Her pupils dilated, not in anger but in something else.
“Because you like it a little too much?”
“No!”
“You do.” He held her gaze, realising it as he spoke. “You are a successful independent woman but you like it when I do not relent, do not bow to you, do not listen to you. You make the Chief Minister and his entire cabinet bow to you but you like it when I say ‘Did I ask you.’”
“You are delusional early in the morning.”
Samar cupped the base of her chin in his palm, making her shut up.
“Deny it. It will be fun to see you agree one day.” He planted a kiss on her mouth, turned and walked to the door. Samar unlocked it and turned the handle, the words flowing out of his mouth without thought.
“I’ll be home before 10.”
38. Samar rang the bell of her house…
Samar rang the bell of her house and the shrill echo reverberated through the silent garden. He glanced at his surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary. He had left a man outside at the gate with another to patrol the inside at regular intervals. Amaal hadn’t even realised that. How was she ever going to protect herself from robbers?
The door pulled open and there she stood. “Hi.”
Samar forgot what was supposed to be said when someone said hi to you. She looked like a dream. He had seen her in her business clothes and in her party clothes and in her shawls and Kashmiri kurtas and jeans all the time. Now he saw her in a white T-shirt and a pair of blue pyjamas. Nothing novel. And yet, to fall into this level of trust with her, to be able to see her like this. His eyes trailed up the white drawstrings of her dark blue pyjamas to the worn, thin material of her T-shirt. The white of it made things a little too visible. He quickly moved over her breasts, her nipples hardening in front of his eyes.
He cleared his throat, trailing his eyes up and to her face. Her hair was up and tied back, her makeup still there, making this even more… intimate. Seeing her unwind after a workday.
“I said, hi.”
“Hi,” he croaked.
“Come in.” She stepped back, and he entered her house, glancing behind him one last time before closing the door. She walked through the hall — “You texted that you won’t have dinner but I am just making tomato soup. Are you sure you don’t want to have a little?”
Samar followed her, noting the sofa covered in a bedsheet and a matching pillow now.
“No.”
“There’s also cheese toast. What did you have?” She went to the stove, stirring what he smelled was tomato soup. It did smell good. And she looked good, bent over the food, her back tapering into a tiny waist that he wanted to hold in his hands, flaring to hips that were tight and full. He had never noticed such things about a woman. He had had many women once upon a time, drunk in the madness of grief. He had never stopped to admire any.
The ends of her hair brushed her nape as she cocked her head to check the flame.
“Samar, what did you have?” She asked again, attention on her cooking.
“Can’t remember.” He genuinely couldn’t remember.
She whirled, her ponytail hitting her in the face — “When did you have it? Last month?”
He coughed. “Yeah… no, I mean, it was a karyakarta meeting. Whatever they kept in front of me I kept eating while we talked. What about you?”
“I had three cups of coffee and one of them was a cold coffee with ice cream.”
“You look too sleepy for someone who has downed so much caffeine.”
“Mmm…” she blinked. “It’s been a long day.”
“You still have the energy to cook? Can I do the rest?”
“It’s all done. And I felt like comfort food tonight. Mom makes tomato basil soup and cheese toasties to dip into it whenever she feels like comfort food. Dad wants minestrone and he makes that too. And it’s basically soup fest at home.”
“Oh,” he gaped as she ladled a bowl full of dark red soup that did smell warm and tangy. He did not know how to make minestrone soup. In fact, he did not know how to make any of these fancy things.
