Page 14 of The Surprise Bollywood Baby

“The dark doesn’t hide the truth, Zara.”

“Not wanting to face up to your weakness is not the same as hiding from the truth.”

He buried his nose in the crook of her shoulder, breathing in the wild, wanton scent of her. “So I’m a weakness, then?”

She placed her palms on his arms and leaned back into his body, as if she meant to burrow under his skin. Her husky laughter—as he gently grazed his teeth against her collarbone, was like listening to his favorite old ghazal. She sent her hands into his hair and tugged. “You’re not a weakness. How you make my knees go weak is the problem. You’re like a rich dessert, Virat. And I can only indulge in you for so long.”

He laughed and sent his own hands questing up her body. Her breath hitched on a quiet gasp when he filled his hands with her breasts. Memory was a strangely erotic thing. He remembered how sensitive she was to any caress there, how she responded to the slightest touch. And in this, nothing had changed. The moment he found the aching buds and rubbed them between his fingers, she grew taut against him with a throaty moan. His own throat grew dry as she pressed her buttocks into his groin and ground herself against him.

And then there was nothing to do but tug the strings at the back of her blouse. The fabric came loose and he drew it off, the first contact of his fingers on her silky skin making rivulets of pleasure run through him. He cupped the generous globes and tweaked the sensitive tips.

She turned her head and reached for his mouth with a hungry whimper that made him groan, too. Fingers tugging in his hair, she plundered his mouth with a savage ferocity that threatened to undo him. Her obvious need for him was as much an aphrodisiac as anything else.

“Against the wall?” he murmured against her mouth. Another light switched off somewhere and the darkness was even thicker, amplifying every hitch in her breathing. He loved the scent of her—of jasmine and warm skin—and the lushness of the dips and swells of her body.

“The entire palace will hear us,” she whispered back. He felt the wide curving of her lips rather than see her smile.

“Bent over the divan?” he asked next.

The funky hip-hop music died, and in its place began the soft beat of a slow song. Hands at her waist, Virat whirled her around in the darkness and had the reward of her delighted laughter. The tiny bells hanging from a cord at her skirt tinkled along with her laughter.

He felt her nails scraping his chest before he heard the pop of buttons flying around. And then her hands were everywhere. Slightly cool against his heated skin. She traced his pectorals, her fingers pulling at his chest hair and then down to his abdomen in a maddening journey. Every time she reached the seam of his trousers, she lingered for a few seconds longer than the last time.

He felt like a man who was being tormented with a drop of ambrosia that would never touch his tongue.

“Too impersonal,” she finally whispered, her voice carrying a conviction he couldn’t unhear. A moment’s hesitation gripped him.

“Zara, this is—”

“It’s not a quiet screw in the darkness of the night with some stranger, Virat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But that’s not what I want.

“I want the warmth of a man I desire in return. I want to look into your eyes when you let go inside me. I want to be reminded how good it can be between two people who want nothing but each other’s pleasure. Is that asking for too much?”

“Of course it’s not,” he said, only then realizing that she’d neatly propelled him back toward the plush divan. At the last moment, he flipped them around and she was the one falling back.

As if guided by his specific instructions, she created a cradle between her legs and Virat let himself fall there with a gentle thud that made her laugh again. He kept his weight off her by propping himself on his elbows. With his shirt and her blouse discarded, the slide of his bare chest against her naked breasts had them both groaning in bliss.

He dipped his head down and kissed her again. Slowly this time. With languorous strokes of his tongue and sweet nips of her lips, letting the frenzy between them heat up again. Her hands roamed his chest lazily, but she never went past his belly.

Virat noted the infinitesimal hesitation every time her hands were about to reach him. There was something about it that tugged at his heart. “Everything okay,shahzadi?” he whispered, dropping a kiss against her temple.

“Perfect. Just perfect,” she said, her gaze not shying from his.

He saw the shadow of something in there but decided not to push. This was a hookup. Nothing else. They didn’t mean anything to each other whatever she said. There was the comforting familiarity of an old lover, yes. The ease of no strings. But nothing more. “I’m going to touch you here,” he said, bringing his palm to her groin. The skirt was bunched up against her thighs but still intact at her waist, providing a barrier between his palm and her flesh.

She nodded. “Yes, please. Now.”

He laughed at the alacrity with which she said that.

“You’re welcome to do the same, Zara,” he added with a cheeky grin.

And he knew, even in the darkness, that she was blushing fiercely. Just as she’d done back then.

Then, slowly, softly, she traced the shape of his erection through his trousers with one finger. An almost there but gone contact that had him aching for more.

“Like this?” she whispered, watching his expression. Always watching him from afar. From nearby, too. Through a decade of him pretending that she didn’t exist, that she was beneath his notice, Virat had always been aware of her watching him with this same hunger in her eyes.

With a longing that she hadn’t always kept quite hidden. And he’d always wondered if she’d felt remorse over her decision. If she’d been sorry that she’d used their relationship to level up her burgeoning career in the industry.

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