Link to the previous update :
https://www.tellyupdates.com/where-secrets-lie-chapter-2-another-encounter/
*
Vansh led Riddhima right behind a thick canopy of trees. She was astonished to see a small but comfy looking house, which was conveniently hidden behind those towering pine trees. Tall fence surrounded the house in it’s entire perimeter.
“You live here?” she asked in surprise. “All by yourself? Right in the midst of a jungle?”
“Yes. What’s wrong in that?” he sounded defensive.
“Nothing wrong but definitely strange,” she said continuing to walk ahead with his support. “But isn’t it scary to live here with the constant threat of being attacked by dangerous animals?”
Vansh pulled the lever to open the gate leading the way ahead. He was quick to lock it behind him.
Of course that is important to keep the animals away, thought Riddhima.
“You didn’t answer my question yet,” Riddhima pressed upon him.
“The most dangerous creature is a human being himself. And I like to steer away as far as possible from these very humans,” he said in an impassive tone.
“But…”
Riddhima was interrupted by the loud, eerie creaking of the door when it was pushed open wide.
She looked all around the place. This was perhaps the living room and it was well lit by lanterns. There wasn’t much furniture around except for a large wooden table in the corner. On one side of the table were few books arranged in a pile, and on the other was a row of exotic beer bottles and champagne glasses kept.
Surprisingly, she also found a large piano atop a fancy looking stand at a distance away.
“So this is what he does to ease his boredom. Reads books, plays the piano and drinks wine,” she said to herself.
Her eyes then landed on the large guns hanging on the wall. Of course. One couldn’t live in a jungle and keep no gun for protection. But she found all of this to be very strange. One half of her wanted her to run away from this weird situation, and the other half wanted her to stay.
Pulling her into the reality, Riddhima felt a pair of large hands grasping her shoulders and guiding her to a wooden chair nearby.
Holding the first aid box in his hands, Vansh knelt down before her. He deftly reached out for her injured foot and placed it upon his lap. He slid her damp trouser up her leg revealing her bare skin.
Riddhima’s breath got caught in her throat. She reminded herself that it was nothing much to think about and that Vansh was simply bandaging her wound. But she found it difficult to explain this to her heart, which skipped a beat every time Vansh’s fingers brushed against her exposed leg.
She peered down at him, trying to study his expressions. But he seemed unbothered and continued working meticulously, wrapping the bandage around her foot like a true professional.
Riddhima felt disappointed. Even though she was relieved to know that he wasn’t a creep going around ogling at her exposed leg, but she also did not like how unaffected he was appearing. If anything she wanted him also to go through the same turmoil of feelings that she was going through now.
Also why was he keeping so quiet? Why wouldn’t he speak to her? Riddhima wanted to hear his enchanting voice echo in her ears. So she decided to initiate the conversation.
“Don’t you have a family?” Riddhima regretted asking this question the moment she saw Vansh’s hardened eyes staring at her.
“I had once upon a time,” he said after sometime. “But now, I don’t.”
Riddhima wanted to know more about him but feared from doing so. She was a psychiatrist and she could read a person’s mind from his facial expressions and behaviour. And with Vansh, it seemed that he was an extremely private person who didn’t like sharing much about himself with others.
Once the dressing was done, he spoke in his signature husky tone.
“You are completely drenched. You need to change or you’ll end up falling sick. There,” he pointed a finger towards the opposite direction. “Is the room. Open my cupboard and find yourself something to change into.”
Without letting her say anything, he made a dash for the kitchen.
Riddhima entered the bedroom. It had a small cot and an even smaller cupboard right beside it. The white transparent curtains fluttered about crazily as the strong gust of wind sneaked in through the cracks of the windows.
Vansh’s cupboard was filled with minimal clothes, and almost all of them were of black in colour. She never knew that even black could come in so many different shades.
She picked out a smokey coloured shirt. It was so oversized for her that it reached till her knees.
As soon as she put the shirt on, she could feel the sweet musk of sandalwood surrounding her. This was what Vansh had smelt like when she was leaning into his arms. She could vouch that this was the best fragrance she had ever breathed into in her entire life.
She found a towel to dry her wet hair when she heard the sound of a sad tune being played on the piano.
The melody strangely touched those unknown strings of her heart, that she herself was unknown to all through this time.
With the towel still draped over her arm, she went to the living room and surely saw Vansh playing the piano by the fireplace.
His clothes were still drenched and his hair was dripping wet, spilling the droplets right down his jawline and neck. He hadn’t changed into anything drier yet.
“What a careless man he is! Tells me about how I can fall sick if I stay in wet clothes for too long, but himself doesn’t pay attention to his health,” thought Riddhima.
She looked at his face which had so much pain on it, but in spite of that his fingers kept pressing the keys robotically. It felt like he was pouring out his heart in this music.
Riddhima stopped dead in her tracks. This music….this music sounded strangely familiar to her. As if she had heard it before.
And Vansh…..strangely he didn’t seem like a stranger to her too. It felt like she knew him since time immemorial. Why she felt like this, she had no answer to it.
Vansh’s eyes were closed tight, as if he wanted to dive into the deepest depths of this ocean of music and emotions.
Riddhima took slow baby steps towards him, making sure that she did not disturb him from his trance. She gently began to rub the towel against his soaked hair.
This seemed to break Vansh’s concentration. Without even looking, he pushed her hand away and bauled, “What are you doing, woman?”
Riddhima reflexly backed away. She didn’t know what had made him so angry, her disturbing him right in the middle of his musical, or her touching him. She assumed that even though it must be both, but mostly it was the latter.
Vansh turned to face her in order to lend her a few more scoldings, but his eyes landed upon her svelte figure clothed only in a shirt.
Riddhima felt butterflies in her stomach when she found him staring at her unwaveringly. Was she looking so promiscuous? She shouldn’t because the shirt was a loose fitting one. However it was short, and she tried hard to pull it down in order to cover her knees.
As if realizing what he was doing, Vansh quickly looked away. But Riddhima didn’t miss the flicker of desire she saw in his eyes. The thought that perhaps even he found her equally attractive just like how she did, made her heart flutter.
But was it mere physical attraction that pulled her towards him, or was it something more too?
“You need to dry yourself a bit or else you may catch a cold,” she said after a while.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m too thick-skinned to get affected by all this,” he said rather rudely.
“Often the people who act tough, are actually trying to cover up the wounds of their hearts.” Riddhima pulled out a chair and sat before him, looking straight into his eyes.
“I know that you are hiding a deep pain within yourself. The emotional tune you were playing at the piano, and the manner in which you have isolated yourself from the rest of the world, all point to only one thing.”
Vansh flinched at her words as if they they were piercing his very soul.
She continued, “It does no good to a person by piling up everything in your heart. I’m a psychiatrist and I know what adverse effects such a thing would lead to. The key to one’s happiness is to let go off all your sorrows by sharing them with a trustworthy confidante. And….” she took a deep breath. “I want to be that person for you who lessens your pain. I want to be the one to heal you.”
Vansh started laughing devilishly. “What an irony! The one who herself is empty and broken from inside wants to heal me!”
Riddhima gaped at him in disbelief. How did he see the pain that she had been hiding deep inside her when no one else had ever seen it?
“No, that’s not t-true. I’m n-not brok-ken,” she stuttered.
He scoffed, “Yes you are exactly that. Your eyes have that tinge of loneliness and sorrow in them.”
Riddhima’s emotions got the better of her, and she ran into the bedroom, shutting the door from inside. Tears pooled up at the corners of her eyes, waiting to sprinkle over her face.
As a psychiatrist, many a times she had come across violent and short-tempered patients who would hurl all sorts of abuses at her. But she did not feel much offended because first of all, those patients were mentally sick and secondly, whatever they spitted out had no truth in it.
But Vansh’s each and every word had nothing but truth in it. And perhaps that was what had hurt her the most. Because truth is always bitter, and it always hurts.
The thought that Vansh had read her like an open book scared her. She was a psychiatrist and that was supposed to be her job to read other people’s minds, and not the other way round.
A knock was heard followed by the door being opened.
“It’s high time that you go to sleep,” said Vansh, appearing least bothered about the fact that he had hurt her just a while ago. “Meanwhile, I need to put out these lanterns. It’s imperative to blow out any source of fire before going to bed. One doesn’t know, but even the entire house might catch fire when you are fast asleep.”
Saying this, he extinguished the only two lamps burning in the room, causing darkness to engulf them.
As he was leaving, he stopped dead in the tracks. “I’m sorry if my words offended you,” he said with his back turned towards her. “Good night.”
Riddhima looked at his retreating figure. This man was nothing but a living mystery. And don’t know why, but she was dying to solve him.
______________________________________
Riddhima curled up in the small bed, covering her face with the blanket. The reason – the moonlight that filtered through the transparent curtains created all kinds of horrific shadows in the dark room.
The loud clap of thunder coupled with the continuous howls of all kinds of strange animals coming from outside made her to jump up in startle.
This was the reason why she hated jungles. Everything was so eerie about it. She couldn’t even imagine how Vansh managed to stay in this creepy forest all by himself.
Mustering up enough courage, Riddhima tiptoed out into the living room.
Under the minimum light, she saw the outline of Vansh’s figure. He had made a bed for himself right on the floor.
Her heart warmed up to see how he was spending the night on the floor, while he had lent his room to her. Like a real man.
She went and lay right beside him. His eyes were shut tight and his chest moved up and down rhythmically with each breath, indicating that he was in deep slumber.
She stared at his features adoringly. She wondered how could someone be so strikingly handsome. God had definitely created him in good taste. He looked no less than a Greek mythological figure, she concluded. His face sometimes emanated serenity like that of an angel, and at other times it was a raging tempest like that of a devil. And his messy beard gave him the kind of raw appeal for which any woman would fall.
Her eyes ran towards his lips and she wondered about how many women they might have claimed. She wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by a man as beautiful as him….
Propelled by the urge to feel him, Riddhima traced her hand down his face as gently as possible. But even that simple touch was enough to wake him up.
He brushed her hand away and hissed, “What in the world are you doing here, Riddhima?”
The effortless way in which her name rolled on his tongue gave her goosebumps.
“Nobody has ever made my name sound as beautiful as you did,” she said dreamily.
“You are mad!” he groaned.
Suddenly, the storm threw open the windows and they started banging against the wall with a loud noise.
This frightened Riddhima up to such an extent that she flung herself in Vansh’s arms, tugging at his shirt with her nails.
“Let me go and shut the windows,” offered Vansh.
“No, don’t leave me alone and go. Please stay,” she requested, holding him even more tightly.
“It’s okay. I’m here with you,” he said softly rubbing her back up and down.
His touch calmed her just like how water calmed a raging fire down. She lifted her head up only for her eyes to meet those magical grey ones.
Don’t know what happened, but the rising urge to kiss him overtook her. She leaned forward trying to end the distance between them….
Vansh wriggled out of her grip.
“I’m nothing but a blazing fire. You’ll burn yourself if you come near me. So better stay away!” his voice rasped in her ears.
But Riddhima was not someone to get intimidated by such petty threats.
“If the price for loving you is to get myself burned, so be it.”
“You’ll regret it,” he warned her, his face barely an inch away.
“I wouldn’t mind that,” she said sultrily. From where she had gotten this much of confidence and unabashedness, she herself didn’t know. But right now, none of her senses were in her control.
His sandalwood fragrance combined with the smell of wine that he had helped himself to was driving her crazy.
Their lips mingled with each other, moving in perfect synchrony. She felt like she was thrown into some other universe where only she and him existed.
Riddhima had always wondered how her first kiss would be like. And here it was – her perfect first kiss with the impeccably perfect man.
But then something striked her.
No, this isn’t your first kiss. You’ve been kissed before, her brain seemed to scream at her.
This was funny. As far as she remembered correctly, this was her very first time being kissed. Then why was her mind sending her those signals of déjà vu?
She was broken from her reverie when Vansh intertwined his fingers with her hair, drawing her closer to him. His touch against her skin felt as soft as a feather, yet it managed to send tingling sensations throughout her body. He ran his hands down her in the most delicate manner possible, as if she were a porcelain doll that would break with the slighest of roughness.
In that moment of intense desire and passion, Riddhima willingly surrendered herself unto him to show him how much she loved and trusted him.
Verily, it was a night to remember….
______________________________________
With the rain having finally ended, the sun peeped out from behind the clouds, scattering it’s golden rays wherever it could.
Riddhima’s face appeared even more radiant as her skin continued to soak in more of the sunrays that entered through the window.
With her eyes still closed, she ran her hands on the other side to find her much needed solace. But when she found none, she woke up with a start.
She looked all around her and found the place near her to be strangely empty.
“Where is Vansh? He knows that I get easily scared around this place. Then why did he leave me alone?” she pondered with disappointment.
Even though part of her was feeling guilty of giving away herself to Vansh in their very first proper meeting, but part of her felt ecstatic at the thought of having found someone to love and end her loneliness with.
Riddhima wasn’t that type of a girl who would get intimate with an unknown man, but with Vansh it was different. He didn’t appear unknown at all, rather he had that strange hint of familiarity to him. But why was that so?
Her ears pricked upon the sudden ruffling of leaves coming from outside the house. Initially, she assumed it must be Vansh who was returning after completing some work outside. But as the footsteps became clearer and clearer, she realized it was someone else.
Most of the jungles were known to be the breeding places for many dacoits. What if it was one of them?
“Vansh!” she called out meekly, expecting him to be in the bedroom perhaps. But when no answer came, she realized that Vansh wasn’t there in the house. She was all alone.
Getting panicky, she picked up the rifle hanging down from the wall. Even though she didn’t know how to use it, she found it necessary to at least scare away whatever or whoever it was.
Her hands on the rifle started trembling when the main door of the house opened in front of her.
“You?” she gasped.
*
Hello everyone! That is it for today guys. Do comment.
Peace out!