Page 42 of No Other Love
‘Are you going to punish me for it?’ I was provocative, breathless. In theory, I didn’t like the idea of a man controlling my sexual responses or my pleasure. But with Vikrant…I couldlet go. I could let him take control because he was the safest man on earth for me. Always had been. Always would be.
‘No.’ He kissed my collarbone by nudging the blouse aside.
I wore a simple pink cotton sari with a single pallu pinned on the back of the blouse. The blouse was cap-sleeves, tiny puffy sleeves that ended almost at my armholes. It was my first time wearing a sari to work, although watching Vikrant go unhinged this way made all the trouble worth it.
‘Why not?’ I brushed my hands in his hairs.
He carefully unpinned the pallu from the sari and gathered it in one hand, while he spun me around, so it came off in waves around me.
I laughed and let him undress me.
Thankfully, we’d just shut the hospital main door and the compounder had left for the day. We were alone in exam room 1.
When he’d finished unraveling the sari, he pointed at the table. ‘Get on that, madam.’
I hopped on it with pathetic eagerness. I even leaned my hands back so the blouse jutted out. ‘Are you going to exam me, doctor?’
He shook his head and stepped in between my parted legs. Slowly lifting the mermaid petticoat I wore under the sari, to tuck it in. ‘I’m going to do what I want.’
‘And what’s that?’ I could feel the grasp of his fingers, his touch going up and up and up over my knee and my inner thigh. Strong and sure.Mine.I groaned aloud, unashamed.
‘Whatever I feel like.’ He squeezed my thigh, his finger nails scratching at the tender skin. Marking me some more. In the best way possible.
He was such a good lover, the best, the only I’d ever had. ‘I missed you. I missed this,’ I confessed to him. ‘I missed you so much.’ Unexpected tears pricked my ears but I blinked them away. This was a sexy interlude at his office. This did not mean anything was resolved or permanent between us.
But, god, how I loved what he was doing to me. And what I felt for him.
He cupped my jaw in his free hand and pulled me in for a petal-soft kiss. I was surprised. I thought he’d be rough, taking what he wanted. Instead, he offered me himself. The kiss gentle and questing – asking for permission. Asking for entry.
‘Missing is too small a word for what I’ve endured this last year, Anika. So don’t ask me if I missed you or not.’
He whispered the confession against my lips, his kisses sealing it between us. A secret I held onto. A secret that strengthened me.
Do you still love me, Vikrant?I wanted to ask him.Because I still love you. I never stopped.I didn’t, because he devoured my mouth then. And his hand shot up and into my panties. I arched into his ardor, his need igniting mine. And when he shoved the petticoat up and almost ripped my blouse off (I saved it by shoving it off my back) I forgot all about it. I only felt his arousal tripping mine, his heavy breaths coating my skin with desire and sweat. His kisses making me lose my mind and my control.
And I loved every second of it.
***
That day set the tone for the next two days. Vikrant woke up before me, getting me coffee in bed, waking me up with a slow kiss and a morning seduction that had me blushing during the first aarti.
We spent the mornings working at the hospital, together. And I appreciated all of the many,manyhats Vikrant wore – counsellor, legal consultant, general physician, obstetrician and more. It was exhausting and fulfilling in its own way.
And I could see, with the benefit of hindsight, that he was better suited to small-town GP in a way he’d never been in the humongous hospital we had both worked at.
I thrived in the competitive, cut-throat environment of pediatric surgery. It was nameless. Faceless. All about the cutting. With none of the aftercare required.
Vikrant was interested in internist medicine, with a specialty in intensive care. It was heartbreaking and a quiet, unsung hero kind of job. It required patient interaction that I would have found impossible to deal with.
But Vikrant had a different kind of problem with the interactions.
***
It became apparent after he’d finished seeing one of the senior patients who required daily monitoring because they’d had a stent placed to alleviate a heart block.
‘Lokesh uncle taught me mathematics in tenth grade,’ he said when he came back to the office I shared with him. I kissed his cheek and lingered over his lips.
But, for once, he didn’t respond with reckless enthusiasm.