Chapter 29: Chapter 29

Once everyone was out, Anahita didn't bother to hide her discontentment. She bursted upon Yuvraaj the moment he stepped inside the bedroom, completely disregarding the presence of unconscious woman in their room. "You said she is not going to share the room with us, didn't you? Now what? She is on our bed and that's all because of you."

"What do you expect me to do when I saw that someone was drowning? That time it didn't matter to me because her life was important. Anahita, I have not expected you to be so heartless." He finally lost his calm and retorted making her shun away.

"I am sorry, i was behaving stupid. You did the right thing." She enunciated after a while and rebuffed herself for misplaced jealousy. Ignoring him, she crouched low to pick up the towel and water bottles. Moving past him, she was silently going to put it on their respective places when Yuvraaj grabbed her waist and pulled her against the slab of his chest. He made her pivoted on her heels to face him. Anahita found his T-shirt worth adoring and refused to meet his eyes. Yuvraaj sighed and wrapped his arms tightly around her, blocking the way of air between them.

He dipped his head in her neck kissing her skin softly. Her grip loosened and the bottles tumbled down near their feet. She mentally thanked the staff to put plastic bottles otherwise she could've hurt themselves. Unlike her, Yuvraaj was busy worshipping her skin with devotion. She clutched his shoulder, retreating back with his each step taken forward.

She tumbled upon the couch with Yuvraaj's weight pressing her. Couch caught them perfectly. Anahita shuddered when Yuvraaj rubbed his stubble roughly on her collarbone.

Aware of the trespasser, Anahita whispered his name, calling him out of trance. "Yuvraaj!"

"Don't be hurt, Mou." Yuvraaj brushed off hair from her face. "That bed is all yours till we are here but right now, she needs to be at ease. She could've died, Anahita, do you want me to watch it but don't lend a hand for help?" He asked softly, tipping her chin. Anahita pouted, fiddling with his t-shirts top two buttons. She shook her head at his question and deadened her gaze by degrees.

Yuvraaj inspected the couch and sighed. "Then let's make peace with couch today and when she's awake, you can seize your territory again." He chuckled eliciting her grin as well.

Aroused, he dived to her and kissed her earlobe. "Plus couch is more romantic."

Anahita turned scarlet red and elbowed him, pushing his weight off her in process. "This is the only thing that runs in your mind all the time. Jerk! Now get off me, you're heavy."

Yuvraaj rolled aside and she got up, sprucing her shirt. She sunk to the ground, assembling bottles and towel. She bit her lip to stop smiling and padded to the water camper, she filled the bottles and put them in the refrigerator. Yuvraaj was waiting for her with blanket and pillows when she came back.

"Come!" He patted the space beside her. She readily complied and Yuvraaj switched on the television. His game was resumed. Anahita sighed and leaned on his shoulder, concentrating on the match without complains.

Later that night when they were done with their supper, the couple decided to have rest. Rested above leatherette couch which was considerably small for two people, Yuvraaj pulled Anahita over him securing her waist with his one arm and propped the another one under his head. The unwanted guest was still sprawled upon the bed. Whenever Yuvraaj craned his neck to see the woman, Anahita made a very familiar scowl drawing her eyebrows together. Somewhere, Yuvraaj was also aware of it and his heart fluttered when he realized that she didn't want him to see anyone - any other woman. That spoke of possessiveness if not love.

"Do one thing, go and lay beside her if you're planning to keep your eyes on her all night because it's irritating of having your neck craned when I have my head over your chest." Anahita leered, putting her elbows on his chest and glared him.

Grinning ear to ear, Yuvraaj pulled her back and patted her head, "Guilty as charged, your highness! Now sleep."

"Wait, what?" She lifted her head up again, "What about our conversation? We've not completed that yet, remember?"

"Shoot!" He muttered passively, closing his eyes and put her head back on his chest.

After a lot of consideration, Anahita finally put her query into words, twiddling her thumb, "Did you ever have a girl...um...girlfriend?"

"Yeah. I had one but that is a thing of past. Why?" Who? When? Where? Why? I was not allowed to see any man and you had girlfriend, you bastard! Anahita wanted to say this but she played cool.

"What was her name?"

"Kate. I mean Katherine. Katherine Walter." Kate? Kate! So you were on nickname terms? And here I was fiddling whether to say I love you to Mukund or not coz I was burdened with expectations. Anahita again curbed her wish to retort.

"How was she? Was she pretty? Tell me about her." Suddenly she wanted to know about everything. Every bloody thing related to Katherine Walter. If possible, even her blood group.

"Why do you want to know about her?" Yuvraaj became alert and quipped his eye brow questionably, turning his complete attention to her.

Anahita shrugged casually. "Just like that. Since, you've brought her up. I want to know about her."

Yuvraaj gaped at her in disbelief. His lips twitched at the corners. "I brought her up? It was you who asked."

"You're telling me or not?"

"Okay fine. She was cute and most pretty girl in our class. We were seat mates and good friends. She was very compassionate, sweet spoken and decent girl. Whenever she spoke, it felt like honey was dripping from her voice. She was always ready to lend help to others and she actually had the qualities of perfect woman." Yuvraaj blatantly concocted a thread of lies and presented it before her. He glanced at Anahita for her reaction. Anahita cringed mentally rebuffing herself for being the complete opposite of his girlfriend.

She put her head back on his chest and encircled his waist tightly. "Yuvraaj.... No one is perfect in this world, you know. Everyone has their own flaws and they are beautiful in their unique way."

"I know." He kissed her forehead, "But what is the way of being perfect, Anahita? If a person learns from his mistakes and doesn't repeat it, he is perfect. If a person wants to work on his flaws and emerge out as a marvellous human being, he is perfect. Perfection is not a trait but a state and if one wants, one can achieve it. That's how they become perfect and beautiful in their own way, isn't it?" He preached her, wishing that it could deliver some sense in her and his mind picked the thoughts of Katherine.

Katherine. Even his mouth bittered with her name. Granted, she was drop dead gorgeous. She was diva of Senior high but apart from that, she had nothing that could attract Yuvraaj. She was justly annoying, noisy and nagging. He had a rough time with her in six months after which he had to take sessions of anger management because Katherine had prodded him to the extent where he could kill her. She was stuck to him like a bee and compassion was a word she hadn't hear at all. Yuvraaj was thankful that she was no longer in his life.

"So, um, if she was that good why did you break up with her? Was it because of our wedding? I mean did you want to marry her but couldn't because you had to marry me?" Anahita mumbled, dreading the answer. She knew exactly how scary and fanatic their families could be. She had seen it at her home, how her mom emotionally blackmailed her and dad was as silent as grave, making her feel guilty which she wasn't. Before she knew, she was engaged to Yuvraaj and their marriage was no secret.

"Anahita...."

"Mm-hmm?"

"When i recall it now, I am surprised but the truth is, we never actually broke up." Yuvraaj divulged, making her confuse, "What?"

"Yes. I mean one day after summer break, she told me her family was going to shift in Canada and before we could talk some more, she was gone. After that, we lost contact and that's how I never broke up with her." Yuvraaj realised that he really was going to take a final call but Katherine divulged excitedly that she was leaving and Yuvraaj remembered clearly that he locked himself in his dorm until it was confirmed that she was gone. He even changed his contact details to avoid her calls. He pondered it would-be good to not reveal the particular part to Anahita and enjoy her getting uneasy. She thought she could mask it but it was barely possible. Yuvraaj could tell what was running in her mind just with her grip on his waist which was fortifying with passing seconds.

"So you decided to fly off India and marry me, right?" She was pissed off at his love story. She was angry on herself for being interested in his love life - former love life.

"No, wait, Katherine was my first and only girlfriend that too in highschool. I never had any girlfriend after that and I already knew that you'll be my bride, so I was saving all my love for you." He confessed, honestly when her nails almost scraped his flesh. Anahita looked up at him and a smile formed on her lips.

"So, you never had any girlfriend after that? And how old were you when you were with Katherine?"

"No, I never had. I think I was eighteen when I was with Katherine." Yuvraaj recalled, closing his eyes and Anahita chuckled when she calculated Katherine's age in present context. She was astonished that less than a minuted before she was recalling '1001 ways to deal with husband's ex-girlfriend'.

"Yuvraaj," She lovingly put her chin on his chest. Yuvraaj opened his eyes and wiggled, "If you don't take me to the beach tomorrow, I will add all sorts of rat poison in your intakes, understand? Now. Goodnight!" She kissed him briefly and rested her head upon his chest, ready to drown in the abyss of sleep.

***

When the sunbeams crawled in her adobe, Anahita was relaxed to not find herself on something as uncomfortable as sofa and the body warmth of Yuvraaj was missing. She stretched her arms, blinking and rubbing her eyes to clear her vision. She looked around to see herself on the bed.

Sitting up straight, she yawned scratching her nape and the sweet honey drizzled voice ruptured in her ears, "Good morning Wifey."

She smiled ready to respond with her eyes lazily drawing on the deck to see a shirtless Yuvraaj doing pushups. His sweat glistening body and damp hair that sprinkled sweat drops whenever he shook his head was a delicious treat to Anahita's hungry body. His body was glistening like melting butter in the sun and his muscles contracted and expended with his each move. Anahita was so concentrated on reading his body that she could count how many times his veins protruded from his arms to his forearms and then to the back of his palm.

The smirk that crawled on Yuvraaj's lips was evident that he knew what his wife was doing. A drooling Anahita was a sight to registered in the history as she had claimed that he had nothing to worth drooling but today she was contradicting her own statement.

"I said good morning." Yuvraaj said tracing her out of her reverie where her mind was picking all the dirty thoughts she could muster while gawking at him.

"Good veins..." Her eyes widened as she realised what she said and she amended quickly, making an eye contact with Yuvraaj. "Good morning. How are you?"

Way to go, you idiot! She inwardly slapped herself for the idiotic question but Yuvraaj pretended to ignore her making it easy for her.

"C'mon, get on my back. I need something heavy." He panted, going down and Anahita crawled out of the bed, twisting her hair in bun, "What? I mean are you sure because last time I checked, I weighed forty nine and I am not sure if I have put on the weight or not. You sure you won't get your back hurt?"

"Sit already."

"Okay," Tentatively, Anahita sat on his back and Yuvraaj hissed, "When I said sit, I meant astride. God! Woman, you'll break my back."

"Oh, I am sorry, wait!" She acquired the right position and kept her palm on his shoulders, that didn't help her at all, the way his muscles were contracting and expanding, she felt like she would do something inappropriate to him. Ergo, she closed her eyes, "Is it fine this way?"

"Yes." Yuvraaj replied and she felt the motions of see-saw. It was when it strike to her that the unwanted stranger of last night wasn't there.

"Where's the lady? How come I was on bed?"

"Her family was here last night, they thanked us and insisted to take her away with them. Manager checked everything and we shifted her in her room, after some time, she gained her consciousness and I came back here. Since the bed was empty and you were not comfortable on the couch, I shifted you there."

"Thank god!" She breathed but Yuvraaj didn't hear her, clearly, "What?"

"I asked how is she? Is her leg fine?"

"What has happened to leg? She was unconscious because she had drunk a lot of sea water while wrestling in ocean." Yuvraaj reminded and she curbed the urge to chortle, if she was fine, why were your mighty arms were holding her last night?

"Yeah. I know. I hope she doesn't go in sea to risk her life again, it's not good for a non swimmer to dive so far." She mumbled, as a matter of fact. "Let's not forget the possibility that if you hadn't been there, she could've died."

"Yuv...ahh!" Her eyes flew open as she felt the back beneath her twisting on its front and she landed upon the chest but within a minute, her back hit the cold wooden floor of the deck with Yuvraaj over her, bracketing her face with his arms.

"What was that? I thought I break your back." She panicked catching her breath after the moment of shock. Yuvraaj winked continuing his exercise with her beneath him. Every time he came down, she anticipated either her face or their lips or their chest are going to collide but Yuvraaj was careful enough not to touch her, except with his breath. His sweat drops dripped upon her few times but she didn't complain. She brushed off the tuft of hair falling on his forehead.

"Chill. You are not that heavy to break my back, I used to exercise with sacks of flour on my back." He smirked and she rolled her eyes, looking at his caveman incarnation, "Why don't you shave?"

She looked at his chest that was covered with the fringes of dark hairs and darted her eyes on his beard that had started growing as well.

The ever so unabashed Yuvraaj Prakash bended down dangerously close to her and bringing his mouth close to her ear, he sneered. "More chest hair means more testosterone. You should be happy, baby."

A shade deeper than a beetroot covered her face and her ears turned red matching her flushed face. "Shut up, Yuvraaj!" She groaned, turning her face away and slapped him gently. Yuvraaj kissed her cheek and fell beside her, laughing.

"Come here!" He pulled her over propping his arm as pillow for her, making her snuggle closer to his sweaty body and they both gazed at the shining morning sky which had fought with the doomed weather of the past three days and emerged out as winner. The couple laid beneath the endless sky was also fighting with their dooms to emerge out as winners and to have the smile plastered on their face always just like now.