safe. Wanted. Loved – not for the version of me people imagine but for the girl I am underneath it all.
The girl who fled to Ohio and returned with a dream, a girl who was burned by love but is now inhaling it and twirling around in it like it were a dress that has given her room to move.
When I open my eyes, I’m naked under a sheet and Ved’s leg is over mine.
‘Jaan,’ he calls, sensing I have opened my eyes. ‘This is how I want to wake up every morning of my life.’
I reach up and place a kiss on his lips. ‘Have we kissed before? If we have, I have no recollection.’
I hear Vedveer’s moan as he rolls me over him and pulls me up against his erection. ‘I’m good with reminders, and prompts, too,’ he says.