| Hawaaon Ke Paighaam | Messages Of The Wind

| The Foyer |

The Penthouse, Mandarin Oriental, Doha

2am

The Qatari sun was far from rising and the inky darkness of the sky prevailed. Meerab shifted, sidling into the warmth to her left. It felt so warm, so cosy and all encompassing. It was a circle of warmth and she fit right into it, like two pieces of a jigsaw. Sleep was heavy and her mind heavier, but as her body shifted, the dead sleep she'd been in became tinged with awareness, and with awareness came the realisation that something was amiss.

This wasn't her bed. The musky smell of pine and patchouli was everywhere. She couldn't breathe without it being everywhere. Nothing felt like hers and her body ached and ached more as the cobwebs of sleep were rustled and the teeniest bit of wakefulness shone through. She jolted her body once, in the kind of way which could make you realise exactly what was around you, change your position and shake the bed all at once. It did all three and right as her body had settled back in the bed, still in the warm, cosy circle but now facing the ceiling, a grunt sounded from within her ear.

Meerab froze. A swivel of her eyes around the darkness had her realising it couldn't obviously come from within her ear, it was coming from right next to it. and with that realisation came the realisation that a mouth was on her ear. A mouth breathing deep, hot breaths over her entire ear and a nose which, thanks to her change in position, was poking her lower cheek and jaw. And the smell, she now knew. It was so familiar because it was the scent which had covered her when she'd used his body wash that first morning after.

Oh.

Eyes still bleary from sleep, Meerab turned her head as slowly as she could, her actions hesitant, like a thief in the night. And then, even in the darkness swathing the massive room, Meerab somehow found herself staring intently at the picture in front of her. She watched for ages, her eyes tracing every contour, every softened muscle, every dip and every curve.

Really so insanely handsome.

Lying on his stomach, as she recalled him doing the last time too, her husband's face was turned to her. One side of his face pressed against the white pillow and the other a perfectly symmetrical copy, was visible to her.
His jaw was still firm even in sleep and the jawline sharp. The thick stubble over it was heavier at this time of night than it was during the day, and his moustache brushed slightly over his upper lip and lined the top of his mouth ever so perfectly.

She was beginning to find it really, really attractive. In the last few weeks, she had subconsciously started noticing the upper lips of men, and had realised not many had a moustache, especially outside Pakistan and the Middle East. Her mind had been relentless in gathering that information whenever she had come across the opposite gender, and she was yet to come across a man or moustache she found hotter.

His back was all smooth, hard muscle and corded as one arm was outstretched over her stomach and the other over his head. The slivers of silver light from the moon hit the skin of his back, and with it highlighted the inward slope of his lower back which finally disappeared into the crinkled white sheet bunched around his waist. His lower back and abdomen was as lean as his upper back and chest were thickly muscled, and almost in reverence, Meerab lifted a finger and trailed it all the way from his shoulder to the edge of the bed sheet.

He looked deceptively lean in his suits and shalwar-kameez. Like this, shirtless and relaxed, he was built much bigger than she had realised; all muscle and smooth, smooth skin. And so attractive to her that even lying there in the dark and still exhausted from her week and then his ministrations, she still felt her throat dry up and her breath shudder.

It was all surreal. This, what they done before, how they'd somehow ended up in this sense-consuming affair of sorts half way around the world. It felt like a warm, hazy dream, one with those secret fantasies which you told no one about. His warm, minty breath fell on her face, making her eyes flutter lightly, and then just like a bulb turned on, his eyes opened, and she was looking into dark, dark eyes in which swirled sleep and bone-seeped satiation.