Scarred Love - Chapter 97

“Why would I take that?” Ishani asked looking at him with shock.

“That’s coz we didn’t use a condom on the flight.”

She sat up straight and looked at him strangely.

Was he serious?

“We are getting married, Rudra. What’s the big deal? Plus it won’t happen, I know,” she replied clearly trying to avoid asking him the question fluttering in her mind.

Rudra stared for a minute and then sat down next to her.

“Ask!” he said sighing.

Hearing him, she looked at him puzzled.

Turning towards her, he took her hands in his and said softly, “I can see the wheels turning in your head. So, ask.”

“Why do you want me to take the pill? Don’t you want kids?” she enquired biting her lip.

She saw him sigh and then extend his hand towards her face. As her eyes followed the movement of his fingers dragging her lower lip out of the pressure of her teeth, she gulped knowing how he reacted whenever she did this.

He cupped her face and looked intently into her eyes.

“I do want kids but not now. Right now I don’t wish to share you with anyone else. I just want us for some time. Is it wrong?” he asked caressing her face tenderly.

She smiled understanding his reason and took the pill from him.

Ishani has just come out from her bath when she heard Rudra talking on the phone in the drawing room. But his speech was so mumbled that she couldn’t understand what he was saying and frankly she wasn’t bothered. She tied her hair with the towel and settled in front of her small temple.

It had been days she has had a heart-to-heart talk with Mahadev and although she knew that she didn’t need to tell him everything, still she couldn’t rest in peace till she did. After giving him his customary bath, she closed her eyes and slipped into her meditative mode.

“Ishani, I was thinking that we could—” Rudra stopped short at the threshold of her bedroom seeing her sitting in a trance in front of her temple.

There was something in her stance that made his breathing stop. She looked at peace, which otherwise should have evoked feelings of anger and animosity in him. His inner-voice should have been bickering him.

How is she at peace when you are not?

How is so calm when there is a raging storm inside you?

But nothing of this happened. Instead, he didn’t want anything disturbing her equilibrium.

Ishani’s mind played the visions of the past one by one along the moments of love spent with Rudra and she suddenly felt blessed and thankful for his love. Joy mixed with ounces of remorse slipped out from the closed confines of her eyes as she opened her heart to Mahadev.

Rudra’s breathing constricted just as he saw tears roll down her cheeks. His primal instincts told him to rush to her but he somehow stopped himself. Without making any noise, he stepped into the room and waited for her to finish her prayers.

But watching her tears falling relentlessly felt like that age-old pain ripping his insides. He tried to take his eyes off but couldn’t.

Let it go, Rudra. Let everything go.

Tell her everything.

Don’t avenge.

The words filtered through him like shards of glass splitting everything in their wake. He didn’t recognise the voice for it didn’t belong to anything he had heard before. The voice jolted him to life yet silenced the rising fire within him.

Who are you?

You don’t need to know me but stop all this. Don’t hurt her. You don’t need to do this.

Suddenly his inner-voice flared to life and met the other one head on.

He needs to do this.

No, he doesn’t need to. Come on, Rudra don’t do this.

He will do this. This is what he has been waiting for.

No Rudra, don’t. It’s Ishani. Look at her. She doesn’t deserve this. You don’t have to do this.

He has to do this.

No, he doesn’t.

I will do it no matter what you say. I believe, I owe this to myself Rudra said silently in his mind’s eye and instantly felt both the voices diminishing.

But what was this other voice?

“Rudra?”

Her voice speared through his thoughts tearing them apart and he looked at her. Face clean of makeup and with hair all wet, she looked nothing short of a sculpture. As if on fire, he jumped up and pulled her into his arms.

Just as her body collided with his, he buried his face in the curve of her neck and breathed in, letting her scent calm the raging emotions inside.

“Rudra?”

“Shhh! don’t say anything. Just stay, like this,” he whispered and felt her arms go around him. 

Seconds rolled into minutes and minutes into long moments as silence stretched between them.

She could feel his heart beating in double and something about the way his arms were continuously tightening around her body, told her that he was afraid to let her go.

“Rudra, I am not going anywhere,” she whispered in his ear.

“Shh! Please don’t say anything. Just don’t,” he reiterated pulling her more into him.

Ishani touched her mouth to the skin of his neck and kissed, and felt him moan. Encouraged, she moved towards his ear and started to lick it and a strangled whimper escaped him.

Is he scared? But of what?

Are you scared, Ishani?

No.

What if your family came between you guys just the way they had—

Okay, stop right there. I won’t let that happen.

“I love you,” she whispered in his ear fusing her fingers in his hair as the fear of losing him settled in her heart.

Not able to take it anymore she tugged it a little and he growled with passionate intensity and she moved her lips to his temple, kissing the skin, licking it again and again, letting him know how much she loved him.

Suddenly he grabbed her hair and pulled her head back.

“Marry me before I lose it completely.”

Copyright © Paromita Majumder. All Rights Reserved.