Beautiful Girl

Part Fourteen

They sit together in darkness, pressed against the side of the bed.
She probably left the lamp on before leaving the room in the morning, he thinks as he stares at the shadows that the crystal lampshade casts on the adjoining wall.
She hasn't said a word since they left Raizada mansion.
Not one word.
And it has started to scare him a bit.
Not that he has tried talking to her.
He can't.
He doesn't dare.
Not after what-
She stirs and he is roused from his thoughts.
"Khushi?" He utters softly, hesitantly, but she she pays him no heed.
She gets on her knees and grabs the edge of her kurti, tugs it up and over her head... And he closes his eyes.
"What the fuck, Khushi?" He snarls, turning away his head. He is only a man.
She's painted on the inside of his eyelids. The soft stretch of her pale skin, the delicate pink of her bra cupping her breasts, the tops spilling over it. The indent of the strap over her shoulders, the clasp digging into the flesh below her clavicle...
Fuck...it was only seconds, but he remembers the tiniest of details.
The goosebumps dotting her skin...
He is no saint.
He can't help the arousal that coils low in his belly, the hum of awareness of her almost nude form just inches from him.
"Put your kurti back on, Khushi," He orders, trying to control his galloping heart. They are already in a mess of astounding proportions. He doesn't need the added variable of sexual tension right now.
She is gentle when she takes hold of his chin and turns his head back towards her.
His eyes are open this time around and he can't help but stare.
His eyes slip over her breats to fall on her abdomen, the curves of her waist.
He is frozen when her fingers pop out the button of her jeans, when the zipper lowers down each teeth of the chain...
"What are you doing?" He croaks.
He can see the lace band of her panties.
They're pink...
"This is what you want, don't you, Arnav, for the favor you've bestowed upon me?" She replies with a smile that looks all wrong on her face and just like it, his arousal beats a hasty retreat.
Ice fills his veins, and crawls towards his heart.
"What are you talking about?" He asks, his words ringing hollow in his own ears.
"Isn't this why you came to me? To fuck me and crow about it to your sister? To have me as another notch on your bedpost?"
She slids the jeans down and he's treated to the sight of her thighs.
"Khushi...please don't do this," He pleads as he moves back, trying to put distance between them.
"Why the show, Arnav?" She rages. "Isn't this what you want?"
Her fingers reach behind to unhook her bra and he has had enough.
He lunges and grabs her hand before she can let go, aware that his hold is punishingly tight on her wrist.
"You stop it this instant, Khushi," He warns, eyes narrowing at the rebellious tilt of her jaw.
"Her name's Khushi, I love her and I am going to marry her," She mocks him with his words, and all he can do is lower his eyes.
"Love me?" She laughs, but it sounds more like a cry. "How many more lies are you going to feed me, Arnav?"
He wants to shake her and tell her that his avowal of love, it wasn't a lie. He wants to tell her that he burns, that he hurts because of what he feels, but he can't.
He lost his chance.
"I don't wanna marry you!" She whispers brokenly. "I don't wanna trade one jailer for another. But I have no choice, do I?"
"Khushi, it isn't..."
"Take what you want, Arnav. And then go back to the world you came from..."
She breaks down, crying out like a maimed animal and he pulls her in his embrace.
Her soft curves fit against his hard edges, and even as her tears wet his shirt, he lets go of her wrist, and pushes the hook that's open back into the eyelet.
"I can't be sorry enough for everything. I know that, sweetheart. I know that... I know I was wrong. I know what they did to you is wrong, but you gotta let me help you. Just let me help you," He husks, keeping his voice pleading.
She will see emotion more than she sees reason right now.
"You've got your exams coming. You need to worry about that, sweetheart. Leave the rest to me."
"Why?" She keens, raising her head to stare at him with her red, tear stained eyes.
"If I tell you the reason," He whispers against her cheek, "you will accuse me of lying, sweetheart..."
"So, you didn't lie to me?"
"Yes, I lied. I came to you with lies, but I left them behind on that terrace where we first met, sweetheart..."
"You could've told me later!"
"I didn't dare," He confesses on a quiet note. "You were the sun and I just wanted to bask in your warmth. I've met so many women, but I've met none like you..."
He pats her back, the top of her head gently until the sound of her sniffling dies down.
"I've got nothing left of my parents save for what I took when I came to live with the Guptas. There's nothing left," She tells him and he keeps himself from wincing.
Her voice sounds dead, defeated.
"There's a new family living there, you know..." She whispers. "They told me there wasn't much left when they took possession of the house. Told me whatever was left, old carpets and such, they threw it all away. My dad's old clothes, my mum's sarees... Everything... "
"I am sorry... "
"Save your fucking sorry," She screams at once, punching him in the chest, but he doesn't let her go.
"What good is your fucking sorry? You and your fucking family played with me like I am some twenty buck toy you got from the store..."
He winces as her fist lands on his stomach.
"You and your lot are fucking rotten, Arnav! Just turn me out on some street and go back to your folks..."
"I will not leave you," He states firmly as he grabs her hands in one of his and pushes against her chest to keep her down, his fingers skimming the top of her lacy bra cups.
She notices his distracted gaze and scoffs, eyes cold and bitter.
"Why don't you just fuck me and be done with it? Why don't you just fucking stop trying to prove that you've got some kinda morality left?" She hisses at him, cruel words coming out of her twisted mouth.
"You will know when I fuck you good and proper, sweetheart," He leans down to whisper against her lips. "This ain't the time or the place, but trust me, if I wanted, I would have had you by now."
He knows his words are only going to inflame her, but that is what he wants. Rage is better than tears and helplessness any given day.
"Now listen to me, sweetheart. We can do this all day long. I can tell you I am a nasty piece of shit, a proper asshole and you can keep taunting me for being attracted to you. But right now, you're an unmarried person and I am an unmarried person. Come morning, the hotel people are gonna know that my access to the company accounts are frozen. So, we are going to need a place to stay. And two unmarried people of different genders don't get to buy or even lease a fucking flat."
"I am not marrying you," She spits and he almost smiles.
There she is, his Khushi. The one who eats guys like him for breakfast.
"I know. And I will never force you to." He frees her and she moves away quickly. He gets up and drags his luggage near where she's sitting and opens it. He doesn't even need to shuffle his things around to find the box. It's lying in between his clothes, just like he packed it. He takes a couple of deep breaths, and makes sure that his heart ain't galloping like a prized horse at the Derby before he turns to face her.
He pops open the lid and a tiny gasp leaves her mouth.
The rings are the testament of excellent craftsmanship.
She extends her hand tentatively towards him and he takes it as a sign to pluck out the rings from the box.
"Come a little closer, will you, sweetheart?" He mutters softly and she pushes her butt forward to bridge the distance between them.
He wants to laugh at the scene unfolding in front of him and he wants to cry.
He takes her offered hand. His own shake terribly, but she doesn't comment on it.
He slips the rings on her ring finger, a wedding band and another topped with sapphire, and she takes her arm back quickly, staring at her finger as if she has never before seen her hand.
The emotion builds in him like a hurricane and he gets up abruptly and rushes to the bathroom.
He shuts the door, locks it, moving a few more steps to slump against the glass shower.
She was sitting there in her underwear, his rings on her finger, signs of his claim...
The pink lace hugging her curves...
He reaches blindly to switch on the jets. Water assaults him from three sides and he rests his head against the tile.
The lace against the crease of her thighs...
He is hard.
He is fucking hard while she sits outside this door in her pink underwear and his rings that proclaim her as his...
He is no saint.
He pushes the button out of the placket and tugs down the zip of his pants.
He drags his boxers down as water beats down his back.
He is in so much hurry that he doesn't even bother with tearing open the shirt that sticks to his skin.
He takes his cock in his hand and only wonders for a brief moment what it would feel like to come in her hands, or on her body, or in her...mouth before he's squeezing his fist around his dick and moving it to create friction that feels wonderfully painful, not to mention, fucking raw.
In his head, he doesn't stop her from unhooking her bra. The swath of pink lace and satin comes down and he's treated to the sight of her breasts....
It doesn't take more than a couple of pumps and he's coming all over the tiled wall with her name on his lips as water falls like fucking rain over and around him.
He's jizzing in the bathroom while she sits outside in her underwear.
Those fucking pink panties...
He fucking hates them...