Playing With Fire

Chapter 29 - In His Arms

Gently he kissed her lips before pulling away. Emptiness filled her body—if that made any sense. Please don't let him walk out on me, she thought as he stood, showing her a full view of his naked, sinewy body for the first time. He stole her breath, standing there before her like a god, gorgeously naked, his body hard with muscles, his skin bronzed, kissed from the sun.

"Are you leaving?" Her question stuck in her throat.

It took him a minute to answer, making her fear his reply all the more.

"No just to go to the bathroom"

He needed a minute, that's what he needed, but then she did too. She'd made love to him fully and completely and didn't regret it even though she knew that to him it hadn't meant what it did to her. She didn't love him but she could. Easily.

Just one day at a time, she reminded herself. She had to keep this on fling level as Preity had suggested from the beginning.

"I got a warm washcloth. Come on, Angel, let's get you cleaned up." She hadn't even heard him come back into the room.

He wanted to clean her? How could she keep her distance emotionally when he kept doing things like this?

Once he put his hand between her legs to wipe her clean with the cloth, it was damn near impossible not to take her again.

He managed.

Barely.

Shahru finished washing her and then got rid of the washcloth. He thought the room
held a slight chill, so he figured she had to be cold. After pulling the blanket down, so that they could lie beneath it, he climbed back into bed with her. He told himself he did it for her, because she trusted him, because she'd be hurt if he left like he always did after sex, but really it was just as much, if not more, the fact he wanted to be here with her. He wasn't ready to walk away just yet.

As he leaned back on the bed, Angel laid her head on his chest. Even though he never cuddled with women anymore, he felt himself reach his arm under her head to hold her. "I didn't know all you had to do was take your practising exams and you could be a practicing lawyer." Shahru wanted in her head. He would never consider her stupid like her family and the prick had, but he did want to know why she'd go to years of schooling only to throw in the towel in the end.

"Sounds crazy, doesn't it?" Her breath raced across his bare chest.
"I don't know the reason yet, so how can I think It's crazy?"

Her fingers threaded through the hairs on his chest while she lay there quietly for a
minute. He gave her the time she needed, caressing the softness of the skin on her arm while she lay beside him. He'd always loved a woman's body but Kajol 's? Damn, there were no words to explain what she did to him.

Finally she spoke. "I spent six years in college working my tail off for my father's dream. I was never given the option to do anything else. I know that sounds crazy, but It's true. I should have taken them a few weeks ago, but after Amir and then my moving out ... I just decided if I was really going to start living my life for me instead of them, there wasn't really a reason for me to take the test. There has never been a day in my life that I actually wanted to practice law."

Shahru gave her arm a slight squeeze before just touching her again. "No, Angel, your reason doesn't sound crazy at all." It did make him like her all the more, though. "You know it takes a lot of guts to do what you have the past couple weeks. You should be proud of yourself."

"To tell you the truth, I am. In so many ways I feel like a completely different person."

"I don't think you're different as much as you stopped lying to yourself, stopped pretending to be something you weren't. There are a lot of people in this world who couldn't do what you've done."