When she turned back to face him, she had that familiar mischief dancing in her eyes. She bit her lower lip, thinking, and then sauntered towards him slowly, deliberately swaying her hips in a way that had his cock starting to strain against the zipper on his jeans.
He felt the cold countertop dig into his butt when she stepped closer, her chest brushing lightly against his as she raised a hand and jerked him down by his collar.
“If you figure it out,” she husked, his body reacting to her sultry voice, the teasing trail of her fingers against his jaw making him gulp audibly, “I’ll listen to whatever you say.”
His throat worked hard, barely listening to her, wondering if he had time to sneak in a kiss before Nanamma returned.
“I might even double teedeelag for you.”
She tapped his lip playfully, breaking him out of the trance she’d put him under. With what could only be described as an evil grin, she swung her backpack on her shoulders and winked at him before leaving him alone and aroused with no hope of relief. The sound of the front door clicking to a close cut through his disbelief. Siren that she was, she’d just taken revenge for how he’d teased her last night. And he’d fallen for it—hook, line and sinker.
Rian couldn’t stop thinking about Aditi and her challenge all morning. Which meant that he’d spent nearly every break he’d had to look upteedeelagand its variants, to no avail.
Now, sitting across from his best friend who’d come to visit him for lunch, his mind was still stuck on winning.
Kaya watched Rian pretend to be interested in listening to her talk about her honeymoon while his eyes kept darting towards his phone.
“Rian?”
“Hmm.” He clicked a link, scrunching his nose at the small font. He took a deep breath and tried again, zooming in and using his finger as a guide to check the glossary index. Nope, he decided, switching his Bluetooth on, hearing the beep on the single earbudthat he still had on. A few clicks later, he was running the script through his text-to-speech software.
He looked up to find Kaya staring at him. He smiled.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Good.”
He tapped on another site that looked promising, letting a very monotonous voice list out the words and their definitions from the live page. A moment later, Kaya’s words finally struck him and his head whipped up.
“Wait, what?” he yelped, eyes wide.
To his surprise, she rolled her eyes and took an aggressive bite of her meal instead.
“That took you way too long to react. And I was testing you to see if you were paying attention.”
“So, you’re not pregnant?”
Kaya shook her head.
“If I was, Arjun would be here with me to tell you the news also. I’m seeing you after nearly two months and you have been occupied with something else.”
At her chastising tone, Rian shot her an apologetic glance, finally putting his phone away and taking his earbud out.
“Sorry. I’ll be good, I promise. How was New Zealand?” he asked, finally paying attention to everything Kaya had to say. Kaya and Arjun had been married for nearly six years, but had been estranged up until a few months ago. Eager to spend time with his wife, Arjun had whisked her away to a different country altogether. They’d just returned a couple days ago.
Rian observed the glow of a woman well loved on Kaya’s face. The air of anxiety and sadness that seemed to hover about her had lifted. She was clearly happier, and Rian knew that Arjun had everything to do with it.
He listened indulgently to Kaya gush about her newborn nephew, leaning in to see pictures of him on her phone. One after another, he was presented with beautiful family photos.
Six months ago, this family was broken. Today, they were united, glad to be part of each other's lives again. His eyes roved over the elder Mr. Sharma.
The Sharmas had been publicly shamed by his hateful mother at a party where a teenaged Rian and Kaya were found together, alone, about to get intimate. It had resulted in an exile that had lasted eleven years for the young girl, and had cost Kaya her family, her confidence, and the love of a good man.
In a twist of fate, she had recovered all three in a single stroke.
Kaya’s relationship with her father had been contentious, much like his with his mother. The only difference was that Shubham Sharma had come to a realisation that his behaviour would drive away his daughter forever.
“Are you and your father still going to therapy?”