Spice and Secrets (12 page)

She didn’t believe a word of it. Not really. So she took solace in the lips that shaped the lies. She twisted in his embrace and slipped her arms around his neck, kissing him in front of one and all. Kissing him because it was the only truth she had.

Rahul was still trying to gather his thoughts as some invisible director finally called “Cut!” on the tense little scene. Nina had vanished mid-drama—not one bit surprising—Shaw and Sunny were wrapped in each other’s arms like the world’s longest freeze frame, and Sam was practically shaking his fist with theatrical rage. “I’m going to kill that bitch. I swear to God, baby, Nina Manjrekar is dead,” he was declaring for all and sundry—but mostly Viki, who had the patience of a
maharishi
. “I’m going to put her in the goddamn ground.”

Ever the practical one—really the most sensible one in their entire lot—Vikram snaked an arm around Sam’s shoulder, stroking his cheek with the backs of his fingers. “
Arré
, Sam, cool down. Tension
maat karna
. She will get hers.”

“Yeah, and I am going to give it to her.
Samjhe?
” At his boyfriend’s quelling look, he added, “Nonviolently. Is that okay?”

“Perfect. I am very proud of you.”

“Brilliant. I
live
for your approval.” Fond sarcasm was a positive sign, but Sam still looked murderous—only just a shade less outraged—and Rahul was happy to leave him to the task of tearing into Nina tonight.
He
would deal with her later. In due time.

As the guys moved away, hand in hand, heads bent together and voices laced with fury, he was left with Priya, who looked as awkward as he felt. It was just them…and the lovebirds, who only had eyes for each other. The air was hot, thick with intimacy and tension. It was like they were intruding on something. That Shaw was gloriously, insanely in love with Sunita was apparent—and Rahul understood that sensation. It supplanted all else. Like
jaadu
, magic, it took root and then grew over all reason. He could easily empathize with the need to take the woman you loved in your arms and hold her so tightly that there wasn’t even room for a breath between you.

Turning to her was like turning toward the sun…and finding the sun turning toward you also. Priya stood there, beautiful eyes fraught with a thousand emotions, lips parted as if begging to be kissed. By him. Only
ever
by him. He couldn’t help himself, closing the few meters that separated them and taking up her hands in both of his. “Pree…” But she was so much more than a sweet, childish nickname. She was
beloved
, just as her full name implied. “Priya,” he said, meaning it with a ferocity that shocked him.

“
Haan
, Rahul?” She tilted her head, gaze narrowing as she tried to suss out his mood…and how could
she
divine that when even he didn’t know? “
Kya hain?
What is it?”

“Come away with me.” It was stupid, impulsive, something he should’ve said at twenty-three. What he needed to say at thirty was much more grounded, basic,
hungry
. “Come
home
with me. Let’s get out of here.”

Her thumb caressed the side of his. He counted a beat. Then another. Her gaze, as dark and hushed as Mumbai at dawn, betrayed nothing of what she was thinking. But she didn’t strike him or throw a battery of Bengali insults at his presumptuous head. She let the moment stretch like a taut thread, vibrating and ready to snap. And then she released it. “Yes,” she whispered against his open mouth. “Yes, take me home.”

Chapter Seventeen

“Yes,” she whispered, fingertips curving against the lapels of his coat. This wasn’t the
yes
of the hotel in Premnagar, something born of bitterness and some hasty wish to get the inevitable over and done with. This was a
yes
of her soul. It was as though a great block of ice had dislodged itself from her heart, tumbling down the side of the glacier that had crept up through her ribcage for all these years. “Take me home.”

Rahul took her hand, tugging her through the gaudy entrance hall—more appropriate for a disco than a house—and down the front steps, into the drive. His car was already waiting. Did everything just fall into place for him? Was that what this was? Just as her fingers began to slip, eager to follow the zigzag path of her thoughts, he tightened his hold, making a soft sound of reproach. “No backing out, Pree. Come with me. Stay with me.
Aaja.
” He held the passenger door for her, like they were playing flirtatious tug-of-war in front of a camera.

But it wasn’t a performance. This was a show for two persons only, a private dialogue, with a soundtrack of hushed breaths barely audible over the engine of his luxury car. She busied herself adjusting the folds of her
lehenga
and
dupatta
beneath the seatbelt as he pulled round the drive. Her fingers caught on the silk, on the sharp edges of her gold jewelry set. But her gaze constantly returned to Rahul. Even in profile he was handsome. Not
hero
handsome, but
man
handsome. The sharp line of his jaw, lightly shaded with beard, the proud slope of his nose, the impossibly long sweep of his eyelashes…she saw tiny portions of those features in Shona every day. But his hands, gripping the steering wheel with such confidence, such grace, they were completely and only his. And they’d so easily undone her,
na
?

He caught her observations from the corner of his eye.
“Kya dekrahe ho?”
A smile pulled at his mouth. “What are you looking at?”

Everything. The past, the present, the immediate future. “You’re not a boy anymore, Rahul,” she murmured, half in fond memory and half in regret. “Any more than I am that girl.
Hain Apna Dil To Awara
was lifetimes ago.”

“I don’t want that girl. I want the woman. Who you are now. Who you will always be.
Har janam main.
In every life.”

There was nothing to say to that. There was only something to feel. The race of her heart. The leap of her pulse. The rest of the journey passed by in a blur, until they were finally on Bandstand Drive. “
Woh dekh
, over there…it’s Mannat.” There was a hushed reverence—purely mocking—in Rahul’s tone, as though pointing out King Khan’s sprawling bungalow was like looking at the Taj Mahal. No, at something far holier. Like a Birla
mandir
, complete with statues of
Radha-Krishna
. When she explained what caused the sudden giggles to choke her throat, Rahul burst out with matching laughter. “Should we name my house, too?” he suggested. “But it’s not a temple, I’m afraid. Only a shrine.”

“Because you’re only a minor
devta
,
na
?” she teased. It had been so long since she’d teased him. Since she’d teased
anyone
. “Handsome or no, you’re not a full god.”

“Right. You’re the goddess, Priya.
My
goddess,” he stressed as he took the car through the gate and up the path to his home. But he was not teasing. He was serious. Just as he had been that day after the
Na-Insaafi
shoot…dark with wanting, so close,
too
close, almost crawling into her skin. She’d run from him then. But there was no escaping now.
Yes
, she’d said at Nina’s place, and it meant so much. All she could do was accept his hand as he helped her out of the car…teetering on her sparkling heels, tangling in her skirts and falling against his chest anyway.

They stood together as though someone had asked them to hold the shot. Her cheek brushed the collar of his expensive coat; his breath whispered along the fall of her hair. They were a picture of yesterday…of those silly children they had once been…and a video of tomorrow: the morning where she would awaken in his arms, having re-learned his older, stronger, body and memorized the new places that made him weak. Being with him during
The Raj
was a reel best left on the cutting room floor…something she could barely recall now, so distant was it from the immediacy of his touch, his husky growl of, “Come in.
Andar aao
.”

He was inviting her not just into his home, but into his heart. Priya’s soul was equally open for occupation, its doors thrown wide, and yet she still hesitated following him over the threshold. Rahul didn’t miss a beat; he simply tugged her flush against him and then swept his arm below her knees, lifting her easily despite the heavy brocade of her
lehenga
adding kilos to her weight. When she should’ve taken stock of his home…of whether they were going upstairs or downstairs, into the darkness or into the light, she instead focused on the furnishings of his beloved face. Of how he gazed back at her with the same mix of wonder and fear.

“I’m not letting you go this time,” he said to her. “And I won’t allow
you
to let
me
go.
Samjhe?
This is our chance.”

No
, she thought as she arched up and shushed him with a kiss
. This is my penance
. For she was coming to him stripped, bare, resigned…except for one thing. One thing she couldn’t confess to him, and the most important thing between them.

“Pree?” He could feel her hesitation. This close, he could feel everything.
“Kya hua?
What’s wrong?”

She simply shook her head, slipping from his arms as they crossed into what could only be his bedroom. She fumbled with pins and hooks, batting away his attempts to help, until her
dupatta
fell free and then her short,
choli
-style blouse. Her skirt came next, until she was standing before him completely naked and clad only in her heavy necklace and earrings. “Love me, Rahul.
Sirf aaj raat ki liye.
Just for tonight and tomorrow.”

His brows rose. “What about next week? Can I love you next week?” When she answered with a shaky laugh, he closed the space between them, gently reaching for the
jhumka
pulling down on her earlobe. He removed the backing quickly and efficiently, dropping the earring into one of his pockets. Then, he moved on to the second one, doing the same.

All the while, Priya held still, breathing in the sandalwood-spice scent of his skin and counting the time. When at last he was done with her necklace, he pressed his lips to her throat.
“Ami tomake bhalobashi.”
His Bengali was atrocious. Atrocious and beautiful. “I love you,” he repeated in perfect boarding-school English.
“Main tumse pyar kartha hu,
” he finished in Hindi.

When Priya fell upon him this time, it wasn’t an accident. It was deliberate. And the only tangle was that of their limbs. She pulled his shirt from his trousers, pushed his coat away and rendered him as vulnerable, as needy, as he’d made her.

Yes. A thousand times yes.

The Priya made of ice had melted, leaving behind a creature of fire. Rahul burned all over from where skin met skin. He’d never felt so alive. They staggered backwards toward his bed, a king-sized affair that had been lacking a queen for far too long. But no more. After tonight, everything would be different. After tonight, Priya was definitively his. He repeated his Bengali
I love you
, knowing it was terribly pronounced but utterly sincere. Her eyes shone with mirth, with joy, and the heat of her mouth was, for this moment, enough of a response.

She pushed him back onto the mattress, straddling his thighs. The last vestiges of her party wear…the jeweled clips in her hair…were ceremoniously removed and unceremoniously pitched into the ether. Fully loosed, her hair spilled around them like a sheet of silk. A goddess, he’d called her…but he’d been wrong in that. She was all woman, flesh and bone and sweat-laced muscles. A gorgeous, vibrant human who marked him with the tips of her nails, the nip of her teeth, the sensuous trailing of her tongue down the center of his chest. The Priya she’d been had always loved him with shyness, with hesitance; this Priya had no such qualms. She took control, finding the condoms in his bedside drawer—a box that had practically grown a layer of dust for all the use he’d made of it—sheathing him, holding him hot and throbbing in her palm until he was begging for her to take him.

She didn’t, of course. She drew it all out, as if she was afraid to let the night pass by in a blink. Priya bathed his body with kisses, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. She lingered in every hollow, every crevice and curve. Only after she’d licked and bitten him into frenzy did he finally snap and grasp her by the shoulders. “
Bas,
” he rasped hoarsely as spots swam before his lust-addled eyes. “Please, Priya,
bas
. Enough.”

“Oh. You’ve had enough? Should I go?” She made as if to rise, her lips curved in unmistakable feminine triumph.

“Never.” He smoothly rolled so their positions were reversed, with her pinned beneath him, breathing hard and wanting more. “I will
never
have enough of you. Don’t forget that. Not ever.”

Rahul pushed into her with less than finesse and more than desire. He tormented her with short, rhythmic strokes, until
she
was the one begging. Until he was skating the very edge of insanity from denying himself release. Until he had no choice but to sink in to the hilt, immersing fully in her fire and setting himself ablaze. God willing, neither of them would ever feel the chill of loneliness again.

Chapter Eighteen

She expected daylight to change everything, like the lights coming up in the cinema hall, destroying the illusion. But when she awoke, it was to find a tray of fragrant, steaming coffee and toast dusted with sugar crystals within arm’s reach on the bedside table…and Rahul sitting at the foot of the bed. It appeared as though he’d been awake for hours; he’d pulled on a faded cotton
panjabi
shirt and track pants, and he wore them as handsomely as a suit.