Chapter 24

Omoraboti

@Omoraboti

So here we are. At the end of the journey of lemons.

I have no words to thank you. I hoped not for a thread more than one or even more than 6-7 chapters when I had started writing this SS. You people have surprised me and I am overwhelmed by the love you have shown for this story. Thank you .. without you this journey would not have been special.

From page 50 onwards, I have replied to everyone who has commented on the last chapter. This was the least I could have done to show my gratitude for your encouragement and love.

The people I really cannot but mention. Dips (bs_deeps) for making me believe in this story and the continuous feedback. Ritz (iritz) for proofreading and also the valuable feedback. Sarada (psarada) for making me move my lazy bum. Gandhari (ganbarunfan) for the wonderful banner. Everyone who took their time to leave a comment. And last but not the least the stalkers & the activists for keeping this thread always alive & spiced up. This epilogue goes to you all.

So here I am posting an update of this story for the last time. You can find me in my FF thread (D for Desire) and I will keep you posted if I start writing anything else.

24 (Epilogue)

Khushi turned her face away from the closet as the door opened with a soft click. Arnav walked in frowning, looking almost as fresh as he was in the morning in his white shirt and grey suit, only the stubble a bit more darker.

"You are still not ready," he eyed her as he sat on the green recliner and started taking off his shoes.

Khushi rolled her eyes. Only her husband could say something so boring after returning home in the evening. Grossly unromantic!

"Will you have tea?" She enquired with a smile as she walked up to him.

"No, I will go for a shower now." He loosened his tie. "You will be ready by then?"

"Accha baba."

Khushi started massaging his shoulders standing behind him. She could feel him stiffen first and then relax under her hold. He would never say it, but she knew he liked it.

"How was your day?"

"How do you think it would be when two of my crucial employees are on leave at the same time?"

Khushi chuckled as Arnav scowled.

"Kyun? Don't you say always? No one is indispensible." Khushi mimicked.

"Very funny." Arnav grumbled. "Why is everyone so hell bent on marrying within AR?"

Khushi laughed.

"Aur aap ne khud ne kya kiya?"

Arnav paused for a moment.

"You don't work for me anymore." 

Arnav was still not sure if he liked the fact that Khushi quit her job in AR before their marriage. Her logic had been simple. She did not want to work in an office owned by her husband. She wanted to do something on her own. Well, she did run her own food delivery business now. Arnav was one of her clients.

"But I used to." Khushi's fingers now started slowly travelling over his toned biceps. Arnav relaxed even more.

"You and me .. are different."

"Accha?"

"First Simran-Raj. Now Aman-Lavanya. Don't they have a life outside AR?"

"To be honest, I don't think they do." Khushi mocked a serious tone.

Arnav turned his face over his shoulder to see his wife. He saw her smiling. Khushi Kumari Gupta Singh Raizada.  Only she dared to make fun of him and managed to get away with it every time. He grabbed her hand and guided her to come and stand in front of him.

"Do you find me very funny?"

Khushi quickly swallowed down her smile and made a serious face.

"Not a bit."

"Good for you." Arnav murmured meaningfully, smirking. "Because I don't like doing funny things to you. And I don't want you to find those funny too." 

Khushi could feel her cheeks warming up. Her oh-so-unromantic husband! He and his quirky way of romance. Only he could shut her up and leave her speechless.

"You go and finish your shower." She said quickly, trying to deal with the pleasant discomfort. "I will get ready by then."

Arnav smiled and flicked her nose. "Good."

Khushi quickly walked away from him, feeling little flustered. Three months had passed since their marriage. And nearly a year since their first kiss. He still made her flush. Everyday.

She took out a canary yellow sari from the closet and flashed it in front of him.

"Shall I wear it?"

Arnav eyed the sari. It was from AR Collection but he could not remember getting it for Khushi. She herself or Di must have picked it.

"Why? You want to look like Delhi's auto rickshaw?"

"Haww!" Khushi's eyes widened, mouth rounded. "This is from your collection only! And it is a very pretty sari! Di chose it for me personally."

"May be." Arnav shrugged as he was done gathering his towel and clothes. "But you will look like a Delhi Auto Rickshaw in this."

Khushi's mouth opened and rounded as his husband walked straight into the bathroom and locked the door without further discussion.

"Laad governor!" She muttered – half annoyed, half amused.

Khushi took out a dark magenta sari, putting the yellow one back and started getting ready. Her eyes fell on the matching gota attached to the short cap sleeve of her blouse and instantly blush crept on her cheeks. Her quirky romantic husband. How many times he had ripped off the gotas from the sleeves she had lost count now. There was something utterly wild and … sexy about it. Khushi blushed even more as her thoughts went wanton – thinking of their random moments together. Moments that turned her deliciously limp and the moments she longed for hungrily.

Khushi smacked her head to bring herself down to earth. By the time Arnav was out in 15 minutes, she had already dressed herself and was selecting the jewelry.

Arnav came out only in his black trousers, his hair wet and tousled, water dripping and sliding down his toned body. Khushi checked him out through the mirror and smelled in deeply as he sprayed himself generously with his chosen cologne for the night. Gucci Guilty Intense. She closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure as her whole body shuddered in that now so familiar yet unexplainable feeling. She loved this little moment after his bath. She thoroughly enjoyed smelling him and checking him out as he dressed. She opened her eyes and found him eyeing her through the mirror. She shifted slightly on the dresser stool and cleared her throat.

"Ab theek hai?"

Arnav eyed her again from top to bottom, taking his time, standing only in his trousers that hung rather low from his hip. To avoid the uneasiness, Khushi too started checking him out but halted on his hip bone. She bit the inside of her lower lip as she mentally caressed those curves with her fingers. She loved doing that. He loved her doing that. She knew.

"Not really."

Khushi forced herself to concentrate on his face.

"What?"

"I don't like this sari on you."

Khushi frowned. Mr. Raizada seemed to be at his picky best today.

"Why? What's wrong with this one?"

"Nothing really. But you can look far better .."

Khushi raised her eyebrows questioning him to spill what he really had in his mind. They were still looking at each other through the mirror and Khushi could see her husband suddenly pacing up to her and standing behind her.

"To start with, I don't like your hair in a bun."

Arnav pulled out the hair stick swiftly and let her hair fall on her back.

"I know that. I was going to fix it."

Khushi replied looking straight into his eyes through the mirror, trying to read his intention. She could read the playfulness in his eyes, even though his face was stark indifferent. She stood up instinctively and was about to turn but Arnav did not let her.

Arnav watched his beautiful wife suddenly standing up. The impeccably worn sari was accentuating her curves – the curves which were so familiar to him now, the curves that he loved to get himself drowned into. He could read from her face that she knew now what was in his mind. He had to stop her before she could ruin the moment.

Arnav held her in place by her shoulders, moved the stool aside with his knees and stepped forward to minimize the distance between them. He pushed himself slightly against her hip, fitting her inside him perfectly. He rubbed her left cheek with his right as he felt her breathing getting heavier slowly. He loved the effect he had on her. Always. He watched her closing her eyes through the mirror as his stubble tickled her. He smiled. He slid his hands across her belly, clasped his hands over her lower abdomen, massaging the bare skin with his thumb softly. He felt her shiver under his touch. She loved him touching her. He knew it.

"Arnav ji .."

Arnav did not let her finish. He swiftly pulled out the pleats of the sari and let the cloth fall at her feet in a heap. Khushi gasped.

"What are you doing?!"

"Told you. I don't like this sari on you."

Oh! Her husband and his quirky romance.

Still with one hand across her belly, he moved aside her hair over her shoulder using his other hand. He slowly opened the dori of her low back blouse and let it loosen, exposing more of her skin.

"I like you this way." He breathed on her.

Khushi wiggled in pleasure. He was doing nothing in literal sense but her whole body was already on fire.

"Arnav ji." She breathed heavily. "We will be late."

"We can afford that, Mrs. Raizada," His husky murmur made his intention pretty clear.

Some twenty-thirty minutes later, Khushi was again standing in front of her closet only in her dark magenta petticoat. She was checking the saris one after another with her right hand, her blouse carelessly pressed against her front with her other hand, covering her bosom half-heartedly.

"Arnav ji." She whined. "Please say, naa. Which one should I wear?"

"Wear anything. We will change again if it does not suit you."

Arnav smirked as he lied leisurely in the bed, covered by the duvet only from his hip.

"Ji nahi!" Khushi exclaimed and stuck her tongue out, turning to him. "We are already late enough."

Arnav laughed. She was right. They really should start soon. The engagement ceremony would start any moment.

"Wear anything, Khushi. Everything looks good on you."

"I am not taking any chance. I am wearing red."

"Are you sure you want to wear red, Khushi?"

Arnav's teasing tone made Khushi flush. Arnav ji liked red on her, she knew. But she also knew it made him wild. She liked him wild anyway.

"Yes." She faked a scowl and walked towards the bathroom.

Some fifteen minutes later, Arnav was completely ready in a black suit and white shirt. He strapped on his watch and was leaving the room when his eyes fell on his wife spraying herself.

"Khushi. Will you ever listen to me?"

"Now what did I do?" Khushi asked as she sprayed herself cautiously with her newly bought Chance by Chanel. She still could not but wonder why these perfumes were so expensive.

"You really don't need to use perfumes. How many times have I told you?"

"Oh ho, Arnav ji. Everyone is not you."

Arnav shrugged. It aggravated him when her lemony smell was mixed with anything else. Well, then again, he enjoyed the fact that his lemon was solely his. His exclusive lemon.

"I am going to say bye to, Di."

"Sure, Arnav ji. I will join you in a minute."

Arnav watched her turning towards the mirror again. His beautiful wife. His ravishing woman. He wanted to tell her right now how much he loved her.  But it had never been easy for him. Words never came to him easily. He sometimes wondered if he would have been able to tell her "I love you" at all unless she pestered him for it. It came only after a series of arguments after he had asked her to marry him. Only she could do so much drama in response to a marriage proposal.

"Why shall I marry you?"

"Isn't that what you always wanted?"

"I can marry anyone if that is the only reason. Why "you"?"

"Because I love you dammit!"

He remembered fondly the smile that had spread across her face once the words were out. She had walked up to him and caressed his burning, flushed cheek.

"Hum bhi aap se I love you dammit."

Arnav sighed in happiness. Where was she all his life?

"I love you, wife." He mouthed silently and left for his di's room.

Khushi did her last minute check in the mirror and then took out a matching clutch bag from the closet. While shifting a few of the necessary things from her every day bag, she also shifted a dried lemon to the clutch. Before putting it in, she held it in her hand tightly for a while and prayed.

"Devi Maiya! Please keep me and my loved ones safe always."

She had been doing this for more than a year now since a pious woman she had met in temple had told her to keep a dried lemon with her always. She sometimes wondered if it was the lemon which had brought Arnav ji in her life. Perhaps.

"Devi Maiya, thank you," Khushi's face broke into a smile as she thanked her for her life, for her Arnav ji and she left the room.

Devi Maiya smiled back.

She had written this love story with her own hand, standing on the stairways of the temple that day – when Khushi was coming out of the Mandir after talking to her and Arnav was standing aloof, waiting for his Di to finish her pooja. Two pieces of the same heartbeat waiting to be merged. For eternity.

Khushi had gone for her job interview in AR only two weeks after that.

Rest was a story to be told.

A story of Arnav & Khushi.

Hamesha.