Page 28 of That Same Old Love

Mahi and Srishti spent the next twenty minutes playing the video game, and Mahi briefly excused herself for a water break. She was walking out of the game room and going towards the stairs, when she saw Samrat coming out from another room that must have been the gym room.

They both froze.

* * *

Samrat looked surprised, and then angry when he figured out why Mahi was at his house. He slowly covered the distance between them and stood a few feet away from her.

Mahi felt a little hypnotized and a little surprised too, forgetting for a moment that she was angry with him. Samrat was wearing dark red and black gym shorts, and his chest was bare, with a workout towel around his neck. He was a little on the hairy side, just the way she preferred. She hated looking at men’s pictures where they seemed to have spent a lot of time waxing and then oiling their bodies, looking ridiculous.

Samrat was staring at her, too.

As they stood in front of each other they could feel waves of anger, annoyance and something electric crackling in the air between them. The heavy tension was almost suffocating her.

“You’re sweaty,” Mahi blurted out, to cut through the tension, and immediately felt stupid for stating the obvious.

Samrat didn’t reply for a few seconds.

“Yes. I’m sweaty. I was just working out,” he said softly, not sounding sarcastic for a change.

Not breaking his eye contact, he pulled an end of the towel around his neck and wiped the sweat across his forehead. He continued to stare at her, moving his eyes slowly on each and every part of her. She had the feeling that even though they were standing at a distance, he was touching her. He wasn’t of course, but still she had the sensation that he was stroking her bare body, the way she wanted him to.

She felt her hands tremble, as she was trying very hard to control herself, from reaching out and touching him like she badly wanted to.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had ever felt such a strong attraction towards a man. Even the very brief relationship she had during her separation hadn’t been due to an attractionon her part. It was purely for the sake of kindness and affection shown towards her.

She thought that her life experiences had made her asexual with no physical demands or needs. But right that moment, her body had chosen a very inconvenient time and an extremely wrong specimen to bring her libido roaring back to life.

She forced herself to come back to her senses by remembering the night years ago, when she touched him deliberately. He had stopped her and then rejected her, and would do so again now.

Oh God! Why couldn’t he have turned fat or bald in all these years,she thought resentfully as she eyes his toned body and his thick rumpled hair that she desperately wanted to run her fingers through.

Controlling herself again she looked at him in slight challenge. “Srishti invited me here and she wanted to ask you about something important.”

Samrat blinked a couple of times, as though he were coming out of a stupor, and slowly frowned at her.

“What are you up to now? No wait… don’t tell me. I need to shower first, before you tell me whatever you and my niece have cooked up between the two of you.”

He continued to walk towards his room.

She couldn’t stop her head from turning towards him, and continued watching him with an extremely X-rated gawk, until he disappeared from her view.

“Why is this happening to me? And for heaven’s sake why withhimof all the men in the entire world!” she muttered desperately.

She ran down for some much needed water. Her already dry mouth had parched up even more at the sight of an almost naked Samrat.Shit, don’t use naked and Samrat in the same sentence!

She got a glass of cold water, and stood in front of an open fridge to cool down a little, even though the air conditioning was turned on in the house.

“Srishti!” Someone called out from the living room.

“Oh crap. That must be Ananya. Couldn’t have asked for a more awkward day,” Mahi muttered.

She heard Ananya call Srishti couple more times, before Srishti answered her back and came running down.

“Where’s Mahi aunty?” Srishti asked excitedly.

Mahi winced and could only imagine how Ananya must have reacted to that statement from her daughter.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her. Why?” Ananya asked.

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