She didn’t move. She couldn’t.
“I can feel your body screaming, Ria. I feel what you’re feeling.” His eyes found hers again, his fingers found her hair. The gentlest tug and her face turned up to his, a breath away from a kiss. “Still nothing?” He blew the word into her lips.
Ria arched up on her toes and pressed into his mouth, finding that maddening gap with her lips. It was the merest whisper of a touch, but his taste soaked through her. Memories sparkled to life in every cell and threatened to explode out of her skin. Sensations sucked her in and she nudged at them with her tongue. The shock of the contact jolted like twin currents through their bodies. Hunger gathered like an inferno where their lips barely touched. Sparks burst behind her closed lids. He moaned deep in his throat and pulled her to him, and she was lost.
She wrapped her arms around his head and sank into the kiss, crushing his mouth, stroking every inch of it with her tongue, reaching into every part of him, letting soft wet skin slide against soft wet skin and drench her entire parched being.
He took her in, opened up every part of himself, let her invade places she knew he would let no one else touch. He let her find what his words could not show her.
The kiss slowed and lingered, then became fevered again. It wrapped her up in lushness, meshed her body into his, and sank into her soul. It was the kind of kiss that was going to cling to her lips forever, haunt every living moment. It was everything that was happening between them. Everything that had ever happened between them. Everything that could happen if she let it.
“Absolutely nothing,” she said against his lips before pulling away, untangling her fingers from his hair, dragging her breasts, her thighs, her hips away from his full-bodied embrace, tearing her mouth from his drugging heat, dizzy and disoriented, and more alive than she ever remembered feeling.
“Liar,” he said as she stepped farther and farther away from him, but he didn’t follow. He stood there, his hands fisted at his sides, his mouth wet, his dilated eyes stripped bare of any defense. “I came after you once, Ria. I won’t do it again. I can’t. If you want me you have to come to me.”
His eyes burned into her. Her brain was so flooded, so filled with him she had to touch herself to know she still existed. She heard a sob, but she didn’t know if it stayed inside or if it escaped from her. She pulled every part of herself in, away from him, from a magnetic force field so strong it ripped her away from herself.
Then she ran out the door and up the stairs and all the way up to her room, not stopping until there was nowhere left to run.
21
R
ia pulled her room door shut and fell back on her bed. The pink canopy did nothing for her this time. The warm walls, the cozy bed, all of it gnawed at her, made her burn. His lips, his skin, his smell flooded her, sucked the breath from her. The look in his eyes, seeing all the way to the deepest part of her, pulled out desire she could not push back inside.
She tossed and turned and then sprang off the bed and paced. Hours passed before she became conscious of distant sounds of people leaving, but she kept on pacing until she heard Uma and Vijay coming up to bed. She climbed back into bed then and pretended to be asleep.
When Uma knocked on her door and peeped in to check up on her she lay motionless while her mind continued to spin. She prayed that Uma wouldn’t come into her room like she usually did to place a good-night kiss on her forehead. Any kind of physical contact would drive her insane right now. Uma must have sensed something, because she shut the door and left with a softly whispered “Good night.”
Even after every sound had stopped and the house had gone absolutely silent, Ria’s mind continued to spin. Every part of her hummed with wanting so intense she couldn’t breathe. She tried to tell herself it was only desire, but she knew it was more than that.
Vikram was right. She was a liar. The thing between them was not nothing. It was more than anything. More than everything. And it filled every part of her up until there was nothing left except the longing for his touch. Just one time. That’s all she wanted, just one time. All she needed was to be with him one time, that’s all. After that this craziness would be over. After that she would find the strength to control it, to end it. But just one time she had to feel him, feel herself against him, feel who she was in his arms.
She got out of bed. She had no idea what time it was or how her feet moved over the carpet. She was in her pajamas, but she didn’t remember changing. A chill prickled against her skin when she stepped out of her room, but inside she felt warm and strong and right. Her feet fell in mute thumps on the stairs, down and down until her hand clicked the basement door open. She flew down the stairs, then slowed when she reached his door. She didn’t knock, just pushed open the door.
He was sitting at his desk, leaning over some drawings, looking exactly the way she had pictured him before. The sight of him made the warm fullness inside her turn hot and ravenous. When she opened the door he turned and looked at her. Right inside her, like he could see nothing else. Like there was nothing else in the world besides her. He stood and walked to her, each step conscious and decisive. She lifted her hand and touched his mouth.
The second her fingers met his lips, everything outside them froze. The moment stopped and wound itself around them. Years of longing, years of need exploded at the point where the tips of her fingers touched the curve of his lips. In one fluid motion he pulled her against him, replacing her fingers with her lips, crushing her body against his, devouring her mouth, sucking, nipping, consuming. Her lips, her cheeks, her eyelids. His fingers molded around her skull, pulling her lips closer, leaving no spaces between them. Wiping out all distance.
Her fingers grabbed his hair, grabbed his shirt, whatever she could hold on to. Her heart hammered, crashing against the beating in his chest. Their mouths opened. Every part of them opened, they twisted and curled around each other, meshing and molding into one hungry, desperate beast.
His hands slipped out of her hair, flying down her body, claiming every curve, every muscle, every melting bone. The cotton of her shirt stuck in his fingers and with an impatient grunt he grabbed at the front of it and yanked it apart, splitting it in two. Buttons flew from them and skittered across the floor. His arms reached around her under the torn flaps. His hands splayed across her skin, searching her with his fingers, his palms, the entire burning length of his arms. Every inch of skin he touched turned to fire. She reached deeper into him, wanting more, digging into him with her fingers, her lips, her tongue.
Her mouth left his and dragged sucking, consuming kisses across his jaw, down the taut tendons of his neck. Biting at skin, tasting salt, musk, heat. His stubble dug ridges into her tongue, her mouth found every sharp edge on the bones of his throat as he worked furiously to gulp air. He pulled her mouth back to his on a moan, as if he couldn’t bear not kissing her. She dived into his hunger, her tongue darting into him, wanting him to engulf her. It wasn’t enough, none of this was enough. She reached up on her toes and pushed harder.
Finally, he let his hands move lower, burning down her waist and lifting her against him. She wrapped her legs around his hips, wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him with her entire body. His hands slid around her bottom, cradling her, pressing her closer. Through the soft flannel of their pajamas, their burning centers joined and molded into each other.
Each part of them fit exactly into place, and for one second they were perfectly aligned, synchronized into one complete being. His head tilted back, hers tipped forward, every part of their mouths touched and stroked, her breasts flattened against his chest. Their shoulders, their abdomens, each one of their ribs, interlocked and fit together as if they had found their perfect other half.
For a few seconds neither one of them moved. The beating of their hearts and the pounding in their bodies pumped through them and then exploded in such a frenzy of wanting that no force on earth could have stopped what had to happen between them.
His arms unwrapped from around her, first pulling off her pants, then his own, in one fluid motion, her mouth still stroking his, her fingers still twisting in his hair, unable to let him go. He lifted her and brought her back to him. Skin against skin.
The shock of their bare bodies touching jolted through her. She gasped against his mouth and wrapped her legs back around him as he carried her to the bed. They fell across the bed, side by side, their mouths melting into each other, nipping and stroking and marking. Their fingers digging and holding, their hips grinding. Frantically, he rolled her over on her back and slid on top of her, spreading her thighs and wedging his hips between them, where he belonged.
Her hands reached around him, flattening and curving around the firm rise of his butt, pulling him closer. His hips quivered and jerked, trying to push into her fingers and into her at the same time, and she reared up to meet him.
Suddenly he stopped, rose up on his arms. There was such mad wanting in his eyes she wanted to flip him over and thrust herself onto him. He started to pull away and she grabbed at him, confused. “My wallet—we need a condom—” Panting, he reached for it.
They fumbled with his wallet, fumbled with the condom. Their fingers fighting, frantic, until it was done.
He took her lips again, grabbed the backs of her knees, yanked them up and spread her wide. Then he entered her, sliding into her soaking wetness in one strong unrelenting move.
His engorged width stretched her tight. He hadn’t touched her with his fingers, hadn’t opened her up. He just entered her, direct and thick and deep. The shock of it exploded inside her like blazing skewers of unbearable pleasure. The heart-wrenching familiarity of their fit stole her breath, liquid heat spilling inside her just as tears spilled from her eyes.
He thrust deeper and deeper, his jaw tight, his eyes squeezed shut, his relentless rhythm so intense, so long awaited, that every tightly coiled, deeply buried piece of her burst to life around him.
“Viky!” Finally. Finally, his name—the piece of him that was hers and hers alone spilled from her lips into his mouth. Hot, drenched satisfaction exploded inside her just as he exploded too, dousing her insides and gathering every one of her scattering pieces into himself, until they were one being, one life. Complete. Unfractured.
Slowly, so slowly, the crazy shaking inside Ria stilled. Remnants of pleasure peaked through her in waves. She came back to herself one breath, one fragment at a time. Only, the pieces fit differently, turning her into someone else. Someone whole and quiet. Vikram’s warm breath collected in her ear, chanting her name. “
Ria. Ria. Ria.
” Her fingers relaxed their grip on his shoulders. His fingers released the softness behind her knees. The slickness on their skin glued their bodies together. Deeper still the slickness inside her cradled him. The beating of their hearts fell into a congruous rhythm. And the world was a different place.
In her entire life, Ria had never experienced sleep this deep. As she came awake, becoming conscious of Vikram’s body next to her, she felt like she had been in a coma, been somewhere else. She felt utterly new. Reborn. No memories. No tiredness. Nothing carried over but a soul-deep quiet. With her eyes still closed she let herself feel him. The rough hair on his legs scratching her skin, his sharp kneecaps digging into her thigh, the smooth stretch of skin over muscle warm beneath her fingers.
She felt him lean over her and brush his lips against hers so softly she wasn’t sure it had happened. She didn’t move, and he smiled against her lips. He knew she was awake. If you could call this dreamlike buoyancy being awake.
She was utterly weightless, lighter than a ray of sunshine and yet too heavy and languid to move a muscle. Not even her eyelids. His lips left her mouth and rested gentle as feathers on her eyelids. First one, then the next. He trailed kisses along her brows, the crests of her cheeks, stopping to nip the tip of her nose. He trailed kisses along her jaw, down her throat, tracing her collarbone, her arms, the insides of her elbow. Dragging the softness of his mouth over every inch of her body, stopping to savor and play, to open and learn her. She experienced every touch as if it were his first, not knowing where he would go next.
But she didn’t want to know, she didn’t want anything. Not one thing more. Not one thing different than what she had in this precise moment.
Vikram continued to caress her body, every satisfied inch of it, strumming her senses until her stillness turned frantic again. He calmed her with more caresses, then made her frantic again, then calmed her again. She ebbed and flowed—she was the music he was making, the colors he was painting. He took his time, labored over her, made love to her slowly, so very slowly, she was sure it was never, ever going to end. He seeped through her skin like sunshine, blossomed in her heart like faith. And he didn’t stop until the fullness inside her reached every corner of her, until the peace sank so deep it became part of her, until the joy became so real she believed it.
22
T
he second time Ria awoke, her eyes flew open. She could hear sounds of movement in the kitchen. Uma’s frantic voice overlaid with Vijay’s soothing tones wafted down through the ceiling. Ria’s cheek was plastered against Vikram’s chest, nestled in the depression below his shoulder. She rubbed her cheek against him and inhaled the heady scent of him. Mingled with his delicious scent, she smelled herself.
A pot clanged in the sink upstairs and she forced herself to lift her head off him.
Vikram was passed out, completely dead to the world. For some reason that made her blush. All the things he had done to her lingered on her body, not like a memory, but like sensation—real and tangible. She reached over and brushed his hair off his forehead. Her fingers tingled with the memory of the sweet slide of his thick locks between her fingers, grounding her even as his thrusts turned her ethereal.
Upstairs, Uma called out to Vijay. Her voice sounded high-pitched and tense, on the edge of full-blown panic. Ria tried to sit up, but her hair was trapped under Vikram’s comatose body. She lifted his shoulder and tugged at it.
“Where d’you think you’re going?” His gravelly sleep-drenched mumble did funny things to her insides. He tangled his fingers in her hair as it slipped from under him and pressed it against his heart. His eyes were still closed. Thick lashes fanned out against his cheeks. A stubborn, faintly arrogant smile kissed his lips, making him look like an overindulged child. He rubbed her hair against his face. “So soft,” he murmured. “Liquid silk.”
“Thanks. I had no idea you were such a poet.” She smiled and tried to pry her hair out of his fingers.
“I’m a po-et, and she doesn’t even know-it,” he said wistfully, his eyes still closed. “Stay in bed and I promise to write poetry about more than just your hair.”
“Very tempting . . . like what?” she asked, entranced by the mischief in his smile.
“Hmm. I’m so impressed . . . by the beauty of your breasts,” he said it in a singsong tone, his smile coloring his voice.
She laughed. “No thanks. I think I’ll pass.”
More utensils clanged upstairs and Ria sat up. “What time is it? It sounds like a war zone up there. We have to get upstairs before Uma Atya breaks something.”
Vikram opened his eyes, but didn’t let her hair go. “It’s Uma, the wedding’s tomorrow, she’s going to be nuts today. Nothing we can do about it. It might be safer to stay down here.” He pulled her back down, rolled over her, and started nibbling her neck.
Tiny jolts of pleasure licked up and down her spine.
“Viky, I have to get up there right now. Uma Atya needs me.” She forced herself to push him away.
“I need you too.” He went up on one elbow and threw a leg over her hips.
“I think you’ve had enough for now, don’t you?”
“Are you kidding me?” He looked so appalled it was funny. “I’m only just getting started.”
“Seriously, Viky, she’s going to come looking for us. I have to go.”
“Then go,” he said sulkily, but he didn’t move his leg off her.
She slid out from under it and sat up again, clutching the sheets to her breast. She looked around aware of him watching her. A furious blush warmed her face. “Viky . . . My clothes, they’re—” She looked longingly at her pajamas lying on the floor all the way across the room. “Close your eyes.”
That made him laugh.
“Viky, please.”
He closed his eyes and pulled the sheets off her, opening one eye as the sheet slid down. She yelped, ran to her pajamas, and started pulling them on. Vikram rolled onto his stomach, rested his chin on his hands, and watched her dress, his expression so intent, so absorbed, it made Ria want to undress and go right back to him.
“You have to help me.” She tried to button her shirt, but all the buttons were gone. She pulled the flaps together and held them there with her hands.
“Anything,” he murmured. “Sweetheart, right now I would do just about anything for you.” He was smiling, but everything in his heart glistened in his eyes. How could she not go down on her knees next to him and kiss him? He sat up and lifted her into his lap, kissing her until her brains scrambled. When she came up for air, she felt invincible. She couldn’t think of one single thing she could not do.
“You have to distract everyone while I go upstairs and get showered,” she said against his bristly cheek, stopping his hand as it made its way down her shirt, and tugged him out of bed.
“Only if I can come up and join you afterward.”
“You wish.” She gave him another peck at the exact spot where his lips didn’t quite fit together. “I’m a film star, remember?” She watched him pull on his shirt, those beautiful muscles bunching and stretching beneath taut skin. “No one gets between me and my shower.”
“Is that a challenge?” his eyes said, but he let her drag him up the stairs, where he distracted Uma while Ria sneaked up to her room, unable to stop grinning like a fool.
“What’s wrong with you?” Nikhil peered at Ria as if she had suddenly and inexplicably gone half-witted. “That’s the third time today I’ve heard you giggle.”
“I’m practicing for a part.”
“Ice Princess plays schoolgirl?”
“Something like that.”
They were dressing the tables for tonight’s dinner under the huge white tent, which fortunately had gone up without a hitch, vastly improving Uma’s mood. Out of one window-shaped opening, Ria could see Vikram perched on a ladder. He tugged at a rope mounted on a pulley at the top of the tent. About fifty strings of lights hung down from the other end of the rope. He had spent all morning securing the lights together and creating a mechanism to hold them so he could heave them over the tent with a single cord, and then have them cascade down the sides of the tent like maypole ropes.
Ria had sat cross-legged next to him on the deck as he worked. It was a perfect day, bright and sunny with the slightest nip in the air. Sunlight had filtered through the trees and caught the glowing white of their T-shirts and the shimmering black of their hair. Vikram had explained to her how all the parts fit together, handing her hooks and clamps to look at, putting things together and pulling them apart with his long, solid fingers. He had made detailed drawings of the assembly earlier, on a thick-papered sketch pad. He used them to show Ria what the result was going to look like.
Ria held the drawings in her hands, running her fingers over the bold, minimal lines. He had detailed out each part with meticulous care. Something about the strength of the lines, the decisive way in which they were hatched and shaded mesmerized her, making her want to wrap her arms around him.
He’d handed her a pencil, and flipped the page on the pad. “Why don’t you draw something?”
She flipped the page back without responding. “This is brilliant, Viky,” she whispered instead.
His eyes had warmed with a deep dizzying satisfaction. “It makes much more sense to do it this way. Otherwise we’d have to hang each string separately and find a way to hold it up at the top. Already this is taking up far too much time. I’d much rather be doing something else right now,” he’d said, his knowing grin painting all sorts of pictures in her mind.
But watching him as he worked, so focused and wholly absorbed in it, Ria knew she wouldn’t exchange it for anything. Another piece of her wove itself into him as she helped him string the hooks and clamps together, and he told her about his green-energy construction company. He had three patents pending, and one already approved for an eco-efficient construction technique he had developed to make buildings inherently energy efficient in design, so they restricted energy loss and required less artificial heating and cooling. He’d been working with one of the world’s largest construction conglomerates to develop building material that suited high-rise construction, but replicated qualities of traditional materials used in indigenous construction.
He’d moved to Chicago late that summer to teach a seminar at UC for the fall, and to buy some time before signing the deal that would tie him down for a long time. Uma had insisted he stay at home and he had let her bully him into it. That explained his lived-in room.
Ria readjusted one of the centerpieces Nikhil had laid out as she watched Viky lean forward on the ladder and tug at the rope. His muscles rippled against the cotton of his tee, and the memory of how they had felt warmed her fingertips. Vikram’s hair was still pushed off his forehead. She had brushed it back before he climbed on the ladder. He had been up there for close to an hour now, the look on his face so purposeful Ria couldn’t take her eyes off him. Fortunately, Nikhil was horrible at what they were doing and he had to focus really hard, plus he was doing enough talking for both of them.
Vikram gave one last tug and the heavy bundle of lights thudded against the tightly stretched canvas of the tent. He jumped off the ladder and secured the rope to a peg he had hammered into the ground earlier. Then he threw his arms up and whooped.
Ria dropped the platter she was holding and ran to him. For a moment he looked like he was going to brush a kiss against her lips, but Nikhil yelled something from inside the tent and he frowned, pointing at his handiwork instead.
“Amazing!” She looked up at the light strings cascading from the top of the tent like a fountain.
“All we need now is to spread the strings around the tent and, voilà!”
“Just any string goes anywhere?” She held out her hand.
“Yup.” He separated the strings into bunches and handed her a few strands. She placed one string tentatively in place. He reached around her to straighten it, showing her how to hook it against the clamps he had fastened to the tent. His shoulders, his arms, his entire body melted around her. When he left her and moved on to the next one, his eyes still on her, a part of her went with him.
They worked together in silence, separating and placing the strings until the tent looked like it was encased in an armor of lights, radiating down from the top like a crown. When they were done, Vikram walked over to the deck and flipped the switch. The entire thing lit up. The sun was still bright, but it was easy to imagine what it would look like in the moonlight.
“Viky, it’s beautiful,” she said.
“It’s done,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
Just as he said it Uma came out of the house, her hand pressed into her mouth, her eyes round with joy. “Oh, Vikram, honey, this is wonderful. Absolutely perfect! Oh my God, I can’t believe you did this.” She practically skipped around the tent in glee.
Vikram looked so frustrated Ria giggled.
“More giggling?” Nikhil strode out of the tent and turned to look at it. “Wow, man, this does look good.”
Uma threw her arms around Vikram. “It’s perfect, did I tell you that already? You’re my best
beta.
This is going to look so beautiful at night.”
“I did the tables all by myself,” Nikhil grumbled. “Even the starlet abandoned me for the more glamorous project.”
“Face it, man, Uma just loves me more than she loves you.” Vikram hugged Uma so tight he lifted her off the ground.
“Aw. That’s because you are just so damn adorable.” Nikhil pretended to gag. “Seriously, though, Vic. This is really good. You should add it to your list of patents.”
“Patent the pulley? Great idea,” Vikram deadpanned, and Ria burst out laughing.
Both Nikhil and Uma stared at her like she had grown horns. She scratched her head and pretended to adjust the lights, but she couldn’t stop smiling.
“If she starts humming, I swear I’m calling a doctor,” Nikhil said.
“Because it would be too damn serious for a quack like you?” Vikram said, giving Ria a ridiculously possessive smile.
Uma looked from Vikram to Ria. “I love weddings,” she said. “Something about them just makes you happy, doesn’t it? Look at you two—I haven’t seen you look this happy for far too long. Touch wood.” She touched the wooden tent pole and her eyes misted over. Ria wrapped her arms around her. Vikram leaned over and pulled both of them close.
“Yay! Group hug!” Nikhil threw his arms around all of them and squeezed.