“Oh, it’s going to be like that.” She went on her knees right there on his muscular thighs, her face on a level with his. She held her hands to his lean cheeks and looked deeply into his eyes. “Lakshman Maheshwari, I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
With his right arm around her, Lakshman opened the top drawer on the left side of his desk. Ruma frowned at his strange action. Why the hell wasn’t he kissing her?
He pulled out a sleek jewellers’ box and handed it to her. “For you.”
She took it from him, a startled look on her face, and opened it. A delicate chain of gold nestled on the red velvet, winking at her. There were two tiny hearts of solid gold, strung from the chain. “Laki, this is so beautiful.”
He removed the chain from the box, and placed it around her neck, hooking it at her nape. The golden hearts settled comfortably against her throat, glowing against her skin. He pressed his lips to them, leaving her speechless.
“It must be expensive Laki. How can I accept such a gift?” she asked.
“I thought I just agreed to become your husband. Don’t I get to shower you with gifts?” he winked.
She smiled, fingering the tiny hearts, liking their small weight against her neck. “I owe you a ring.”
Lakshman nodded, before pushing her off his lap and getting up. “Do you want to have some coffee or shall we go see the factory?”
“Laki.” Her eyes were accusing. “We’ve taken such a major decision. Don’t you want to seal it with a kiss?”
“Ruma, the staff must be arriving as we talk. Maybe later?” His eyes glowed like black gold, full of promises.
“Just one kiss?” she pretended to beg. “Please,” she added for good measure.
He shook his head, pulling her into his arms. “Naughty Ruma,” he said, before bending down to take a soft bite of her upper lip. Ruma bit him right back, stepping on his feet, pulling his head down to her. Silence reigned in the room for the next few minutes as the couple was lost to the world.
“You might need to comb your hair to become decent,” she teased, proud of having been the cause of his messed up hair.
“And it’s best if you added a coat of fresh lipstick. Anyone can make out you’ve been thoroughly kissed,” he came back. She pouted at him. “Cute,” he said, pressing his lips to hers once again. She was simply irresistible.
“Laki,” she called again, as he was walking towards the locked door, her hand on his arm, stopping him in mid-stride. “My right breast is fuming with the way you’re ignoring it. I…”
Lakshman frowned, not quite catching on.
She hit him on his shoulder. “That Sunday, you loved my left breast, but ignored my right. It’s crying out for attention,” she said, her face straight.
Lakshman couldn’t help but look down at the said anatomy in fascination. He recalled her lovely breasts with absolute clarity. He also remembered being painfully aroused. He had had a tough time bringing his libido back in control. The woman was a witch, tempting him like this. But…he bent down to press his face against her right breast. “I’m sorry, love,” he addressed her breast, and unerringly pressed his lips to the engorged tip that called out to him through the layers of her clothing. He opened his mouth to bite her gently, making Ruma groan in delight. Raising his head, he took Ruma’s hand to press it against his fly. “See what happens when I make love to your beautiful body,” he complained.
She fingered him in delight, before going down on her knees in front of him. Without stopping to think, Ruma pulled open his fly and gently removed his manhood from his constraining briefs. Lakshman’s breath caught in his throat, as he stared down at her in morbid fascination. He couldn’t help remembering that it was his office, even if she had forgotten.
She held him gently in her hands, before pressing her lips to him. “I love you.”
Lakshman groaned, one hand in her hair, the other gently prising her hands off him. “Are you crazy, Ruma?” he said, pulling her to her feet.
“I suppose I’m,” she grinned. Not seeing an answering smile on his face, “Are you a virgin?” she asked, her eyes mischievous, trying to reach down to him.
Lakshman held her hands tightly within his, refusing to let her. “No, I’m not. Are you?”
“Why don’t you find out for yourself?” she invited cheekily.
“You’re surely going to be the death of me, woman,” groaned Lakshman, before biting hard on the curve of her breast, just below her neckline.
Ruma welcomed the pain as it felt so delicious. She moaned, trying to free her hands. Lakshman pushed her away and moved a couple of feet. “You call ‘nine’ on the extension and order coffee before opening the lock on the damn door. I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said, as he rushed towards a door behind his chair.
“Your fly is still open,” she called out, laughing, her hand rubbing against the area that he had bitten. He was sure to have left a mark. Was she thrilled about it!
“Shuddup,” said Lakshman, shutting himself inside the bathroom.
He came out soon to see her sitting on his chair, swinging this way and that like a small kid. “Have you asked for coffee?”
“Of course.”
“And the door?”
“Laki, wait. I want you to see something.” She pulled down the neckline of her top to show him the reddened skin. “I’ve a hickey.”
Lakshman stared down at the curve of her breast, his gaze shocked. “Oh my God! Did I do that to you?” He bent down to brush his lips against the spot, his tongue stroking the area gently. “I’m so sorry, love.” There was genuine regret in his voice.
“Arre, but why? I’m not. I love it.” She got up and hugged him. “I felt powerfully aroused when you did that,” she whispered in his ear. Before he realised what she was up to, she skimmed her hand over his fly. “Hey, I can’t find you. Did you chop yourself off in a temper?” she asked, laughter in her voice.
“It’s your head that I’ll be chopping off if you don’t take your hands off my crotch, right now,” he growled, removing her hand off his pants.
“Don’t you like my touch?” she pouted.
“Too much!” He groaned, making her laugh out loud.
9
He gave her a grand tour of his factory. “This is where the breads are made mid-morning. Most of them are used up in sandwiches, pizzas, burgers and rolls sold by our outlets. Some are packed and sold.”
Ruma looked around, fascinated. It was a huge operation. “How many outlets do you have?” she asked.
“Thirty-two, as of now. We own two outlets. The rest are franchises.”
“What?! Your business is huge.” Her eyes were wide with wonder when she glanced at him.
Lakshman smiled at her, colour running up his manly cheeks. “Yep, you can say that.”
There were 15-20 people working like busy bees. One was measuring the ingredients and adding them to a plastic tray, each one for one particular type of bread. Another was running an electronic mixer where he poured the measured ingredients and kept adding ice-cold water till it reached the right consistency.
“How old is your operation?”
“Almost four years.” Lakshman checked the texture of the mixed dough for multigrain bread and passed her a piece too.
Ruma understood what he had meant by falling in love with the texture of dough. It was so fluffy and soft that she wanted to run her hands through it.
The dough was then removed and cut off into portions and weighed. “Why would they do that?”
“A full loaf of bread weighs 400 gm while a half loaf weighs 200 gm. The dough for each loaf is separated and weighed before they are placed into baking tins. The dough loses weight while baking. So we add extra weight so that the customer gets the correct weight of the bread that’s mentioned on the label.”
Two men removed the weighed pieces of dough and placed them on an aluminium work table that was ten feet lo
ng. They dusted it with flour before rolling the pieces, beating them with their hands for a couple of minutes, ensuring there were no air bubbles in them, placing them in rectangular baking tins. These tins were covered with lids, stacked on trays and stored on metal racks.
“The dough needs to rise for about 30-40 minutes. In the meanwhile, we preheat the ovens.” Lakshman gestured towards four machines that looked nothing like ovens to Ruma. She could see metal racks rotating within.
“Where are the ovens?” she asked, looking this way and that.
Lakshman smiled. “You’re looking at them. We need to bake four hundred loaves at one go. Each oven can accommodate a hundred.”
Ruma stared, her hands on her cheeks, an expression of awe on her face. “And what else do you make?”
“We make a few hundred pav. There are the half-pound and one-pound sponge cakes. These are baked in another section. The temperature maintained in each section is different. We also have people who come to decorate these cakes. This is a department that we’re still improving upon. So far, we’ve only simple cakes. We’re hoping to get into designer cakes in the future. Let’s see. I need to get the right person who can study the whole field and work on it. I, personally, am not too interested in that line.”
“Hmm…” He had set Ruma thinking. She’d need to do a lot of homework on this, of course, before she said anything.
He showed her the rest of the factory. The sponges for cakes were already ready. They had been sliced across in three layers. Yeah, a machine did the job, it seemed. Plastic sheets were spread across work tables where the first layers were all placed. There were half a dozen such tables. Ruma was told that each one had cakes made in different flavours. That was the cream and ingredients that went into the fillings. The sponge itself was common.
There were coffee cakes, black forest cakes, chocolate cakes, chocolate mousse cakes and more. Ruma lost track after a while. The aromas were extremely tempting though. “How do you manage not to put on weight? You must get to hog such a variety,” she asked Laki, looking at his taut stomach.
He grinned. “Not really. After a while, the smells can get kind of nauseating. People working in such a factory probably consume the least number of cakes.”
“May I have a piece, pretty please?” she fluttered her lashes at him. “I love the smell of coffee.”
“Of course you may.” He told a worker to get a half-pound of coffee cake readied and sent to his office as soon as possible. “Any other flavour?”
“Maybe later. What else do you make?”
“A lot of action takes place at night. We get the orders for croissants, rolls and other stuff at around 9 pm. Based on that, these are made through the night. The vans go out for delivery at eight in the morning to ensure that the goods reach the shops by nine or so.”
“Could you do with an assistant? I’d like to apply for the job, if your answer is ‘yes’,” asked Ruma. She had fallen in love with the place. The employees looked happy as they worked. A stereo system played Bollywood music. Some of them sang along as they went about their work.
Lakshman looked at her. “Why as assistant? Be my partner.”
She raised a hand in a high-five against his. Yeah, she was definitely considering baking as an alternate career when she moved to Jaipur as his wife.
10
Lakshman woke up suddenly to check the time on the wall clock to see that it was five in the morning. A strange but not unpleasant weight was holding him down on the bed. He came fully awake to find Ruma half sprawled across him as they slept on the king-sized bed in the bedroom behind his office.
Her arm was across his chest, her lush breasts squashed against his shoulder, a slim leg wrapped around his middle. A smile broke out on his face as he realised that he simply loved having her draped on him.
Last night had been a tug of war between their personalities. They had gone out for dinner and returned at around ten. Ruma had been tired as she had left home pretty early that morning. “Would you mind terribly if I don’t stay in your home? I’d rather check into a hotel,” she said.
Lakshman shook his head at her, opening his office door. “There’s no need for either. We can stay right here in the office.”
Ruma followed him as he walked further inside and opened another door that was beside the bathroom. “Oh my God!” She couldn’t believe her eyes as she saw a bedroom that was large by any standards. It was kitted out with a huge double-bed that was made up with a clean sheet and had a large pile of pillows at the head. “This is simply awesome, Laki.”
He smiled. “Yeah, pretty convenient as I work late into the night on many days. You get comfortable. There’s a shower in there, just in case you want to have a bath. I’ll make a quick check of what’s happening with the night shift and return in maybe half an hour.”
She nodded, her eyes shining with excitement, her sleepiness having disappeared. “I’ll have a shower and get into bed.” She kissed him on his rough cheek. “This is perfect.”
He turned his head to press a hard kiss on her lips, saying, “See you soon,” and left in a hurry.
She plugged her phone for charging and opened her bag to remove a nightshirt. She found a couple of fluffy towels on a table outside the bathroom, took one for herself and went in. He had called it just a shower. But it reminded her of a five-star hotel’s bathroom. She bundled her hair into a knot at the top of her head and wrapped it in a shower cap. She set the temperature to hot and had a leisurely shower. The fragrance of the bath gel was simply divine and reminded her of Laki. Twenty minutes were gone before she switched the shower off. Not long for him to return. She dried herself before pulling on the nightshirt.
Standing in front of the mirror, she combed her silky hair until it crackled. She twirled around in front of the mirror to check herself out. Not bad! The pale yellow nightshirt was made of superfine cotton and followed her curves faithfully. She grinned to herself imagining Laki’s reaction to it. She was going to make him hers tonight.
Lakshman entered the bedroom just as Ruma stepped out of the bathroom. He drew a frenzied breath when he saw her. While she was covered right down to below her knees, she had never looked sexier. She was obviously wearing nothing under the garment. Damn the woman!
“What’s up?” he asked, trying to keep the situation light.
She winked at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking that question?” she asked, looking pointedly down at his lower body.
Reacting to her flirtation, his manhood immediately sprang to action, making Lakshman swear. “Cut that out, Ruma,” he growled, sidestepping her as she would’ve wrapped her arms around him. “I need a shower,” he insisted, not meeting her eyes. He went into the bathroom and locked himself in. The place smelled of Ruma. Cursing, Lakshman stood under the cold shower to tame his libido. She looked like she meant business. How could he convince her to wait till they got married? He dried himself with the towel that was on a rack, glaring at the mirror. He needed a shave. But no, they weren’t going to make love, so it didn’t really matter. Just then he realised that he would have to step out in the towel as his clothes were in the wardrobe. Swearing again, Lakshman walked into the bedroom.
“Laki,” called out Ruma, eyeing him avidly. Fascinated, she got up from the bed and walked up to him. He appeared like a Greek God with his chiselled body that was still damp from the shower.
She stood close to him and raised her left hand to caress his rough cheek. Her right hand was hooked into his towel as if she was going to pull it off him any second. Lakshman clamped his hand on hers, his fingers holding the towel firmly. “No!”
“Huh?!” She looked deeply into his eyes, her brown gaze like melted cocoa, inviting him to make love to her. Her mouth was pouted deliciously, glistening wetly, begging for a kiss. Lakshman groaned deep in his throat, letting go of her hand to wrap his arms around her. He placed his lips on hers, sucking her upper lip. She tasted as sweet as honey, driving him crazy. His right hand moved dow
n the curve of her hip to touch a thigh. He traced the curve, working his way under her nightshirt to encounter her bare bottom.
“Ruma.” He deliberately removed his hands off her and raised his head to look at her.
She stared back at him with slumberous eyes. “What?” A small frown puckered her forehead.
“We’ll make love after we get married,” he declared.
“What if I don’t agree?”
“I’ll have to beg, right?” he grinned weakly. “Please, my love. You know your parents won’t agree to a marriage between us. Doesn’t it make sense to wait until after the event?”
“What if I want you desperately?” She nuzzled his neck, her teeth taking a sharp nip.
Lakshman groaned again, his arms crushing her to his chest. “Do you love me or just lust after my body?”
“Can’t I do both?” she argued.
“Please sweetheart!” He rubbed a large hand down her back, doing his best to calm her down.
Her hands moved restlessly on his chest, as if she had no control over them. She so enjoyed the tactile sensation of her palms on his manly chest. “Will you at least let me sleep in your arms?” She appealed to him sleepily.
He pulled her closer, kissing her forehead. “Of course, my love.”
And that’s how they landed up on the bed, wrapped around each other.
Lakshman felt Ruma move her leg down, her foot on his crotch. Just when he thought that she was moving in her sleep, he felt her toes brushing against him in a caress. What the hell! He looked at her. Her eyes were closed, even as a smile stretched on her lips. “Ruma…” He shifted her leg away from him and turned on his side to trace her features with his lips. His hands moved of their own volition to caress her thighs. “Do you want to elope?”
She opened her eyes wide and stared at him. “What an idea!!!” She nodded vigorously. “Let’s do it.”
“You are too dangerous to be let loose,” grinned Lakshman. “I was just thinking aloud and you immediately want to run away with me. Do something. Why don’t you talk to your mother? Or maybe your grandmother? Let’s see what they have to say. We’ll elope as a last resort.”
Flaming Sun Collection 2: Marriages Made in India (Box Set with 5 novellas) Page 18
