Dhaagey: The Ties that Bind Us [Tere Bin FF]

59. anywhere, everywhere

Author's Note: Life is super busy these days, so this chapter was delayed, sorry! Hopefully how long it is paired with the fact that it has more saxsux (as determined by poll votes) makes up for it. Okay, bye, see you on the other side, hehehehe. 

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It was a truth universally acknowledged, at least by one newlywed woman, that once a man and a woman finally surrendered to each other, truly surrendered, stopping became an abstract concept, the sort of constraint reserved for people who hadn't tasted that kind of freedom.

Meerab had not expected this truth to apply to her life quite so spectacularly, yet here she was, learning it in real time, breath by breath, kiss by kiss, every hour blurring into the next inside the hushed golden sprawl of their penthouse.

Somewhere between the breathless kisses, the hot wet press of his lips, the sobs he elicited from her mouth and the molten press of his tongue between her thighs, time had begun to collapse. She'd stopped counting orgasms after eleven. Stopped thinking about the dull ache in her hips or the constant, decadent tremble in her legs. Stopped caring whether it was morning or midnight or somewhere between the two.

There had been rest. Moments of it, anyway. Soft, drowsy islands floating between storms.

Tender lulls where she curled into him like her whole body had been shaped to match the grooves of his, her cheek against the warm thrum of his chest, feeling his breathing even out as sleep tugged them both under. There were the lazy hours where he stroked her back with the absentminded affection of a man wholly in love, whispering Meri Meerab over and over until the name melted into nonsense. Where he tucked her hair behind her ear and kissed the shell of it just because he could.

And there were times when they soaked in the hot bath steeped with Epsom salt, her legs floating around his as steam collected on the windows in dreamy ribbons while they talked about everything and nothing all at once. Like what ice-cream flavour fit his personality (she voted mango-chilli; he said coffee-flavoured), how they would raise their children, whether she'd survive a zombie apocalypse (the consensus was no because she would try to save random strangers she encountered while running).

And for once there had been no interruptions. No eyes watching. No Maa Begum clearing her throat when they sat too close together. No maids knocking at the door with tea. No cousins teasing them. No crisis to fix. No guilt threading through her joy.

Just them. Only them.

And even though she'd known him her whole life, this was different.

Because now they were allowed to be them.

And they were chaos together.

Beautiful, unrepentant, obsessive chaos.

They ate everything their impulsive hearts craved, like two children who'd been handed the keys to a sugar kingdom. Takeout boxes filled the garbage can, sometimes half-eaten, sometimes forgotten mid-kiss. At one point, she swore there had been a pizza in the oven. Whether they ever got to it, she couldn't remember.

The only thing they were even remotely responsible about was hydration, and that, only because they had to be. There was always water. Normal water. Coconut water. Those fancy electrolyte packets in glass tumblers. She couldn't stop drinking it. Her mouth was constantly dry, her throat parched like desert air, her skin practically begging for moisture.

Every time she took a sip, Murtasim would raise a brow like he was about to make a comment, and she'd mutter, "Shut up, I'm thirsty," before chugging half a bottle like it was divine intervention.