Vivek’s jaw clenched. “I didn’t think I needed to burn.”
Avinash shrugged. “No one thinks they do. Until they do.”
The words hung there.
Like an invitation.
Like temptation.
Vivek looked away, out the window, heart pounding in a rhythm he hadn’t expected.
They didn’t say more.
But they didn’t have to.
The conversation had crossed a line.
And something in him had already begun to follow.
Chapter XXX: The Space Between Us
Vivek
The house breathed her.
Every corner held echoes of her skin, her scent, her fire.
The towel she left over the bathroom door carried the musk of her shampoo—and something darker. The glass she drank from still shimmered with the faint print of her lips. The sheets from the laundry, warm and twisted, carried heat that had nothing to do with the dryer.
Vivek wasn’t pretending anymore.
He couldn’t.
He no longer flinched when the moans of her mother came through the walls. When the low thud of skin meeting skin pulsed like bass from the living room. When her laughter—half-wrecked, half-divine—slipped through the air and landed on his skin like steam.
He stopped pretending he didn’t hear it.
He started remembering it. Replaying it.
Every time he was alone.
He would lie in bed, the light off, one hand clenched around himself, the other tangled in the pillow she once rested against during a movie they never finished. He didn’t need porn anymore.
He had her.
In his mind.
Naked on the sofa.
Straddling Avinash.
Fingers gripping Amit’s shoulder.
Head tilted back, mouth parted, begging to be filled.
And in his fantasy… sometimes, she looked at him.
Only him.
Whispered his name.
Asked him to come closer.
Come in.
One night, he couldn’t wait.
The air was thick, hot, humming with leftover energy. She had just gone to bed. The house was dim, quiet, the scent of something rich still lingering in the corridor.
He stepped into the laundry space outside her door.
A few folded clothes lay on the chair—her saree, a soft blouse, a lacy inner slip still damp with heat. He picked it up, slowly, as though touching something sacred. His fingers trembled.
She had worn it today. It was warm against his palm.
The memory of her—wrapped in it, breathless, pinned between two men—slammed into him.
He retreated to his room.
Closed the door.
And let it happen.
His breath ragged. His movements fast. His mouth parted with half-formed sounds of desperation. He didn’t call her name.
But in his mind, she was there.
Watching.
Whispering.
Welcoming.
Kalpana
She woke thirsty.
Slipped from the bed gently, so as not to disturb the men tangled in sheets beside her.
The hallway was quiet.
But not still.
She felt it before she heard it.
A tension in the air. Like a held breath.
She passed Vivek’s door and paused—not for long. Just long enough.
A sound.
Soft. Gasping. Rhythmic.
Her fingers curled gently around the glass of water, but she didn’t drink. She stood in the shadows, lips parted, heart slow.
It wasn’t shame she felt.
Not even surprise.
It was recognition.
She had known it was building in him. The silence. The watching. The way his eyes followed her not with judgment, but with hunger he didn’t understand yet.