“Tell me you missed me too,” he demanded, his thumb searching for the peak of her breast under the light padding of her bra. She arched up into him, the touch nowhere near satisfactory.
“Why would I miss you?” She nipped his chin. “I had my fictional boyfriends keeping me company.”
“Tell me,” he insisted as he pressed into her, moving lightly against her throbbing clit. His fingers flirted with the skin at her waist, slipping under her shirt as she mumbled a happy encouragement for him to keep going.
Their moment was broken when her pager buzzed in her pocket, causing them to groan in unison.
“I have to go to the hospital,” she informed him, gently trying to push him off but having no success in moving the mountainous human who lay atop her.
“Now?”
She nodded, looking just as regretful as he felt.
“Breakfast?” he asked, pointing his thumb backwards in the general direction of his kitchen.
“Don’t have time. Besides,” she added, slyly watching him for his reaction. “I just had a banana milkshake.”
Rian stared down at her, torn between laughter and disbelief. “You did not just say that.”
“I definitely did,” she giggled, looking very proud of herself for having slipped in a dirty pun in their conversation. “But now, I do have to leave. I have patients in labour. One of them might be ready for delivery.”
He looked so disappointed, she lifted her neck up to kiss the tip of his nose. “I’m sorry, Handsome.”
He sat up, helping her as well. “Flattery isn’t enough. Say sorry to me later tonight. I have so many ideas for good apologies.”
“Well, if you’re a really good boy, I might find it in me to make more mistakes to apologise for.” She winked, kissing him soundly before sashaying away.
He would not melt, he would not melt, he would not melt.
He kept chanting this in his head, holding on to the last bits of his reason.
“Bugs?” she called, halfway out the front door.
He raised his brows.
“I missed you, too.”
He melted like a cube of ice thrown into an active volcano.
If only to avoid the temptation of running after her and hauling her to the nearest bed, he strode into his room, feeling an immense lightness in being.
He whistled one of his favourite tunes—an old Bruno Mars song, unconsciously mouthing the lyrics every so often. It was the closest he’d gotten to singing in over two decades. Unaware, yet inadvertently happier because of it, he stepped into his closet to get dressed for work. It was only when he caught sight of himself in the mirror did he realise what he looked like.
Flushed skin, messy hair, bright eyes.
And the goofiest grin that lit up his face.
26
Shelter
Rian
It was no surpriseto him that he ended up standing outside Aditi’s clinic at Sanjog General a few hours later, watching the gorgeous woman inside deal with her patients. Rian would have been there earlier, but he had not wanted to seem like an obsessive stalker. He also had his restaurants to check in on. The minute a viable excuse had presented itself, he had wasted no time to rush to the hospital, work be damned.
With a packed lunch that he was sure she’d love, and a very good reason to meet, he had shown up at reception, glad to catch Nina there. He’d wanted to surprise Aditi, and Nina had readily agreed to sign him in as her guest.
Which had led him to this moment, where finally, after months of knowing what she did, he was getting a little glimpse of her professional life.