Dark Night Dawning Chapter 26

What the _____? Arnav thought as he saw Khushi run toward the exit. He hurried down the stairs after her. He finally found her in the parking lot trying in vain to stop a rickshaw. He quickly found his car and drove right up to her. He got off the car. ‘Get in the car, I’ll take you home,’ he said.

‘I can take care of myself!’ she snapped back.

‘Don’t be silly Khushi, just get in the damn car!’ he grated out.

Before she could say anything else, she saw some of her neighbours approaching. They were trying to go back home after the wedding and were finding it difficult to avail a rickshaw or a taxi. They requested them to drop them home if it was not too much trouble. Khushi looked at Arnav uncomfortably.

‘Of course we will drop you aunty, it’s no trouble at all,’ said Arnav politely, ‘we were headed home anyway,’ he added looking pointedly at Khushi.

Arnav knew she wouldn’t make a scene in front of her neighbours. As Arnav drove, Khushi sat silently next to him. He couldn’t ask her anything with their neighbours just within earshot. He decided to wait until they got home.

After dropping all the neighbours, when they reached home, Khushi got off the car, banged the door shut and scurried into the house. As she began walking furiously toward the main house, Arnav stepped into the courtyard.

‘Where do you think you are going?’ he asked her, not able to understand her behaviour, ‘Don’t you have anything to say?’

She turned around, her eyes flashing with anger, ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Didn’t you hear me at all, out there?’

‘Oh that speech?’ she asked her tone flippant, ‘the last time I asked you, you told me they were Ranjha’s lines.’

‘Don’t you think there is a difference ----- the last time I said it and now?’

‘Oh really,…..why don’t you enlighten me?’

Arnav’s anger rose at the taunt and he came up to her and held her by the soft flesh of her upper arms and backed her up against the wall, ‘I came back all the way from London and ____’

‘Why?’ she asked him interrupting him, ‘Didn’t it work out with Lavanyaji?’

Why was she talking about his project all of a sudden? ‘I don’t really care about that deal right now!’

Hey Devi Maiyya! How could he be so callous about it?‘Everything is a deal for you, isn’t it?  ‘How did Lavanyaji take it?’

‘What do you mean? …….She tried her best……… but then there was nothing much she could do, because I had to come back here,’ he explained to her a little confused.

‘You haven’t changed one bit, have you?’ she asked him indignant, ‘you just don’t care!’

Again, she was not making any sense. ‘You think I don’t care?’ he shot back, ‘What about you? I come back all the way from London for you and here you are ……..all dressed up and ready to go out with that that walking hindi dictionary!’

Khushi couldn’t believe him. ‘You haven’t changed at all! You have done this from the first day we met. Blast Khushi --- she crashed my fashion show! Blast Khushi ------ she is not being a good employee! Blast Khushi ------she is brainwashing my girlfriend about marriage…..and on Diwali night _____’

‘I wanted to kiss you…….. so badly!’ Arnav’s tone had gone softer. But Khushi was beyond noticing as she continued to badger him.

‘Yeah right!’ she yelled, ‘That’s why you got yourself engaged to Lavanyaji!’

‘What did you do?’ he countered, ‘You said you were happy for us and distributed sweets to everyone!’

‘You blasted me even for that!’ she continued her tirade.

‘So you went ahead and got yourself engaged!’ He blurted out before he could stop himself.

 ‘You made me organize your stupid engagement party!’ It seemed like she wasn’t really listening to him anymore. She just wanted to vent. So Arnav decided to help her get it all out.

‘Because you said……mujhe koi farak nahi padta.’

‘You gave the necklace I liked to Lavanyaji!’ she bit out.

‘When I broke it off with Lavanya ------- you gave me a lashing for that!’ he countered defensively.

‘So what was I supposed to do? Dance that you were suddenly available?’ sarcasm laced Khushi’s tone.

‘Oh no …no…. that you reserved only for NK!’ he said remembering how she  had jived to the Desi Girl beats with NK.‘You flirted with him knowing very well that it would drive me crazy!’

‘Yes….. I knew it!’ she said defiantly, ‘at least Nanheji was more open about it.’

‘Yes… he was very open when he ogled your open back as well!’ he said his tone flippant.

She shrugged off his hands from her arms. ’Oh stop it! As if it made any difference to you!’ Aapko isse kya farak padta hai?

‘I was going to tell you that night.’

‘Just forget it!’ She shouted as she pushed at his chest but he didn’t budge an inch.

‘I was going to tell you …..ki farak kyun padta hai’

‘I don’t want to know!’ She pushed him harder with all her might.

I was going to tell you kimain tumse pyaar karta hoon Khushi.’ his voice rang out crystal clear.

‘But I hate you!’ She began to beat on his chest, tears flowing down her cheeks.

‘I love you.’ he repeated like a chant.

‘Then why did you walk away from me the other night?’ she raged, ‘to go to London and meet Lavanyaji!’

‘What the _____? I went to London to meet Lavanya because AR is doing business with her company. I don’t love Lavanya. I don’t think I ever have!’

She already knew that, didn’t she? but she had wanted to ask him anyway.

‘Why did you leave me and go away ……in Musoorie…..for two whole months?’ she continued to pummel his chest as memories of that night came back to her. Why was she doing this when she knew it was Shyam who was responsible for all this?

‘Khushi….stop!’ he pleaded hoarsely, his eyes reflecting the pain – his and hers, as he pinned her hands against the wall.

‘Why couldn’t it have been you who came to meet me on the terrace that night Arnavji?’ she cried distraught, struggling against his strength. ‘Why?’

He deserved this thought Arnav. Though Shyam’s malice had created so much misunderstanding in their lives, it was his distrust that had caused her maximum pain. Was it too late? Would Khushi never be able to forgive him and give him another chance?

‘Khushi, I am sorry……I’ his voice caught as his eyes filled with tears unable to say anything else.

Suddenly her bangle snapped into pieces in his hand. He let go of her hands, horrified at the way he had pinned her hands and took a step back and whispered, ‘I am so sorry Khushi……I will never do that again. I will go away if that’s what you want…..’

Suddenly, Khushi felt bereft.

That is how we are, and have been right from the beginning……

Arnavji and I ……it is mostly fireworks. It’s a little complicated. It is difficult for people to understand…..

She knew that she had always loved him in spite of his distrust and the misunderstandings. This was because her heart had always known that she was made only for him and she had no control over it. It had started beating for him even before she could understand the meaning of love. It was her treacherous heart that made her endure every pain he inflicted on her, made her forgive him time and again. It was because her heart didn’t belong to her. It belonged to him.

‘Didn’t you know my heart stops beating when you leave me?’  Khushi lamented

Had she really said what she had just said?

Suddenly Khushi snaked her hands around his neck, clutching the hair at the back of his head almost painfully, slamming her body against his as she went on her tip-toes to capture his lips in a searing kiss…….

Arnav went absolutely still. Abruptly, Khushi drew back, her luminous eyes flashing at him, her whole body quivering with a barely controlled temper.

‘Khushi?’ asked Arnav as looked down at her trembling lips. She kissed him again, her fingers still embedded in the thickness of his hair.

Arnav then pushed her up against the wall his holding her tiny waist, his mouth capturing her lips more forcefully. Khushi opened her lips, inviting his tongue inside the warm recesses of her mouth. He moved his hands to the small of her back, bringing her softness into his hard body.As a streak of sensation shot through her body like lightning,Khushi tilted her head to one side, pushing his tongue out of the way to thrust her own to explore his mouth. Arnav became painfully aware of his throbbing arousal. He immediately swept her up in his arms without breaking the kiss and carried her across the courtyard, into the main house.

‘What about the girls?’ he asked urgently as he entered her bedroom, rasing his head for a moment.

‘They….. they are going to stay back at Palak’s ………as they are helping …….with her Suhaag Raat tonight,’ she managed to say in between his kisses.

He dropped Khushi on her feet just inside the door and then pushed her against the wall of the room to capture her lips once again. The bedroom lights were switched off, but the light from the street lamp illuminated the room with a perfect ambience.‘Khushi, do you know how beautiful you looked tonight in the red saree?’ he whispered urgently as he moved his hands up to undo the pin of her pallu.He quickly unwound her saree from around her, followed by her miniscule blouse and her in-skirt. She finally stood only in her panties. As Arnav looked at Khushi’s quivering form, she pulled him back with an urgency he had never seen in her before.His body needed hers with the same urgency. Tonight, there would be no time for tenderness.

‘You look even more beautiful without the saree, Khushi’ he said in a low growl, as he lifted her in one lithe movement and carried her to the bed. With his coat off, he reached for her, and she willingly went into his arms. His mouth possessed hers again with an urgency, a wildness that tore through her to her very core. His other hand slid up into her hair.

He raised his head and looked into her eyes. She met his gaze without fear or misgiving. Never breaking eye contact, he reached between their bodies and worked his hand inside her panties. She was damp with wanting him. He lowered his head and flicked a tongue against her parted lips. Her breath hitched at the double onslaught and her breathing became heavy and rapid.

His fingers began to stroke her while they kissed. As their tongues started sliding against each other in a mating dance, Khushi was assailed with bewildering sensations of pleasure bordering on pain in her molten core.

Maybe he took his cue from the subtle arching of her back that pressed her more tightly against his palm. Or from the moan of heightened arousal that vibrated through her throat. Or maybe his own desire caused him to wedge his knee between hers, separating them. He levered himself up so that he could unbuckle his belt, slipping his slacks and briefs and then he slipped her panties off from her.

Then in a single movement as supple as a ballet, he lowered himself onto her, pushed into her, and sheathed himself with her. She made an inarticulate sound of pleasure that he echoed, and then they were quiet except for their heartbeats which mingled with each other to beat in a single rhythm. Hamari dhadkane ek ho jaati hain.

After a time he began to move. At first it was no more than a slow rocking, his hips against hers. But then he drew out further, pushed higher. The tempo increased gradually but steadily, until with a low growl, he groaned, buried his face in her neck and came.

After a few seconds, he relaxed as she absorbed all his body weight hugging him to her. Then he levered himself up several degrees.

Watching her surprised expression with fierce intensity, he slid his hand between their bellies, into the damp where they were connected. The pad of his thumb found what it sought. His touch was delicate, but a jolt of sensation shot through her.

She almost sobbed as his thumb tantalized her with small, slippery circles. He lowered his head to her breast, raked his teeth across her nipple so she would feel the caress through her entire length of her body. Ever so slightly he increased the pressure of his thumb.

The pleasure built and built until every nerve ending in her body buzzed and tingled, from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Her nipples strained to the point of near pain. A scream was trapped inside her throat as it arched high against his waiting lips. The walls of her body, closed tightly around him, still buried deep inside her.

The aftershocks of the ecstasy continued for several minutes. When finally they ceased, Arnav kissed her lips lightly and gathered her beneath him.

Neither made a moved toward disengaging themselves.

Not a word passed between them.

A little later, Khushi and Arnav lay in each other’s arms their bodies languid in the aftermath of their lovemaking. Khushi’s head rested on Arnav’s arm while her hand lay on his chest, her fingers caressing his hair lightly. She loved the feel of them against her fingers. Arnav’s right hand rested on her smooth waist as he looked down at her.

‘Khushi, will you really forgive me this time so that I can spend the rest of my life earning back your love?’ he asked her gingerly.

‘I don’t think that’s possible Arnavji,’ she replied softly, her hand continuing to make circles on his chest.

‘What the ____?’ he swore as he looked down at her his eyebrows raised.

‘How can you earn back something you never lost in the first place?’ she asked him looking at him with her luminous eyes.

‘Are you telling me that you still love me?’ he asked her carefully.

‘Arnavji …..you know I do! Did you think I would have …… you know….. if I didn’t?’ Arnav was amused at the way she blushed when she referred to their love making.

‘So, does it mean that you were in love with me ……..on our first night together ……in Nainital?’

‘Much before that Arnavji,’ she said sadly,‘I sometimes think it might be from the moment I saw you.’

‘Hmm…I thought you didn’t want to give a name to this thing between us,’ said Arnav recollecting what she had told Suraj a few hours ago.‘That there should be a question mark. Otherwise it will end.’

‘I said that because I thought you would never love me,’ she told him, ‘But I knew we had something between us. So I was ready to live with that without having to give a name to it.

‘Hey, wait a minute! You heard my conversation with Surajji and still spoke to me like that earlier?’ asked Khushi her eyes flashing with irritation.

‘How could I miss a chance to rile you up?’ he asked her giving her his famous lopsided smile she loved so much,‘Do you know how sexy look are when you are angry? You make me lose control.’

‘I do?’ she asked him thrilled at the knowledge.

‘Why else do you think I have been so mean to you from the first day we met?’

‘Really?’Khushi’s heart began to beat faster as she heard words she hadn’t even dared to assume.

‘I didn’t realize that then, but on the day you wore that red saree for the calendar photo shoot, I was mesmerized. I wanted you badly. Each and every time I yelled at youin the office, it was not you I was really angry at. It was at my self.’

‘In spite of that you saved me from that car in the parking lot,’ she pointed out softly.

‘Of course I did…..I would never have let anything happen to you Khushi,’ he said tenderly, ‘but holding you in my arms in that rain also confirmed what I had suspected ---that I was intensely attracted to you.’

‘Hmm you were so attracted to me that you sent me to that rundown house,’ she teased him.

‘I would have never have forgiven myself if something had happened to you,’ his voice caught as he remembered the way he had rushed to that house when he had found out that Khushi might be stuck in that house. His heart had thudded furiously against his ribcage, as he searched for her desperately. ‘That was when I realized I cared for you Khushi.’

‘Is that why you were so relieved when I told you I was going back to Delhi?’ she couldn’t help pulling his leg.

‘Well…..that didn’t happen, did it? Thanks to my overzealous sister, you were back in my life and my house torturing me day and night.’

‘Well……Di practically threatened me with your contract.’ Khushi reminded him.

‘So you took your revenge by brainwashing Lavanya to trap me into marriage.’

‘I was so naïve back then, wasn’t I Arnavji?’ she asked him solemnly.

‘Are you telling me you wouldn’t do the same thing now?’

‘I am not sure ….,’ said Khushi, ‘I started having feelings for you even when Lavanyaji was around. When I saw you hugging her after I helped you patch up, I felt so uncomfortable. Soon after that, my heart had started going dhak-dhak whenever you came near me. What does that say about me? What right did I have to advice others about morals?’

Khushi could be so damn innocent at times thought Arnav as he continued to tease her, ‘So in spite your heart going dhak-dhak for me, you decided to plan a romantic getaway for Lavanya and me.’

‘But it back fired didn’t it? Instead of Lavanyaji it was me who you were stuck with that night in that dhaba.’

‘The same dhaba where I left you all alone in the night. I can’t believe I did that, when in reality I wanted to kiss you senseless for making such scene there.’

‘You made it up by taking care of me the next morning and then later by paying the hospital bill for my dad.’

‘I really wanted to hug you back …..that day at the hospital.The days following that, you pretty much had be wrapped around you little finger. Gosh! I came down to put up the Diwali lights just because you asked me.

The day before Diwali when you got entangled in those lights, you know how you looked? I just couldn’t help coming to you, touch you. I wanted to take off more than those god damned lights off your body!’he grated.

‘What about me?’ asked Khushi thinking about that night, ‘I couldn’t breathe right. Every light touch of your finger tips on my skin seared me. But it was your eyes that affected me the most. I felt like I was melting inside.’

‘But Diwali night was worse.Seeing you in that red saree, aglow with the lights of the diyas surrounding you, you looked ethereal. I realized I was fighting a losing battle. When I almost kissed you that night it scared the living daylights out of me! I just ran Khushi…….’

‘You broke my heart into a million pieces that night Arnavji…..’

‘It was the same feeling I had when you told me that the ring I was going to put on you, was your engagement ring. I almost blurted it out when you asked me aapko kya farq padta hai…..’

‘But you didn’t …….do you ever think what might have happened if the person I got engaged to, wasn’t Shyamji?’ she asked, ‘we might have gone our separate ways --- you with Lavanyaji and I with ___’

‘Never!’ he interrupted hervehemently, ‘I would never have let you belong to anyone else!’

‘How can you so sure?’

‘The poor b#$&*^% ----- whoever he would have been, wouldn’t stand a chance!’ he said confidently, ‘I broke off my engagement with Lavanya, didn’t I?’

‘Arnavji…..’ Khushi remembered the conversation she and Lavanya had. He called me Khushi instead of Lavanya…..

‘Then that moron NK came in the way!’

‘Don’t say that, Nanheji is very nice.’

‘Khushi, your problem is…you think everyone is “nice”….but I do have to give him some credit. For the first time in my life, I was jealous.’

Khushi smiled a knowing smile and Arnav said, ‘And you knew that didn’t you? You flirted with him deliberately, knowing that it was driving me crazy.’

‘I…..I was just trying to annoy you……especially since you had me so flustered after the Teri Meri dance…’

‘Didn’t the way I held you in the dance tell you how I felt about you Khushi?’

‘It did ……but ___’

‘And then I kissed you by the pool side, didn’t that tell you anything?’

‘I kissed you back, didn’t I?’

‘The night I thought you were in that ambulance I …… almost lost it…you know?’ Arnav shuddered as he remembered the trauma he went through.

‘But you wouldn’t tell me whyeven then… you bought me those beautiful bangles ……..but you didn’t tell me why…..’

‘I was going to tell you …..the night of the wedding---- that I was deeply and irrevocably in love with you ……’

They looked at each other for countless seconds and then Khushi burst out, ‘Arnavji!’ tears welled up in her eyes as she said ‘we lost so much time….because of that vile man…..’

Arnav realized that it was time he finally acknowledged his faults, ‘Khushi, Shyam is not the only reason we lost so much time. I am to blame here as well. My ego, my angst, my distrust….. are equally responsible for causing you so much pain. Maybe Shyam is right. I am damaged Khushi. I don’t know if I deserve you.’

Khushi gently cupped his cheek as she looked into eyes with love, ‘You are not damaged. You are beautiful ---- inside and out.How can a little boy who loved his mother so much, be damaged?’

‘How did you?  ---It was Di wasn’t it?’ tears welled up in his eyes as he thought about his mother.

‘I am sorry for what happened to you mother,’ Khushi wrapped him up in her arms her heart going out to the little boy who tried fiercely to protect his mother from all harm. ‘But Arnavji, you have to forgive your father for what he did,’ she said tentatively, ‘Otherwise you will never be able to move on.’

‘I have finally understood why my mother continued to love my father till the end. I could never understand that until I fell in love…..with you’

He continued, ‘And you are right. I have let this hatred for my fatherrule my life for too long now. I have to let it go.’

‘Arnavji, it is hard for a child when he doesn’t get the love he deserved from his parent. We cannot choose our parents….but we can definitely choose to be better parents.’ She realized what she had just said and blushed deep red.

Moving his hand to her stomach, he asked her carefully, ‘Do you think I will be a good father Khushi?’

‘You will be a great father,’ she said from her heart.

‘I love you Khushi, more than you can ever imagine,’ he told her as he placed a kiss reverently on her lips, ‘I don’t know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have.’

‘I love you too Arnavji. I always have and I always will,’ she said against his lips.

They went on throughout the night, making up for the time lost, and finally slept in each other’s arms.

In the moments before day break, he woke up and looked at her, her body spent and radiant, and felt as if everything was suddenly right with the world. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled and reached up to touch his face. He put his fingers to her lips, gently, to keep her from speaking, and for a long time they just looked at one another. They had an entire lifetime to talk.

Jisko jee jaan se chaahte hain, jab use nazron ke saamne paate hai, tab aankhen bolti hai, zubaan nahi……yeh hum jaante hain, yeh aap jaante hain….isme sawaal woh karte hain, jinhe pyaar kya hai iski hawa tak nahi…..