Becoming Sweethearts [✓]

Part Thirty Six

"Oberoi, we'll hang the photo frame here above the sofa?" Gauri pointed out to the wall of the living room, wanting to hang Rudra's gift - their wedding picture there. Omkara nodded but frowned when she insisted that he did it now. "We can do it tomorrow too," he suggested, but she had asked him what other plans he had right now. "If you have nothing else to do, then why can't we get it done now?" she inquired, and he had no other option to give in. Ugh, so dominating at times, he murmured with a frown for not allowing him to laze around.

Omkara brought the ladder and marked the spot where he would hammer the nail. Gauri didn't know what warmed her heart more; the whole idea of hanging their wedding photo frame in the living room, or the way Omkara was set to do it for her. He saw the elated smile on her face and immediately smiled, realizing it was worth not lazing around. While he climbed up the ladder, he asked her to pass the tools and began to hammer the nail into the wall. "Here, let me help you," Gauri offered to help him carry the heavy frame, but he shook his head in a no. "Sharma, it's really heavy. Tujhse nahi hoga."

The moment he had held the photo frame to pick it up, Gauri held the other side, saying, "So, when did I say ke mujhse hoga? I'll help you with it. Dono milke karenge toh bilkul hoga, right?" Omkara smiled at her, shaking his head. He climbed the ladder, one step at a time, holding one end of the frame, while Gauri kept holding onto the other.

Gauri, however, was slightly distracted with the way his t-shirt stretched across the muscles of his back when he lifted the weight of it, alone, after asking her to let go. The man had a toned back, and bulging biceps as well, she noticed. What would it feel like to touch his back, all the way from his neck to the end of his spine? The thought left her as soon as it came to her mind. She ogled as much as she could at the man she was now married to, taking her time to admire how he looked from behind. Her not-so-innocent gaze did study his bottom, and she admitted to herself that he did have quite a cute butt.

"Done, right?" Omkara asked for turning around, and for a moment, she was disoriented. "Done with what?" she asked him, blinking at him, wondering if he had caught her staring at his bottom, just the way she had caught him scanning her curves. "The photo frame, what else?" he asked in confusion. Gauri nodded but said that it was slightly crooked. He adjusted it till she said it looked fine, after which he came down the ladder and put it away.

Gauri's mind, however, was still stuck on the way she had unabashedly checked him out. This had never ever happened before. In all the years that she knew him, she had never behaved this way with him. She agreed she did find him handsome and smart, even before they had decided to date each other. But this feeling, this sudden desire to feel him up close to her, this primal need that arose within her to want to run her fingers on his body, this unexpected raw ache of wanting to do a lot more than her brain could comprehend – this had never happened before. It was probably due to all that talk they'd had earlier about lingerie and seduction; or it was probably the way she was suddenly reminded how she woke up every morning wrapped in his arms, almost entangled with his almost-naked body...

Omkara snapped his finger and brought her out of her thoughts. He looked at her, still confused, as she appeared to be lost. "Are you okay?" he asked with concern in his voice. "yeah, why?" she asked him, blinking at him. "Sharma, I've called out to you thrice from the kitchen, and you've been standing here in a trance, looking at our photo frame!" She smiled, shaking her head, and looking away, she said, with a grin "I was just admiring how nice I look."

He chuckled as he turned to walk to the kitchen, mumbling to her, "Liar, you were just checking me out, right?" Gauri was shocked. How did he know? Omkara said out loud, "I know I looked stunningly sexy in that sherwani! What to do, Sharma? I have that effect; I leave people spellbound!" For the first time, Gauri did not argue; neither did she agree. She quietly agreed, knowing that the first part was true; she had been checking him out indeed.