FF: New York times with Maan&Geet Thread 4 09/13 - Page 65

Her fingers shook as it danced in mid-air, contemplating if it was the 24^th or the 25^th floor button that she wanted to press. A heat roll went to her head and she ran her palm roughly over her eye and temple, pulling the skin up in a tensed move. Why was it so difficult to make such an annoyingly simple decision? She screamed mentally.

Her original thoughts had been to haul him towards were her brother was sitting and leave him there. But the second she had seen Geet's pale face and expectant eyes - asking of nothing but to be left alone with her husband - she had turned around taking up the task of depositing her husband to a bed, upon herself. She wasn't going to seek attention or bring into limelight her questionable relationship with her husband, right then. And she knew better than to do that, when her bhabhi was redefining her past.

Without knowing what had come over her, she'd pressed 25 and in a few seconds, she was dropped off at their penthouse floor. His body was stitched to her side as she had his arm over her shoulder. The weight of his body weighed her down, as she almost had to drag him across the floor to their door. In those moments, she couldn't help but wonder, why her brother had not offered help to take her husband down to Meera's place. She wanted to believe that he was consumed with Geet's woes and that his intentions were not one bit siding towards a ploy, to get her to make the decisions about Rishabh's sleeping arrangements. However, there was a raw gnawing feeling that told her otherwise, which she dismissed quickly, thinking it was only her ever-present cynical self. After all uncertainty hardly ever faded and doubts were bound to be rekindled, when he lurked close to the brims of her consciousness...and her body too.

She elbowed the door of her room and from the crack that unobstructed her path, she dragged herself along with him. It seemed easy to lay him straight from of the foot of the bed and so she did, kneeling on one knee, hurling him further towards the headboard and gently letting his head to rest, while pulling a pillow down. His feet dangled from the edge and she took care of his shoes and socks, before he could draw his feet up onto the bed. She went over to the far side of the room, away from the door, and bent in to unbuckle his belt. Drawing it off the loops of his pant, she was about to get away when he did an unexpected turn and the jilting action made her fall into bed with him. Another tuck and a roll and with a few small movements, she was caught within his snares for an arm.

She wanted to get up and perhaps risk waking him up, while his hold was still light around her. But with an uncalled for nervousness she was stuck to him. Like the fall of a pebble on thin sheet glass, she felt the crack disperse in blinding speed and just like that her will to budge disintegrated. She was motionless as the clock ticked away...

It was predictably hot and his breath toasty warm that heated up every inch of her skin. She could wake up to open a window or two and with that, she knew would come the choice to walk out to another room. When she thought of the moment she would have to make a decision, by bringing up that predicament upon herself, she felt a blanket of inertia move over her body, making her muscles go limp beside his...a conspiring will jailed her inside and she hated herself for that. Sighing loudly, she tried to turn around and without a care she shuffled, but when she heard him mumble and furrow up his head, ever so slightly, she stilled holding her breath in accession. It would be shattering to her, now as she realized, that she couldn't bear to have him wake up and walk away and it left her unnerved, bruising the little of whatever pride that was left in her. And yet she didn't move.

She watched him with eyes fully on him, titling her head back and her splayed hand resting on his chest given the proximity. The faint light helped bring up the sheen on his black shirt, telling her it was new and she didn't want to believe that she was mentally chiding him for adding yet another black garment to his closet. The scolding didn't last long, as she felt the thud of his heart against her palm, dimming and thrusting into her hand, as if it was alerting his presence to her, that he was close...very close indeed.

Lost in vague overpowering thoughts of him, her finger slowly circled his top button. Like her hand was severed from the reflexes that she controlled...No it can't be her...not when it flicked the button through its hole and she saw a sliver of his pectorals come into view. And before she knew her index finger had begun tracing the curve of his singlet, carefully over the hem of it, without ever feeling his bare skin there. With time, all his buttons were off and in a bashful, slick move, she slowly tugged out his singlet, pinching in between the thumb and her index finger, all the while holding her watch over his face; vigilant for any trace or a sign that would tell her if he was awake.

She convinced herself she was only curious to see if he had grown a beer belly from all the drinking he was doing, but the truth came blaring into the forefronts of her mind, when she felt the tufts of his stomach muscle as she ran her bold hand over it. And with that, she tucked in her own belly, as her skin picked up a memory of his hand, grazing her skin there. Her eyes scrunched close as she felt a knot right where she knew he always left his fingers rest; an angle acutely off her belly button. Her lips parted, tipping her head forward which made her forehead rest on his chin, and her feet extended as a stripping nerve wrenched and her toes tingled as she fought off the naked sensations that crawled her skin.

No one should go through this, she thought, as her eyes rumpled further, and she squished up his undershirt in a cringing agony. No...no she wasn't going to kiss him. She wondered if perhaps just placing her lips close to his would relieve her of the angst. Shoving on the plush of the bed with her feet, she raised herself slowly to his lips and let it linger close, bare and shameless, secretly whispering with hope for him to kiss her back. It stayed within that reach grazing his lips whenever it quivered with painful anticipation and mix of denial that she didn't want it...but somehow needed it only because of a blinding dark spell, he had cast her under.

Her heart thundered, when he shifted brushing on the falling slope of her lips, making her sharply hold her breath in a flash, to lie flat on his back. His hand had nudged her to turn with him and now had her lay more onto his side than on the mattress itself. In the frightening escape of an abrupt twist, she had frozen in a snap, and the sudden chill that had traversed inside her was condensing over her skin, making her muslin shirt dampen with her sweat. Was she imagining all this, or was this truly happening? She wanted to check the pulse at her neck by slowly raising her hand to it as her heart raced a mile a minute. She felt his hand withdraw from her body unconsciously. He turned away and his hand from underneath her body was no longer holding her and it once again made her jump from his sudden retreating.

In nothing short of a blip, she was feeling the withdrawal of his touch, as if she recognized the draining of a drug that made her regain her cogency. She didn't need the clarity, not when it was painful and disappointing and she couldn't acknowledge it, or rather because she knew too well why she couldn't acknowledge it. By some cosmic play, she was sampling brief periods of time to tell her what it was to 'be with' and 'away' from him...'be held' and 'untouched' by him...'be accepted' and 'dismissed' by him, even if he had never intended to do any of it.

She spun around too, holding onto the little pride that was left in her, such that their backs faced each other. For a moment, she left herself drift into every thought that streamed into her mindfulness and she reckoned it was only time, she would break, that her eschewing of the facts didn't even make it half-truths, that the part that fleetingly denied him too...was always his.

Knowing he was hardly a turn away, she struggled to fall asleep. Her feet kicked up and she rolled into a ball hoping for some or any of the coziness, she had experienced moments before, to return. What with the sultry air and the humid weather... she still thought she'd had a prospect of slipping into a stupor somehow had she stayed within his grasp.

Now even sleep evaded her without him by her side. Her restless body ached with a yearning to lose the awareness...when she felt him once again shift close to her, resting his chin by the curve of her neck, stoking her skin there with his breath. Her curls that was resting there swaying with his intake and exhaling of the air from that tiny space and the memory of his touch over her belly, no longer one with his hand encircling her waist to rest right about her navel. Her head gently pressed slightly into the pillow from a lightness that came over her, feeling him sheath her back with the length of his body. Without moving another muscle, she settled with the knowledge that in the deep corners of her heart, she was living from that minute on...in hope of a future that was not far, when she would do the same in the waking minute of the day.

With the grey light of the night, her smile deepened knowingly...

What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her, and so it was, when his lips curved along with hers, knowingly too.

To be continued...

Hello y'all...THANKS THANKS THANKS...Lord NYT was one heated up thread a few days ago. Glad its coming to live its old days (my fault or not 😉 ) Posts and comments...

Tanya - Thanks so much gurl for choosing this thread to share something quite personal. I'm sure its an eye opener to some and distressing one for few others. My heart goes out to your cousin.

Others, Do hold me on that pinky promise...its still good and will do it tomorrow evening, after one helluva work week.