A Situationship

October 15th

It’s 2 AM. The city outside my window is a sleeping beast, all quiet hum and distant, lonely lights. I can’t sleep. My skin feels too tight, my thoughts too loud. It’s on nights like these that the memories don’t feel like memories at all. They feel like ghosts living just under my ribs, pressing to get out. And tonight, the ghost is him. Aarav.

I never write this stuff down. It feels too… exposed. But maybe that’s the point. Maybe some stories are so woven into the fabric of who you are that not writing them down is the bigger lie.

It started with an ending. The final day of college. The air in Delhi was thick with goodbyes and the peculiar stench of hope and decay that only a North Campus graduation can brew. We were all a mess of faded blue jeans and oversized shirts, signing yearbooks with promises we knew we’d never keep. I saw him across the courtyard, a tall, lanky silhouette against the blinding white of the college walls. Aarav. We’d been in a few of the same classes for three years. We’d exchanged maybe ten words. He was quiet, observant, with these dark, liquid eyes that seemed to see a little too much.

Our friend Rohan, buzzing with post-exam mania, was the catalyst. “Hey! You two! You’re both going to Infosys, right? Mysore campus?”

We nodded, a pair of awkward puppets. A flurry of “Oh, wow, that’s great!” and then, the inevitable. “Exchange numbers, no? You can travel together.”

It was that simple. A series of mundane events strung together by the indifferent hand of fate. He pulled out his old Nokia, its buttons worn. I recited my number, the digits feeling insignificant as they left my lips. I remember the way his thumb moved, precise and sure, as he saved it. Anjali. Infosys.

That was it. We went our separate ways. I didn’t think about him again until the night before the flight. My phone buzzed.

Unknown Number: “Flight is at 6 AM, right? Kingfisher?”

I smiled. Me: “Yeah. My brother is dropping me. Can give you a lift if you want.”

Aarav: “Are you sure? It’s on the way?”

It wasn’t, not really. But I said it was.

My brother dropped us at the departure gate of Delhi’s T3. It was a chaotic, pre-dawn ballet of trolleys and tearful families. Aarav stood there with one small suitcase and a backpack. He looked young. We both did. My brother, in his typical overprotective style, shook Aarav’s hand a little too firmly. “Look after her, yeah?”

Aarav just nodded, a serious, almost solemn look on his face. “I will.”

I rolled my eyes, hugging my brother goodbye. “I can look after myself, thank you very much.”

I never knew. Standing there in that sterile, fluorescent-lit airport, the smell of coffee and floor polish sharp in my nose, I never knew the boy with the quiet eyes and the single suitcase would become the axis on which my world would tilt. I never knew he would be the one to map my body with his hands in the dark, to learn the secret geography of my desire.

The flight was unremarkable. We made polite conversation. He had a window seat. I took the aisle. We talked about the training, about Mysore, about the terrifying prospect of corporate life. His voice was a low baritone, a little rough from the early morning. It was nice. Comfortable. I remember thinking, This is good. A friendly face in a new city.

God, I was so naive.

October 16th

Mysore. The name itself sounds like a whisper. The Infosys campus was a different planet. All manicured lawns, gleaming glass buildings, and an almost oppressive sense of order. We were herded like sheep—medical check-ups, ID photos, room allocations. We were in different blocks, but close. A five-minute walk.

The first week was a blur of orientation sessions and trying to remember a hundred new names. But at night, the campus transformed. The strict, corporate façade softened. The air, which was hot and dusty by day, became cool and carried the scent of night-blooming jasmine and wet earth. And the stars… you never see stars like that in Delhi.

It started with walks. Just… walks. After dinner in the massive, noisy mess hall, he’d text.

Aarav: “Walking?”

Me: “5 mins.”

We’d meet near the shamiana, the giant white tent where they held our sessions. The first few times, we just talked. Circled the same paths, past the swimming pool, the gym, the endless rows of identical buildings. We talked about everything and nothing. Our families. Our fucked-up childhoods. The books we loved. The dreams we were too scared to voice aloud.

He was a listener. He didn’t just wait for his turn to talk. He absorbed things. And he made me feel heard in a way I hadn’t in a long time. I found myself telling him things I’d never told anyone. Secrets I thought I’d take to my grave. And in return, he gave me pieces of himself—quiet, thoughtful, sometimes painfully vulnerable pieces.

The space between us when we walked began to feel charged. A foot of air that hummed with something unspoken. My arm would swing by my side, and his would too, and the backs of our hands would brush. A fleeting touch. A spark. I’d pull my hand away as if burned, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

One night, about two weeks in, I was brave. Or stupid. The night was particularly dark, the moon a sliver of silver. Our hands brushed again, and this time, I didn’t pull away. I let my pinky finger hook around his. Just that. A tiny, intimate connection.

He stopped walking.

He didn’t say anything. He just turned his hand and enveloped mine. His hand was… God, his hand was everything. It was big. Warm. His fingers were long, the palms surprisingly calloused for a software engineer. I could feel the rough texture of his skin against the softness of mine. It was a hand that felt like it could build things, break things, hold things together.

A current shot straight from my palm, up my arm, and down, down, down, settling as a low, insistent throb between my legs. My pussy got wet. Just like that. From holding his hand. It was instantaneous and shocking in its intensity. I felt my cheeks flush, grateful for the darkness. I was glad he couldn’t see the effect he was having on me, the damp heat I could feel soaking through my cotton panties.

We didn’t talk about it. We just kept walking, our hands locked together. And from that night on, the walks became our ritual. Our secret. My hand in his, the solid, reassuring weight of it, and the slow, sweet ache building inside me.

October 17th

We discovered the tennis courts.

They were at the far edge of the campus, tucked away behind a grove of eucalyptus trees. They were old, the nets frayed and sagging. And most importantly, they were dark. The lone floodlight was always broken. It became the designated lovers’ spot. You could always see shadowy figures clinging to each other on the benches or leaning against the chain-link fence.

We started going there, but not to join them. We went for our own, private game.

We’d become hunters of couples.

It was childish, ridiculous, and utterly thrilling. We’d creep through the eucalyptus trees, the dry leaves crunching softly under our sneakers, the sharp, medicinal smell of the trees filling our lungs. We’d spot a couple, locked in a passionate, oblivious embrace. And then, we’d strike.

Aarav would let out a low, guttural groan, like a ghost from a bad Bollywood movie. I’d rustle the bushes violently. Sometimes, we’d just run past them, whooping and laughing like maniacs.

The reactions were priceless. Shrieking. Swearing. The frantic scrambling as they pulled their clothes together. We’d run until we were far away, then collapse against each other, breathless with laughter, our sides aching. In those moments, he felt like mine. My partner in crime. My idiot.

It was on one of these nights that everything changed. The air was heavy, pregnant with the promise of rain. We’d just scared off a particularly amorous pair from Bangalore. We were hiding behind the large water tank near Court 3, our bodies pressed together in the narrow space. I was still giggling, my face buried in his chest to muffle the sound. His arm was around me, holding me close. I could feel the hard plane of his chest against my cheek, the steady, strong beat of his heart.

The laughter died in my throat.

The atmosphere shifted. The playful energy evaporated, replaced by something dense, electric, and dangerous. We were still. So still. I could hear his breathing, a little ragged. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, smell the faint, clean scent of his soap mixed with the night sweat on his skin.

My hand was still in his. That big, warm, calloused hand. I looked up at him. His eyes were dark pools, unreadable in the near-total darkness, but I felt his gaze on me like a physical touch.

My heart was a wild bird trapped in a cage of bone. Do it. Just do it.

I didn’t think. Thinking would have talked me out of it. I just acted. I rose onto my toes, my free hand coming up to cradle his jaw. I felt the faint stubble prickle my palm. And I kissed him.

It wasn’t a gentle, questioning kiss. It was raw. A collision. My lips found his in the dark, and I poured every bit of that built-up tension, every spark from every brushed hand, every late-night confession into it.

For a heart-stopping second, he was frozen. Still. And I thought, Oh god, I’ve ruined everything.

Then, a sound tore from his throat. A low, hungry groan. And he kissed me back.

His hand let go of mine and came up to tangle in my hair, pulling me closer, deepening the kiss. This wasn’t the boy from the airport. This was a man. His mouth was demanding, insistent. He tasted of the chai we’d had after dinner—sweet, spicy, and uniquely him. The world narrowed to this: the taste of him, the feel of his lips, the scent of his skin, the sound of our ragged breaths mingling in the humid air.

His other hand slid from my back, down my side, over the curve of my hip. It was a slow, deliberate journey. My whole body was on fire, every nerve ending screaming. And then his hand closed over my breast.

I gasped into his mouth.

He didn’t just touch it. He squeezed. A firm, possessive, almost rough caress through the thin fabric of my kurti. My nipple, already hard and aching, pressed into his palm. A jolt of pure, undiluted lightning shot straight to my core. My pussy clenched, empty and desperate. The wetness I’d felt before was nothing. Now, I was soaked. Aching. On fire.

I arched into his touch, a silent plea for more. He broke the kiss, his breath hot against my neck, his lips tracing a path down to my collarbone. His hand left my breast, and for a terrifying moment, I thought he was stopping. But he wasn’t. He was just moving. His fingers found the hem of my kurti and slid underneath.

The touch of his skin on my bare stomach made me jerk. His fingers were warm, slightly rough. They trailed upwards, over my ribs, until his palm was cupping my breast again, this time over the lace of my bra. He groaned, his thumb circling my nipple through the lace, the friction exquisite and maddening.

“Anjali,” he whispered, my name a prayer, a curse on his lips.

That was all it took. My name, in that voice, wrecked and wanting. I grabbed the front of his shirt, fisting my hands in the cotton. “Don’t stop.”

It was like unleashing a storm. He backed me up against the cool, rough concrete of the water tank. His body pressed into mine, pinning me there. I could feel the hard length of him straining against his jeans, pressing against my thigh. The evidence of his want, as fierce as my own, sent another wave of heat crashing through me.

His mouth was on my neck, sucking, licking, biting. I was lost. My head fell back against the wall, my eyes squeezed shut. The world was a symphony of sensation. The smell of rain on dry earth. The taste of his skin. The sound of his ragged breaths and my own soft, pleading moans. The sight of his dark head bent to my neck. The feel of his hand, his wonderful, knowing hand, moving from my breast, down my stomach, past the waistband of my salwar.

His fingers dipped lower, through the nest of curls, and then… he touched me.

A direct, intimate contact. His fingers, those long, clever fingers, found the slick, swollen heart of me. I cried out, a sharp, involuntary sound that was swallowed by the night.

“So wet,” he murmured against my skin, his voice thick with awe and desire. “For me.”

He didn’t ask. He just… took. His finger slid inside me, and I gasped, my inner muscles clenching around him. It was an invasion. A claiming. And it was everything I wanted. He moved his finger, a slow, torturous in-and-out, while the pad of his thumb found my clit.

I saw stars. White-hot behind my eyelids. My hips bucked against his hand, seeking more pressure, more friction, more of him. I was a live wire, every part of me vibrating with a pleasure so sharp it was almost pain. He kissed me again, swallowing my moans, his tongue mimicking the rhythm of his finger.

I was close. So close. The pressure was building, coiling tight in my belly. The sounds we made were filthy, wet, desperate. The rustle of clothes, skin sliding against skin, his grunts, my whimpers.

And then, from somewhere in the distance, a burst of laughter. A group of trainees walking back to their hostels.

We froze.

His hand stilled inside me. Our breathing was loud, harsh in the sudden silence. The spell was broken, but the need wasn’t. It throbbed between us, a living, breathing thing.

He slowly withdrew his hand. The loss was physical. I felt empty. Exposed. He rested his forehead against mine, both of us panting, trying to regain some semblance of control.

“We should…” he started, his voice gravel.

“I know,” I finished.

He straightened up, pulling my kurti down, his touch surprisingly gentle now. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers, which had just been inside me, were tender on my skin. The contrast was dizzying.

We didn’t speak on the walk back. The air between us was thick with everything that had just happened, and everything that was left unsaid. He walked me to the gate of my hostel block. The security guard was dozing in his chair.

I turned to him. My body still hummed. I could still smell him on my skin, taste him on my lips.

He looked at me, his eyes dark and serious. “Tomorrow?” he asked, the single word loaded with a thousand meanings.

I just nodded, my throat too tight for words.

I went up to my room, my legs shaky. I locked the door behind me and leaned against it, sliding to the floor. I brought my fingers to my nose, inhaling the scent of us, of me, of him. My pussy still throbbed, a persistent, needy ache.

That night, in my narrow hostel bed, I touched myself, thinking of his hands, his mouth, the look in his eyes. I came with his name silent on my lips, the ghost of his touch still imprinted on my skin.

It was only the beginning.

October 18th

The sun was a cruel, mocking thing the next day. It streamed into the training hall, highlighting dust motes dancing in the air, and I felt like a creature of the night forced into the day. My body was a separate entity from my mind. My mind was trying to pay attention to the facilitator droning on about Java fundamentals. My body… my body was a live wire, still humming from the night before, every nerve ending remembering the press of his hands, the heat of his mouth.

I wore shorts. A simple pair of cotton shorts. A deliberate choice. As I pulled them on that morning, my hands trembled. It was an act of defiance, a secret promise to myself, and to him. Easy access. The thought was a flash of lightning in my mind, so illicit it made my stomach clench. I paired them with a loose, thin t-shirt, no bra. I wanted to feel the air on my skin, the whisper of fabric against my sensitized nipples. I wanted to feel raw, and alive, and ready.

I saw him during the mid-morning break. He was leaning against a wall near the water cooler, a paper cup in his hand. Our eyes met across the crowded hallway. No smile. Just a slow, simmering look that started at my eyes, traveled down my body, lingering on the bare skin of my legs, and traveled back up. It was a look that stripped me bare right there, in front of everyone. It was a look that said, I remember. I know. A faint, almost imperceptible nod. That was all. Then he turned and walked away.

The day was an exercise in exquisite torture. Every brush of the shorts against my thighs, every slight breeze, sent a jolt to my core. My pussy, still tender and swollen from his attention, pulsed with a low, persistent thrum. I was wet all day. A constant, slick awareness that made it impossible to sit still. During a particularly dry lecture on corporate ethics, I crossed my legs, the pressure a small, desperate relief. I let my mind wander, replaying the scene by the water tank in excruciiating, delicious detail. The rough concrete against my back. The taste of his skin. The sound of his groan when he found me so wet. The feeling of his finger, that one, perfect finger, sliding inside. I had to uncross my legs, shifting in my seat, my face heating. I was sure everyone could see it, the desire leaking out of me.

He texted me just after dinner.

Aarav: 3 AM. The courts.

Not a question. A statement. A command I was more than willing to obey.

Me: Yes.

Those two letters held a universe of consent.

Sleep was impossible. I lay in bed, the digital clock on my nightstand burning the passing minutes into my retinas. 11:47 PM. 1:02 AM. 2:15 AM. The hostel was silent, a tomb of sleeping bodies, but I was vibrantly, painfully awake. Every sense was heightened. The coarse texture of the starched hostel sheets. The distant, lonely sound of a train whistle from Mysore Junction. The faint, floral scent of my shampoo on the pillow. My body was a drum, and the only rhythm it knew was his name.

At 2:50 AM, I slipped out of bed. I didn't need to check my reflection. I knew what I looked like. My eyes were dark, pupils blown wide with anticipation. My skin was flushed. I pulled on a hoodie over my t-shirt, the fabric a stark contrast to the bare skin of my legs. I was a bundle of contradictions—covered, yet exposed; hidden, yet offering myself.

I met him at the base of the shamiana. He was a shadow detaching itself from a deeper shadow. He didn't say a word. He just reached out, his fingers finding mine in the dark. His touch was electric, a jolt that traveled straight up my arm. His hand was warm, solid, real. He laced his fingers through mine, a perfect, intimate fit, and we started walking.

The walk to the tennis courts was different this time. There was no playful banter, no hunting for couples. This was a pilgrimage. Our footsteps were quiet, purposeful on the gravel path. The eucalyptus trees stood as silent sentinels, their scent sharp and clean in the cool air. The only sound was our breathing, slightly too fast, slightly too loud.

We reached our spot—Court 3, behind the water tank. The darkness here was absolute, a velvet blanket that swallowed us whole. The second we were hidden, he turned to me. He didn't kiss me. Not yet. He just looked at me, his eyes gleaming in the profound blackness, and brought his hands up to my face. His thumbs stroked my cheekbones, a gesture so tender it made my heart ache.

Then he crashed into me.

His mouth found mine with an unerring accuracy, a hunger that mirrored my own. This wasn't like the first, exploratory kiss. This was a conflagration. It was all tongue and teeth and desperate, shared breath. He kissed me like a man starved, and I kissed him back like I was the only thing that could save him. My hands fisted in his hair, pulling him closer, erasing any last inch of space between us.

His body pressed me back against the familiar rough concrete of the tank. I could feel the entire, hard length of him against my stomach. My shorts felt impossibly thin, the barrier of cotton and denim between us a ridiculous formality. He ground his hips into me, a slow, deliberate roll that had me gasping into his mouth.

"God, Anjali," he breathed, his lips moving to my jaw, my neck, sucking at the sensitive skin just below my ear. His hands were everywhere. One tangled in my hair, tilting my head back to give him better access. The other slid down my back, over the curve of my ass, squeezing roughly through the thin cotton of my shorts. A groan ripped from his throat. "Fuck. These shorts."

He palmed my entire backside, his big hand possessive, claiming. He squeezed again, and I moaned, my hips bucking against his. The friction was maddening, not enough, never enough. I was on fire, a raw, open nerve of need.

"We can't," I panted, even as I arched my back, offering myself to him. "We can't have sex here."

"I know," he growled against my neck, his voice thick with the same frustration that was coiling in my gut. "But we can have fun."

The words were a promise, a threat, a prayer.

He pulled back slightly, his breathing ragged. His eyes were wild. "Sit."

The word was soft, but it held a current of authority that went straight to my core. I obeyed without thought, lowering myself to sit on the cool, dusty concrete steps that led up to the water tank's platform. The rough texture was a stark contrast to the heat of my skin.

He stood before me, a towering silhouette against the star-dusted sky. He was all lean muscle and pent-up energy. He looked down at me, and even in the dark, I felt the intensity of his gaze. It was a look that stripped me bare, that saw the desperate, hungry thing I became for him.

He unbuckled his belt. The sound of the leather sliding through the loops, the metallic clink of the buckle, was the most erotic sound I had ever heard. My mouth went dry. He unbuttoned his jeans, the rasp of the zipper a slow, deliberate torture. He pushed them down, just enough. And then he was there. In front of me. Hard and thick and beautiful in the muted light.

"Touch me," he whispered.

My hands were shaking as I reached out. I wrapped my fingers around him. He was hot, like velvet-covered steel. A strangled sound escaped him as I began to move my hand, a slow, tentative stroke. I leaned forward, my hair falling around my face like a curtain, closing us in our own private world.

I didn't hesitate. I took him into my mouth.

The taste of him was salt and skin and pure, masculine Aarav. It was intoxicating. I heard him suck in a sharp breath, his hand coming to rest on the back of my head, not pushing, just holding. "Jesus, Anjali."

I lost myself in the rhythm. In the weight of him on my tongue. In the sounds he made—low, guttural groans that seemed to be torn from the deepest part of him. I used my tongue, my lips, my hand where my mouth couldn't reach. I was learning him, worshipping him. This was power. This was surrender. To feel him come apart like this, because of me. His fingers tightened in my hair, his hips giving a slight, involuntary thrust.

"Look at me," he commanded, his voice ragged.

I opened my eyes, looking up at him through my lashes. The sight of him, his head thrown back, his jaw clenched, his eyes burning down at me, was my undoing. I doubled my efforts, wanting to shatter him, to consume him.

"I'm close," he warned, the words a strained gasp. "Baby, I'm so close."

The endearment, raw and unplanned, sent a fresh wave of heat through me. I took him deeper, urging him on. His whole body tensed. A deep, shuddering groan ripped through him, and he climaxed in my mouth, his release hot and bitter and perfect. I swallowed every drop, my own body clenching around nothing, a sympathetic, desperate echo of his pleasure.

He was breathing heavily, his body slumping slightly. He gently pulled himself from my mouth, his thumb stroking my cheek in a gesture of breathtaking tenderness. He looked wrecked. Beautifully, completely wrecked.

He didn't give me time to think. He knelt down in front of me, his eyes dark and intent. "My turn."

He pushed my legs apart, settling between them on the dusty step. His hands slid up my thighs, under the loose legs of my shorts. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of my panties and pulled them down my legs in one swift motion. The night air was cool on my exposed, wet skin. I was completely open to him.

He didn't waste time. He leaned forward and kissed the inside of my thigh, a soft, lingering kiss that made me tremble. Then his fingers were there. Parting me. Touching me.

"So beautiful," he murmured, his voice full of awe. "So fucking wet for me."

One finger, then two, slid inside me. I cried out, my back arching off the step. It was a fuller feeling than the night before. A stretch. A claiming. He started to move them, a slow, deep, fucking motion that had me seeing stars. His thumb found my clit, circling it with a perfect, maddening pressure.

"Look at me," he said again, echoing his own command.

I forced my eyes open. He was watching me, his gaze locked on mine as his fingers worked their magic inside me. The intimacy was devastating. It was more exposing than being naked. He was watching me come undone, and he was loving every second of it.

He leaned in and kissed me. A deep, soul-searching kiss as his fingers plunged in and out of me. I could taste myself on his tongue, a musky, intimate flavor. The combination of sensations was too much. The sight of his intense face. The feel of his fingers inside me. The taste of us mingled. The sound of our wet, slick bodies. The smell of night and sex and dust.

The coil in my belly tightened, unbearably so. My breath hitched. My fingers clawed at his shoulders.

"Aarav," I gasped, a broken plea.

"That's it," he whispered against my lips, his fingers curling inside me, hitting a spot that made me jolt. "Come for me. Let me feel you."

It was the permission I didn't know I needed. The world shattered. My climax ripped through me, violent and consuming. A silent scream was torn from my throat as my body convulsed around his fingers, wave after wave of pure, blinding pleasure crashing over me. I shook, I trembled, I fell apart in his arms, my face buried in the crook of his neck as I rode out the storm.

He held me through it all, his fingers still inside me, gentling their movements until the last tremor subsided. He slowly withdrew them, and I whimpered at the loss, my body boneless and spent. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close against his chest. I could feel the frantic, steady beat of his heart against my cheek. We stayed like that for a long time, just breathing each other in in the aftermath.

Eventually, he helped me to my feet, his touch gentle as he pulled my shorts and panties back into place. He tucked himself away and then pulled me into a proper hug, my head fitting perfectly under his chin. We didn't speak. Words were unnecessary. The silence was filled with the echo of our shared pleasure.

We walked out of the tennis courts, hand in hand. The world outside our bubble felt different. Softer. The stars seemed brighter. I was floating, my body humming with a deep, satiated glow. I was happy. A pure, uncomplicated happiness that started in my well-fucked core and radiated out to my fingertips.

Back in my room, the high slowly faded, leaving a pleasant, heavy exhaustion in its wake. But as I lay in bed, the memory of the night played behind my closed eyelids. The feel of him in my mouth. The look on his face as he made me come. The sheer size of him, the thickness I had held in my hand.

My hand drifted down between my legs. I was still sensitive, still slick. I touched myself, my fingers mimicking the motion of his. I came again, quickly, violently, thinking of his big dick. Omg, I thought, the juvenile acronym perfectly capturing the awe I felt. I started imagining it. Not just his fingers, but all of him. The stretch. The burn. The feeling of being completely, utterly filled.

Could I take it? The question was a thrilling, terrifying whisper in the dark. I wanted to find out. I wanted to do this every day. I wanted to learn the shape of his desire until it was etched into my bones. The ghost was no longer under my ribs. It was in my bed, in my skin, in the very air I breathed. And I never, ever wanted it to leave.

my skin, in the very air I breathed. And I never, ever wanted it to leave.

October 19th

The days began to blur into a single, stretched-out moment of anticipation. The training sessions were a monotonous drone, a background hum to the constant, screaming static in my blood. I moved through the motions—Java code, team-building exercises, cafeteria food—but I was a ghost in my own life. The real me only came alive after dark, in the space between 3 AM and the first hint of dawn, where the air was thick with jasmine and unspoken promises.

We didn’t talk about it during the day. We were careful. Professional. We’d sit in the same sessions, sometimes even at the same table with a group of others, discussing loops and arrays. Our knees would brush under the table, a secret, fleeting contact that would send a jolt straight to my core, making my breath hitch. He’d look at me, his expression neutral, but his eyes… his eyes would hold a dark, knowing glint that said, I remember what you taste like. I remember the sounds you make. I’d have to cross my legs, pressing my thighs together to quell the sudden, aching throb.

The texts were our lifeline. Terse, innocent-looking messages that held a universe of meaning.

Him: The chapter on SQL is riveting.

Me: Bored out of my mind. Can’t focus.

Him: I have an idea for a practical. After hours.

Me: I’m a quick learner.

It was a game. A delicious, torturous game. My body was no longer my own. It was a instrument he had tuned, and now it hummed only for him. I’d be washing my hands in the bathroom, see the faint bruise on my neck where his mouth had been two nights before, and a fresh wave of heat would wash over me. I’d catch his scent on my own skin hours after we’d parted, and my knees would go weak. I was obsessed. Consumed.

It was his idea. The trip.

We had a three-day weekend coming up. A break from the campus bubble. Everyone was making plans. Groups were heading to Ooty, to Coorg. We were sitting in the mess hall, a group of six of us, the noise of clattering plates and a hundred conversations a wall around us.

“We should go to Srirangapatna,” Rohan said, shoveling dal rice into his mouth. “Historical. Forts. Very educational.”

Aarav was sitting diagonally across from me. He didn’t look at me. He stirred his sambar, his voice casual. “There’s a place I read about. A small heritage homestay near the river. Quiet. They have separate cottages. We could book two. For the guys and the girls.”

My spoon froze halfway to my mouth. The noise of the mess hall faded into a distant roar. My heart was a drum solo in my ears. Separate cottages. I knew what he was really saying. I knew the plan he was weaving in the space between his words.

“Sounds good,” I said, my voice miraculously steady. I took a sip of water, the cool liquid doing nothing to douse the fire in my belly.

The details were finalized with a mundane, logistical efficiency that was at odds with the seismic shift happening inside me. Rohan and another guy, Vikram, would share one cottage. Me and my roommate, Priya, would share the other. Aarav would take the single room in the main house. It was perfect. Plausible. A sheet of perfect, normalcy draped over our secret.

The night before we left, he texted me.

Pack the blue blanket.

A simple instruction. The blue blanket was the one we’d sometimes take on our late-night walks, to sit on the grass when the dew was heavy. It was soft, fleecy, and smelled faintly of us. My heart hammered against my ribs. I folded it carefully, burying it at the bottom of my backpack like a secret. A shiver of pure, unadulterated anticipation ran down my spine. This was it. The plan was in motion. The place where I would attempt to take his dick. The thought was so crude, so visceral, it made me gasp. My pussy clenched around nothing, a hollow, eager ache.

October 20th

The journey was a riot of laughter, bad Hindi songs blasting from the car speakers, and the golden, hazy light of a Karnataka morning. We’d hired a tall, bulky SUV. Priya and Vikram took the middle row. Rohan was in the front, navigator and self-appointed DJ. Aarav and I were in the very back.

It was a different kind of tension now. We were out in the open, surrounded by our friends, but the back of the SUV felt like the most private place in the world. The blue blanket was spread over our laps, a woolly island of conspiracy.

For the first hour, it was normal. We looked out the windows, commented on the passing scenery—endless coconut groves, bright yellow fields of sunflowers, the occasional temple spire breaking the flat horizon. But under the blanket, a different story was unfolding.

His hand found mine first. Then, his fingers began to draw slow, lazy circles on my palm. My breath hitched. I stared straight ahead at the headrest in front of me, my entire being focused on that small, incendiary point of contact. The circles grew wider, his touch drifting from my palm to the sensitive skin of my inner wrist. He traced the blue lines of my veins, his touch so light it was almost a ghost, yet it burned.

I chanced a glance at him. He was looking out his window, his profile calm, but a small, almost imperceptible smile played on his lips. He knew exactly what he was doing.

His hand moved from my wrist, up my arm, under the sleeve of my kurti. His fingers were warm and slightly rough. I felt my skin break out in goosebumps. My nipples hardened, pressing against the fabric of my kurti and my bra. I was grateful for the loose fit, for the blanket that hid my body’s blatant betrayal.

Then his hand slid from my arm and came to rest on my thigh.

I stopped breathing.

The car hit a bump, and his grip tightened, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my leg. It was possessive. Primal. My thighs fell apart, just a fraction, a silent, shameless invitation. The chatter and laughter from the front seats were a world away. All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears, the rustle of the blanket, and the soft, wet sound of my own desire.

His hand began to move. A slow, creeping ascent up my thigh. My salwar was cotton, thin. I could feel the heat of his palm through the fabric. Every nerve ending was screaming, hyper-aware. He reached the juncture of my thighs and stopped. His palm rested there, a heavy, warm weight right over my pussy. I was so wet I was sure the dampness would seep through the layers of fabric and brand me.

He didn’t move. He just held me there, his hand a steady, claiming pressure while our friends debated the best route to take just a few feet away. It was the most brazen, the most terrifying, the most exhilarating thing I had ever experienced. I was on fire. A slow, smoldering burn that threatened to consume me right there in the back of that car. I closed my eyes, leaning my head back against the seat, surrendering to the sensation. My hips gave a tiny, involuntary rock against his hand. A plea.

He pressed down, just a little. A promise.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He was watching me now, his dark eyes hooded, intense. He saw the flush on my cheeks, the parted lips, the desperate gleam in my eyes. He saw me, completely and utterly his. He leaned over, as if to point something out to Rohan in the front, and his lips brushed my ear.

“Tonight,” he whispered, the word a puff of warm air that sent a shiver straight down my spine.

I just nodded, my throat too tight, my body too full of want to form a single sound.

The homestay was everything he’d promised and more. An old, restored plantation house painted a faded ochre, surrounded by sprawling, overgrown gardens that sloped down to the slow, muddy Cauvery. It was isolated, quiet, the air thick with the scent of frangipani and river water. Our cottages were little brick huts tucked away under a canopy of banyan trees, a good fifty yards from the main house. Alone. So much safe.

We unpacked. We had dinner with the owners—a quiet, elderly couple who served us delicious, home-cooked food on a banana leaf. The conversation was easy, light. Priya was talking about her boyfriend back home. Vikram and Rohan were planning the next day’s sightseeing. Aarav and I exchanged a single, loaded look across the table. The plan was set. The terrace of the main house. After everyone was asleep.

Back in our cottage, Priya fell asleep almost instantly, lulled by the heavy, country air and a full stomach. I lay in my bed, watching the digital clock. 11:00 PM. 12:30 AM. 1:00 AM. The house was silent. The world was silent. My heart was a thunderous exception.

I slipped out of bed. I was wearing a simple nightdress, nothing beneath. I didn’t need to. I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders and crept out of the cottage, my bare feet silent on the cool, damp grass.

The night was cold. A proper, biting cold that I hadn’t felt since leaving Delhi. The stars were insane. A thick, glittering spill of diamonds across a velvet black sky, so clear and close you felt you could reach up and stir them with your fingers. I saw his silhouette on the terrace, a dark cut-out against the starry backdrop. He was waiting.

I climbed the narrow, wrought-iron stairs, my heart in my throat. He turned as I reached the top. He had brought the blue blanket. He’d thought of everything.

He didn’t speak. He opened his arms and I walked into them, the shawl falling from my shoulders. He wrapped the blanket around us both, pulling me close. His body was a furnace, radiating heat. I buried my face in his chest, inhaling his familiar scent, now mingled with the clean, cold night air.

“You’re cold,” he murmured, his hands rubbing up and down my back through the thin nightdress.

“Not anymore,” I whispered back.

He tilted my chin up and kissed me. It was a different kiss from the ones in the tennis courts. This one was slower. Deeper. More profound. It was a kiss that had all the time in the world. It tasted of the night, of the paan we’d had after dinner, of pure, unadulterated want. My arms went around his neck, pulling him closer, my body molding itself to his.

We sank down onto the rough, cool concrete of the terrace floor, the blanket beneath us. The world disappeared. There was only the vast, star-dusted sky above and the hard, willing body beneath me. We made out under the stars, a tangle of limbs and hungry mouths. His hands were under my nightdress, roaming my back, my ass, my thighs. My own hands were pulling at his t-shirt, desperate to feel his skin.

He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “Anjali.”

“Yes,” I said, knowing what he was asking.

He leaned back, his eyes serious in the starlight. “I don’t have a condom.”

The words hung in the cold air between us. A moment of stark, real-world consequence in the middle of our fantasy. I should have stopped. I knew I should have. But my body was screaming for him. The memory of his fingers, the promise of what was to come, the raw, animal need that had been building for weeks—it all coalesced into a single, impulsive decision.

“I don’t care,” I heard myself say. The words were not my own. They belonged to the creature of pure sensation I had become. “I don’t care, Aarav. Just fuck me.”

A groan tore from him. He kissed me again, hard, almost desperate. He pushed my nightdress up, over my hips, over my head, and tossed it aside. The cold night air hit my bare skin, and I gasped. But then his body was on mine, his heat enveloping me. He was naked too. I hadn’t even noticed him undress.

He knelt between my legs. For a moment, he just looked at me, laid bare under the infinite sky. I felt a thrill of fear, of exposure, but it was swallowed by a wave of even greater desire. I was completely his. Open. Vulnerable. Powerful.

He didn’t enter me right away. He lowered his head.

His mouth on my pussy was a revelation. It was not gentle. It was hungry, voracious. He ate me like a man possessed, his tongue lashing my clit, delving inside me, tasting me with a guttural sound of approval. I cried out, my hands fisting in his hair, my hips bucking off the blanket. The sensations were too intense, too raw. The cold air, the rough blanket, the slick heat of his mouth. I was coming apart, my moans echoing in the silent, sleeping night.

Then he shifted. His tongue traced a path lower, to a place no one had ever touched. My ass. The intimacy of it was so shocking, so taboo, I froze. “Aarav…”

“Shhh,” he murmured, his breath hot against my most secret skin. And then his tongue was there, a slow, wet, circling pressure that sent a bolt of such pure, unexpected pleasure through me that I saw white behind my eyelids. I gasped, my body arching, a long, low moan ripped from the depths of my soul. Damn. I can’t forget that. Still.

He moved up my body, his eyes wild, his face glistening with my wetness. He was hard, the tip of his dick pressing against my inner thigh. Big. So much bigger than I had imagined. A flicker of fear. Can I take it?

He positioned himself at my entrance. He was breathing heavily, his forehead resting against mine. “Look at me,” he whispered.

I opened my eyes, drowning in his.

He pushed in.

It was a stretch. A burn. A tearing, glorious invasion. I cried out, a sharp, guttural sound as he filled me, stretching me wider than I thought possible. His big dick was tearing my pussy, the pain a bright, sharp edge that quickly melted into a pleasure so profound it stole my breath. He was all the way in, buried to the hilt. We were still, joined, our breath misting in the cold air, our eyes locked.

“Okay?” he asked, his voice strained with the effort of holding still.

I could only nod, my nails digging into his back. “Don’t stop,” I begged. “Please, don’t stop.”

He began to move. A slow, deep, relentless rhythm. Each thrust was a claiming. Each withdrawal an agony. The world narrowed to this: the slap of our skin in the quiet night, the ragged symphony of our breaths, the feeling of him moving inside me, touching places I didn’t know existed. I was getting fucked in the open, exposed, by a friend, and I had never felt more alive, more real, more me.

He shifted us, pulling out and turning me onto my hands and knees. Doggy. The new angle was even deeper. He entered me from behind, one hand gripping my hip, the other tangling in my hair. I was an animal. I was a goddess. I was nothing and everything. I met his thrusts, rocking back against him, my ass slapping against his thighs. The sounds we made were filthy, primal. I didn’t care. I wanted the stars to hear us. I wanted the sleeping world to know.

“I’m recording this,” he grunted, his voice thick with lust.

I looked back over my shoulder. He had his phone in his free hand, the screen glowing in the darkness, pointed at where our bodies were joined. The audacity of it, the sheer, illicit thrill, sent me over the edge. My climax crashed over me, a silent, screaming wave that clenched around him, milking him, pulling his own release from him. He groaned, a long, shuddering sound, and emptied himself inside me, his hot release a final, shocking intimacy.

We collapsed onto the blanket, a sweaty, spent, tangled heap. He pulled the blanket over us. We didn’t speak. We just breathed, our hearts hammering against each other’s in the aftermath. After a few minutes, he shifted, his dick, still half-hard, slipping out of me. I felt the wet, warm evidence of our raw fucking trickle down my thigh. The reality of it should have horrified me. It didn’t. It felt like a mark. A brand.

He turned to me, his eyes soft now. He kissed me, a slow, tender kiss. “Again?” he asked, a playful, hopeful note in his voice.

I smiled, my body already stirring back to life. “Yes.”

We fucked again, slower this time. Missionary. His weight on me, his eyes holding mine, his thrusts deep and languid, a conversation of bodies that needed no words. It was sweeter, but no less intense. I came again, a softer, rolling wave, and he followed me, his release a quiet sigh against my neck.

We lay there for a long time, wrapped in the blanket and each other, watching the stars until the sky began to lighten to a deep, predawn grey. We had crossed a line. There was no going back. And as I lay there, his seed cooling on my thigh, his arm a heavy, possessive weight across my stomach, I knew I didn’t want to.

October 21st

The world felt different in the morning. The sun, when it finally broke over the line of trees by the river, was too bright, too revealing. It felt like an interrogation lamp. I woke up in my own bed in the cottage, the space next to me cold and empty. Priya was still asleep, her breathing a soft, regular rhythm. For a few disorienting seconds, the night on the terrace felt like a dream—a vivid, visceral, Technicolor dream. Then I moved, and my body answered with a chorus of aches. A deep, pleasant soreness between my legs. A faint tenderness on my hips where his hands had gripped me. The memory of his weight, his taste, the shocking, wet heat of his release inside me—it all came flooding back, so potent it stole the air from my lungs.

I sat up, wrapping my arms around my knees. The cottage was cool, shadows still clinging to the corners. I could still smell him on my skin, a faint musk of sex and sweat and him that had seeped into my pores. I brought my wrist to my nose and inhaled. There it was. The ghost of him. A shiver, part pleasure, part fear, traced its way down my spine.

We had fucked without a condom. I had let him come inside me. The thought, in the stark, unromantic light of day, should have sent me into a spiral of panic. And a part of me, a small, sensible voice at the back of my head, was whispering about consequences, about risks, about stupidity. But the louder part, the part that was still thrumming from the memory of his possession, drowned it out. It had felt too good. Too right. The raw, barrier-less intimacy of it was a drug, and I was already craving the next hit. The soreness was not a warning; it was a trophy.

The group met for a late breakfast on the verandah of the main house. The air was warm now, filled with the chatter of birds and the distant lowing of a cow. I walked in, my legs feeling strangely new, my senses hyper-alert. He was already there, sitting at the wrought-iron table with Rohan and Vikram. He had a cup of coffee in front of him. He looked up as I approached.

Our eyes met.

It was a collision. A silent, electric current that snapped across the space between us, so potent I was sure everyone else could feel it. His gaze was dark, intense, holding mine for a beat too long. There was no smile. Just a deep, simmering recognition. He saw the night on my skin, just as I saw it in the slight weariness around his eyes, in the possessive set of his jaw. He looked at me like he knew every secret my body held. He did know.

"Sleep well?" Rohan asked, grinning as I sat down.

"Like a log," I said, my voice a little too bright. I reached for the steel jug of filter coffee, my hand trembling slightly. "This place is so quiet."

Priya joined us, yawning. "I had the weirdest dream. Something about a spaceship."

I kept my eyes on my coffee, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. Aarav was quiet, listening to Vikram talk about the plan for the day—a visit to the Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary. He was playing his part perfectly. The calm, slightly aloof friend. But under the table, his foot found mine. He pressed his sneaker against my sandal. A steady, constant pressure. A secret handshake. A reaffirmation of everything that had happened. My heart hammered against my ribs. I pressed my foot back, a silent answer.

The day was a study in a new kind of torture. It was the torture of proximity without contact. Of having to make normal conversation while my body was screaming with the memory of his. We walked through the bird sanctuary, a lush, green world of waterways and little islands crowded with storks, pelicans, and egrets. The air was thick with the smell of water, wet earth, and bird shit. We were a group, a cluster of six, but he and I always seemed to end up at the back, a few paces behind the others.

At one point, as we crossed a narrow bridge over a stagnant, green canal, he reached out to steady me, his hand on the small of my back. It was a casual, polite gesture. But his fingers lingered. They pressed into the fabric of my t-shirt, into my skin, branding me. His touch was a live wire. My whole body went rigid with awareness. I could feel the print of his fingers long after he’d pulled his hand away.

He leaned close, his voice a low murmur meant only for me, his breath stirring the hair near my ear. "I can't stop thinking about it. The way you felt."

A jolt, sharp and hot, went straight to my core. My pussy, already sensitized and sore, clenched with a fresh, empty ache. I stumbled on the uneven path. He caught my elbow, his grip firm.

"You okay?" Priya called from ahead.

"Fine," I managed, my voice strangled. "Just a root."

He smiled, a slow, secret, devastating smile, and let go of my arm. He was playing with me. And I loved it. I was putty in his hands, and we both knew it.

Back at the homestay, the afternoon was lazy and hot. We lazed in the garden on cane chairs, drinking fresh lime soda. The conversation drifted, fragmented. Rohan and Vikram dozed. Priya was scrolling through her phone. The sun was a heavy, golden blanket. I was reading a book, but the words were just shapes on a page. All my attention was focused on the man sitting a few feet away, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

I watched the way his throat moved when he swallowed his drink. The way his t-shirt stretched across his chest. The memory of that chest against my bare skin, under the stars, was so vivid it was a physical ache. I wanted to crawl into his lap. I wanted to feel his hands on me again, not through layers of clothing, but skin on skin. I wanted to taste the salt on his neck. The desire was a dull, persistent throb, a background hum that had become the soundtrack to my life.

He must have felt my stare. He tilted his head towards me, lowering his sunglasses just enough so I could see his eyes. They were dark, unreadable. He didn't smile. He just looked at me, and in that look, I felt completely undressed. Seen. Known. My breath hitched. I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, the friction a small, desperate comfort.

He picked up his phone. A second later, mine buzzed in the pocket of my shorts.

Him: 3 AM. Our spot.

A simple, devastating message. Our spot. The terrace. My heart leapt into my throat. The whole day, the entire trip, had been leading to this. A repeat. A confirmation. I typed a single letter with a trembling thumb.

Me: K.

Sleep was a futile endeavor. The anticipation was a physical thing, a tight coil in my stomach that refused to unwind. I lay in the dark, listening to the sounds of the night—the crickets, the distant howl of a dog, the soft, rhythmic breathing of Priya. The digital clock on my phone glowed: 2:17 AM. 2:43 AM. 2:58 AM.

At 3:00 AM on the dot, I slipped out of bed. This time, I didn't bother with a nightdress. I pulled on the same shorts I’d worn in the car and a thin, sleeveless top. No bra. No panties. The rebellion was a silent scream. I was going to him ready. Offered.

The grass was wet with dew, cold on my bare feet. The night was just as cold, just as clear, the stars just as brilliant. But it felt different. The first night had been about discovery, about crossing a threshold. This night felt like a claiming. A consolidation.

He was on the terrace, leaning against the railing, a dark silhouette. He turned as I reached the top of the stairs. He didn't have the blanket this time. He was just… there. Waiting.

We didn't speak. We came together in the middle of the terrace like two planets pulled into the same orbit. His hands came up to frame my face, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. His gaze was intense, searching.

"Are you sore?" he asked, his voice low and rough with sleep and want.

"Yes," I whispered.

A slow, dark smile spread across his face. "Good."

Then his mouth was on mine. This kiss was not like the tender one from the night before, or the hungry one from the tennis courts. This was possessive. It was a kiss that said, You are mine. It was all tongue and teeth and a desperation that felt like it had been building for a lifetime. I kissed him back with equal fervor, my hands fisting in his hair, pulling him closer until there was no space left between us.

He walked me back until I was pressed against the cool, rough wall of the terrace. His hands were everywhere. Under my top, cupping my breasts, his thumbs rubbing over my nipples until they were hard, aching pebbles. I gasped into his mouth, my head spinning.

"I've been thinking about this all day," he growled against my neck, his lips and teeth working the sensitive skin there. "Watching you walk. Watching you talk. Knowing what I did to you last night. Knowing you were walking around with my cum inside you."

The crude, explicit words sent a shockwave of pure lust through me. My knees buckled. He held me up, his arm a strong band around my waist.

"Show me," I panted, my own voice foreign to my ears. "Show me again."

He didn't need to be told twice. He spun me around, pressing my front against the wall. The rough brick scraped against my nipples through the thin fabric of my top. He pushed my shorts down my thighs, just enough. The cold air hit my bare skin, and I shuddered.

He was hard already. I could feel him, thick and insistent, pressing against the cleft of my ass. He was still wearing his pajama pants. He fumbled with the drawstring, freeing himself. His hands gripped my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh.

"No condom," he whispered, a statement, not a question.

"No," I moaned, pushing my hips back against him in invitation. "Nothing. Just you."

He entered me in one, smooth, brutal thrust. The soreness from the night before flared into a bright, sharp pain for a second, and I cried out, my nails scraping against the brick. But it was quickly swallowed by the overwhelming feeling of fullness, of being stretched and filled. He was so deep. Deeper than last night. It felt like he was touching my soul.

He set a punishing rhythm from the start. This was not the slow, star-gazing lovemaking of our first time. This was a fuck. Raw, unadorned, and desperate. His hips slammed into me, over and over, the sound of our bodies colliding a stark, rhythmic beat in the silent night. The wall held me up, took my weight as he drove into me, again and again, stealing my breath, my thoughts, my sanity.

"You're my bitch tonight, aren't you?" he grunted, his voice thick with exertion and lust. His hand left my hip and tangled in my hair, pulling my head back. "My dirty little whore who can't get enough."

The words should have offended me. They should have made me freeze. But in that moment, in the raw, animal truth of what we were doing, they were the hottest thing I had ever heard. They were permission. Permission to shed the last vestiges of the "good girl," the "friend," and just be this—a creature of pure, unadulterated need.

"Yes," I sobbed, the word torn from me. "I'm your bitch. I'm your whore. Just don't stop. Please, Aarav, don't stop."

He groaned, a sound of pure male triumph, and drove into me even harder. His other hand slid around my front, down, his fingers finding my clit. He rubbed me in rough, frantic circles, matching the rhythm of his thrusts. The dual sensation was too much. The friction, the fullness, the crude, filthy words in my ear, the feeling of being completely used and utterly worshipped—it was a vortex, and I was spinning into it.

My orgasm built, not as a slow coil, but as a sudden, violent explosion. It ripped through me without warning, a silent, screaming convulsion that locked my muscles and stole my vision. I came apart around him, my inner muscles clenching and milking his dick in frantic pulses. I think I screamed, but the sound was lost in the vastness of the night.

Feeling me climax sent him over the edge. With a final, deep, shuddering thrust, he buried himself inside me and came. I felt the hot, liquid pulse of his release, a familiar, shocking intimacy that filled me, marked me all over again. He held himself there, his body pressed against mine, his forehead resting between my shoulder blades, as we both shuddered through the aftershocks.

We stayed like that for a long time, panting, slick with sweat, pinned together by gravity and spent desire. Slowly, carefully, he pulled out. The loss of him was a physical ache. I felt empty, hollowed out, and profoundly, deeply satisfied.

He turned me around and gathered me into his arms. My legs were too weak to hold me. He held me up, his embrace surprisingly tender after the brutality of our coupling. He didn't speak. He just held me, his hand stroking my hair, my back.

We sank down to the floor, our backs against the wall. The terrace floor was cold and rough. He pulled me into his lap, wrapping his arms around me. I nestled my head in the crook of his neck, breathing in his scent—sex, sweat, and him. We sat in silence, watching the stars slowly begin to fade as the night bled towards dawn.

There were no promises in that silence. No whispered words of affection. No talk of what this meant, or where we went from here. There was just this: the solid reality of his body, the memory of his possession etched into my flesh, and a quiet, terrifying knowledge settling in my bones.

I didn't care if he stayed a friend. I didn't care about the talk we'd had before, the one where he said he didn't want a relationship, the one that had hurt so much. In that moment, curled in his lap on the cold terrace floor, feeling the evidence of our fucking drying on my inner thighs, none of it mattered. The hurt, the confusion, the fear—it was all a distant echo.

The only thing that was real, the only thing that was true, was this raw, physical need. As long as I was getting his dick, as long as he was looking at me with that dark, possessive fire in his eyes, as long as he was filling the hollow, aching space inside me, I could survive. I could thrive.

The friendship was a casualty I was willing to accept. My pride was a price I was willing to pay. He had cracked me open, and I had found a version of myself I never knew existed—a version that was wild, and hungry, and gloriously, unapologetically his.

He stirred beneath me. "We should go down before the sun comes up."

I nodded, not moving.

His arms tightened around me. "Anjali."

I looked up at him. His face was in shadow, but I could feel his gaze.

"This changes nothing," he said, his voice quiet, but firm. "You know that, right?"

The words were a bucket of cold water. They were meant to be. A reality check. A boundary reaffirmed.

I held his gaze, my own heart a numb, steady beat in my chest. I did know. I had always known.

"I know," I said, and my voice was surprisingly steady. "It doesn't have to."

A flicker of something—surprise, respect, maybe even a little fear—crossed his face. He hadn't expected that. He had expected tears, or an argument, or a plea. He hadn't expected this calm acceptance. This… partnership in our mutual sin.

He helped me to my feet. He pulled up my shorts, his touch clinical now. We didn't kiss goodbye. We just looked at each other for a long moment, two conspirators in the pale, pre-dawn light.

Then I turned and walked down the stairs, my body sore, my soul both heavy and light. I crept back into the cottage, into my bed. The sheets were cold. I curled into a ball, bringing my knees to my chest.

I didn't cry. I didn't feel sad. I felt… resolved.

The training would be over soon. We would be posted to different cities, probably. Bangalore. Pune. Who knew? The "relationship" was off the table. He had made that clear.

But as I lay there, waiting for the sun, a new, stubborn truth took root in the fertile ground of my want. It was a truth that was simpler, and in its own way, more powerful.

He might not want a girlfriend. But he wanted me. He wanted my body, my mouth, my surrender. He wanted the way I came for him, the sounds I made, the way I took all of him, raw and without complaint.

And I wanted his dick. I wanted the feeling of being utterly possessed, of being used and cherished in the same brutal, beautiful act. I wanted the memory of his taste, his smell, his weight.

It was a transaction. A beautiful, devastating, soul-wrenching transaction. And as I finally drifted into a fitful sleep, the last conscious thought in my mind was a vow.

I would have it. Whatever the cost. For as long as I could.