He took the knife down, diagonally across her torso, when the tip of the serrated bread knife poked her fisted hand. She gave out a loud hiss and alarm rang in his eyes, instinctively make him reach for the light switch now. Even before, she could react to his presence, he took her trembling arm and examined in length from her elbow to the wrist.
"Where did it hurt?" He asked her, his mind skipping the fact that he was in full view under the soft fluorescent light that alighted from the scone directly above her. He observed the liquid fear in the dark of her eyes dissipate as seconds ticked away, and her eyes turned into slits, giving a sharp glower at him.
"What the hell? For a minute there..." She pulled her arm away from his hold and drew herself closer to his body. With the side of her wrists, she pummeled his chest, hoping to beat the crap out of him. He had not even attempted to mask his face and neither had he strained to alter his voice. What an ego? She thought. Her slender wrists were no match to his sinuous chest and as the dismay settled in her, she was about to give up. But he reacted to her stubbornness by holding her fisted hand and pinioning them behind her. Had he not subdued her struggle while she was at the verge of giving up, he could have seen that she would have quieted down the next second, but his challenging restrain only fueled her actions further. She fought his control hard as he cornered her to the edge of the bed, making her stumble her way down on top of the plush mattress. He didn't even need any of his strength to keep her hands down by the side of her head when she went limp under his body with the force with which he crushed her. Turning her face away in sheer anger, her mind recounted for the events that had led up to that moment. It didn't take her long to figure out the one super brain that had schemed it for her. And for all she knew, there was a good chance she had not needed those night medications nor was she blissfully sleeping in the living room couch. Nothing could surprise her more, not even Rishabh's presence and she no longer knew for sure, if Maan and Geet had any knowledge of the vile plans of getting her trapped with her husband that night.
As she gritted her teeth, drawing in a rasping breath, his voice brought her attention back to him.
"For a minute there...what did you expect?" He asked.
In the controlled ire, that she was swaddled in, she forced out a biting lie back at him.
"I was thinking there was hope...that there was indeed another man who can work his way up to my needs" She smirked at him. That instant he couldn't put a finger on what snapped inside him at the mention of 'another man', but he was certain she was born into this world to bring out the worst in him. Without a moment's notice, he came down upon her lips in a ruthless kiss. At first she opposed as always, by being tight lipped and flipping her face away from the favorable position. Although when he persisted brushing his lips on her and left her hands free to grapple her waist...just as his own pace slowed in movement...right as she steadied, taking in his gentle pecks at her lips, she gave in. Her lips parted as her eyes drifted close, seeking his comforting touch over the curve of her waist. He took her lower lip as he caressed it boldly with his own and nibbled at times by the corner of her mouth. His head was beginning to spin with a dazed need, as his hand in a swift knead of her hip moved further up her torso.
She mumbled as if under a spell and mindlessly wandered making sense how she was letting this happen to her. That's it...it had to be, she ascertained that it was his kisses that made her grow a different conscience in her. It must overpower her necessities, bringing about an imbalance in her usually willful world. Before she could go on building that compounding logic, she felt his fingertips, grazing her waist in patterns and it made her mind so blank involuntarily. She cowered beneath him as he trailed kisses along her neck. As he skillfully worked her buttons and pulled her kurti from her shoulder, his lips teased her fair skin, giving rise to sparks of igniting pulse under her skin while he moved further down.
He broke away from the intense, surging madness that he was drowning in and trailed back his eyes to catch her gaze. This had to stop...he decided as he took in her beaten look.
"Over my dead body...is when that blasphemy is ever coming true" he spit out in a rush, before the passion took the better of his senses. He cursed, as he wondered why he always behaved like a dim wit around her off late. It's the distance, he stressed mentally and accounted for the baled up sexual tension that the snipping arguments kindled between them.
Picking himself up by resting his weight on his elbows and palms, he turned over and fell beside her. The pulse that had gone skittish a few moments ago was now beginning to stabilize. His hand ran over hers and laced with her fingers to bring it back to his chest. She felt the thrumming of his heart, but while it stayed there longer, she was hearing a different longing beat there. His riveted gaze upon her for the entire time, made her shuffle consciously as she looked the other side. And when the pulsing drone made her hallucinate a melancholic rhythm alongside the still silence, she lifted her eyes to him. His soft pleading eyes was speaking in ways, he had not yet learnt to do so with words and when she could not hold his gaze for any lengthy of time, she faltered it back to the roof and closed her eyes once again. There was little left to comprehend, that his pain over their separation, resonated with her own. She was unyielding when it came to that request of his.
"Don't do that again" She managed a firm tone with him.
"Why? Does it bother you?..." Unable to think up of anything, he added "But you just kissed me back" His mind was muddled with an eager expectation that he couldn't understand. His boyish heart was skipping a beat reading too much into the situation, when he knew better than to expect that she would 'let him go so easy'.
"When it comes to kissing you Abhi" She paused to face him "I give up. I can never hold back, but it doesn't do anything to those memories that haunt me" Lowering her voice, she continued as her voice broke into a low cry of despair "How do I make them go away?" He noticed she was tearing up and her hand relaxed in unwarranted surrender on his chest, like she was giving away her vulnerable self in response to his argument.
"Why did you leave me?" Her body wrecked in aching sobs as she asked him the one question he had long expected to confront him. It slit his guts and his strength left him as he maintained her gaze. Naked; it was how he felt as guilt stripped him bare and a raw emotion of self-loathing surfaced within him.
"I believed you Abhi...but why wouldn't you believe me? After all it was OUR baby" She let go of her defenses and bundled up by the corner of the foot of the bed. The fact that their baby was only a mention of the past tore him apart in misery and it grew stronger in degree when it came down to the part he had left her in that traumatizing situation. He leaned in, supporting himself with his elbow and stroked her racking forehead and hushed her to calm down.
"I'm never going to be able to make up for that incident, but knowing that, doesn't mean I will give up on us either..." He took a pillow and supported her head. Falling inline with her body, his arms embraced her. He didn't know how he had geared up to speak up to her accusation, but it was without doubt he was holding on to that spirit by a shredding thread.
"I will do everything there is to get you back and even when I would have you, it won't stop there...My penitence is for the period of my life, however long it is...and I will live out that time never giving up to make amends"
Her stained cheeks began to dry up as the tears that brimmed her eyes, stilled. "You don't ever have to forgive me or do anything against your will...trust me" He beseeched, holding her bangs above her temples, that forced its way over her face.
"I only wish you would let me stay around longer, to prove I'm here to win you back" With that he got up from her side. Observing that she was far from breaking up again emotionally, he left the room. This night was for hers to stay there...while his rush to get back with her will just have to slumber for the time being...but only until her own need for the same transcends above all else.
To be continued...
I surprised myself, writing this up in no time. Rishabh will just have to endure for a little while longer, but all in good time folks...so just hang in there. Oh! yeah next onto our very own Maan and Geet.