Naina kept swinging her legs impatiently at the table, wanting Ahanay to leave so she could meet up with Ohas.

"Do you have somewhere to go?" Ahanay raised his eyebrow at her, folding his arms on the table. He was dressed smartly in a casual linen shirt and jeans as if he was going to play a summer sport, and there was no trace of his everyday suit and polished shoes. The breakfast spread lay before them with an eclectic assortment of breads, cakes, and jams, Naina was confused to eat which with what. All her life, her breakfast was dipping Parle G in a cup of chai. But more than the mouthwatering breakfast, this mouthwatering man was confusing her.

"Don't you have somewhere to go?" Naina asked back, imitating him by raising her eyebrow and crossing her arms. "Like your office perhaps?"

"I expected my beloved wife to be happy that I'll be at home today."

"You're not home even on weekends. Why today?"

"So I can spend time with you."

"Spend time, my ass! You're just jealous of what happened yesterday so you're not letting me go anywhere!"

Okay, oops. Naina wasn't supposed to reveal her thoughts out loud. But her tongue ran faster than her thoughts and often she had to bite it to hold herself back.

At her outburst, Ahanay simply unfolded his arms and leaned back, tipping his chair lazily. "Where do you want to go?"

"Why are you interrogating?"

He frowned, looking so deliciously sexy that she wanted to leap over the table to kiss him right away. "Why do you think this is an interrogation? Did you do something to deserve an interrogation?"

"Nothing at all. Yet, I'm getting punished."

"Punished?" His frown deepened and there, floating in his dark eyes, she saw something close to resembling hurt. She didn't mean her words to come out as if being with him was a punishment, but wait, why was she feeling sorry? She should be reveling in his hurt, celebrating it even, yet why did she want to erase whatever she had said? Frustrated by what she mistook as her clean conscience, she started to spew out meaner words.

"Of course, this is a punishment! I hate being around you. I don't even know why I'm married to a prick like you who has an affair with another woman and---"

"It was in the past."

"and a whole child with her!"

"He's dead."

"What?" She snapped, her contorted face smoothening at what she just heard. She asked again, this time her voice was feeble, "Sorry, what-what do you mean . . . ?"

"He died some years back." With that, Ahanay stood up and disappeared into the hallway, leaving Naina alone at the table. She shrugged at that as if the shrug was going to shake off her guilt and uneasiness. Biting into her buttered French toast, she winced. Even that crumbled like sand on her tongue and she couldn't believe how her life was turning out to be. This was the dream that she had seen day and night, every minute when a shiny car sped by her or a family ate a scrumptious meal at a posh restaurant that had glass walls for everyone to admire.

No way she was going to let her childhood dream vanish into nothingness because of a privileged, lying, cheating asshole. Only, he wasn't cheating, he never lied (because she never waited for him to respond, she assumed) and the real asshole was her to snap at him like a cranky, old mother. But one annoying and unforgivable thing still remained. Privileged.

He was going to rip apart families, snatch their houses and turn everyone into beggars for what might seem like a little pocket money to him. Naina kept repeating these thoughts in her head as she went about her day, rolling and laying on every bed and sofa, in every air-conditioned room, at every luxurious corner of the house yet her whole body itched and sent her tossing and turning in pure agony. Finally, she cried out in frustration, "What am I supposed to do?"

Varsha clicked her tongue in mock pity while folding one of her silk dresses. "Oh, I surely understand the pains of the privileged."

"Privileged? How am I privileged?" Naina shot up from the bed indignantly.

"True privilege is when you don't realize how privileged you are."

"What a sage you are," Naina said, her eyes narrowing in menacing sarcasm. "You don't know what I'm going through."

"Sahib is planning to take away our colony to build luxurious apartments with jhim and pul," Varsha put on a deliberate illiterate accent on the words gym and pool. "I know all about that. I work in this house for a reason. All the gossip. What are you going to do about it anyway?"

"Kill him."

"Go ahead," Varsha said, not taking Naina seriously. "You might even get all the house and money for yourself."

"That's the plan."

"Sahib doesn't look happy since morning," she informed, driving Naina mad again. "What did you do?"

"Why do you think I did something?"

Varsha threw her a bored look which conveyed, "you really want me to answer that?"

"Okay, forget it. I don't care about him. He can be sad or die, it doesn't matter to me," she said out loud, her loudness betraying her lie. But where was he anyway? She scoured the entire house and there wasn't even a single strand of his hair anywhere.

"Sahib likes reading."

"Huh?"

"I said, Sahib. Likes. Reading."

"So?"

"You'll find him in the library, stupid," Varsha said, launching Sahib's underwear across the room and making it land on Naina's mouth. Naina spat it away quickly, her shy face resembling that of a bride's being unveiled by her husband. "You act as if you have done nothing with him so far."

"I have erm . . . Not."

"What? How can you not do it with that hot man?" Varsha gasped, her eyes widening. "What do you do every night?"

"Sleep," Naina shrugged, but seeing Varsha's aghast look, she felt a strong need to justify. "I mean, he's out on business trips and he barely has any time. I'm also very busy, I need to find ways to protect our colony. So I get tired. Besides, I'm not going to have sex with a man who is going to take away my home."

"Excuses, excuses," she said, grinning devilishly so wide that Naina wanted to break all her teeth. "But then again, why will he be attracted to a girl like you? He must have plenty of beauties to keep him company on his business trips."

"Whatever. I don't care," Naina said, storming out with hands balled tightly into fists.

"Then why are you heading towards the library?!"

Ignoring Varsha's jeering, Naina climbed up the stairs with determined steps. First, she wanted to apologize for snapping at him. Second, she wanted to show that she possessed a heart by expressing her deepest sympathies for his dead child whom she had secretly hated all this while. Third, she wanted to know why he didn't have sex with her yet.

No. No, not third. Definitely, not third.

The moment Naina pushed through the door and stumbled haphazardly into the library, she shouted, "Why didn't you have sex with me yet?"

Boom. Her voice ricocheted like a ball, bouncing off the shelves, but not landing, her voice echoed till it became weaker and weaker, but never disappearing. It stayed in the air, lingering in tense suspension, sending painful chills down her spine. In plain language, she was hella embarrassed.

Thankfully for her, Ahanay wasn't around or rather, didn't respond to her. Naina continued down the long aisles of dusty, old books till she reached the small window, sunlight streaming and spilling on a dark-haired man who was sitting below it on the floor. He was immersed in the book, "Crime and Punishment" and didn't notice Naina approaching and snatching it from him.

She began reading out loud from a random page, to tease him, "We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight. Somehow suddenly, all at once---" her voice dropped in volumes, remembering their wedding day when they saw each other for the first time at the Mandap. "---before a word has been spoken."

"Are you done?" Ahanay asked, shielding his eyes from the sunlight with his hand to look up at her with his disapproving eyes.

"Are you done?" Naina repeated, deliberately making her voice deep and shielding her face (although, there was no sunlight on her).

"What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?"

"What is this childishness, Naina?"

"What is this childishness, Naina?"

Ahanay sighed in exasperation and Naina sighed too (with a suppressed grin), sitting next to him and adopting his position of a hand on one bent knee and the other leg stretched out. Ahanay crossed his legs at that, turning towards her. Naina crossed her legs too, turning towards him.

"I thought you didn't like spending your time with your husband," he said, smiling coldly.

"I thought you didn't like spending your time with your husband," Naina said, smiling laughingly.

There was a long pause as he studied her face, her childish intent frank and clear.

"So my little demon is going to imitate whatever I do," Ahanay mused and slid closer to her.

"So my big demon---" Naina's revised imitation suddenly made him chuckle, breaking his icy facade. "---is going to imitate whatever I do."

She slid closer to him too, till the tip of their sharp noses brushed against each other's.

"Alright."

"Alright."

Ahanay's eyes trailed down, stopping first at her lips, then at her shirt. He rasped, his voice heavy with breathing, "You shouldn't mind if I . . ." Hooking his teeth on a button, he popped it open, his eyes focusing on her newly exposed skin. It seemed as if he was in a deep contemplation, whether to kiss her there or not and Naina's breathing quickened at the anticipation. Smirking, he bent down to kiss her, scraping his teeth, sending jolts of hidden pleasure throughout her body and leaving a bright, red hickey.

"You shouldn't mind if I . . ." Naina repeated, only her voice wasn't as deep and stable as before. It was shaky from sensations still exploding like fireworks in her stomach. But she was afraid of biting him accidentally by popping it open with her teeth. She tried it anyway and soon felt his chest rumbling from laughter against her lips. She was battling with the darn button as if her survival depended on it. After a long struggle, panic sweat and wetting his shirt with her saliva, she popped it open.

Following this, Ahanay popped open two more buttons with his teeth within seconds till her cleavage and the lace of her bra showed, his boyish grin never fading at her surprise.

Naina also popped open two more buttons, this time with shaky hands (that took eternity and he started laughing) till his smooth chest was revealed and immediately kissed by the mischievous sunlight.

No longer wanting to humiliate her, he took mercy and stopped opening the buttons. Instead, tipping her chin up till their lips fleetingly touched once, he pulled away right before they could kiss. He studied her face again as if she was a mysterious book, her eyes closed and lips parted in complete surrender. Still, waiting for the kiss. What Naina didn't realize was that he was searching for something urgent and important to him. Searching for something that could make her his. Searching for love.

Naina couldn't wait anymore so, she held his strong jaw in her hands, brought his lips down, and smashed her lips hard against his. Awkward, clumsy, and honestly, all wrong, but desperate and urgent. She needed him to strip her down and take all of her, she needed to feel all of him so she could forget the agony and betrayal and feel sweet, sweet pleasure. Please.

She didn't have to beg any more, because he already had his teeth on the next unopened button of her shirt, in between the smooth skin of cleavage, but instead of opening more, he jerked it down, tearing the fabric from the middle till her shirt split into halves and turned into a tattered jacket. Without a second thought, he picked her up and carried her to the nearest bedroom and she felt her head hit the soft pillow and the bouncy mattress.

Woah. She barely had time to process that before she found herself underneath him, naked and shivering. And wanting only more . . .

* * *

A/N:

Part 2 from Ahanay's POV will be up soon ;)

(Tap on the little star if you're liking this story :))