Chapter 16

rulama

@rulama

[MEMBERSONLY]

[NOCOPY]

MARRYING KHUSHI

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Part 17

Section 2

Khushi panted, feeling her head spin.

AR stole one look at a hyperventilating Khushi, and ran his fingers down his chest to rest on his washboard stomach. Slowly, he lowered his fingers as if to undo his trousers.

He heard a thud.

He whipped his head around to see Khushi lying crumpled on the floor.

"Khushi!"

He ran to her. He had only meant to attract her, not make her swoon.

He lovingly lifted her dead weight in his arms and strode to his bed. Her blanket lay discarded behind the drapes and her dupatta fell to the ground, unnoticed.

He laid her gently on his bed, her head resting on his pillow.

He had imagined her in his bed often enough. He had dreamed of her in his bed. But she had been conscious then! He hadn't expected his physical charms to overpower her to this extent!

He sat down on the bed beside her reclining form. He dipped his fingers in the glass of water on his bedside table and sprinkled cold droplets on her beautiful face.

She winced. He heaved a sigh of relief.

He smothed his wet fingers over her face, lingering on the silky skin of her eyelids and cheeks.

Her eyes shot open.

"Who am I? Where am I?" she asked rapidly. She stared at him. "You!" she exclaimed.

ASR smiled at her.

Her eyes moved from his eyes to his smirking lips, down to his bare torso.

She gasped. "Chi! Go and wear some clothes! You Arnav Singh Raizada! What do you think of yourself? Nanga ghoom raha he! Ganda bacha!" She religiously averted her eyes, albeit with great difficulty.

"I am in my bedroom." He claimed softly. "And it is night."

"Tho?" she asked.

"I can walk naked, dance naked, sleep naked. Who will stop me?" ASR asked, a challenge in his eyes.

"If your sister had taken a birch to you when you were a child, you would have better manners!" Khushi said bitterly.

"What has manners got to do with changing clothes, Khushi?" ASR asked softly. Then he dropped the bomb. "If somebody has to be caned for lack of manners, it is you."

"Me?" Khushi was full of injured dignity and affront.

"Yes, you. Walking in to my house at midnight and spying on me as I change my clothes! Tut tut! I should ask Mittu who taught you to behave so badly. Or should I ask Buaji?" His eyes laughed at her.

Khushi gasped. "Woh... woh... I just wanted to talk to you..."

"Talk to me? At midnight?" A warm finger ran down her cheek.

Khushi shivered. "Yes... talk to you..." She knocked the finger away and gathered her bearings. "I wanted to talk to you last night, but you ran away!"

"Ran away? Are you calling me a coward, Khushi Kumari Guupta?" The glint in his eyes was not hard to read.

Khushi gulped, but decided to disregard the warning in his eyes.

"Yes. You are a coward. And a cheat! I told you that I did not want to marry you. Then why did you land in my house with a proposal for me?" She fumed as much as a girl trapped by his hot eyes and the eye-catching vision of his male torso... his shirtless male torso... might fume!

"You were ready to marry any man your parents wanted you to marry. Then why not me?" he countered reasonably.

Khushi spluttered with anger. "Because I don't like you!"

"Really?" ASR asked, leaning over her recumbent form, shifting to lie on his side beside her, resting his head on his palm.

Khushi gasped. "Utt jaayiye! Kya kar rahe he aap?"

"You wanted to talk to me, didn't you? We might as well do it comfortably." ASR retorted, making himself more comfortable.

Khushi squirmed.

"What is it that you were saying?" ASR thought hard. "Oh, that you don't like me." He smiled in to her eyes.

His face was too close to hers. His eyes were too close to hers. Heat from his bare chest was singeing her skin, and his fingers were trailing over her left arm, holding her body in place.

Khushi trembled.

Thank God she was lying down. Otherwise Jiji would have had to scrape her melted form off the floor, Khushi thought.

"Yes, I don't like you." Khushi affirmed, breathing long & deep for courage. He Devi Maiyya Raksha Karna! Why did you have to give him so many muscles?

"Why not?" he asked.

"I just don't like you. That's all." she tried to block him. "Is this a grocery list where I have to list toor dal kg, pyaaz kg?"

ASR hid his smile.

"Yes. I want to know what you don't like about me." ASR declared. "Do you dislike my eyes?"

Khushi stole a look at those naughty eyes, and turned her head away.

"No." she whispered honestly.

"My nose? Is it too big, too short, curved?"

"Your nose is alright." Khushi looked away from the nose in question.

"You don't like my lips, is it?"

Her eyes raced to his sinfully delicious lips, and got trapped by them.

"No, they are..." she gasped.

"They are?" ASR murmured.

She watched his lips moving. "They are... alright." she whispered.

"That is so kind of you." ASR said softly.

As she watched, his lips came closer and closer to her, and pressed against her cheek. Her eyes fell shut.

ASR smiled.

"Khushi, do you dislike my ears?" he asked in a low voice.

Khushi looked at the ears. "I will pull them one day." she promised herself, unaware that she was speaking out aloud.

ASR hid his smile.

"My hair?"

Khushi's fingers tingled to pull the strands out, one at a time, making him howl in pain!

The murderous look on her face thrilled him to bits.

"Khushi, my shoulders..." he began teasing her.

"Aapki shoulders ko goli maro! I don't like your tongue. Your ghussa. Your akkad." Khushi tried to move away.

ASR squirmed closer, his chest touching her right side more firmly.

"Door hatiye humse!" Khushi tried to save her sanity, but ASR was having none of it. He pressed against her, dropping his right arm over her reclining body to trap her.

"My tongue?" His voice was seduction personified.

Khushi shivered.

He lifted her hand to his face, kissed her palm, and bit one of her fingers.

She yelped, feeling her heart jump to her throat.

He laved the digit, running his warm tongue over the hurt skin.

Khushi shut her eyes tight, trying to control her tremors, trying to pull her finger out of his mouth.

He let her go. "Now do you have a complaint against my tongue?" he asked innocently.

Khushi gaped at him, her lips parted. His hot eyes traced the curve of her pink lips. Khushi shut her mouth.

ASR leaned over her, crushing her under the weight of his body, holding her secure in both of his arms.

Khushi tried to push him away, but the moment her hands touched the bare skin of his chest, she was lost.

"My ghussa. Khushi, don't tell me that you are scared of my ghussa." ASR challenged her, his hot breath falling on her sensitive face.

Khushi tried to push him away, but her fingers ended up tracing the muscles of his chest lovingly.

"No... I am not... scared... of your... ghussa." Khushi managed to gasp.

"Good." ASR said, and lowered his lips to hers to reward her for her fearlessness.

Khushi saw his lips descending, and pushed him away with all her might.

She scrambled out of his bed, and stood looking at him, panting, the pulse in her throat throbbing, her eyes wide like those of a doe caught in the headlights.

She looked at the man lying on his bed, his arms crossed behind his head. The muscles of his arms bulged, and Khushi had to look away, swallowing through a dry throat.

Having managed to create a distance between them, Khushi was able to think. Why does this man want to marry me, Devi Maiyya? she asked her friend. I am not from Delhi. I am not like the models he works with. I don't eat the same food as he does. I don't know English well, while he speaks English even in his sleep! I make sweets while he is a diabetic! Why doe she want to marry me?

Khushi thought furiously... and came up with the wrong answer... again!

"You are such a good brother!" she exclaimed.

ASR stared at her. When did Akash & NK enter their conversation?

"You are marrying me so that Akashji can marry Jiji, aren't you?" Khushi asked, her eyes soft, liquid with emotion and bhaichara.

"Uugh?" ASR was capable of little else at that moment.

"Akashji saw Jiji at Preetho's sangeet. Aur usse pyaar ho gaya. Like in the phillums. Isn't that what happened?" she asked softly.

How did he know what had happened in Akash's heart when he saw Payal? All he knew was what had happened to him when he saw her dancing in the barat!

Khushi did not require answers, only silence.

"He told you that he wanted to marry Jiji, didn't he? But how could he marry when you were blocking his path?" Khushi asked.

ASR frowned. When had he ever injured Akash's marital ambitions? Now he understood why Buaji frequently hit herself on her head when talking of Khushi!

"You are older than him! And when you are standing like a khamba, an unmarried khamba blocking his path, how can he marry?" Khushi asked.

Light slowly entered the dense darkness of ASR's shatir dimag.

He nodded, looking all sad and put upon.

"So you had to marry fast." Khushi discovered. "You must have thought, I have to marry now. Which girl shall I choose? You must have looked around and seen me making your pusta. And you must have thought she is OK. She can cook too. And if the two brides are from the same house, we can conduct the two weddings at the same time... This is what happened, isn't it?" She looked at him, her head twisted slightly to the right like an eager bird waiting for a worm.

ASR stared at her, his eyes wide. What a tangled coil she had weaved!

She stood looking at him for a moment.

Poor Jiji. She had spent all her life making aloo sabzi and poori in the kitchen of Gomti Sadan. How could Khushi be so cruel as to stop her from going to Delhi with Akashji and making poori & aloo for him in his kitchen?

If she refused to marry the Shaitan, he would have to find another bride. That would take time. Who would have the courage to marry this volcano? This Singham with shakkar ki bimari?

And Jiji & Akashji would have to wait and wait and wait... maybe till their teeth fell off and they grew bald.

After all, which girl would dare to marry the Rakshas and fight with him daily? Who but Khushi Kumari Gupta could spend all her life living on the war front?

Khushi sighed. She would have to sacrifice herself. For her sister. For the poor diabetic Rakshas who would otherwise remain a bachelor all his life! If only he wouldn't come close to her... Something happened to her heart and her insides when he came close to her. Her heart became unruly in his presence, beating very fast as though she had run a marathon! And her stomach! Whenever he came too close to her, it felt as though titliyaan were beating their wings inside, trying to get out! She felt sick, just as she usually felt after she had eaten 1kg of jalebi at one sitting!

She looked at his face with a jaundiced eye, taking care not to look down at his body.

He was bad for her health. But what to do! She had to agree to this marriage for Jiji's sake.

"OK, I will marry you." Khushi said reluctantly.

ASR's heart leapt to his throat.

"If I don't marry you, then how can Jiji get married to your brother?" she sighed.

ASR swallowed.

"No other girl will marry you. I will have to do it." Khushi heaved a long sigh.

ASR's lips quirked.

"Lucky Jiji! She found such a nice man! Akashji will bury her in his love!" Khushi said wistfully.

ASR swallowed through a dry throat. He could do more than that! And he would! As soon as she was tied to him. Till then... he had to be careful. He got up from the bed.

"No, don't come near me!" Khushi ordered. "I will throw something at you."

"What will you throw, Khushi? Your phone? It is already in pieces." ASR teased her. "Or will you throw your dupatta? But it is not draped around your neck. It is lying abandoned on the floor."

Khushi gasped. Her fingers searched for her dupatta around her neck, found it missing, and looked around.

Seeing it on the floor, she made a move towards it.

ASR reached there first. He took the dupatta and held it up in his hand.

Wind blew the flimsy cloth against his bare chest.

Khushi gulped and at this late date, quickly covered her bosom with her arms.

ASR's lips quirked.

"Khushi..."

She looked at him.

"Do you want the dupatta?" he asked, his voice low.

She nodded, first feebly, and then firmly.

"Then stand still." ASR instructed.

Khushi nodded.

ASR walked towards her on deliberate feet, holding the dupatta in his hands. Looking deep in to her eyes, he draped the thin cloth around her neck and bosom.

Khushi lowered her arms, sighing in relief.

He gathered her in to his arms. She stood silent in his hold, her head under his chin, clasped close to his bare chest. The musky scent of him overpowered her. Her lashes fell over her eyes.

A moment later, ASR released her.

Khushi tried to stand without support, her limbs trembling.

ASR walked to his locker and returned with a small box. He held it out to her.

"What is this?" she asked.

"A phone. For you." he said shortly.

Khushi stared at him. Her hand lifted to take it.

"I have fed my number in it. Call me the next time you want to talk. Don't walk about in the dark." he said.

Khushi frowned. "Thank you for the phone. But I will walk where ever I want, whenever I want!" she proclaimed.

"Khushi!"

"You are not my husband yet, Shri. Arnav Singh Raizada!" Khushi lifted her chin in the air.

"Right." ASR folded his arms across his bare chest, hampering her view. "Don't complain if a stray dog bites you as you sneak in to Sheesh Mahal's ground next time!"

Khushi gasped.

He shrugged in to a shirt.

Khushi watched his chest vanishing under the cloth with regret.

"Let me drop you home now, Khushi." he offered. "You can see my chest after we are married." he smirked.

Khushi gasped out aloud.

"Your chest? Who wants to see your chest? Salman Khanji has a better chest than you do! I will watch him. I don't need you!" Khushi protested too much.

ASR smiled as he grabbed the car keys, and led her by the hand to his door, unlocked it, and walked along the corridor.

Khushi grumbled. "This is what I don't like about you! Your smirk! As though you are the king and the rest of the world is crawling at your feet!"

ASR smirked.

"When I see your smirk, I feel like...I feel like knocking it off your face!" Khushi curled her fingers in to her palms.

"You can do it after we are married, Khushi." he said softly.

She looked at him, suspicious.

"In fact, you can do whatever you want to me, Khushi, after we are married." he smirked.

Part 17: Section 1: 96069736 Part 18:

rulama2013-11-21 01:22:42