Five Weeks by Shruti Omar (any book recommendations .txt) 📕

"It is a beautiful dream." She whispered, snuggling to him and the sudden happiness rushed inside her. She was still sleeping in his embrace, wondering whether it was really a dream or not. His love made her believe that it was a mirror world but she didn’t know why she continued to watch steamy dreams of him. A night before, she had seen that he had kissed her and this time, he took the romance to another level. She never knew that even trying to conceive positive opinion would lead to such sensual encounter.

*****

"Staring is rude, Anahita." Yuvraaj reminded her, sprinkling herbs on his sandwich. Anahita widened her eyes and looked away. She swigged the processed coffee and blew the air out, fanning herself. Yuvraaj cocked his eyebrows, holding his fork in the air, “Are you really that hungry to burn your tongue?”

"No." she squeaked, grabbing the tissue and dabbed the corners of her lips. Yuvraaj shot her a quizzical look, nodding anyway and ate his sliced fried egg. Anahita chewed the insides of her mouth tapping her fingers on the table and stealthily gazed at Yuvrraj who was busy feeding himself.

"I just reminded you, sweetheart." He snickered, sipping his iced tea and caught her staring. He elevated his hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, “It’s a bad thing to stare at someone who is not aware of it.”

Embarrassed, Anahita stared down on her plate and chewed her lip, “Technically, you weren’t completely unaware.”

He gave out her an impish smile and resumed his breakfast. She cleared her throat, twiddling her thumbs, “Uh, Yuvraaj, I want to ask you something.”

“Mm-hmm…” he bobbed his head up and down. Anahita wetted her dry lips and weaved her fingers together, “Um. What happened last night wasn't a dream, right?"

He inched up his eyes at her, frowning. “What?”

“I mean, it was not a dream, right? How can a dream be so vivid? I have all the scenes rolling before my eyes like a movie." She blabbered, explaining and he showed her his palm, making her halt. He wiped his hands with a tissue and reclined on his chair, “What are you talking about?"

"What happened last night!" she exclaimed, emphasizing and he squinted his eyes, “What happened last night?”

Her mouth hung open at his blatant denial, confused whether she hallucinated. She rubbed her neck, shrinking her eyes shut and peered at his face that had no traces of teasing and recognition. Judging from his expression, she was really persuaded to believe that she dreamt last night but then her enthusiastic participation got her puzzled.

"I am waiting!" He tapped on the table, bringing her attention back on him. She sucked her cheeks and sighed, “You don't remember anything?"

"I do remember everything.” He nodded, pausing to recall, “You were crying like a maniac when I brought you to villa. We had a little chat over our issues. You told me how much you hate me. I ordered dinner while you changed and after dinner, I hit the bed. Correct me if I missed anything."

"That's all?" Anahita's eyebrows almost touched heaven.

"I guess, yes."

"You mean you don't remember what followed?"

"I don't follow right now,” he huffed, “will you care to elaborate?”

She popped her knuckles and scratched the tip of her nose, “I think I saw a dream last night but that didn't feel like a dream. It was so much real. I have no idea what was that but…”

“Okay, so you had a nightmare?”

She snapped her eyes at him and frowned, “Huh! No. It wasn’t a nightmare…exactly. It was kind of…” erotic!! She chewed down the remaining sentence and became tongue-tied. Yuvraaj was getting apprehensive to see her restless. He reached out to touch her forehead and his face twisted in pain, “Are you okay, Anahita? Do you feel any uneasiness?”

She smiled, covering his hand and assured, “I am completely fine.”

“Then why are you blabbering?" his eyebrows bumped together, retracting his hand, "I think you've not slept properly."

She quietly spied on him, unconvinced. To begin with, he wasn’t behaving regular snot. He had grown soft towards her. He didn’t jibe her when she mistakenly left the floor wet in the bathroom. He didn't question her habit of leaving her hair to dry in air. At the very least, he came out of the bathroom completely dressed and even asked her out for breakfast whereas she was well settled for a less noisy breakfast in the suite itself.

"Are you sure?" Anahita murmured. "You even said it was the best day of your life."

He choked on water and eyed her with enigmatic perplexity, “Best? It was the best day of my life?”

Anahita held her hands up in the air, shaking her head. “Don't even look at me like that. You said that yourself."

"You seriously had a terrible dream. You got me a headache with all that crying and screaming. And, I would say that yesterday was the best day of my life?” he muttered, scoffing and stroked his chin with his thumb, “Now that we are discussing it, I really want to know what else have I said or done?"

Anahita rolled her eyes at her sarcastic tone. She lounged back in his chair, dropping the napkin on her plate, “That was all.”

"Fine, thanks to almighty you resist from saying that I consoled you for Mukund and his incapability.” He made fun and she opened her mouth to close immediately. She knew he wouldn’t believe that he really did that.

“So, have you ever tried horse riding, Anu?" he enquired, making her sputter the juice and she narrowed her eyes at him. It was the first time he had called her ‘Anu’ and that got her surprised. Yuvraaj bequeathed his seat and strode to her to rub her back. “Are you alright? What’s wrong with you today, Anahita?”

"I am completely fine, Yuvraaj!"

"Yeah, I can see that." He stared at her long and plopped back on his seat. She sobered up and rubbed her nose, evading eyes. “I don't mean it. I mean as I thought last night about it, I came up to this conclusion that I don't think like that."