Page 134 of A King's Oath

“A wobbly girl,” he grinned. She snorted — the grumpy kind, and took a swipe of her gelato. He reached down and tried to take a swipe too but she pulled it away.

“Hey! I haven’t even recharged!”

“Get your own.”

“Should I?” He smirked, looking at her mouth. His mouth began to descend.

“Push my glasses up!” She commanded. He laughed, pushing those glasses up and into her hair. She didn’t even get a good look at Samarth in Arezzo’s evening light before his mouth was on hers. His tongue, warm and skilled, tangled with her cold one. It was like kissing the boy she always knew and yet somebody she didn’t know. His hand reached out to cup, not her cheek but her jaw, his thumb moving up the line of her jaw. That was new. And so stimulating.

She began to change the angle but he was faster, tuned into her, or aware of their old rhythm as he cocked his head and swiped his tongue back into her mouth. She felt warm everywhere. All over. Except, for her wrist. Her wrist?

“Fuck fuck fuck!” She screamed in his mouth and pushed off, only to find her gelato melted in a rivulet down her forearm. “Oh no,” she went to find a corner to put her bags down but he was faster. He tugged her bags out of her hand, pulled her arm close to his mouth and took a mouthful of the gelato at her wrist. Her chest contracted.

“I was going to find a tissue,” she panted.

“You have one right here,” he half-grinned, moving down, closing his mouth and getting the rivulet cleaned. “Delicious.”

“Should I be worried about where you learned all this from?”

“You should be.”

“Samarth.”

“Papa.”

“Eww! Don’t tell me he behaves like this with the whacko…”

“Language, Ava. It’s not going to look good if you can’t even be civil while referring to Maarani. And no, please, I didn’t mean the actions. I meant the behaviour.” He pushed her hair off her face like he used to, even though her bangs were no more ‘in-her-face’ anymore. “From the day Maarani stepped into our palace, Papa has been completely zeroed in on her. It’s in how dedicated he is to her needs, her moods, her cravings. When Sharan was to be born, things were tense. But I never saw his eyes veer from her when she was in a room.”

Avantika listened to it all and hated the whacko more. Samarth’s father was such a good man. What kind of a woman got that and then did this?

“I am now allowed to be that to you,” he said, and took her attention away from anything remotely negative. She smirked, snaking her free hand up his chest and into the collar of his winning T-shirt, to the hair at the nape of his neck. His skin pebbled. She pushed him back and into a pillar. His eyes widened, as did his mouth.

“Did you forget something?” She asked.

“What?”

“I owed you four kisses.”

“Four hundred.”

“Fourhundred? You did hit your head hard.”

“That was 10 years ago. Inflation has worked its magic.”

“Inflation?”

“I am now abusinessmanGujarati,” he showed his teeth.

“This is a trap!” She beamed. Then pulled him by the collar of his sweaty, bloody T-shirt and pressed her mouth to his. His lips opened and she pushed her tongue in. One down, three ninety-nine to go.

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“Here,” she pulled the large sourdough Margherita slice and deposited it on his plate. The sun was slowly downing and they had settled at the outdoor seating of a ristorante to eat before heading to the hotel to get him clean.

Samarth did not wait. He grabbed his slice and bit into the gooey cheese stringing from the surface. She grabbed a slice for herself and bit into it, closing her eyes at how earthy and wholesome the bread tasted. She had eaten her share of sourdoughs all over the world but this one…

“This is the sourdough of all sourdoughs,” she remarked with a mouth full.

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