Chapter 20

Alright guys, here's the next part, the part you've all been waiting for!

Chapter 20:

When they arrived home he waited, waited for her to say something, anything. However Naina appeared to be determined to avoid the conversation, instead moving to the kitchen to make some chai. Raj noticed her hands shaking as she tried to put the tea in the pot but fails again and again. Moving towards her, he takes the spoon out of her hands and does it himself, before grabbing her hands in his.
     
"Naina, talk to me." He tells her, and then waits.

"What should I tell you?" Naina whispers, avoiding looking him in the eye.

"Are you really that hurt by it?" Raj asks her, his heart aching at the thought, "Did you really love him?"

"Why else would I get engaged to him?" Naina asks Raj, but there's something false about her words, as if she's trying too hard to get him to stop asking questions.

Naina takes her hands out of Raj's and starts stirring the pot on the stove, turned away from him.

"You know Naina," Raj says carefully, "That's the same question I've been wanting to ask you for months." And then he takes the spoon out of her hands and places it on the bench, turning her back around to face him.

"The milk will boil over," Naina tells him nervously, reaching for the spoon again.

In reply, Raj reaches over and turns the stove off. "There, happy?" he asks her, "We'll make the tea after we've talked."

"Raj, please…" Naina says, as if asking him to just leave the conversation here.

Instead Raj grabs her shoulders, holding her so that she can't look away. "Did you love him, Naina? Answer my question properly."

Angrily Naina shrugs his hands off her shoulders and moves away, "How can you ask me that? Are you saying that I would get engaged to someone I don't love?"

"Just answer my question, damn it!" Raj yells at her, frustrated by her continued evasive answers.

"No!" She screams back at him, "I never loved him!" And then suddenly realising what she's said, she stares at Raj in horror, before hurriedly walking away.

But Raj isn't ready to give up. All of these months he's forced himself to stay away from her. Forced himself to forget how much he wants her, how much his body aches for her. All of these months he did so, not because he believed she loved Huda, but because he didn't want to force her to break her vow.

"You are not going to do this to me Naina," Raj tells her, crossing the room in quick strides and grabbing her wrist to swing her back around to face him. "If you didn't love Huda then why did you do this? Were you really willing to ruin all three of our lives???"

Naina stares at him in astonishment, not ready to believe what he's just said, what he's just admitted.

"I don't know what you're talking about." She tells him, even as she struggles to free her wrist from her grip. But Raj is stronger than her, and he's not going to let go until she tells the truth.

"Don't pretend, Naina." Raj tells her, grabbing her other wrist with his remaining hand. "You know perfectly well what I'm talking about."

"Don't do this, Raj." She tells him pleadingly, "Don't say it."

"Don't say what??" He asks her, practically screaming now. "That I love you? That I'm crazy about you? That I'd do anything for you? That when I heard you'd got engaged to Huda it was like someone had stabbed me in the heart?" Naina stares at him in shock, and a tear rolls down her cheek at his words. "Don't pretend that you didn't know, Naina. I had hoped that… I had believed that…"

Raj looks into her eyes, trying to work out what it is that she's feeling and what it is that she's concealing. "Do you love me, Naina?" he asks her.

Naina looks away again, biting her bottom lip. Raj knows that she hates to lie, and he knows that she's preparing herself to. "No," she tells him, far too quickly, "No I don't."

"Don't lie to me, Naina." He tells her in a dangerously quiet voice, "Not tonight. This has gone far enough, and after everything we've been through, tonight you have to tell the truth."

"I don't!" she yells at him, "I really, really…" But she never finishes her sentence, because twisting one of her arms behind her back, Raj presses her to him and kisses her. She had never imagined that he would kiss her like this, with both passion and anger. Raj kisses her so forcefully that Naina is sure her lips will be bruised by the end of it, but she's having trouble remembering why she had ever refused him in the first place. He kisses her as if he's breathing her in, as if he wants to melt into her.

By the time Raj lets go of her arm, she's long stopped struggling and has started kissing him back instead. Finally Raj breaks off the kiss and they stand there staring at each other, barely centimeters apart and breathing hard.

"Why Naina, why?" he asks her, his voice full of pain.

"Because I loved you too much to ruin your life." She whispers, almost afraid to admit it.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Do you have any idea how I felt when you were missing for a month?" she asks him, "Do you know how I felt when you were arrested? I knew what was happening to you, that they were torturing you. And do you know what I kept thinking?" she asks him, practically crying now but fighting to keep the tears back. "I kept thinking that if you hadn't loved me then none of this would've happened and you would never have taken such a risk."

"But Naina, I…"

"No, listen, Raj." She tells him, knowing that if she doesn't tell him tonight she'll never tell him at all. "You loved me enough to sacrifice your life for me, and how did I repay you? I shot you. I accused you. I mistrusted you. Now you ask yourself, was I in any way worthy of the love you had for me? No, I wasn't." Naina has begun crying now, "Trust me, Raj. You're better off without me, I don't deserve you and I'm not the right girl for you."

Raj stares at her, not able to believe that this was the reason she had gotten engaged to Huda.

"Naina, I can't believe that…" he stops, trying to work out exactly what he should say in reply. "Naina, even if you were right, you would've been ruining yours and Huda's lives too? Do you think you ever would've been happy? Do you think that he wouldn't have figured out you didn't love him? Do you think that he would've been happy then?"

Naina cries even harder, for the first time realising what a mistake she had made, how stupid she had been. She collapses to her knees on the floor, unable to stand any longer. Taking the engagement ring off her finger, she throws it at the wall, sobbing.

Raj kneels down on the floor beside her and takes her hands in his. All of his anger and frustration is gone and he's back to being the Raj that she knows. Gentle, kind, loving. He holds her hands tenderly as if he's afraid that she'll get hurt.

"Naina," he whispers, and tilts her chin up with one hand so that she's looking at him, "I don't know which one of us does or doesn't deserve the other but I do know one thing, I don't want any other girl except you."

Slowly he leans forward, placing one hand behind her head to tangle it in her hair. This time before Raj kisses her, he searches for consent in her eyes. Finding it, he closes the distance between them, and kisses her gently, carefully, as if she's the most precious and delicate thing in the world, and he's afraid that he might break her. Bringing his hand forward, he cups her cheek, Naina is faintly aware that she's holding one of his hands, and that her other hand rests on his knee.

"I'm sorry, Naina." Raj tells her, "I shouldn't have been like that earlier."

"No, I'm sorry." She tells him sincerely, "I can't believe how stupid I've been. I thought what I was doing was for the best, but you're right, it would've ruined all of our lives."

Wrapping his arms around her protectively, Raj hugs her, rocking her back and forth as if comforting a child. Naina places her arms around his neck, rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes, happy to finally be able to accept his comfort. Placing one arm around her back and the other under her legs, Raj lifts her easily and carries her to the bed, placing her there gently.

Naina looks at him questioningly but he shushes her and turns off the light before climbing into bed himself. Hugging Naina tightly to him, he kisses her on her shoulder and whispers to her to go to sleep.

Naina drifts off quickly, but wakes a couple of hours later, unable to work out why. She realises that she's too warm, with Raj's arms wrapped around her securely and the heat from his body. Intending to free herself from his body, she finds herself turning to face him instead, and Raj wakes quickly at the movement. Neither of them had intended it, but their faces are so close together, and Raj raises a hand to caress Naina's cheek, thinking how beautiful she looks in the moonlight filtering in from the upper window.

Naina isn't sure why, but it seems right to kiss him at that moment, so she does. Raj isn't sure why, but there seems nothing wrong with deepening the kiss or even with slipping his hands underneath her kameez so that they're touching her soft skin. When Naina gasps into his mouth it just inspires him to deepen the kiss, his hands caressing her body. As their kissing becomes even more heated or urgent, Naina struggles to take off Raj's shirt, before running her hands over his chest, his back, enjoying the feel of his warm skin under her hands. When he begins to tug at her kameez to try and lift it off her, instead of objecting she finds herself helping him instead. Kissing down her neck, across her shoulder, Raj allowed his hands to roam freely, encouraged even more by the sounds that Naina keeps making. Finally, no more barriers of clothing stand between them and he hesitates, realising exactly how many consequences this next step has for both of them. He's a fugitive on the run, he has nothing to offer her. Not a home, not a family, not safety. "Naina…" he whispers, wanting to ask her if he should stop, or if they've already gone too far.

But by this stage Naina doesn't care anymore, she's sick of thinking about what's right or wrong, or what other people would think of what she's doing. All she knows is that this is exactly where she's meant to be and that she wants him.

"Raj," she tells him, "I love you."

"I love you too," he replies, and she kisses him, arching her back so that their bodies are even closer together.

It's all the invitation that Raj needs.

**

The next morning Naina wakes up to find Raj's arm around her, his legs entangled with hers and his head buried in her neck. Cautiously, Naina moved towards the edge of the bed, trying to disentangle herself from him, despite his murmurs of protest.

She gets up, her whole body aching, and begins searching for her clothes. When she finally finds them, flung in a heap a short way from the bed, she notices with a bit of annoyance that her kameez has been ripped. It was one of her favourites.

Glaring slightly in Raj's direction, she puts it on anyway and moves towards the kitchen, wanting to make them some chai. It's then that Naina begins to giggle, unable to control herself.

Waking up, Raj raises himself, leaning on one elbow. "What's so funny?" he asks her.

Naina points at the stove, where the pot from last night is still sitting, its contents intact.

"It's lucky you turned off the stove." She tells him, and Raj laughs too before getting up and coming over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist from the back and leaning his chin on her shoulder, he turns his head to kiss her cheek.

"Why are you out of bed?" he asks her mischievously, "Who said that you could get up?"

"I thought I'd make you some tea." She tells him, enjoying the feel of his body against hers.

"Who cares about tea?" Raj asks her.

"Don't you have to go to work?"

"Well, Begum Jaan, today is a Sunday." Raj informs her, "Therefore no work for me, which means that you should come back to bed with me right now."

Naina laughs and allows him to pick her up and carry her there. She's sure that she should be feeling guilty about something right now, but no matter how much she tries she just can't make herself feel bad.

Naina figures that they've both had enough guilt, pain and sorrow to last a life time. For at least a few moments, they can forget everything. For at least a few moments, they can try to be happy.