Page 93 of Unapologetic Love Story

She cut him off by pressing her lips to his. She stroked the inside of his mouth with her tongue.

‘Why can we never do this at your place?’ she asked as she fucked him.

‘Because it’s tiny and I wouldn’t let you leave. At least here, you can throw me out.’

She laughed at that, but the laugh became a gasp as he sat up to suck her nipples. She felt him place both of his large hands on her back, pulling her deeper into his mouth.

‘Something you don’t want me to see at your place?’

‘Yes, the state of it. If we were in bed at my place like this, you’d be staring at my weird writer’s conspiracy-theorist board.’

She smiled. A touch of forgiveness.

He pushed her back on the bed and she tried to increase the speed of his thrusts by raising her hips and pulling at him.

‘No,’ he told her sternly, his voice a growl in her ear. ‘Take it sweetly.’

She touched his earlobe with the tip of her tongue. ‘I want it hard.’

He caught her hands in his and gave her a look so drugged with arousal, she released a throaty laugh. When he spoke, it was a gruff demand.

‘Kiss me.’

Raina snaked her legs around his waist and kissed him with insolent slowness.

‘Now do it like you love me.’

His words made her moan. She bit his bottom lip. ‘Make me.’

His eyes flashed, and to her delight, he did. His kiss was a mixture of anguish and adoration.

‘What have you done to me?’ he breathed.

Raina didn’t answer. It was something they were doing to each other. And it had never been like this with anyone else.

A few nights later, they were walking back to Raina’s house after spending the evening at the cinema. Raina was still eating from a small box of sweets as they walked beneath the cherry blossoms in the dying sunlight of early June.

When Raina caught the writer looking at her, she flushed. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You’re studying me.’

‘I just like looking at you.’

It, the thing between them, was starting to drift into uncharted waters. It had surpassed ‘enjoyable long weekend in bed with a person who rubbed you up the wrong way’. It had surpassed casual situationship. It could technically be labelled ‘dating’, but there was something deeper afoot. They both knew it, and for some reason, it made Raina feel cut open.

‘You’re like spring to me.’

Raina almost stumbled on the pavement. ‘What?’

He gently took the box of sweets from her hands and sat it on the garden wall behind her. ‘You heard me. Whenever I see you, it’s like spring. Like tonight. I was waiting in the lobby, and I was in a bad mood over something I can’t even remember. Then you walked in. And it’s like seeing spring flowers and a warm sun after months of cold and shivery winter.’

Raina blinked and sharply turned away. ‘You’re supposed to be a journalist, not a poet.’

She started walking again. Slowly. Hoping he wouldn’t see the shimmer of wetness in her eyes.

‘Raina.’