Chapter 29: chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-NineMaya hovered on the doorstep of Yash’s flat. She really shouldn’t be doing this. She was about to turn tail and run when Yash yanked the door open. She froze. “How did you know I was outside?” “How did you know where I live?” he shot back, leaning against the doorframe.“You gave me a video tour remember?” Something in Maya made her want to remind him of the softer moment, one of the few that lay between them.He looked at her unsmilingly, his gaze taking in her posture of flight. “What do you want, Maya?”Maya sighed. “I should leave.”“You keep saying things like that.” Yash folded his arms. “And yet, here you are.”“Here I am,” she agreed. They stared at each other in silence, neither making a move. At the far end of the corridor, a flat door opened, an elderly lady making her way out with a cloth shopping bag in one hand. She eyed them suspiciously before shuffling past them, muttering under her breath.“Friendly neighbours,” Maya commented. Yash watched the older lady’s laboured progress. “You haven’t seen anything yet. That so-called sweet old lady told me that I had the look of the Devil the other day.” Maya’s eyebrows shot up. “I was hungover,” he told her, drily. “And not in the mood to sign her petition on forbidding teenagers from using the society’s playground.” Maya giggled, her anxiety easing at his slightly easier manner. Yash noted the change in her and stepped back, letting her precede him into the apartment. Maya walked into his drawing room and came to an abrupt halt. Yash crashed into her back, not having planned for her sudden stop. His momentum sent her stumbling forward a step before his hands grabbed her by the arms and stopped her from face planting on the floor. “What the hell was that?” he asked, his hands still holding her upright. “What the hell is that?” Maya asked slowly, pointing to the bile coloured couch. “Oh that.” Yash let go of her, leaving her feeling strangely bereft of his touch. “That’s Lucy.” “Lucy?” She shot him a bemused look. “You named your couch, Lucy? Wait a second!” She closed her eyes and held a hand up. “You named your couch??” “Lucy is short for Lucifer,” he announced, sounding very proud of himself. Maya gaped at him before a snort of laughter escaped her. “No wonder your team needs outside consultants to help you come up with creative copy.” Yash snickered, the irony in her statement tickling his funny bone. He nudged her with an elbow. “Go sit down. Would you like some wine to drink?” “Sure. Will that colour rub off on my pants if I sit on it?” she asked, circling the couch like it would bite her. “Lucy comes from one of the top furniture stores in the city. Lucy does not bleed colour,” he replied, sounding snooty as heck. “Lucy certainly makes my eyes bleed,” Maya muttered, sitting down gingerly, her gaze taking in the rest of the spartan space. The hideous couch took up so much space that it was hard to even look at anything else. Not that there was much else. A blue rug covered the floor, in front of them with a plain, wooden coffee table. A massive seventy-five-inch flat screen television dominated the wall across from Lucy. And that seemed to be the extent of his home décor.Maya accepted the glass of white wine he held out to her. “Not really into making the space resonate with your personality and all that, are you?”“Don’t really care.” Yash shrugged, sitting down beside her with his beer. “Or…” Maya took a contemplative sip of wine.“Or?” “Maybe it does. Maybe Lucy represents you in ways nothing else ever could.” Yash froze, the beer bottle halfway to his mouth. “Nausea inducing and ugly?”Hurt flashed across his face in a blink and miss moment before his expression smoothed into its regular impassive lines. “Actually…” Maya swallowed hard. “I meant that there is more to it than what meets the eye.” A small smile tipped the edges of his lips up as he looked at her. “Why are you here, Maya?” “You wouldn’t let me finish what I had to say on the phone,” she prevaricated, tugging at her short peach kurta nervously. “I told you Malvika is your go-to person. Not me.” “I don’t want to talk to Malvika.” This time, she met his gaze head on. “I want to talk to you.”“About work?” Maya looked at him, wondering if she should say what she’d come to say. “Well first, I wanted to thank you for getting me to the hospital and checking on me while I was there.”Yash put his bottle down, the glass connecting with the wood of the table with a loud crack. “I don’t need you to thank me. I don’t want you to thank me.” He looked furious at the thought. Maya wasn’t sure what she’d said to set him off like this. “What do you want?” she asked, hoping for more clarity.“This.” Before she could blink, he’d swooped down and captured her lips in a kiss. His firm mouth moved over her own surprised one, taking charge and coaxing sensations she’d only read about in the steamy novels she liked. Maya moaned, her free hand going up to tangle in his hair, clenching and trying to tug him closer. Yash tilted her head back with a firm hand clasped around her nape, deepening the kiss. One thumb gently caressed the sensitive skin behind her ear and Maya shivered, feeling like all her senses were honed into that one point. “I want you,” he pulled back and whispered, roughly, against her lips.Â