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 agiggle 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, isasking 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.
