Poles Apart

Chapter Forty-One

Author

"I don't understand what's making you go to all the appointments," Arvi remarks to Arjun, giving him a full-blown grin. "I thought you hated Ankush?"

Arjun spares her a side glance, his mood ruined after the meeting with the said interior designer. "I'd like to sleep on my bed very soon, thank you very much," he says. "With the amount of time you take to select curtains, I can only wonder how long it'll take for you to choose the rest of it."

Arvi pouts, not because she's offended, just for the sake of keeping her inner drama queen alive. "So I'm a little indecisive," she defends herself, leaving the words hanging as she swallows the last bit, 'fuck me', memories of a time before surfacing in her mind.

"Little indecisive?" he ridicules. "You could put Tughlaq to shame," he refers to the Mad King who changed the capital of his kingdom from Delhi to Devagiri and then to Delhi, resulting in a loss of lives and a deep-rooted economic crisis.

"At least I'm not accent-shaming the poor interior designer," Arvi retorts.

"Accent-shaming?" Arjun repeats, bewildered. 'Is that a thing now?' he wonders. "The guy switched thirty accents in three seconds," he exaggerates.

"You said you would be nicer to him."

"I didn't say anything about his accent today," Arjun defends himself.

"You did, though," Arvi insists, smugly. "Like, two seconds ago."

Arjun narrows his eyes at Arvi, defeated.

With a smug grin, Arvi looks out of the window, giving the defeated man some time to cope with himself.

However, when Arjun turns onto a familiar road that leads to a certain place she detests, she looks at him, flabbergasted. "Where—" she stops short. "Why—" Arvi's desperate attempt to form a sentence, with no success, only amuses Arjun.

Did she hate clubs that much?

"Why are we here?" Arvi whines, as Arjun drives into the parking lot.

"I need a drink," Arjun claims. "I sat through that meeting for you, you know?"

"Just a few minutes ago, you said you were going to the meetings because you wanted to sleep on your bed," Arvi points out.

Arjun smirks and leans closer to her, his coffee breath hitting her face. "Would you have liked it better if I said I was going to spend more time with you?"

Arvi's breath hitches at the proximity. Her eyes dart between his, trying to read his expression. She had teased him about it in the hope that he would say something cheesy like that, but did he know that's why she had done it?

Gulping, she leans away from him. Her tongue pokes out to lick her suddenly dry lips. Arjun's gaze shifts to her lips, and she bites her lower lip in a manner to hide it from his smouldering eyes.

His eyes burned her body, slowly, inch-by-inch, and she found herself wanting him to more than just look at her.

How much patience did he possess, she wondered. Her heart warmed at the thought that he would stop himself from merely touching her because she might be uncomfortable.

"You said you wanted a drink," she reminds him, looking away from his darkened gaze, trying to remember how to breathe.

Arjun moves back, as though he had suddenly come back to his senses. Releasing a pained sigh, he squeezes his eyes shut, in an attempt to reign his wild imagination.

Ever since that day at the penthouse, Arjun's desires had been awoken. The guy hadn't had a girl in bed for nearly ten months now, and he knew to restrain himself around Arvi because she wasn't ready.