ANAM CARA || A MaNan Fanfiction

13. Pulling The Breaks

|| Taking two steps back doesn't always mean you're behind, maybe you're waiting to take a leap ||

🔹️🔹️🔹️

Manik's heart thumped wildy in his chest the moment Nandini peddled the gas. He understood that smirk, albeit a little late but he did. That devil's grin meant trouble. Trouble of highest order and sitting in an enclosed car with just the two of them in attendance, he had no idea what kind of trouble awaited.

Acting more wisely, he sat back quietly with no intentions of poking the Tigress anymore. Well he didn't have this intention earlier too but that car had swayed him. He innocently wanted a ride and that's all. You cannot blame him for that, can you?

Apparently, someone did.

Nandini held him responsible, and with those same thoughts she shifted the gear and accelerated.

“Nandini…”, Manik released some shaky words, but the roar of the engine was loud enough to cover those. The speedometer however rose steadily unlike Manik's erratic heartbeats.

From 60 it reached 80 and onto 90 in not more than ten minutes. “Nandini...we are reaching hundred”, what was meant as a warning came out more as a reminder to Nandini, but was she bothered?

Not. At. All.

With that smirk just broadening Nandini did not hear a word Manik said, she continued doing what she was doing. Speeding. “Nandini! It's a hundred! Slow down”.

Manik was begging for his life. Quite literally. His hands which were stretched behind his head were now folded in a plea. To God or to goddess beside him. He couldn't decide right then.

“Just giving you a ride Manik. Like you asked”, That felt heaven to Nandini. That tremble in his voice. It may come off as being sadistic but the terror in those words gave her immense pleasure. “I asked for a simple ride, Nandini. Not a ride to hell”.

“But you asked a ride from the Devil and she knows only one way”, callous smirk crossed Nandini's face and for a moment, Manik forgot to breath. Not to forget how speechless that remark made him.

What else was he expecting from her?

At this point, Manik knew arguing with her was fruitless. He has already done the damage, now he better bear the consequences.

So, Manik 'man-ed up' a little for he pulled the seat belt tighter across his chest, sat up straighter in his seat and gripped the door handle with as much force as he could muster. And... he prayed. With utter sincerity that he ends up, still on the earth, in his human form with some breaths left to take when this is over.

From the corner of her eye, Nandini could see Manik submitting to the will of God and that had her suppressing a chuckle that was beginning to form at the base of her throat.

Nandini liked it. She dwelled in that. Though troubling Manik wasn't as pleasurable as she thought it would be, it was enough to keep her going.

She was jetting through the suburbs, somewhere on the highway without a care of the world. At that point of time, nothing mattered to her.

Not the pending shoot. Not the lined up meetings. Not the contracts she had to sign and the stores she had to visit.

Nandini was living in the moment without thinking about what future has in store for her. Without planning ten steps ahead in ahead. She was taking one step at a time.

Just as that thought settled in, a staggering remark came from her own mind, ‘Wasn't this exactly what Manik wanted you to do?”.

Nandini froze. Her pupils widening and the blood flow seemed to stop.