Page 70 of Isn't It Obvious?
Ravi’s smile widens. “I like how you respond to me,” he says.
The bus arrives, slowing to a stop and kneeling over its wheels. They embark, tapping their passes and nodding at the bus driver. There are people sitting in the back, and one person in the disabled seating at the front, so Ravi goes for the strip of empty seats by the second door.
He expects Yael to sit down after he does, but she stays standing, grabbing hold of one of the straps that hang fromthe bar above, the toes of her heeled yellow rain boots brushing up against his high-tops. He leans back, tilting his chin up toward her.
“You like when I’m mean to you?” she says, a hushed continuation of their exchange outside.
“I probably mind it less than I should,” he says, grinning. “But that’s not what I mean.”
Yael’s eyes narrow down at him, like he’s an unworthy disciple worshipping at her altar. Ravi honestly can’t tell if she genuinely doesn’t know what he meant or if this is some sort of challenge.
He reaches under her raincoat, carefully wrapping his hand around the back of her knee over her skirt, all the while watching her face. Her lips part, her chest lifting at the first moment of contact. When he skims his hand up the curve of her thigh, she closes her eyes, her bottom lip trembling with her exhale. Ravi laughs disbelievingly as he stills his hand at her hip. “That’swhat I mean,” he says.
She looks at him then, those dark eyes heavy-lidded and dazed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says half-heartedly.
“And to think,” Ravi says, his voice barely reaching a whisper, “there are so many ways I haven’t touched you yet.” He can see the shiver zip through her, and he gives her hip a light squeeze just as the bus comes to a stop.
“This is us,” she says, peeling away from him and descending the stairs to the door.
He trails after her, her strides long and quick as she turns up Everett. She doesn’t look back at him, not once, as they approach her building and she punches the door code into the ancient, mechanical keypad. They’re headed to the second floor, he knows that already, and Yael takes the stepstwo at a time. The overhead lighting in the stairwell casts everything in stark relief, and he wishes he could see her face right now. She wants this—he knows that—but it’s not in an uncomplicated way. He needs to know just how conflicted she is. To know exactly what he’s walking into headfirst.
Ravi gets his first flash of her gaze after she unlocks the apartment door, as she turns the knob and nudges the door open with her shoulder. It’s pure heat, and suddenly his throat feels thick with how desperate he is for her. How much it doesn’t matter to him what happens next as long as he gets tonight.
Inside, Yael hangs up her raincoat and bag, and he does the same, watching the curve of her spine as she bends to remove her boots. He kneels to unlace one of his shoes, then the other, feels her watching him in return. When he catches her eye, she looks away, tucking that braid behind her ear.
Slowly, Ravi pushes himself up to standing. So close to one another, without the aid of her boots, the handful of centimeters he has on her are more apparent than ever. He reaches for the side of her face, gently tipping her head back. The column of her throat bobs. He searches her features, watching the way her brows knit together as she looks up at him. The sliver of air between them heats; every bit of fabric he wears burns against his skin. He sinks into the heady anticipation, memorizing her face like this. The eyelashes, short but lush, that frame her almond eyes; the wide bridge and round tip of her nose; the crease in her bottom lip that begs for his teeth.
“Ravi,” Yael says, her voice a little hoarse, her breath ghosting against his mouth. “I’m not feeling particularly patient.”
“I’m not, either,” he says. “But this… After that night in your office, I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you like this again.”
She whines, deliciously frustrated. “Are you punishing me?”
He shakes his head, leaning forward so their mouths are millimeters apart. “I’m rewarding myself,” he says, and he kisses her.
Or she kisses him, he’s not sure. He’s not sure of anything right now, except for his need to touch her anywhere he can reach. He was trying for slow—he meant to try for slow, but that’s just not how they’re fitting together. Her tongue in his mouth and his teeth on her lip and her hand sliding under his shirt and his hitching up her skirt until he can get ahold of her thigh. Every part of their kiss is swift and fluid, a stream rushing down a mountainside, defined no more by the movement of their lips than by the rake of her fingernails up his stomach or the insistent press of her chest against his.
He moves his lips to her neck, pressing a closed-mouth kiss where it meets her shoulder, parting his lips to nip a path upward, finally letting his tongue make contact just below her jaw. That first taste—there aren’twords…
Ravi sighs into her skin before sucking it into his mouth, her answering moan making him so hard it’s nearly unbearable. He rolls his hips into hers, his groan tumbling into her whimper, and it isn’t enough. He’s pretty sure he could be inside her and it still wouldn’t be enough, not until she’s coming apart with his name on her lips.
“I can’t tell if I’m being self-destructive right now,” Yael gasps, “but I don’t think I care.” One of her hands is on his ass, the other woven into the hair at the back of his head.
He’d be insulted if he didn’t feel exactly the same way. If Suresh and Mia weren’t with Margot, if he hadn’t gotten into it with Suresh about them seeing Margot in the first place, he probably wouldn’t have said what he did in the library.Probably wouldn’t be here right now. “Should I stop?” he asks, lightly scraping his teeth against her jaw.
“God, no,” she says, tugging him back for a kiss before pausing to catch her breath.
His hands find her hips, and he walks her back into the closest piece of furniture, just like he had in her office. When he fits himself between her thighs, her hand falls away from his shoulder to grip onto the top of the couch. He presses against her just as she cants her hips upward, a single, perfect drag along the ridge of his erection that tears something almost like a sob out of her and makes the edges of his vision blur.
Yael shoves at the hem of his sweatshirt, and he leans away to help her, removing his shirt, too, all while keeping that most important point of contact. She kisses his throat, his collarbone, pausing to let him peel off her sweater before returning her attention to his shoulder. Her teeth sink into his upper arm, and she releases him with apopjust when it starts to hurt.
“Better than I thought,” she says.
When Ravi laughs, she drags herself along him again, and the sound they both make is low and guttural. He steps back to catch his breath, his composure.
Yael’s lips are shiny and swollen, her round cheeks stained with a flush that trails down her neck. The deep brown of her peaked nipples is just barely visible through the thin cotton of her bra, waiting for his fingers. His mouth. “Why’d you leave?” she asks, the sound scraping out of her, her chest heaving.
I feel like I could come just from you breathing on me, he thinks. “I thought you’d want me on my knees,” he says instead, smiling.
