Rebel Hard (Hard Play #2)

by Nalini Singh

  Touches, kisses, caresses, they were two people between whom it could never be casual.

  She ran her tongue all the way along one side of the vee.

  “Fuck.” It was gritted out, his thighs rigid on either side of her.

  Her own pulse throbbing in her neck, she took advantage of his closed eyes to look down at the part of his body so very close to her cheek, the denim of his jeans fighting to contain it. And maybe because he wasn’t watching, or maybe because they were starting to become each other’s on a level beyond anything she’d experienced with another human being, she closed her hand over him.

  The cry he let out this time was more of a roar, the hand in her hair pulling almost painfully tight for a second before he let go and grabbed at the arms of the chair. “Nayna.” A rasp. “I think we should move to the bed.”

  Emboldened by his response, her entire self full of a raw emotion that had no name, Nayna glanced up and held his gaze. “No.” She tightened her hold a fraction and heard his breath catch. “I’m not sure I’m ready to have this large object inside me again.” Her cheeks burned hot, but she didn’t look away. “I want to play with it though.”

  Raj shoved both hands through his hair. “I’m dead. You’re looking at a dead man.”

  Her shoulders shook and she knew—it would only ever be like this with Raj. Leaning in, she pressed a kiss to the spot on his navel where the furred trail disappeared into the waistband of his jeans. His hand came back to her head, this time to curl around her nape. And his cock, it twitched under her touch.

  Catching her lower lip with her teeth, Nayna undid the button on his jeans and took extreme care while lowering the zipper. He was wearing black boxer briefs, but releasing his cock from those wasn’t in any way difficult—the smooth, hard length was already attempting to escape.

  When Nayna closed her fingers gently around him, he went so motionless that she thought he must’ve stopped breathing. Glancing up, she saw veins popping out on his arms, sweat dampening his chest… but his eyes were open.

  Watching, as he liked to do.

  Blush or not, Nayna held the dilated darkness of his eyes and decided to have one more lick. This time, it wasn’t of his abs.

  30

  True Love Hurts

  Raj sat across from Nayna at one of the outdoor tables of a bustling restaurant. The two of them had ventured out when hunger struck. Nayna wore her lightweight jacket, and Raj had thrown on the hoodie he’d packed, but otherwise they were in jeans and T-shirts. The people around them were a wild mix—some dressed as casually as Nayna and Raj, others wearing formal black dresses or crisp shirts.

  The staff served everyone with equal cheer under the orange-gold evening sunlight.

  “Does this count as a date?” Nayna asked after they’d ordered, her chin propped up on her hands. “I’ve never been on a date.”

  Raj bracketed her feet between his sprawled-out legs. “After what you did to me in that cabin, Nayna with the sundar nayna, it can be whatever you like.” He was no poet, but she gave a delighted smile at his play on the meaning of her name.

  “No one’s ever said I had pretty eyes before.” She batted her lashes.

  “I think you mean ‘fine eyes.’”

  Her smile turned into a grin at his reference to her favorite book, but their server returned right then with their drinks, and the next minute or two was taken up with getting the drinks placed on the table and taking sips.

  “Raj.” Nayna’s tone had become solemn. “If you support me in moving out, it’ll turn my parents against you.” A hard swallow. “They love you right now.”

  “Let me deal with that.” Raj had taken on tougher opponents than Shilpa and Gaurav Sharma—and his priority was Nayna. “The most important thing is to make sure you come out of this unscathed.”

  Nayna’s face fell. “Never going to happen.” Raw words, not the least bit flippant.

  Because Nayna Sharma loved deeply and unconditionally.

  Raj wanted that fierce force of love in his life, wanted to be able to take it for granted. Not as her family did, abusing her generous nature. But in a way that was his anchor. Never worrying, because it was a constant.

  Until then, until she trusted him enough to give him her heart, he’d hold her declaration about wanting to keep him always, at the surface of his thoughts. No old demons would get between him and Nayna; Raj wouldn’t allow it.

  “My father will never forgive me for disrupting his plans,” Nayna added. “And my mother… she’s his wife. She’s always stood with him.” A deep breath. “Aji will stay in touch, I’m sure.” She gave a shaky smile. “She’s having a love affair of her own.”

  Raj tried to imagine the pure-Hindi-speaking, white-sari-clad elderly lady he’d met having a love affair and hit a mental blank. Until he thought of what Nayna might be like at that age, and suddenly it wasn’t such a hard thing to visualize. Because Nayna would still be as lovely, as brilliant.

  “The first thing we have to do is find you a place,” he said as their fish and chips arrived on the table.

  * * *

  However, getting into an apartment proved easier said than done. The rental market in Auckland was well beyond capacity. Laptop open in front of her as she sat in bed after dinner, Nayna called up landlord after landlord, only to be told there was already a waiting list for the advertised rentals.

  Raj, who’d slipped down to lie on his back with one arm bent behind his head and his eyes on the screen of her laptop, frowned. “That’s too far out,” he said when she pulled up another listing. “It’d add two hours to your commute every day.”

  “A long commute might be the only realistic option.”

  Raj was silent for a minute before saying, “I have an idea.” After asking her to pass him his phone, which he’d left on the bedside table beside her, he called a number and said, “Ping, how’re you doing?”

  Nayna listened as he asked the other man about a property that Ping had been rehabbing. “Is it ready for a tenant?” He listened while his friend spoke. “Yeah, I’ll vouch for her,” he said after about thirty seconds. “That’s all?” Another pause. “You give her the place and I’ll finish up the job for you at no cost.”

  The deal was done two minutes later.

  Hanging up, Raj said, “You have a one-bedroom unit in Epsom. Two-story place, internal garage below, everything else above. Entire complex only has eight units overall, most of them occupier-owned, and the landscaping is neat and easy-care. Good-sized lounge, tiny kitchen, approximately a ten-minute drive to your office.”

  Nayna’s mouth was dry, her pulse skittering. “What did you promise your friend?”

  “Nothing major.” He put the phone down on the bedside table on his side. “The deck’s unfinished. I can polish off the job on the weekend. Officially, you won’t be on the rental agreement until that deck is finished, but the house is safe and sound and warm, and Ping’s a professional. You won’t have to worry about a creepy landlord.”

  Nayna put down the laptop. “I’m doing this,” she whispered, the reality of it coming down on her head like a ton of bricks.

  It was time to see the sword fall.

  * * *

  Raj watched Nayna sleep that night and knew he might be the architect of his own heartbreak. The Nayna she was now wanted him, but the Nayna she became as she found her wings… that Nayna might decide a man so rooted in tradition and culture wasn’t the man she wanted by her side.

  It was possible that she might never fully trust such a man not to turn on her with rules and boundaries and demands that stifled her spirit. Nayna was a woman heading off into the unknown, excited and invigorated by what she might discover… while Raj needed roots, needed an unbroken line from the past to the future.

  His chest ached, but he could no more stop helping her fly than he could stop breathing. “I love you, Nayna Sharma,” he whispered, the words a secret he couldn’t say to her when she was awake.

  It would be
another kind of pressure.

  Nayna knew his deepest hurts, and it would go against every part of her nature to scar him any further. Her heart was too soft, her ability to be loyal too powerful. But even worse than Nayna flying away from him would be a Nayna who stayed only because of a sense of obligation and friendship.

  So he would tell her of his love only in the midnight hours, when she slept in his arms. He’d help her fly… and hope she’d choose to fly to him.

  31

  Wedding Bells Ringing

  Raj drove Nayna home.

  He’d left his truck parked at the airport, and after they landed in Auckland around eight at night, he dumped both their bags in the back seat, then opened the passenger door for her. But before she could get in, he gripped her jaw and initiated a deeply demanding kiss that held all the need he couldn’t show her, all the hopes he had to keep under lock and key.

  “Now,” he said afterward, “let’s go pretend we spent the time talking.”

  She cradled his jaw in one hand, his stubble now more into scruff territory. “I’m so glad you’re mine,” she whispered and made the knot of tension inside him unravel a fraction.

  Just enough that he could smile and say, “Me and my abs?”

  “Well, duh.” Laughing, she pushed playfully at his chest before getting up into the passenger seat.

  Raj closed the door and jogged around to get into the driver’s seat—and tried not to imagine what it might be like to do things like this with her every day. Shared rides, casual errands, quick trips. Sweet domesticity was his dream, not Nayna’s.

  “Rock music okay?” he asked when his usual station came on after he started the engine.

  She pretended to play air-guitar before launching into the rock ballad currently playing. Grinning, Raj joined in, and the two of them treated the truck as their own private karaoke studio until he turned into the street on which the Sharmas had their home.

  Suddenly Nayna’s song cut off. She hugged her arms around herself. “How am I going to do this?” she whispered. “It’ll break their hearts.”

  Raj ran the back of his hand over her cheek. “We’ll do it together.”

  A rub of her cheek against his knuckles. “It’s not going to be pretty.”

  “I can handle not-pretty.” Though he’d have to keep a handle on his temper if her family got close to crossing a line. “Visitors?” He nodded at the small red car parked behind the garage.

  “Madhuri.” Nayna blew out a trembling breath. “I guess she might as well be here for this too.”

  Raj turned into the drive.

  It was time.

  * * *

  Nerves jangling, Nayna got out of the truck and waited for Raj to grab her bag from the back before the two of them walked around the side of the house to enter through the back door. That door led into the kitchen, where she was sure to find her mother or grandmother at this time of night. Maybe Madhuri and her father too.

  The kitchen was the absolute heart of the Sharma home.

  The door opened before she reached it, her mother bursting out. “My Ninu, you’re home!” A crushing hug scented with a familiar floral perfume before her mother pulled back and said, “I’m so glad you’re here.” Her smile dazzled as she turned to hug and kiss Raj on the cheek too. “And Raj beta, you too. You would’ve both missed the excitement otherwise.”

  Belatedly realizing that Shilpa Sharma’s enthusiasm had only a little to do with her return from the South Island, Nayna frowned. “What’s happened? And why are you wearing your newest salwar kameez?” A vivid aqua with pink accents, it had been meant for an upcoming sixtieth party.

  “Madhuri is engaged!” Her mother clapped her hands in front of her, her eyes literally twinkling.

  Nayna’s mouth fell open. “No!”

  “Yes!” Her mother danced on the spot.

  Mind snapping to the surfer boy whose photo she’d seen on Madhuri’s phone, Nayna said, “Anyone we know?” She wasn’t about to accidentally bust her sister if the groom wasn’t to be Boytoy Bailey.

  “Oh, it’s Dr. Sandesh Patel,” her mother said. “You know, the one who has his own clinic. Never been married, and he wants Madhuri!”

  Nayna’s head spun. “Where is she?” She needed to talk to her sister and find out what the hell was going on. From having fun with a surfer boy to getting engaged to one of the most respected men in their community? A man who had always struck Nayna as coldly unbending. Not the kind of husband who’d have patience with Madhuri’s quixotic ways.

  “She’s getting ready in her old room,” Shilpa Sharma said happily. “Sandesh is coming over in the next five, ten minutes so we can make it all official—your timing was wonderful!” Her mother tucked Nayna’s hair behind her ears with maternal affection. “I mean, Sandesh really should’ve talked to your father first, but with Madhuri having already been married, and him being older, well… It’s all fine. Your father is very happy. Imagine! A doctor in the family too!”

  Nayna glanced at Raj. No way could she do what she’d planned, tell her family about her decision on a day so joyous for Madhuri.

  He gave the slightest incline of his head. “I’ll leave your fami—”

  But he never got to finish the sentence, her mother waving off his words. “Of course you must stay. You are like one of us.” So much happiness in every word, that of a mother who had two daughters safely settled. “I’m sure Sandesh would love to talk to you—you’ll be seeing each other quite often now.”

  Nayna’s insides lurched again, but there was nothing she could do at this instant without wrecking Madhuri’s day; it would cost her only a few more hours of tangled nerves to give her family this night of happiness. After going inside and saying hello to her father and her grandmother, both of whom welcomed her back with a smile and—from her father—a suspicious lack of questions, she walked down the hallway to talk to Madhuri.

  Raj remained in the living room with her father and Aji.

  “Maddie,” she said with a quick knock on the door before entering. “What the bejesus is going on?” A hissed whisper as she shut the door behind her.

  Madhuri looked up from her seat in front of the vanity. She was dressed in what Nayna called a half sari. A flared ankle-length skirt in pale amethyst sprinkled with crystals. A cropped and fitted kurta in the same shade. And a really long dupatta that could be pleated and tucked in to appear as if the woman were wearing a sari, but without the complications of having to handle meters of fabric.

  Huge kohl-rimmed eyes met Nayna’s in the mirror when Nayna came up behind her sister and put her hands on her shoulders.

  “He’s a good man,” Madhuri said, reaching up to touch one hand to Nayna’s. “And I’m getting older, Ninu. I need to settle down and start a family before no one will have me.”

  Madhuri was only thirty-three, soon to be thirty-four, and looked ten years younger at the very least. “What about the surfer?”

  A liquid shrug. “That wasn’t serious.” Dropping her hand from Nayna’s, she picked up the mascara to finish doing her eyes. “And I realized it wasn’t going anywhere. When Sandesh proposed… It’s the second time, you know.”

  Nayna raised both eyebrows. “The second time? I never heard about the first time.”

  “That’s because I didn’t tell anyone.” Madhuri capped her mascara and put it aside. “I knew how the family would react. You’ve seen what Mum and Dad are like right now. Can you imagine if I’d told them he’d proposed and I’d said no?”

  “I see your point.” Not only was the doctor hugely respected, he was also incredibly wealthy as a result of a medical invention he’d patented while a student. “But Maddie, he’s at least ten years your senior.”

  “Fourteen,” her sister said, correcting her. “He’s stable and so mature.” In the mirror, her eyes met Nayna’s. “I know I’m not the most mature person.” A wry smile. “It’ll be good for me to have him—and maybe I can loosen him up a little.”

  Na
yna’s head was still spinning. “As long as you’re sure,” she said. “I just want you to be happy.”

  “He’s not as bad as he comes across, you know.” A softness to Madhuri’s features. “It’s going to sound weird with how involved he is in the community, but I think he’s shy and deals with social situations by going all stiff—he’s not like that with me.”

  “No, that’s not weird at all.” Nayna had gone mute herself at times when she was younger; who knew what others had taken from her unsmiling features? At least a few people had probably thought her stuck up and snooty. “Hopefully we’ll get to see the man you see once he becomes comfortable with us.” She hugged her sister from behind, the crisp scent of Clinique Happy, Madhuri’s favorite perfume, as familiar to her as their mother’s heavier bouquet.

  Madhuri touched her fingers to Nayna’s again. “If I tell you something, promise me you won’t ever tell anyone?”

  “Promise,” Nayna said at once, because whatever lay between them, they were sisters underneath it all.

  “Vinod hit me.”

  Nayna froze in the hug, her eyes colliding with Madhuri’s stark ones in the mirror again. “What?”

  Turning sideways in Nayna’s arms, Madhuri glanced at the door before whispering, “The first time was three months after we eloped.”

  “Madhuri.” Nayna was kneeling in front of her sister before she realized it, her hands locked with Madhuri’s. “Why didn’t you say? Why didn’t you call?” No matter how angry Shilpa and Gaurav had been, they would’ve brought Madhuri home, of that Nayna had zero doubts. Their parents had their faults, but never would they have stood by while their daughter was being physically abused.

  “I was ashamed.” Madhuri’s hands gripped at Nayna’s. “First time in my life,” she joked shakily. “I’d chosen him and he turned out to be a violent abuser. But that first time, he told me it was a mistake, apologized, and I forgave him.”