Dark Night Dawning Chapter 13

Suddenly, desired surged through her like waves and her head bent down of its own volition, her lips touching his in the lightest of kisses. When she felt Arnav kissing her right back, she stepped back in shock. Arnav eyes snapped open to look at her standing, her body bathed in moonlight, her chest heaving, her quivering belly exposed through her sheer net saree.

‘I …  your lap top was right there….. I just put it away…. You can go back to sleep now. I’ll just draw the curtains -----‘

Khushi knew she was blabbering. Just as she raised her right hand ready to draw the curtains, she felt Arnav’s hand enclose around hers, stopping her. He turned her around and pushed her back against the french doors. Khushi began to tremble. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the coldness of the glass doors touching her back or if it was his nearness. Her bangles made a slight clinking sound as their joined hands slid down slowly.

Arnav moved his hand to her hair and slowly undid the clips she used to pin her hair. He pushed the unruly lock behind the ear,sliding his fingers down her cheek, her neck, across her collar bone and came to rest gently on her left shoulder. His delicate touch scorched her skin like fire and her trembling increased, her chest heaving. He slowly undid the safety pin, holding her pallu in his hands, as she stood against the glass in her blouse.

‘Did you know that there was absolutely no use of the pallu?’ he whispered, ‘All evening you looked just like you do right now.’

He put his hands on her waist, spanning it as if he was trying to measure it, slowly sliding his hands up around to her back, he undid the jewelled clasp. He slowly slid his hands up the side of her breasts all the way to her collar bone to gently peel the blouse off her.

‘Arnavji!someone might see us -------’ Khushi suddenly realized her bare back was against the glass doors that opened to the patio. As she made a move to cover herself, he stopped her, bringing both her hands to her sides.

‘Shhh….Khushi, there is not enough light here, I am having difficult looking at you myself.’

She looked ethereal.His eyes darkened with desire as he looked at her.Her face was flushed with desire, the milky white skin of her delicate swan like neck, her gently rounded shoulders, the round mounds of her breasts, her thin curvy waist, her flat abdomen and her delectable navel just above the pleats of her saree that was wrapped around her rounded hips.

‘Undo my buttons Khushi -----’ he told her softly.

Hardly aware of what she was doing, she fumbled at the buttons of his shirt, slipping them through their holes. She pushed his shirt back and off his shoulders.He was magnificent. Her gaze drifted over his broad shoulders and down to the wide muscles of his chest, and lower still to a flat stomach and lean waist. Dark springy hair grew in a mat over his chest and tapered gradually to a narrow line that disappeared intriguingly into the waistband of his jeans.

She placed her hands on his hair roughened chest, moving them slowly so that the hair abraded her palms. He was so beautiful to her that he took her breath away.

His eyes filled with desire so intense that it bordered on anguish. He pulled her against him so that her breasts touched his hard chest, his hardness pressed against the softness of her abdomen. Khushi raised her hands automatically and put them around his neck. As Arnav used his body to push her once again against the cold glass windows, his mouth searched for and found the sweetness of hers, Khushi pushed back with all her might to avoid the cold on her bare back, her hands still clutched around his neck.

Arnav then slid his hand into her hair to pull her head back, bending down to kiss the nape of her neck, sucking bits of her skin. His head then moved down,taking one engorged peak into his mouth, and he slowly began to suck on it. Khushi’s hand clutched at his hair, bringing him closer as she thrust her breast toward his eager mouth. She felt a molten heat pooling at the lower part of her body as Arnav continued to suck harder. He then pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her holding her waist with both his hands. As Khushi arched her back, he took the other peak in his mouth and began his ministrations. Khushi began to moan as she dug her finger nails into his strong muscled back, an unknown craving for fulfilment beginning to take form.

Arnav placed soft kisses down the centre line of her midriff, his tongue leaving a moist trail until he reached her navel and then he thrust his tongue in and began to laveat it. When her entire body suffused in the warm sensations that he was creating, she pulled him up, her hands clutched in his hair. As they stared at each other for a few seconds, Arnav captured her lips in savage kiss, his tongue exploring the roof of her mouth, igniting deeply buried fires in her.

He then dipped his fingers into her saree where the pleats were snugly tucked into her stomach, pulling out the folds, so that her entire saree lay at a heap around her ankles.  With his lips still joined to hers, he moved his hand down so that he could cup her femininity through the thin material of her in-skirt. Though this touch was not new to her, she stiffened in resistance, closing her thighs together.

‘Khushi, it’s ok,’ he whispered softly against her lips, as the fingers of one hand deftly undid the clasp of her in-skirt, so that it slid down her hips smoothly. He then thrust one knee between her legs, sliding his hand into her panties to touch her molten silken core. His touch was delicate but a jolt of sensation went right through her. As his fingers began to move in tantalizing circles, Khushi realized what her unknown craving was for and she couldn’t help the strangled moan that escaped her lips. The pleasure built and built until every nerve ending tingled from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. He began to stroke faster and faster until he felt her stiffen and then shudder, her arms holding him in a death grip, her legs buckling.

He immediately, swept her up in his arms, walked the few paces to the bed and lay her down on it with infinite gentleness. He quickly removed the remainder of his clothes, and then hers while raining kisses on her face.

He then moved over her, opening her legs gently so that he couldpush into her, losing himself in her moist, warm sweetness capturing her lips again in a searing kiss.

Khushi gasped out an inarticulate sound of pleasure, surprised at the lack of pain this time around. He moved slowly rocking at first, and then the tempo increased gradually but steadily.

Her voice broke on a little cry, and was engulfed in a pleasure so intense that it seemed her body might shatter like fragile glass.

Arnav lost the faculty of speech. Her arms hugged him tighter, her thighs locked around him as he had guided her. His groans mingled with her soft, pleading sighs.

I LOVE you.

For a moment he was poised at the outer boundary of his being, and then, unable to holdback any longer he plunged through and fell of the edge of the world.

Arnav pulled on his jeans and began to pace the bedroom. What was he doing? Why couldn’t he control himself where Khushi was concerned? What was it about her that made him break his self- imposed rules? And then, she had said those three little words!There were so many unanswered questions between them that they had to clear. He suddenly stepped on an object lying on the floor and bent down to pick it up. It was Khushi’scell phone, flashing an unread message.

Khushi stood in the bathroom, thinking about what had transpired between Arnav and her. Back in Nainital* she had justified that it would be only for one night. Then how could she have forgotten that and given in to her desires? She was shamingly aware that she had not only initiated the love making but had also blurted out the truth I love you……Had he heard her? She quickly made up her mind. She would go back and tell him about Shyam. There would be no more secrets.

When Khushi stepped out of the bathroom, the room suddenly seemed darker and chillier. She almost didn’t see Arnav standing absolutely still by the french doors, his back toward her, looking out into the night sky. There was not a single star in the sky tonight and the moon was partially hidden behind a cloud.

‘So, when were you planning to tell me?’ he asked her in a softly menacing voice.

‘About what?’ she asked.

‘Stop with the innocent act,’ he bit out angrily, turning around to face her, ‘When were you going to tell me about your affair with Shyam?’

Khushi felt a chill going up her spine. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Don’t even try to deny it!’ he spat out, throwing her phone on the bed. ‘Your boyfriend sent you a message!’

‘What message? I really don’t know what you are talking about Arnavji!’ repeated Khushi in bewilderment.

‘Take your phone and read the bloody message!’ he thundered.

Khushi picked up the phone and saw the message, her heart beating fast, her hands trembling as she began to read.

Dear Khushiji,

The time for us to be together has come after a long time. In know you been waiting for this day just as I. You and I have made a lot of sacrifices. I had to pretend to love Rani Sahiba just as you had to pretend to love Arnav. But everything will be worth it as it is for love – our love. I have to go away now but I will see you in Delhi very soon.

Love Shyam.

As Khushi stood like a statue in shock, Arnav strode up to her, held her by the soft flesh of her upper arms, pulling her closer , ‘What were you planning to do Khushi? Elope with yourjeejaji?’

‘How can you think like that?’ she whispered shrugging his hands off, ‘After what just happened?’

‘Stop pretending to look so horrified,’ he rasped, ‘What just happened generally happens between a man and a woman. It’s no big deal!’

‘But not for me! I…. I …you were the only one ------‘

‘Oh I know that! I knew that first night in Nainital that I was your first and have been the only one to touch you since. So, what am I supposed to do? Thank you for your “sacrifice”?’ Arnav spat out, his face twisted in anger.

Hey Devi Maiyya! Khushi closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face.

‘Oh no! I am not the one who said that. Your boyfriend says here, in this message.‘

‘All that is false!’ she declared vehemently.

‘What about the ones that you sent him?’ he asked her quietly.

‘What?!’

‘Check your sent box.’

I miss you…. Where are you?..... I am waiting for you.

‘I didn’t send them,’ she explained, ‘Shyamji told me he wanted to borrow my phone to send messages to Di.’ She never used her phone to send messages.

‘And sent them to himself? And you didn’t bother to check? How many more lies are you going to say Khushi?

‘Apparently no more as you have already made up your mind to believe his lies!’

‘Again the innocent act! It’s not just the stupid sms I believe! That day when we were ….. stuck in the bathroom, he knocked on the door looking for you. Why had he come to our bedroom at that time of the morning? Then the other day at the restaurant, I saw him trying to talk to you just before you ran away. You have been hiding the truth from me Khushi!’

‘If it is the truth you want to know then listen!’

Khushi told him how he had entered their lives as a man posing as an unmarried guy , how he had convinced poor Buaji to allow him to stay as a PG. How he had created a situation where she was forced to get engaged to him. She also told him that she had broken off her engagement the moment she had found about his treachery.

‘If all you are saying is true, why didn’t you tell everyone right way?’ Arnav’s question put Khushi in a quandary as she remember how her mother had begged her not destroy Payal’s chances at a happy life with Akash. But she couldn’t tell him that could she?

‘Because of Di!’ she exclaimed, ‘I didn’t want to destroy her marriage.’

‘You didn’t tell the truth because you wanted to continue your affair with him!’ his accusations continued.

‘It’s not true!’

‘You could have at least told me Khushi!’ came his anguished whisper.

‘Tell you? When just a day before that you had told me that I meant nothing to you and I did not exist for you? With what right would I have come up to you and told you?’ Khushi remembered the day clearly when after seeing Lavanya in a dress like hers he had yelled first at Lavanya and then later at her when she had gone up to speak to him.

‘You will say anything to cover you lies now, but I have another surprise for you. On the night of Payal and Akash’s wedding I saw you in each other’s arms!’

Khushi looked at him, her eyes growing big in shock. ‘He forced me!’

‘Yeah right,’ his tone was laced with sarcasm, ‘Then, why did you tell him to leave my sister?’

Khushi couldn’t remember the exact conversation she had with Shyam that night. She remembered she was extremely agitated and might have said some things in context. But how was she going to convince a person who had already made up his mind about her? As she silently stood in shocked silence she heard the chilling words that came out of his mouth.

‘And that, Khushi Kumari Gupta was the reason I married you that night!’

Hey Devi Maiyya!Finally, the words penetrated through the haze she was in and she asked him her whole body quivering with rage, ‘Why didn’t you ask me the same night?’

‘Would you have told me the truth?’ he countered.

‘Why not? I would have! In fact I was going to tell you all about him that night. But you just wouldn’t listen to me. You were in such a hurry to marry me by force!’

‘Yes! I did force you to marry me because I was ready to do anything to save my Di’s marriage. Even marry a characterless girl like you!’

Khushi felt like he had slapped her. ‘If that’s what you think about me, then there would be no point in explaining myself any more. I will not stay with you another instant. I am leaving!’

‘Oh just cut it out!You know very well that you are married to a rich man who can keep you in styleand luxury.’ He said adding insult to the injury.

Khushi realized that there would be no point in explaining to him anymore.

‘When we married I told you this marriage will be for 6 months. It still stands. Otherwise you know that I still hold Akash and Payal’s divorce papers.’

‘I am leaving for US tonight. I don’t know when I will be back. Once the baby comes, and I make sure both Di and baby are safe I want you to get of my life that very instant. Not a minute before that. Do you understand?’

Arnav packed his bags and walked out of the room unlocking the door, then closing it behind him with a bang, without even a backward glance at her.

Khushi sank down on the edge of the bed. She stared ahead of her into the mirror of the dressing table at the stranger who confronted her there, with her bruised bewildered eyes and trembling mouth.

Hey Devi Maiyya.I’ts over! All over!