Chapter 25

Farah

@farah53

Hey all, so here's part 23...Enjoy..


& I know for a fact almost everyone gets angry on ASR when he goes all Komodo Dragon on Khushi..& here I have something in this chapter which even reminded me of the Pearl Dori breaking sequence while writing it, so I am pretty sure none of my buddies would want this chapter dedicated to them..So this chapter, by default, goes to me.. I am actually missing the whole IPK package since last night & I hope I get over soon!

Arnav had yelled the last words at the top of his voice & as a result, he saw her flinch with the force & volume of his shout. & then she suddenly turned her face to look at him with such force, that Arnav thought their noses would bump. & as his eyes took on the look in her eyes, he felt his fingers loosen their grip on her soft flesh.

Her eyes looked like they had looked that day, when the sun rays had fallen on them. Like liquid gold. But the look in them was not in any way similar to that day. That day she had looked at him as if in a daze. Today she looked at him with such a mix of fury & loathing, that Arnav was sure the heat of her rage was the factor that melted the honey-gold orbs to golden pools. He saw her purse her lips tightly, drawing attention to their perfect bowed shape & the next moment she opened them to spat at him angrily, "WHY? You can't just grab me & tell me you won't let the marriage take place & expect me to coyly accept your decision. Besides the point that it's none of your freaking business whether this wedding takes place or not, I am also willing to look over the fact that you're behaving like a completely delusional, irrational pig, if you could just give me one valid reason behind why you wouldn't let this marriage take place!"

She saw Arnav look at her through narrowed eyes for several seconds. Then suddenly the look in his changed, as she felt his hold on her turned from punishing to caressing abruptly. His left arm snaked possessively around her waist, bringing her lower body in close contact to his. The heat she felt coming from his groin made Khushi let out a small anguished cry, but the cry got stilled in the middle of her throat as she felt his left palm slowly going up the side of her back, caressing everywhere it touched. She looked up at his eyes startled, just to find his eyes were on her face, looking calculative as if trying to gaze her reaction. & then she felt the violent jerk.

Khushi's left hand flew to her breasts on their own volition as she felt Arnav's arms pulling her into his body with a violent jerk & his other hand pulled the knotted halter neck of her dress open with a vicious pull. Her mouth fell open as she looked at him with eyes that were both shocked & horrified, & before she could say anything, he pressed his mouth to her already open one.

Khushi's free hand pushed at his chest to escape his sudden ministrations, & she tried to pull her lips apart from his, but his hand brushed the straps of the now open neckline of her dress aside, & his hand cupped her bare neck firmly to keep her head in place to receive his kisses. Khushi squeezed her eyes shut to escape the feel & taste of his lips moving against hers. But how could she, when suddenly his hard lips softened on hers? The strong hold on her nape slackened a bit as his hand started stroking her nape caressingly. & she heard with disbelief at her own treacherous emotions as a moan left her throat at his slow exploration of her mouth.

When he felt her lack of participation in the kiss, he pulled back from the deep kiss, & started teasing her lips by briefly sucking on them, until Khushi could no longer take it & she felt her lips pulling his lower lip back inside her mouth when he was about to pull it back. & to her outrage, she instantly felt his lips trembling as he gave a smirk that resonated through her whole form. & before she could react to that, she felt his arm that was around her waist, come up & grasping her hand clutching her purse, which was also pressing her open dress to her breasts, he pulled it down & pinned it behind her back twisting it in his own.

As Khushi started to struggle to free her pinned hand, he abruptly wrenched his lips away & after searching each feature of her face for several seconds, he bent his hand & started showering butterfly kisses over her half exposed breasts along the neckline of her dress. With each kiss he pushed her neckline a little bit down, exposing a little more of her skin, but Khushi was past caring now.

The way Arnav was touching her now, she had never been touched this way. & if the whole thing hadn't happened so suddenly, she would never have let him go this far, not even him. But now that he was doing these things to her which he had clearly had a lot of expertise in, she felt like the whole inside of her head was in a tailspin & heart would come out through her throat any minute. She almost hated him for whatever he had said in the last 10 minutes, but in her heart of hearts, this jerk was the man she loved. & Khushi was left powerless in front of his merciless seduction.

So she did the only thing she could. Her free hand slowly pressed on his shoulder, moulding his hard muscles under her palms, before it rode up to cup the side of his face, rubbing her soft palm against his rough stubble. & as he felt her palm against his cheek, he slowly looked up at her. Her head was slightly tilted back, her lips parted to draw spurts of breaths, her lids half-closed & the look in her hazy eyes was purely that of an addicted person. Arnav drew back a little & his hand that was still on her nape pushed her head up, so that she was forced to look at his eyes. He looked at her penetratingly & said in a raspy voice, "Is that reason enough for you?"

Khushi blinked her eyes furiously several times to clear the haze from over her eyes & clear her confused, cloudy brain. Then as she saw him just studying her face intently, she removed her hand from his cheek hastily & asked in a confused whisper, "What reason?!" He almost gloated with a smirk as his face glowed with the elation of victory, then he drawled in a sinfully satisfied voice, "The reason, Khushi, for me to stop this wedding!" & as Khushi saw his gloating face, she felt rage raising the blood from her lower body parts to her face & her ears almost buzzed with the sudden rush of blood. So he was proving a point, showing some twisted reason to her with all those assaults? & although she still couldn't understand what his real reason was behind this strong aversion to Payal & Akaash's alliance, she knew that he had just played with her feelings towards him callously, destructively.

Khushi jerked her torso to free her hand from his grip, & stopped dead when she heard him chuckle. As she looked at him with pure loathing, he smirked, but his eyes remained hard as he said, "Go ahead. Struggle all you want." Khushi gritted her teeth & bit out furiously, "You DEVIL! You'd like that, wouldn't you? Just so you could show that physically you're stronger than me, right?" Arnav leaned an inch closer as his eyes bore into hers, as he said in a whisper, "Wrong. I was actually thinking about what it would do to the open front of your dress."

As soon as he finished talking with a lecherous glance towards her way more than decently exposed cleavage, she felt the fight leaving her body, leaving her speechless in its wake. Arnav waited several seconds for her to say something, but when she didn't, a satisfied glint entered his eyes, & he said in a businesslike tone, "Stop this marriage. Or I will." & then suddenly he pushed her away & turned away to get back to their private banquet. He couldn't have taken more than five steps away though, when he felt something hitting him squarely on his back, & as he turned around, he saw Khushi's purse lying on the ground in front of his feet. & as he looked up, he encountered her bloodshot eyes, as she almost screamed "But everything you did now just proves what a jerk you are. It still doesn't tell me why you don't want my Jiji marrying your brother, you bas***d!"

Arnav took a warning step toward her & said in a menacing voice, "Careful, Khushi! & I don't have any problem with Akaash marrying Payal. What I do have a huge issue with is you reacting to me like that & then marrying that cartoon NK with the same degree of eagerness that you show in my arms!" As he stopped to take a breath, finally getting the huge boulder pressing over his chest off, he felt the first prickles of alarm going off in his system as he took in Khushi's expression. Numb struck might be the closest word for it, but even that didn't do justice to the horrifyingly blank look on her face.

Khushi was looking at him, but she didn't even see him as her brain tried to process what he had just said. Then she asked in a soft voice, a too soft voice, the first question that came to her mind, "How do you know I am marrying NK when I, myself, don't know this?" Arnav had a seriously squeamish feeling inside himself as he took a careful step towards her, & said in a carefully schooled emotionless voice, "You gave your Kundali to Nani?" But even as he said it questioningly, he had started to have the nagging feeling that he had gone too far today & all for the wrong reasons.

Khushi clutched the front of her dress tightly in her fist & started counting to 10. Then she gave up as she reached 4, & looking up at him, said in a deceptively calm voice, "So don't even try to correct me if I am wrong, which I doubt I am, but you thought one of the two Kundalis I gave to Naniji was mine, which it wasn't, & then you thought I gave it to her for my alliance with NK, which I did not. Then you came all over me & without asking me any coherent questions, started issuing orders to me to stop the marriage, which existed only in your twisted mind & then you started ripping my dress open. & all of this because you are a first grade idiot! Ain't I bang on till now?"

Arnav opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. There weren't many occasions in life where his deduction had been proven wrong. & even fewer occasions when someone had tried to show his mistake to his face. & as he looked at the petite person standing in front him, her hand still bunching her dress to her heaving chest & her eyes shooting daggers at him, for the first time in a long while, Arnav Singh Raizada actually started to feel apologetic. But to feel it was one thing, & to come right out & apologize to someone, after so long of being out of practice, was another.

As Khushi stood there waiting for him to say something, suddenly he bent down his head. & at first Khushi's eyes rounded thinking he might be trying to show some remorseful gesture, but when he straightened, she saw her clutch held in his hand. She felt her face harden as he slowly came forward & grabbing her free hand handed the clutch to her. She was actually felling very cold, through & through, after the last 15minutes, & as Arnav's warms hand engulfed hers, she shivered jerkily & snatched her hand back.

As Khushi almost cringed away from his touch, Arnav felt like he had just collided with an invisible wall. & when he saw her turning away to go towards the Ladies', he knew he wouldn't be able to bridge the gap later if he let things from this fight remain unresolved right now. He reached out in a flash & seized her hand again to hold her back & saw her back stiffen immediately.

Khushi closed her eyes tightly to keep her feeling at bay & said in a voice suppressed with rage, "I don't know why this always happens to me, but trust me, right now, if you don't let go my hand, I'll do the exact same thing I did the last time someone tried to grab a piece of me. I'll scream this place down." Arnav pulled her back as if he hadn't even heard her, & Khushi almost jumped out of her skin as she felt his hot breath on her nape. She fisted her hands tightly as he ran his hands over her shoulders in a soothing way. Then she suddenly felt a pull against her chest & with great astonishment felt his warm fingers deftly tying the flaps of her dress up. & he finished up the job, snuggling her neckline up more demurely than even she had done it, & then he whispered against her ears, "I am so sorry. I.. Khushi, I just didn't know which way was up, & which way was down." Then he swiftly pressed a kiss on her earlobe.

Khushi's hand that was pressing to her chest fell to her side as if it was lifeless, & the first coherent thought that came to her mind was, she wasn't normal. She wasn't fair. She was weak. Two men, they have behaved with her with the same degree of lechery, & whereas she hated Karan to the core, she loved this more dangerous, more disastrous one. Oh, how she loved, just loved Arnav. She turned her face the other way as his lips traced downwards towards her bare shoulders, & she knew if she didn't go away from this slow torture soon, she was going to blurt out her mind involuntary. She felt Arnav say with apparent difficulty with his lips against her shoulder, "I.. was wrong." & then he pressed a firm kiss on her shoulder.

Khushi wrenched herself away from his hold with a strangled cry & without looking back ran away towards the security of the Ladies' Room.

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Khushi couldn't even remember what all the complicated reasons were that she herself had given to Arnav that night in her home. & she shook her head with a little smile as she thought, none of those mattered anymore. Not for her. & as soon as she stepped onto that same hallway where they had been arguing not more than 10minutes ago, she froze.

There he stood. At the very end of the corridor. Just by the entrance to the foyer of the main dining hall, quite far from where Khushi was. & a girl in a short Leopard print dress had her whole body pressed against his own & her lips were doing the same to his lips. Arnav was making absolutely no efforts to get away as his hands were casually resting over the curve of the girl's hips near the backless hem of the girl's dress. & Khushi knew that dress all to well.

Didn't she wish she had the money to buy the dress when they were buying it? In fact, wasn't she the one who had spotted the dress first in the back aisle of that boutique? But she had only possessed good tastes, & not the credit balances needed to afford that dress. & it seemed like history was about to repeat itself, as Khushi saw her best friend Lavanya Kashyap once again getting something that Khushi had desired first, but unfortunately, just couldn't afford.

& to repeat myself as part of a continuation, please press 'like' if you do like, & please continue being as generous with your reviews & comments as you guys have been so far...Thank you!