My Miss Bardbard

Fevered Confessions

The breakfast table's polished mahogany reflected Sai's trembling fingers as they hovered over her untouched paratha. Across from her, Pakhi's spoon clinked against her teacup with deliberate sharpness. "First day of marriage, and no sindoor?" Pakhi's voice dripped saccharine malice. "How very... modern of you." The air thickened as Badi Mami leaned forward, her gold bangles clattering like judgment bells. "In my time, brides cooked seven dishes before sunrise-and knew which herbs to use when their husband's uniform needed starching."

Sai's breath hitched when Virat's knee brushed hers under the table-a silent anchor. She opened her mouth to respond, but Ashwini whispered silently in her ear, cutting through the tension. "Beta! Your blouse.." Sai looked down to see the top button had come undone, revealing a sliver of the love bite Virat had left this morning. It wasn't exactly a love bite, a patch of skin reddened. Pakhi saw it, noticing Sai's and Virat's every single move. Pakhi's chair screeched backward as she stood, her napkin fluttering to the floor like a surrender flag. "Disgusting," she hissed. "Couldn't even wait until..". Virat's voice echoed through the halls, he screamed and asked Pakhi to shut her mouth.

Badi mami questioned Sai about her "Pehli rasoi"- first dish women cook in their in-laws house. When badi mami started getting louder and shouting , the crash of Sai's water glass silenced the room. Liquid splashed across the tablecloth, bleeding into the fabric like an accusation Badi mami made. "I... made kheer," Sai whispered, her voice fraying at the edges. Her fingers clutched at the damp cloth, nails digging into the embroidery. "Aaba taught me...." The words dissolved into a wet cough as her body listed sideways. Virat's arm shot out just as her temple grazed the fruit bowl, oranges scattering like fleeing spectators.

Mohit's chair overturned as he rushed to feel Sai's pulse. "104 degrees," he murmured, his calloused thumb brushing the fever-flushed hollow of her throat. Virat barely registered the chaos-Badi Mami's wails, Pakhi's muttered "drama queen," the servants' scrambling footsteps-as he gathered Sai against his chest.
Upstairs, Sai twisted in delirium atop the rumpled sheets they'd shared hours earlier. "Skin," she moaned, clawing at her sweat-slicked blouse. "Your skin-" Virat peeled the damp fabric away with trembling hands, but she arched off the mattress when his fingers grazed her feverish face. "No medicine," she panted, dragging his palm over her racing heart. "Just... your weight."

Skin," she murmured again, her fever-glazed eyes locking onto Virat's with startling clarity. The word landed between them like a live wire. He'd kissed her neck in the morning-yes-but never beyond the delicate slope where her pulse fluttered. Never lower than the first button of her ruined blouse. Yet now her fingers crept toward her collarbone, tracing the path his mouth had taken with deliberate slowness.

Virat braced one hand beside her head, his other automatically finding the dip of her waist. "You're burning up," he rasped-but the words dissolved when she arched into his touch, her fever-hot skin scorching through the thin cotton of his shirt.

"Not medicine," she whispered, her teeth grazing his jaw in a parody of this morning's kisses. "Just... you." Her fingers scrabbled at his shirt buttons with startling precision for someone who'd seemed delirious moments ago. The metallic click seemed to shock them both into stillness.

Virat caught her wrists, pinning them to the floral wallpaper. "Sai." Her name came out strangled. "You're sick. And you're out of your senses"

The whimper she let out wasn't one of protest but frustration. Her hands tracing his back in a slow, deliberate undulation that sent his pulse thundering. "Need your skin," she insisted, her breath hot against his collar. "Like last night. But..." Her blush deepened beneath the fever flush as she glanced toward the ceiling she hated so much. "More."

The confession punched through Virat's restraint. Now her body was demanding what her words couldn't articulate, her fever-heightened senses overriding propriety.