Part 111: Marjaawan...Tere ishq mein
"I can't believe this Geet...you have been ignoring me and my clothes" He tilted his head close to the bathroom door and listened in for a murmur. She wasn't talking to him, miffed that he wasn't going to wear the sherwani she'd picked for the occasion.
"I'm talking to you..." He said raising his pitch.
She tapped her fingers on the bathroom counter momentarily and then returned to toweling her hair.
"My buttons are all gone from this one...I need some help stitching them back" He said, helplessly looking down at his simple cotton kurta that was opened low, giving a peek into his chest.
Unable to hold herself back, she responded. "Exactly why you should wear the shaadi wala sherwani"
"Geet...don't be so adamant...It's heavy and I'm not wearing designer clothes for a small homely affair"
"Since when did a wedding become a small occasion...Maan?"
"Are we going to converse through closed doors for the rest of the day?" He rapped on the door.
"I can't...I'm not fully dressed and secondly if I don't straighten my hair now, they are going to curl up soon" She started running her fingers through her hair, to ease through the tangles.
"The first one is inconsequential to me...and for the second one...I like it when your hair curls" He had a silly grin on his face.
The door opened right after the compliment and she was snaking her head out. "Really?" She was unable to contain the eagerness upon hearing him give her something so specific about what he liked in her, when the most he'd said to her was that she looked beautiful.
"Ok...That did it..." He crossed his arms with a condescending smile "Just fix my buttons"
He was turning out to be a devil with each passing day, she concluded. Even as his other arm was healing, she still had no hope to escape the vile clutches of his evil arm, if she were to attempt fleeing inside once again. "Humh!" She made a face, set her lips in a firm line and went to fetch her sewing kit.
With a button tucked between the teeth and the other held against his kurta, she took all her time running the thread through his kurta and the button holes. Obviously it was her fault, in making him stare at her like she was a nymph from another world. The things she did to him...he had a mental chuckle at that.
At first he had gone cross eyed when he'd seen her come out in her shaadi lehenga and the same wine red V-neck top that went under her long choli; the very same one that had driven him mad the night of their wedding and the other glorious night of love making in the very same room. He'd steadied himself and shut his hanging jaw instantly to show no surprise; else he was certain he couldn't lure her out of her hiding. Now it felt like revenge on her part for deceiving her into opening the door. If only she would let him touch her...
The evil temptress that she was had refused to even kiss him right for the entire time it was taking him to heal. She'd reasoned, she didn't trust them when their bodies when their minds lost control so easily on bed. It had all seemed viable to stay chaste when one of his arm, often took comfort in a sling. But three weeks had done things to his hormones, he'd least imagined. They had sprouted a mind of their own and were staging a mutiny to break control. Perhaps now was the time to give into them after all.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" She didn't look at him as she pulled the needle tip out of the cloth.
"You are a temptress you know that right..." He gave her another one of his devious smiles "As a matter of fact I suspect you were not dressed when I knocked...If anything, you took off your lehenga blouse before you came out"
"Chi Chi Babaji..." She shook her head in disgust "I'm not the one who plays games with you...not when you are hurt"
"I'm perfectly fine" He countered.
She thought of letting her focus slip and let the needle's sharp edge pierce his chest. But a faint trace of a healing clot came into view and she decided against it. "Yes you are...fine..." She knew better than to argue with him then. It would only prolong her work there by their bed.
"Then why haven't you kissed me...It's been almost 3 weeks now" She still hadn't met his gaze, and it bothered him.
"Because it hasn't been two days since they removed the stitches on your lip and I can't hurt you"
"Look up..." She said, as she bent her head to cut the thread using her teeth, even as he sighted a scissor in the box. Her breath stoked his chest and that was his last straw.
She came up and saw his eyes gleam with lazy seduction. There was still one more button to go and she was losing control herself. "No...I'm not letting you have your way" She knotted her brows at him and he snorted at her.
"Tsk Tsk...Wrong choice of words my luv"
Before she knew, she was on the bed and he was on top of her. But her elbow must have hit the remote on the bed and suddenly she heard 'the' song. The same one that had raised the tempo of their passion eons ago back at the Khurana mansion. There was something so achingly beautiful about the tone that had connected with her then and it still did as it oddly symbolized the same deep sentiment they shared for each other.
"Why is that song playing on our system?" She'd never once heard anything but blaring rock in his collection and she was surprised he even had a hindi song playing, let alone her favorite.
"I was writing a CD for the sangeet..."
"And you couldn't think of anything else other than that song?" She raised a brow at him.
"Why? Something wrong with that song?"
"It's just..." She hesitated, thinking he would dismiss her as mawkish "It's just our song don't you think..."
"We have a song?" He looked curious. She was glad he was at least concentrating on what she had to say, unlike her, when the weight of a very male...irresistible body of her husband pressed her down to the bed, making her head spin with incense.
"Maan...I mean this song was playing on my birthday... remember?" Her face filled with raw impatience waiting for him to acknowledge something that was of such importance to her. He seemed clueless instead.
"Oh! god...who am I trying to remind...why would you keep your memory filled with useless trivial details like that?" She sniveled with a long face. He laughed and tipper her head back, holding her chin.
"And you were wearing my Kurta...when I was coming back from the gym. I was in my black track and vest. Exactly when it could have been our first kiss, your pinhead friends called" He ended with mock anger.
"You remember?..." Her eyes grew wide with surprise, but it soon changed to annoyance the instant she wanted to add something else. "And they are your friends too"
"Of course...Geet" He rolled his eyes at her and his voice lowered into a whisper "When it comes to you, every damn detail is important"
"Don't talk like that..." She tried to scoot over from under him "You are making me nostalgic. Thinking of all those antsy moments before marriage makes my toes curl..."
"Well I can give do a lot of things that can make your toes curl now..." He drawled in that dallying charming voice of his, as he restrained her entirely with his body.
"Maan please..." She breathed out in a whimper as his head bent close to her face.
"You still owe me that kiss...you know" His voice was gentle and demanding all at once, that she failed to find a quick comeback to that.
He looked at her as if she was something fit to eat. But when she peered into his eyes, she realized it wasn't the kind of hunger that would sate with a simple kiss. For a minute she thought all the brown in his eyes disappeared and filled with a black so dark...that night borrowed its mystery from the depths in his eyes.
His day old stubble abraded her cheeks as he grazed his lips close to her mouth and it was acts like these that made her come alive with a limber and soft womanliness. It reminded the power she yielded over him and he would never know what delirium of overpowering sense his desiring gaze gave her when she felt so needed. She would never have believed had it not happened, but now she knew it wasn't all powerless to lie beneath a man; to be raked by his touch or abused by his ruthless lips. Certainly not by her husband, when he not only gave her a good beard burn that lasted long after the time he was done with her lips, but loved her to her soul's fill when he kissed her like that.
She smiled against his mouth at her last thought and he crushed her lips harder when he reckoned he was not doing his best to steal her of all her sanity.
She shouldn't have given away the traitor of a smile, for she was suffering now from the pounding of his torturous lips. Only he'd suddenly gone all soft on her and handled her body as it was forbidden for her to experience a full deliberate touch from him. He was skimming over her skin like it would hurt her if he was any less delicate than that, gliding the pad of his fingers over the rise and fall of her body. His lips slowed as he lapped his mouth tenderly over the moist of her silken lips; at times coming to a perfect stillness that her mouth quivered from anticipation.
It took all of her to submit to that teasing, pervasive kiss, when he suckled her strength and life-force right down to her toes that it curled as if it cued her submission. The palm of her hand rose up his chest as he gave every string of his attention on that deep, sensual kiss to reinforce their attraction from the forlorn days. Their fingers weaved by the curve of her waist as an effort to keep his hands roaming elsewhere. And she knew he wouldn't break the sanctity of the kiss while re-living their could-have-been first kiss moment. When the aching began to feel his wet probing tongue on other tingling parts of her, she drew up on all of her sane mind to push him away gently.
His gaze came back to her...and her form by his side felt like hot burning ambers. Any more of that lingering kiss with his controlled touches, she thought she would writhe in devilish agony. Sitting up, she halted splaying a palm on her forehead. So this is how it would have felt like, she asked herself. Was she glad or what that she hadn't felt his lips before marriage?
She got to her feet and walked silently to their closet, while he followed closely.
Once there, he had a taunting look on his face entirely unaffected, when she still felt the surge in her blood. "Geet...I don't have a choice except buying a button company..." She gave a shy smile with her back facing him, as she reckoned she'd ruined the button she'd just stitched onto his Kurta.
"If this continues I wouldn't be surprised if I'm the top buyer of my own company"
She turned and gave him a mock angry stare "See...This is why I asked you to wear the other one..."
He was fighting to get out of his kurta and she rushed to his side, pulling it off one hand "This one is so difficult to get out of Maan...you never listen" She chided him.
He was barely done, whisking himself out of his clothing, when his hand banded her waist and pulled the dori of her skimpy top she was wearing. "But yours is not..."
She didn't resist and his hands rested where her straps went over her shoulder and aided them with a perfect fall. She faced him as her half naked body glided atop his chest, and it sent shivers down the length of her body as he engulfed her in an intimate hug. With his nose tracing over her cheek and his body covering her nakedness, it made her skin go clammy in no time and a breath of longing sigh escaped her parted lips as his mouth tasted her neck...
It had been so long since she'd touched him to her heart's fill that it seemed she'd forgotten how his mountain of muscle felt beneath her palms. She wondered if all this will always appear as enticing as it was for her now. But as she waited for some familiar feeling to pass her, she concluded the desire that he evoked was deep seated in her being, imprinted beyond recognition to grow tired of. For it went beyond cheap thrills of bodily pleasures and came from a richer need to belong to each other. She was about to give in and thrust herself against him, when she heard sounds by the closet hallway. Panicking she had nothing but his cavern of body to find cover, she hid in his chest and he reacted instinctively taking her into his arms, keeping his back to the door. Oh! lord she couldn't help the sense of being so small and fragile in his hold as she stood there burying herself inside his warmth.
"Bhaiya...where are you? Why is it taking you so long?...Where is bhabhi?" Geet heard Naini stop at the turn to the closet hallway entry.
"I'm in the closet...Geet is in the bathroom" He nodded and gestured to keep her calm.
"We are waiting" Naini called to him again.
"Yes...I'm just looking for my Kurta buttons" He hushed Geet as she fought him. She pondered how he kept his cool even when they were every bit vulnerable; half-naked and all.
"I can help if you want...Are you descent?" Geet jerked as alarm kicked in her and she tried to pull away, but he refused to let her go.
"No...No...I can find it" He craned his neck backwards to assure his sister, but it was too late by then.
"Erhm!..." Naini cleared her throat as she gave them a smug smile from the closet entrance, eyeing her brother's bare back. Geet clawed her way into his body as he rolled his eyes and gave a wan smile. Geet had gone through the mortification of being caught like that so many times, that it no longer felt as deadly it once did.
With no trace of embarrassment, Naini's hands shot to her waist. "You know guys... I'm not even able to quote the cliche...asking you to get a room"
"Naini...Close the bedroom door" He ordered as he heard Naini's retreating steps. Geet sighed and shook her head, resigning no hope for herself.
"No...you better come soon" She yelled back to her amusement and to his annoyance. Geet shoved him out with a laugh once the coast was clear and dragged on the sliding door, latching it shut so he wouldn't get back in. She giggled as he pleaded from the crack of opening between the door and wall, asking her to let him back into the room. It was then she corrected that it was her husband she had no hope for. He truly was beginning to come across as a love sick puppy.
***
He searched for her amidst the crowds that thronged their living room and she slipped his gaze only rarely, showing up talking or giggling with a bunch of woman. She looked lovely in her lehenga and it made him overcome his awe in noticing that even after five months of marriage, she glanced at him with the same coyness she had the day she'd walked around the mandap with him.
"Bhaiya...your wallet" Naini came running and raised her palm to his face. "Jaldi Jaldi..." She hurried him and as he offered it from his pocket, she snatched it from him and ran towards Meera's bedroom.
His sister came back in no time, with an empty wallet, which was obvious from its flattened shape and he smiled at the ease they had finally found between each other.
He was about to put the wallet back into his pocket, when something stopped him and made him look inside the wallet. That was when he cussed loud, making a few of the people nearby shoot puzzled looks at him.
"Oh! god..." His eyes flew to the floor searching for the tiny blue crystal he always carried with him. He cursed himself for not being careful and taking it out, before he'd given his sister the purse. It was only a small bauble from her, but he'd grown so attached to seeing it in his coin pouch ever since, that it felt like he'd lost a part of her that he always carried with him. He traced the path to Meera's bedroom, looking everywhere, not wanting to miss out an inch of the floor space on his way there. Lord! No...his mind screamed and he sensed the frustration peak in his head.
"I think you are missing this..." He heard her address him from behind their bedroom door, with the crystal in the center of her palm. Whew! He was breathing again. Adjusting his shoulder sling, he pushed the door back and saw her gaze at him with utmost understanding of how much it meant to him.
"What is mine always finds its way back to me..." He smiled and tossed it in the air to catch it again and drop it in his wallet.
"And mine...I'm never taking it off...in other words letting it go" She said. He turned her wrist and saw the quartz perched comfortably in the middle of her bracelet.
"What hopeless romantics we have become?" He said, nudging her to twirl as he raised his mangled fingers over her head. Once she faced him again, he took his arm out of his sling and held her waist, swaying her gently to the tunes of Marjaawan that still played low on their music system. Somehow she had left it on repeat when leaving the room, not having the heart to turn it off.
"Why are you doing this Maan?" Her eyes glistened with tears then. She'd waited a long time for him to take her into a dance. Though it didn't carry the passionate steps that she'd seen him do with Meera - and she knew he'd done it only because the class had required it - from prior to their marriage, he never had joined her, even when she'd playfully indulged him a few times whenever she'd practiced in their room. It gave her some strange closure when he bent her in a step and straightened her in his arms that were wrapped around her waist. Her hands rested on her chest, memorizing every step and measuring the closeness of their bodies as he finally took to the art form that gave her a way to speak without words. Her dolor and wait rose in a wave and ebbed in that moment with him, just as she placed her cheek close to his collar and paced her foot with his moves.
"Because I know you always wanted to dance with me?" He seemed surprised she was questioning him, when he'd been certain she'd always wanted this.
"Then why didn't you offer to do so before?" She met his eyes, raising her head from his chest.
"Well I thought I had all my life in front of me to ask you..." He spoke in a low grating voice that told her he was sorry he hadn't asked her earlier. However, a cheerful optimism soon showed up in his voice and that brought the smile back to his face. "But now, I guess I have become a firm believer of living in the now...living like every minute is the last one I have with you..."
"Would you mind not talking about it?...I like to imagine I have seven more lives with you" She said solemnly and went back to laying her head on him again, folding in the gentle moves with which he took her feet.
"Well seven more of this...Hmm! I have to think about it Geet" He looked contemplative and she tightened a fist and he took a hit light as a feather to his good shoulder.
"Stop it Maan...you are spoiling it all for me" He laughed and then silently swayed her to the tune.
"Geet..." He faced her with a million dreams in his eyes "If I have to do it all again...you should know I would gladly do it all over with you all seven times... A cause de toi" (because of you)
"Babaji...not that French thing..." She was as proud as a peacock when he ordered in French at restaurants as if he was a thoroughbred French, although at times like this she hated him from keeping her from entirely immersing herself in his words. He did this to her often in the recent past, after the attack more precisely. And to her disbelief they also meant everything to her and understood nothing of it, just as the one he'd said then. It always came from another part of him and sounded profound in a way like those pithy yet deeply insightful truths of life that hardly ever meant only one thing and gave away so many different perspectives at various times.
Already having learnt to resist the urge to push him into explaining it at such instances, she'd come to accept that he was a man who would always hide behind his words. It was their secret hide and seek he loved to play with her, which she'd only come to realize more recently that, that was what kept their push and pull alive...making her love him more dearly than the second that passed them by.
Raising herself on tip toes, she brought her lips close to his ears. "Hot chocolate..." She whispered in response, speaking in yet another one of their secret codes that was all and everything in their world.
Yay! Ok...off to home now and onto the next part...So we all know there were no attacks at Peets's.
😆. You guys keep commenting, because the more comments, the sooner, you get it. 😉 Thanks so much for all your comments and I loved responding to them.
Edited by 6thElement - 13 years ago
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
44