She woke up to find herself nestled in his arms in a warm bath of muted sunlight. This wasn't new; prior to last night, she'd often woken with her head on his shoulder or his hand resting at her hip, so this was much more of a natural occurrence. But, today it felt different. There was something beautifully exquisite in the way her head fit so perfectly just under his neck, the way his hand unconsciously found its place around her waist, the way one of his legs had settled over hers. Because last night she had discovered that they perfectly fit each other everywhere.
She carefully moved out of his grasp to get up, unaccustomed to sleeping in late, to this new feeling of freedom. She drew open the curtains to allow in more light and then had some imperceptible sense of Viren stirring. She didn't know how she knew, she just knew. She turned to see him blink sleepily at her with a lazy smile. He held out his hand, beckoning her to him and she approached the bed.
"Kya hua?" she asked, her voice soft and languid, taking his hand in hers.
In response he merely tugged her towards him, causing her to tumble into the bed, back into his arms. He seemed to prefer her there than away from him and she couldn't say she felt differently, her nose almost brushing his, they were so close.
"I have the most beautiful woman in the world in my arms," he murmured, his voice still drowsy from sleep.
She smiled a smile of pure happiness at his words because she knew he meant this fully, he said this because he knew her fully. But, it was getting late and she said, dropping her eyes down shyly, "Chodiye na." She didn't really mean it and he knew she didn't too.
He tightened his hold on her, "Kyun? Where do you want to go?"
She didn't have an answer for him so she said, "It's getting late."
She could hear the smile in his voice as he murmured, "It's getting late? But, I haven't gotten my kiss yet..."
Her eyes lifted to his own, she couldn't keep the smile from her lips and he couldn't from his own, his nose sliding against hers. There was such reverent sweetness in his gaze, as though he couldn't quite believe she was there with him. She couldn't quite believe it herself that he wanted her so much, that he loved her so much. Her eyes closed, but he pressed his mouth to her forehead and ran his hand through her hair, "You know how I feel right now?"
She knew, but she wanted to hear it from his mouth. "How?"
"Like I'm floating on clouds, between reality and my dreams. But, I'm not alone, I'm with you. And I'm not going anywhere without you." his confession had a sort of wonder to it that made her blush because she felt the same way. "And you? How do you feel?"
Her fingers played with the lapel of his kurta, it was easier to focus on that than his face because her traitorous cheeks wouldn't stop blushing, "The same."
He brought his hand down to caress her cheek, marvelling at its softness. His fingers traced her forehead, her temple, her brows, down her nose, across her cheekbones, the line of her jaw and then parted her lips with his thumb. He looked back at her eyes but she was looking down at his lips the same way he had been looking at hers and that nearly undid him.
He was so gentle, so tender and yet, so passionate and strong, she realized. Wanting her, but only if she wanted him too. He leaned closer, his gaze flickering from her lips to her eyes, then back to her lips. His mouth brushed hers. Once. Twice. He pulled back to look at her, cheeks flushed and eyes heavily-lidded, then tangled his fingers in her hair and kissed her more deeply. Three kisses. But, the last kiss was longer, leading to a string of more kisses that left her with the heady rush akin to consuming too much rich wine and she pulled away, to catch her breath, to try and retrieve her senses that had all too easily deserted her. "Now can we go?" she opened her eyes, smilingly.
She didn't expect to see him looking just as flustered, just as dazed as she felt, lips swollen, breathing heavily, eyes darkened to almost-black. He moved closer to her again, but she turned to her side, her breaths coming as quickly as his own, unable to face him. Because if he looked like that, she knew she looked even worse.
She knew he was leaning over her by the way his breath tickled the back of her neck. His lips brushed her neck as he whispered her name like a promise, "Jeevika." His hand moved over her stomach- she was wearing a long, lacy red wrap over her nightgown that ended at her ankles- and crept under the wrap. He wasn't touching bare skin, but the silk there was thin and she could feel his warmth as clearly as though it wasn't there and she shivered. His hand froze and he asked, worry evident in his voice, "Is it- I mean, are- is this okay?" Even after all that had passed, he was still concerned that perhaps she didn't want him as much as he wanted her, that maybe she was discomfited by him.
She turned back to him and put her hand on his, nodding.
"I love you," he told her, as he had told her so many times the night before.
She smiled, looking down, "I love you, too."
"I've never felt...like this," he admitted, his thumb brushing over her hip, "Virat...he's had a girlfriend before...I've never been in love, never been in a relationship with anyone. I don't know...I was always focused on work and I was too shy to approach women I didn't know." His words were sending a confidence through her, to know that he was just as new to all this as she was.
"Me neither," she whispered, then laughed to herself, "Beeji would have my head if I did!"
He grinned. "I know. But, Dadaji and Badi Maa and Maa...they all wanted me to get married. So I agreed to an arranged marriage. All the girls I met...they were nice, but I didn't feel anything more for them than I feel for my co-workers." Jeevika smiled. "Then, I met you."
"I had fallen at your feet from a rope of dupattas!" the memory made her blush.
"When I saw you," he looked at her very intently, "I saw my entire future in your eyes. I thought you looked different. You didn't say anything to me, do you remember?"
"You didn't say anything to me, either," she added.
"No, I was stunned. You know why? Because I'd never felt anything like how I feel about you. And that was all in the space of a minute. I couldn't say anything...because what could I say?"
She looked up at him, eyes wide. "You knew you loved me, just like that?"
"No," he shook his head, "I didn't know what I was feeling. Only that you were the most beautiful person I had ever seen before and that you were so, so different. When I finally did talk to you, I realized not only are you beautiful, but intelligent and kind. You care about your family as much as I care about mine. We share the same values."
"So you agreed to the proposal, even though Manvi had been playing pranks."
"So was Virat. But, yes, I agreed."
"When did you realize you loved me?" she asked, smoothing out the front of his kurta.
"When you told me you cared nothing for Manan. When you were crying in front of me and pleading with me to believe you. And all I could think was, I made those tears happen, I made you cry and how could I have done that? And then I knew I loved you...and that you loved me."
"I didn't know I loved you, not even then," she admitted quietly.
"When did you realize?"
"I knew I cared about you...much more than I cared about anyone besides my family. But, I never defined it as love. And I hurt when we were separated, when things went wrong and I feared the marriage wouldn't happen. But, I didn't realize why I had hurt so much and why I cared about you so much until the day of our wedding. When you told me we wouldn't get married without Manvi there."
He touched his forehead to hers, his hand moving up her ribs, to her shoulder, then down again, this time down the line of her leg to her ankle, where he met bare skin. "Aur?"
"And I knew you loved me too." Her breath hitched as she felt his hand creep under her gown, lightly tracing her calf.
"Aur?" his nose touched hers, fingers tickling the back of her knee.
"Aur..." she couldn't think anymore, not with this lovely sense of intoxication returning. She shook her head slightly, "Aren't we going to get out of bed now?"
"Where do you want to go?" he repeated his question from before.
She said nothing, had no answer for him because really, she was fine where she was.
He smiled, bringing his mouth down to hers and rolling her beneath him into the bed, "Because I'm not going anywhere without you."
CID
Cricket
