Amaal swallowed, then looked down.
“With your right foot.” He pointed.
“I know.” She held her saree pleats up and gently tipped the Kalash down, stepping into the plate of red. He held her hand. Amaal looked at him again — “Thank you.”
His mouth landed on her temple, and pressed. Hard. His nose pressed into her hair. “Thankyou.”
Amaal smiled, tears clouding her eyes as she blinked to clear her gaze in order to see her steps. She stepped out of the plate and onto the pristine, white cotton. She walked, with her footprints going fainter and fainter until she reached the floor and again he swooped her up.
“Samar, enough.” She tried to get down. “I was joking outside.”
“I was not.” He carried her through the hall and through an area that had a long dining table for eight.
“We don’t want to tax your body, even if you are recovered…”
“I haven’t even started taxing it yet.”
She didn’t have time to absorb the implication of that statement before he set her on one of the three platforms running through the open kitchen. Amaal opened her eyes wide and gaped around. It wasn’t set up fully, but the kitchen looked like it was functional.
“Go ahead.”
She brought her gaze back to him and he was holding out another plate of red. Her brows rose.
“There,” he pointed at the wall over the burner stove.
“Don’t spoil the look…” she whined.
“We’ll wipe it off tomorrow.”
Amaal huffed, pressed her palms into the plate he held and leaned up over the stove. The platform was so wide that she couldn’t reach the wall. He grabbed her waist in both hands and hitched her. And even though she had qualms about spoiling the look of the newly done kitchen, Amaal smiled through pressing her palms’ imprints on Samar’s wall.
“Happy?” She joked, sitting back. His head was turned to the wall — “Looks nice.”
He was serious.
“We are wiping it off tomorrow,” she pushed her face close to his ear and his mouth captured hers. Amaal fisted her palms lest she hold him, bending back as his tongue invaded her mouth. He circled her wrists and wound them around his neck, holding her waist, running his thumbs over her bare skin. She still kept her hands fisted, crossing them behind his neck.
He tilted his face and the edge of his specs pressed into her skin. She moaned, squeezing his neck between her arms, pushing closer to him. He pulled back. Their eyes met. Their breaths mingled.
Samar took off his specs and set them beside her. Her heart picked up pace.
He reached behind his head and unfisted her palms. She hesitated. But he pushed her still-wet fingers into his collar. Emboldened, she roved her red fingers all over his neck, his hair, trying to find a way into his skin. And he pressed closer, taking her mouth again. This time slow. Second by second. Her lower lip, then her upper lip, then again her lower lip, suckling. She pressed her mouth open and he pulled back.
His thumb came to her lower lip, wiping it.
“Don’t stop…”
His face came close again, their eyes connected with something superhuman that neither could break away from. He opened his mouth and pressed his teeth into her lower lip. She winced, her eyes finally breaking away from his to fall shut, squeezing in now what she knew was pain and pleasure. In so many different parts of her body, but most of all, the centre of her being.
“I am not going to use protection.” He said.
She snapped her eyes open. His dark gaze was looking at her intently, inquiringly.
“Do you want me to use it?”
Amaal stared at him. Then slowly shook her head.
He palmed her cheek, his face turning even more intense but his eyes softening.
