by Nalini Singh
Nayna’s lips twitched and her heart, it expanded. She could just see solemn and serious Raj quietly pointing out the need for safety. “How is Mr. Hohepa?”
“I saw him earlier. He’s feeling much better. Here, have some breakfast.” Aji spooned her out some of the porridge, and Nayna saw she’d added plump raisins as well.
The two of them ate together, and it was as Nayna was rising to go that her grandmother said, “Nayna, he’s a strong man.” Her eyes held Nayna in place. “But even strong men need tending. Don’t forget that.”
Nayna’s heartbeat turned into a drum. “Did he say something?”
“Raj isn’t the kind of man to talk of his heart to anyone but the woman who holds it,” her grandmother chided her. “I’m just saying that love grows when it’s tended.”
Aji’s words swirled around in Nayna’s head all morning. The idea of marriage still made her chest constrict, and marriage, she knew, was Raj’s dream. But… being rooted mattered to him too. Knowing how things stood was important to him. And Nayna could do something about making sure he had zero doubts about her commitment to him.
She picked up the phone and called Aditi to find out Raj’s current whereabouts.
* * *
“Yo, boss!” Tino yelled out. “Courier just delivered flowers for you!”
Raj pushed back the earmuffs that protected his hearing from all the noise on a construction site. “What?” he asked, sure he’d misheard. “Did you say flowers?”
Tino held up a bunch of red roses. “Fancy schmancy romancey flowers.”
Skin a little hot and a smile weaving through his blood, Raj walked over to take the roses from Tino. The other man tried to peer over Raj’s shoulder as he opened the card tucked inside, but Raj blocked him with his shoulders. It helped that he was taller than Tino.
The message was typed, must’ve been sent through to the florist by email. But it was from Nayna: Sexy hunk, hot fling, my rock—and my grandmother’s rescuer—you’re the full package, Raj Sen. I’m crazy about you. ~ Nayna with the pretty nayna
He was grinning so wide that he probably looked like an idiot. Around him, his men were mouthing off about never getting flowers from their girls.
“Yeah well,” Gazza called out to a grumbling Tino, “at least you have a girl now! I told you the book would work.”
“Only now I have to read the next one!” Tino yelled back. “Sense and Shampoo or something.”
Raj’s shoulders shook as he took the roses into the site office. He found an old paint can, filled it with water, and put the roses in, but made sure to grab the card and hide it safely in his pocket. His crew was fully capable of peeking—and ribbing him endlessly about being called a sexy hunk.
He should’ve remembered that Tino had met the courier.
Sexy hunk and hot fling.
Midday, and that was what he found painted on a piece of tarp his crew had draped over the front of his truck. Raj laughed and took the ribbing in good humor. He’d called work to an end for the day, and everyone was off for the weekend. Including the man Nayna considered a sexy hunk and a hot fling.
Not just that, but her anchor.
He put the roses carefully in his truck for the ride home to shower off the grit and dust from the site. After which he messaged Nayna, signing off with: From the sexy hunk.
* * *
Less than an hour later, Raj brought his truck to a stop in front of Nayna’s unit to find her already waiting outside, together with the overnight bag he’d asked her to pack. Getting out, he walked over to steal a kiss, his cells parched for her, and his lips curved in a smile.
“My crew is never going to let me live down being called a sexy hunk and a hot fling.”
An unrepentant look from Nayna. “I only speak the truth.” The smile she gave him, possessive and delighted, twisted its way around his heart.
He’d do anything if she’d only look at him that way forever.
Lifting a hand, she rubbed at the sides of his mouth. “These look like stress lines. Is it the job?”
“No. We’re on track there.” Raj pressed his forehead to hers. “It’s Navin and Komal. I’m pretty sure a breakup is on the horizon.” Right now the two were frigidly ignoring one another.
“I’m sorry to hear that… but they seem pretty toxic together.”
Raj nodded. “I’m hoping the damage they’ve done one another isn’t permanent.” There were no winners in a situation like theirs. “But today’s not about them.” He kissed her again. “We need to get going if we’re going to be on time.”
“I’m trying not to ask where we’re going,” she said after she’d buckled into the passenger seat. “But it’s making me crazy.”
She tried to play twenty questions with him to get some clues, and, hoping he’d chosen the right thing for this woman who wanted to experience life in all its facets, Raj played along. When she asked if they’d be getting dirty, he said, “Highly likely, especially our hands.”
Frowning, she tapped her finger against her lip. “Our hands.” It was a murmuring thought. “We’re going to do pottery?”
Raj groaned.
She threw up her hands. “Pottery might be fun! You could make a pipe to smoke, and I’d make… also a pipe to smoke.”
Laughter rippled out of him. “What’s your next question now that you wasted that one?”
“Why are we wearing sweatpants and thick socks?”
“Part of the instructions. No jeans allowed. Something about the seams digging in.”
That had her thinking for a while. “Is it something scary?”
“Depends if you like heights.”
“Okay, that’s a solid clue.” Nayna bit down on her lower lip, the action catching his eye and threatening to tighten his sweatpants over a certain part of his anatomy, but Raj managed to keep his attention on the road. They were out of Auckland now, sheep and deer farms passing on either side of them. Despite it being summer, they’d had enough rain that the fields were green, the sheep puffy white clouds against the velvet grass.
“I don’t mind heights,” Nayna said after a while. “Are we jumping off something? Because you know that thing about bungee jumping and retinal detachment, don’t you?”
“Damn, the tickets are nonrefundable.”
A suspicious silence before she pushed him playfully on the shoulder. “Not funny, Raj Sen,” she said, but he heard the smile in her voice.
That smile never faded as the miles passed, the road trip made an adventure by Nayna’s interest in everything. He had to stop by an ostrich farm so she could watch the long-necked creatures bob about. Then came the deer by a fence line that she had to photograph.
“Hey, what was that sign?” She twisted around to look behind her as they drove on. “It said we’re going in the direction of Waitomo!”
“You’re getting warm.”
Nayna wiggled excitedly in her seat. “I love the glowworms,” she said. “You were supposed to tell the truth when we played twenty questions. There are no heights involved in the caves.”
“Mea culpa,” Raj said, and kept on driving.
* * *
Nayna wasn’t surprised when Raj drove not to the main entrance to the cave system but into a parking lot that had a sign touting adventure tourism. She figured he must’ve booked them in for a walk/climb through one of the less well-known caves.
While Raj checked them in, she looked at the brochures for all the adventures on offer and felt her eyes go wide. He’d said no when she’d asked if they’d be getting wet, so they couldn’t be going on the black water rafting trip. She wasn’t sure she was ready for that anyway. From the pictures, a number of the passages appeared extremely narrow. Also, the water looked freezing.
“We’re checked in.” Raj took her hand in his, led her out to a small private parking lot behind the main building. “This is where we catch our next ride,” he told her just as a professional guide came out. Two twentysomething women who’d been loiteri
ng outside came closer, and Nayna realized the four of them were going together.
It turned out they’d be driving about fifteen to twenty minutes to reach an isolated cave. The ride was a fun one with all five of them ending up chatting. As they got to know one another, Nayna sat with Raj next to her, his arm casually around her shoulders, and drank in the sensation of being with him among people who saw nothing unusual with an unmarried couple on a date.
Because this was definitely a date.
The sense of freedom was exhilarating.
At last their van reached a solid-looking structure in what felt like the middle of nowhere. Behind them was a private farm through which the adventure company had authorized access, but in front of them lay only local forest. Large tree ferns, lots of lush green foliage. Once they were all out of the van, the guide looked each one of them up and down, then began passing out blue coveralls.
They were instructed to put the coveralls on over their clothes and, if they had anything loose in their pockets, to leave it behind in the lockers provided. “I’ll take the photos,” the guide told them. “Trust me, you do not want to lose your phone down there.”
That done, the guide sent them into another part of the structure to find a pair of heavy white calf-high boots to pull on over the thick socks they’d been instructed to wear. Nayna returned after finding a pair that fit and saw the guide handing out what looked like climbing harnesses.
“Raj.” She elbowed him. “Why is he giving those out?”
37
A Kiss under Starlight
Her gorgeous, often serious boyfriend gave her a slow, wicked smile. “Trust me, you’ll love it.”
After the harnesses came helmets that had to be clipped securely under the jaw. All of them ready and safety-checked, they strode off into the untamed landscape. Every so often, a native bird would call out, but otherwise it felt as if they were on the edge of civilization.
Because of rain the day past, the area was a little muddy, and Nayna almost slipped a couple of times, but Raj was always there to stabilize her. They arrived at the start of a small hill and began to go down… and that was when Nayna saw it.
A platform.
Hanging out over the edge of nowhere.
The ground was just suddenly not there.
Raj closed his fingers over hers when she sucked in a breath. “Okay?” His eyes held a true question, and she knew he wasn’t teasing this time. If she said no, they’d turn around and walk away.
But she squeezed his hand back and grinned. “I’m terrified, but I want to do it.”
He laughed, and the two of them went down to the platform built of crisscrossing lines of metal that allowed a dizzying view down into the depths below, the platform literally suspended over thin air. It was as if a giant hand had scooped out a massive hole in the earth, the distance from the platform to the ground so far that their landing spot was shrouded in shadows. A river’s roar echoed in the air, but she had to squint to make out any hint of its rushing force.
The guide stood at the far edge of the platform, and behind him was nothing but open space. To their left was a rocky wall lush with moss, to their right a frame from which hung a number of ropes that dropped down into an abyss surrounded by primeval green foliage. Each rope ran through a system of metal brackets and pulleys that made zero sense to Nayna.
All she cared about was that the ropes seemed very secure.
“First thing,” the guide said, “we hook you up, so even if you trip and fall off this platform, you’ll live to trip another day.”
Nervous laughter from one of the other women.
Butterflies danced in Nayna’s stomach.
The guide was clipping her by the harness to one of the ropes before she could have second thoughts. Once all four of them were clipped in, he gave them a safety briefing, then it was go time. All of them had to lean back against the very edge of the platform, their backs hanging out into nothing.
“Now, take one foot off the edge.”
Squeezing her eyes shut for a second, Nayna did as instructed, then hooked her foot into the rope as they’d been taught. She had her eyes open again by the time the guide told them to take the remaining foot off the edge. Which would leave her hanging over thin air, the next stop a loooooooong way down.
She glanced at Raj, her heart thundering and fear squeezing her chest. “I can’t believe we’re doing this,” she said to him.
A smile lighting up his eyes, he took his other foot off the edge of the platform but didn’t drop, controlling his descent with the ease of a man who’d obviously rappelled before. “Do it, Nayna with the pretty nayna,” he said. “I’ll be with you all the way down.”
Taking a deep breath, Nayna surrendered her last footfall on reality. And realized the hardest part had been letting go and leaving the platform. “This is so fun!” she said to Raj. “I’ll go rock climbing with you!”
Raj grinned at her reference to their first meeting and kept pace with her, both of them taking in everything around them as they rappelled down while calling out encouragement to one of the others—the most skittish of their group. The woman, a tourist from Norway, kept going, and then they were all on the floor of a huge subterranean cave twenty minutes after stepping off the platform.
Looking up, Nayna saw the sunlit circle of sky rimmed with hazy green from where they’d come. It felt like a haunting alien world down here, even the foliage unique and a little eerie in a beautiful way. And the adventure had just begun.
They climbed over rocks, scrambled down them, and crossed parts where it felt like they could fall into the darkness and never be found. Then they were in the most stygian part of the cave, an area so devoid of illumination that they had to flick on the lights on their helmets.
“It’s cold,” Nayna said, her breath fogging the air.
“Imagine what the water’s like,” Raj murmured, referring to the underground river they’d seen after they first landed. “We have to try the black water rafting.”
“Did you see some of those photos?” Nayna shuddered. “The roof of the cave was right up against that woman’s face.”
“We’ll work our way up to it,” Raj said, and she heard the anticipation in his voice.
Wonder and hope dawned inside her. Raj, she realized, wouldn’t belittle her need for a life lived beyond the borders of domesticity. He was a man who liked tradition and roots, but for the first time, she began to see that her needs could coexist with his.
“All right, team,” the guide called out, “this is the best part. I want you to come through the small passageway behind me. Be careful, it’s pretty narrow. Lights off soon as you exit the passage.”
Once on the other side, it took a second for Nayna’s eyes to adjust to the absolute blackness you would never find in the civilized world. Down below, far from sunlight, this pitch-darkness was unlike anything she’d ever experienced…
Then stars began to appear against the black. She gasped. “Glowworms.”
The others whispered around her.
Raj slid his fingers through hers.
After a while, everyone went quiet, all of them enchanted by the starlit sky deep within the earth, while their breath fogged the air and their chests squeezed. When Raj touched his fingers to her jaw, she angled her head so their helmets wouldn’t crash, and they shared a soft, sweet kiss under a subterranean sky.
Nayna was sorry to leave. “It was wonderful,” she whispered to Raj, astonished and full of a raw emotion aimed solely at this man who kept surprising her. “Thank you for organizing this.”
“We haven’t finished yet,” he said. “Let’s see if you thank me when we get to the end.”
She realized what he meant when they stood at the foot of a metal ladder that shot up and up and up and up into darkness. That ladder was attached to the wall and was a straight vertical climb. It didn’t look so bad—especially after the guide scrambled up, then called out that he was dropping the safety rope for the
next person.
Raj had already volunteered to be the last one to go up, the one who’d be left in absolute quiet and silence. The first to climb was the woman who’d been the most nervous throughout. They all encouraged her with shouted calls as she began to climb. She disappeared into the darkness at a certain point, and they watched and waited for the safety line to be thrown back down.
It took a lot longer than it had with the guide.
By the time it came to her turn, she and Raj were the only two left at the bottom. She hooked herself up, and Raj checked to make sure everything was secure. Then he kissed her, their helmets banging this time, and they laughed before Nayna began the climb up rungs slippery from the boots of those who had gone before.
Her muscles began to quiver halfway up.
Pausing, she glanced down. Raj was just a pinprick of light below her, but he called out, “Go, baby! You’re over halfway up!”
She smiled, feeling young and pretty and Raj’s girlfriend, and carried on. Her helmet hit an edge of rock at one point, and her light went out, pitching her into complete darkness but she didn’t panic. She just wiped one hand against her coveralls and turned on her light. Her muscles were beyond quivering by the time she hauled herself up over the edge to join the others.
“Your boyfriend’s brave,” the Norwegian’s Australian friend said. “It must be creepy as hell down there.”
“He’s amazing,” Nayna said, her attention on the safety rope that was being curled by the guide as Raj climbed. Predictably, he arrived far faster than the rest of them, but for the guide. The other man gave him a fist bump, and then they all took turns getting photos. Raj kissed Nayna in theirs, and it was the best thing.
And that night, as Raj moved in her slow and deep, Nayna had the thought that freedom wasn’t a sensation you could only experience alone. With the right man, it’d be with her all her life. Part of her wanted to blurt out her love for Raj then and there, but more than two decades of watching her mother bow down to her father’s will held her back.
