Chapter 31 Chapter thirty One
DEV
The corner shop shift dragged. Every minute felt like ten. All I could think about was nine o'clock, when I would finish and go to Priya's flat and see Aanya.
My girlfriend.
The word felt strange in my mind. I had a girlfriend. For the first time in five years, I had a girlfriend. And not just any girlfriend. The former princess who had destroyed her life to validate my research and who kissed like she was trying to prove something.
"You are useless tonight," Mr. Patel said, watching me stock shelves for the third time in the same aisle. "That goes with the other tinned goods. You have walked past the correct shelf four times."
"Sorry. Distracted."
"I saw the news. You and the princess. Is it true?"
"Yes."
"Good for you. She seems like a good person. Much better than those royal parasites who cut her off." He took the tin from my hand, placed it on the correct shelf. "Go home early. You are no use to me when you cannot tell beans from tomatoes."
"I still have thirty minutes."
"And you will spend those thirty minutes putting things in wrong places and thinking about your girlfriend instead of working. Go. I will dock your pay thirty minutes. Consider it a favor."
I did not argue. I clocked out, texted Aanya that I was leaving work early, and practically ran to Priya's flat.
She buzzed me up immediately.
When she opened the door, I forgot how to think.
She had changed out of the work clothes from this morning into jeans and a soft sweater. Her hair was down, slightly damp like she had just showered. No makeup. Barefoot. She looked nothing like the princess from the gala and everything like someone I wanted to spend the rest of the evening learning every detail about.
"Hi," she said, smiling. "You are early."
"Mr. Patel sent me home. Said I was useless because I kept thinking about you instead of stocking shelves correctly."
"Is that true?"
"Completely true. I put beans in the tinned tomato section. Twice."
She laughed, and the sound went straight through me. She stepped back to let me in. I crossed the threshold, and before I could second-guess myself, I kissed her.
She made a small surprised sound, then melted into me. Her arms went around my neck. Mine went around her waist, pulling her closer. The door was still open behind us.
"Dev," she murmured against my mouth. "The door."
I kicked it shut without breaking the kiss. She laughed again, and I swallowed the sound. Her fingers threaded through my hair, and I backed her against the wall without thinking about it. She did not seem to mind.
"Hi," I said when we finally broke apart, both of us breathing hard.
"Hi yourself." Her eyes were dark, pupils dilated. Her lips were swollen from kissing. "I thought we were going to talk."
"We can talk. I am excellent at talking."
"You are currently excellent at not talking."
"Fair point." I made myself step back, put a few inches of space between us before I forgot entirely why talking was something we should do. "Where is Priya?"
"Out. She said something about giving us privacy and we should not do anything she would not do, which I think was meant to be a joke but I am not entirely sure what activities she would or would not do, so the parameters are unclear."
I stared at her. "We are alone?"
"We are alone."
"In the flat."
"In the flat."
"With no one coming back for several hours."
"Priya said she would text before coming home. Something about not wanting to walk in on anything traumatic." Aanya bit her lip. "Dev, I should tell you something."
"What?"
"I have been thinking about you all day. Through every intake meeting. Through every form I filled out. Through every conversation with Rosa about resource allocation. I could not focus on anything because all I could think about was this morning in Sarah's office and how much I wanted to do that again."
My pulse was racing. "That is not helpful information to share when we are alone in a flat and I am trying to be respectful about pacing."
"Who said I want you to be respectful about pacing?"
"Aanya..."
"I am twenty-seven years old. I have never had a relationship. I have never had privacy to explore what I might want with someone. Every interaction I have ever had was monitored or orchestrated or performed for cameras. And now I am here with you and we are alone and I am tired of waiting for everything. I do not want to wait for this."
"We have been together for approximately eight hours."
"I know. And I spent at least six of those hours thinking about kissing you again. I am not suggesting we skip straight to the ending. I am suggesting we stop pretending we are going to take this slowly when clearly neither of us wants that."
She crossed the space between us, and I was lost.
My hands found her waist, pulling her against me. Her mouth found mine, and this time there was nothing tentative about it. This was heat and want and months of tension I had not realized I was carrying finally finding release.
I walked her backward toward the sofa, our mouths never breaking contact. When the backs of her knees hit the cushions, she pulled me down with her. I caught myself with one hand on the armrest, the other still on her waist, her body beneath mine.
"Is this okay?" I asked, even though my body was screaming at me to stop asking questions.
"More than okay." She pulled me down for another kiss, and I stopped asking questions.
Her hands were everywhere. In my hair, on my shoulders, sliding under my shirt to touch bare skin. I gasped against her mouth at the contact, and she smiled like she had won something.
"Your hands," she murmured. "I have been thinking about your hands all day."
"What about my hands?"
"What they would feel like. On me. Properly on me, not just polite hand-holding."
I slid my hand from her waist to her ribcage, just below her breast. Felt her breath catch. "Like this?"
"Yes. More of that."
I kissed her throat, felt her pulse racing under my mouth. Her hands tightened in my hair. When I moved my mouth to the sensitive spot just below her ear, she made a sound that went straight through me.
"Dev..."
"Yes?"
"I need you to know something."
I pulled back enough to look at her. Her eyes were dark, her cheeks flushed. She looked thoroughly kissed and absolutely beautiful.
"What?"
"I have not done this before. Any of this. I have kissed people at official functions, those awful polite kisses for cameras. But I have never... this. Being with someone because I want to. Touching someone because I want to touch them. I do not know what I am doing."
"You are doing fine."
"I want to do more than fine."
"Aanya, you could breathe in my direction and I would think it was the best thing that had ever happened to me. You do not need to worry about technique."
She smiled, then pulled me back down. This time when she kissed me, there was less urgency and more exploration. Her mouth moved slowly against mine, learning what I liked. Her hands slid under my shirt, tracing the muscles of my back with careful attention.
I returned the favor, sliding my hand higher, tracing the curve of her breast through the soft sweater. She arched into the touch, and I took that as permission to continue.
"Can I take this off?" I asked, tugging at the hem of her sweater.
"Yes."
I sat back, pulled her up with me, and carefully drew the sweater over her head. She was wearing a simple bra underneath, nothing fancy, but the sight of her made my mouth go dry.
"You are staring," she said, sounding nervous.
"You are beautiful. I am allowed to stare."
"I am not... I mean, I do not look like the women you probably usually..."
I kissed her before she could finish that sentence. "I am not thinking about anyone else. I am thinking about you. About how perfect you are. About how much I want to touch you. About how I have been half in love with you since you ripped up those palace documents on stage and I am fairly certain I am going to be completely in love with you by the end of the week at this rate."
She stared at me. "Half in love with me?"
"Did you miss that part?"
"No. I heard it. I just... you are half in love with me?"
"Is that okay?"
Instead of answering, she kissed me. Hard. Deep. The kind of kiss that made my brain stop working entirely. When she pulled back, she was smiling.
"Yes. That is very okay. Because I think I am falling for you too. Which is terrifying and probably inadvisable and definitely too fast. But I cannot seem to stop it."
"Then do not stop it. Let it happen. We will figure out the rest as we go."
I kissed her throat, her collarbone, the curve of her shoulder. She made soft sounds of pleasure that were rapidly becoming my favorite thing. When I moved lower, kissing along the edge of her bra, her fingers tightened in my hair.
"Dev..."
"Tell me if you want me to stop."
"I do not want you to stop. I want you to keep doing exactly what you are doing."
I smiled against her skin, then kissed lower. Her breath caught. I could feel her heartbeat racing, could feel the way her body responded to every touch.
This was quickly becoming more than I had planned for our first evening alone. We should slow down. We should talk. We should probably not be on Priya's sofa half-undressed when we had only officially been together for eight hours.
But Aanya's hands were on my back, pulling me closer, and slowing down seemed like the worst idea in the world.
My phone rang.
We both froze.
"Ignore it," Aanya said.
"I should check. Could be important."
I pulled my phone from my pocket. Giulia.
"It is my sister. I have to answer."
Aanya sat up, pulling her sweater back on while I took the call.
"This better be an emergency," I said.
"It is. Mum fainted at work. They took her to hospital. You need to come now."
All the heat drained from my body. "What happened?"
"I do not know. They called me from A&E. She was at a cleaning job in the City. Someone found her unconscious. They are running tests. Dev, you need to come."
"I will be there in twenty minutes. Which hospital?"
"St. Thomas's. I am on my way now."
She hung up.
I looked at Aanya, who was watching me with concern. "My mother is in hospital. I have to go."
"I will come with you."
"You do not have to..."
"I am coming with you. Do not argue."