by Sonali Dev
What was wrong with him? He had never touched a woman who didn’t want him. Not to mention she was the last person on earth he should ever want to touch. For more damn reasons than he could count. Not the least of which was that she was an ungrateful, self-righteous prima donna. Who would have thought it?
I didn’t ask for your help. She had some gall for someone who couldn’t even stand on her own—
Holy shit.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
He ran out of his apartment and down the hall, fumbled in his pocket and found the keys. He was about to push the door open when he remembered to knock. He did it lightly. There was no answer. Shit. Shit. He had left her standing in the middle of the room without her crutches. Something squeezed in his chest. He wanted to ram the door open, but he stilled his hand, and as gently as he could, he pushed it open.
“Mili?” he whispered into the empty living room, then walked to her bedroom.
The sight he saw body-slammed him so hard he reached for the wall to steady himself.
Mili lay in the middle of the floor, curled into a ball on the stained and discolored carpet, her eyes closed, her lashes wet. Perfect shining curls spilled from the band that attempted to restrain all that wildness. Spiral strands trailed across the clumping pile of the carpet, across her shoulders, around her neck, across her cheeks. Why did she have to be the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on?
Wetness glistened like moonlight on her cheeks. Her pert upturned nose was red and wet. He sank down on his knees next to her. Her fingers were curled around one of her crutches. The other crutch lay a few feet from her. Her sprained arm was pulled to her chest as if she were trying to stop it from hurting.
He removed the crutch from her fingers, brushed her hair from her face. She was passed out cold. It was the Demerol he’d given her earlier, before he’d scared her shitless and then abandoned her on one foot with nothing to lean on.
She took a shivering breath that drew her brows together in a pained grimace and Samir felt something he had never felt before. He felt an actual physical ache in the region of his chest, absurdly close to where his heart was supposed to be.
As gently as he could, he lifted her up. She was so tiny, so warm. Her body fit perfectly in his arms. The memory of her breasts in the thin cotton of her ridiculously sensible bra, and the impossibly deep curve of her waist disappearing into her unzipped jeans, flashed in his mind one more time. Of course she was right. He had wanted to touch her. The sight of her half-undressed body had felled him when he’d let himself into her apartment. She had been terrified and he had lost his ability to speak at the sight of her.
Little Sam was at work again. And as usual that meant nothing but trouble for Samir.
He carried her to the lumpy mattress that served as her bed and laid her down. Her lush, wide lips trembled as she took another sighing breath and he refused to acknowledge the urge to know what those lips tasted like.
She’s sleeping, you bastard.
She’s in pain.
And you left her lying on the floor to cry herself to sleep.
Samir wiped her cheeks and pulled the rough plaid blanket over her and tucked it under her chin. He threw one glance at his watch. She would be out for another two hours at least. He knew exactly what he had to do.
Mili awoke to the most incredible aroma. Fresh garlic and cilantro being fried with stinging hot green chilies and ground cumin. And the smell of heaven itself—wheat rotis being roasted on an open fire. Her stomach growled so loudly, if she weren’t awake, it would definitely have woken her up. She had to be back home in Naani’s house. No other place on earth smelled like this. She opened her eyes and found herself in her own room.
The blanket she had used since she was three years old was tucked all the way under her chin and her crutches were propped up against her mattress within easy reach. The sight of her crutches brought back a bitter memory and anger pooled in her stomach. He had left her standing on one foot. With no support and no dignity. After struggling to stand for a few minutes she’d fallen to the ground like an orphaned cripple. She had tried to pull herself up, but her wrist and her ankle had both hurt too much and despite her resolve the tears had flowed until her eyes drooped shut.
She remembered the thunderous look on his face when he had walked away and grimaced. She had no idea why she had been so angry, why she had said those things. All she knew was that she had needed to push him away. And she certainly had no idea why it hurt so much when he had let her.
That couldn’t possibly be him cooking, could it? He could make the most delicious sandwiches, which kind of went with his whole city-boy persona. But this aroma suffusing her apartment, this was the very smell of her village. Good Lord, but it smelled good. So incredibly, maddeningly good, she was going to go crazy if she didn’t get her hands on it right now.
Maybe Ridhi was back? But Ridhi had burned the chai the first time she used the stove. Ravi then? God knows someone had to feed them when they were married and it wasn’t going to be Ridhi.
Mili sat up and pulled the crutches toward her. They were light and strong and she was going to figure out how to get off the floor and on them if it was the last thing she did. She used her good hand and managed to push herself off the mattress onto her good foot with one crutch tucked under her arm. But the other crutch was still on the floor and how was she supposed to get it? If the hurt arm and foot were on the same side this would actually be doable. Oh, forget it—she decided to go for it and lunged for the crutch on the floor. But the one under her arm slipped from her grip and flew forward and she followed suit.
Strong arms wrapped around her before she hit the floor. They pulled her up and held her in place until she caught her balance, caught a handful of his sleeve and caught her breath at the feel of hard muscles under her breasts.
Hair spilled around her face, mercifully hiding her flaming cheeks from his sight.
“You okay?” he asked against the curls covering her ear, his voice so tender, goose flesh started at the nape of her neck and dotted tiny bumps down her spine. For a few moments neither one of them moved. Then he pulled away. “I didn’t plan that. I swear.”
She twisted her head and looked up at him. “I’m sorry. I should never have said that.”
He turned her around and held her at arm’s distance. He was about to say something when she noticed rough, sticky dough where his hands cupped her elbows.
“Is that dough on your hands?”
“Difficult to make rotis without getting dough on your hands.” He lifted one hand up for display.
“You can make rotis? I don’t know any man who can make rotis.”
“I doubt you know any man like me, sweetheart.” His smile was teasing but there was that liquid heat in his eyes again. And it tipped her slightly off balance.
He slipped his hand back under her elbow and steadied her. Warmth rose from his doughy palms and spread down to parts where warmth had never until now ventured. She swallowed. She didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly they were standing so close she could hear his heart thudding in his chest. Unless that was her own heart.
This was wrong. Dangerous and wrong in every way. She wasn’t free to do this. But the strange heat spreading through her slowed her reflexes. She was about to push away from him when her eyes started to sting, something burned in her throat, and a shrill siren burst through the air.
Samir pulled away first and tried to push her onto the mattress. But she clung to his sleeve, refusing to let go, so he scooped her up in his arms and ran into the living room.
The kitchen was filled with smoke. The smoke alarm was going crazy. “Shit, I left a roti in the pan.” He turned off the burner under the roti, or at least it must’ve been a roti before it had turned to the tissue-thin scrap of charcoal emitting smoke into the room. He put her on the countertop, ran to the living room, and opened the windows.
The smoke started to clear but the alarm wouldn’t stop shrieking
.
“Get that magazine and fan it.” Mili pointed to Ridhi’s Cosmo magazine lying on the floor. It’s what Ridhi had done when she’d burned the chai.
He fanned frantically and finally the din stopped. Mili peeked over his shoulder at the cinder roti. He turned and followed her gaze. “I hope you like your rotis well done,” he said.
And they both started to laugh.
Samir had never met a woman who ate like this. Come to think of it, he had in recent years never met a woman who ate, period. Neha treated food like it was evil incarnate. She was in constant conflict with any little morsel she had to force into her mouth.
Mili ate as if she were making love to the food. Fierce, hungry love. Slow, sultry love. Every bite sent her into raptures, the pleasure of the flavors bursting on her tongue palpable in the tiny peaks of bliss flitting across her face. What would it be like when this woman orgasmed?
They were sitting cross-legged on the floor and eating with their hands in traditional Indian fashion. Samir was glad to have the plate in his lap because for all his pleasure at the sight of Mili eating, Little Sam was paying the price.
“This is truly the most amazing potato sabzi I’ve ever eaten and the dal is perfect and the rotis make me feel like I’m sitting in my naani’s kitchen in Balpur.” She kept a constant string of compliments going as she ate. They bubbled from her as if she couldn’t contain herself. Samir, who usually found all forms of flattery oppressive, never wanted her to stop.
“Seriously, I’m starting to doubt your manhood.”
Samir choked on his roti. Was that a coquettish look she threw him?
Nope. False alarm, because she ruined the effect by following it up with a furious blush. She took another bite. “I meant, how can a man cook like this? Whoever taught you must be a magician.”
“She is. When I was little I had a hard time letting go of my mother’s sari. So I spent a lot of time with her and she spent a lot of time in the kitchen, so I learned.”
“A mummy’s boy.” She spooned some dal into her mouth and her eyes went fuzzy with delight.
“Most definitely.”
“But if these are the results, every man should be a mummy’s boy.” Damn it, if she kept saying these things with that artless smile he was going to push her into the mattress and show her other things he was really good at.
“I’m glad you like it.” He reached over and wiped a tiny splatter of dal from her chin.
“Is that what you think? That I like it? I don’t like it, Samir. I, oh good heavens, I . . . I love it.” She popped a piece of seasoned potato into her mouth and said love so lustily that the plate in Samir’s lap almost flipped over.
Fortunately Mili seemed completely clueless about his painful condition. Because suddenly her eyes got serious and warm. “Why did you do it?” she asked in that husky, breathless voice of hers.
“Well, I used to be sitting around while my mother did all the work, so I figured I might as well help her out. She kept teaching me, so I kept picking it up.”
Her impossibly dark eyes softened and got even more serious. “I meant, why did you cook today?”
“I was desperately hungry.”
She kept skewering him with those flashlight eyes. For some reason he knew she wasn’t going to stop until she had her answer.
“Because I was sorry.”
That signature blush danced up her cheeks.
It was his turn to drill her with his eyes. Her turn to look away. “I’m sorry I left you like that, Mili. It was a horrible thing to do.”
She lifted her heavy fringe of lashes, and met his eyes again. “Samir, I was a complete stranger and you’ve done nothing but take care of me from the moment you met me. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“So you weren’t mad at me for leaving?”
She colored some more and he couldn’t help but smile.
“Just a little bit.” She pinched the air with her thumb and forefinger.
“See.”
“But not because you were horrible. I was mad because . . . because. . .”
“Because you were helpless and dependent and because you expected me not to be such a bastard.” She cringed at the word and he felt like an even bigger bastard. “Sorry. Because you expected me to have more decency than that.”
She opened her mouth but no words came out. She put her plate on the floor. “Samir, you’ve been more than decent.”
“Mili, there’s something you should know about me. The one thing I’m not is a decent guy.”
“That’s not true.” She shook her head and her mad curls danced about her shoulders.
“No, seriously, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. But that’s one thing you should know. And while I’m not a decent guy, even I know that leaving you like that was an awful thing to do. And I truly am sorry.”
Her clear-as-morning-sunshine gaze shimmered with moisture. She gave the food he had cooked another worshipful glance. Her words made her lips tremble before she spoke them. “Samir, it’s not the fact that you left that’s important. What matters is that you came back and made it right.”
10
The only movement Mili allowed herself was to crack open one eyelid. Just enough to see that Samir was still slamming away at his laptop as if he were pounding his heart into those words the way he’d done almost nonstop for over a week. She couldn’t believe she was lying on a mattress on the floor a few feet from a man she barely knew. A man who looked like that. If her naani ever found out, there was no avoiding that heart attack she kept threatening. And yet Mili felt, if not entirely comfortable, utterly safe. Especially now that he knocked and diligently announced himself every time he came over.
“How long have you been up?” He only half looked up from his laptop, that one-part-amused, two-parts-arrogant smile diffusing the concentration on his face.
“What are you writing?”
Both amusement and arrogance dissolved behind a wall. “Just something.”
“That’s a long something you’ve been writing. I thought you said your workshop didn’t start for a few weeks?” He’d told her he was here for some sort of special month-long writing workshop.
He stared at the screen, a frown crinkling his forehead. “It doesn’t. But I came in early to finish up my script before it starts.”
“Script?” She tried to sit up. “Like a movie script?”
He moved his laptop aside and helped her up. “You don’t read film magazines or watch much TV, do you?” The arrogance was back full force.
Much as she loved movies, those film magazines made her sick to her stomach and she had never found the time to go out and buy a TV. “Why? Are you some sort of big, famous star?” she teased.
He gave a sheepish shrug and went back to typing.
Oh God, was he really famous? And she hadn’t even recognized him.
“Don’t look so embarrassed. I’m not that famous. I am a director. But I write my own stories and I’ve always wanted to take a screenwriting workshop. So here I am.”
“Seriously? You’re a director? Like a real director director? What have you directed? Anything I’ve watched?”
“I don’t know. Do you watch films?”
“Do I watch films?” Mili flattened an outraged palm against her chest as if he’d just accused her of stripping for cash in her spare time. “I’ll have you know I watched every single movie they showed at the Balpur theater—first day, first show.” Her eyes went all nostalgic and Samir found himself hungry for a glance at the memories flashing through her mind.
“I mean hello! Doesn’t the name Mili sound familiar? I’m even named after a Hindi film. Mili was my mother’s favorite film.”
“Your mother named you after a girl who dies of cancer?”
“She does not die!” She looked so appalled he had to force himself not to smile. “The love of her life takes her to America at the end and vows to fight for her recovery. Did you even watch the film?” Were those
tears in her eyes?
“You mean the nasty drunk who’s horrible to her throughout the film?”
She gasped and narrowed her teary eyes to slits. “He is not nasty! He’s hurt and disillusioned. His heart is as sick as her body is. And they heal each other.” She waved her hands about, making healing sound as simple as making rotis, a few swipes of the rolling pin and you had nice, perfectly round dough circles.
“Have you watched anything that was made in this decade?”
She pulled a face at him—one that told him exactly how much of an arrogant jerk he was. “I watched whatever our Balpur theater showed. After I moved to Jaipur, I never had much time to go to the theater. Pandey, the theater wallah in Balpur, was an Amitabh Bachan and Shah Rukh Khan fan, so that’s mostly what we watched. My favorite is Sholay, and I’ve watched Chandni eight times and Darr five times.”
None of those films were made in this decade, but she looked so excited he didn’t correct her. Plus, if she hadn’t watched movies in the past few years the chances of her knowing who he was were slim. And that was a stroke of luck he wasn’t about to question.
“You don’t like these films?” she asked as if she were asking if he had a soul and any taste at all.
“No, they’re great films. Sholay’s one of my favorites too.” God, he’d die for a script like that. “But the other two, well, they aren’t exactly the kind of films I make.”
Ah, so he made those artsy-fartsy films. Pandey had shown one of those once, about this honest cop who goes around killing all the corrupt politicians. It was all so dark and depressing the public had started shouting in the middle of the show and beaten the projection man so badly he had to be taken to a hospital in Jaipur. After that it was only Amitabh and Shah Rukh again.
She stuck out her hand and beckoned with her fingers. “Come on, give me some names. Let’s see if I’ve heard of any of your films. And, you know, so I can name drop.”
He smiled. “Have you watched Boss? It’s about the clash between the boss of the Mumbai underworld and the head of the Mumbai police and how they destroy each other.” Pride shone in his eyes, as if he were a parent bragging about a favorite child, and she wished they had let Pandey show those off films once in a while.
