The First Time (Love in No Time #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

past him. He doesn’t move his knees to assist in my careful sidle. He stays, his knees stay where they were before. But his hand comes up as if to assist me in my precarious sidle. Instead, his palm cups my left bum for approximately ten seconds and drops. And I am left bereft. My warmed bum and my confused self step off the bus onto the burning asphalt. As I walk towards my office, I fear a long, long, long day of trying to work and failing . . . miserably.

Chapter Six
     
    The phone rang at work, again and again and again. My heart jumped faster with every ring. I deny that I am expecting his call but I am.
    I am still thinking of his hand in mine and on my bum. Hell, that warm palm on my bum could be just my imagination. Maybe it never happened and my mind had begun to hallucinate in the wake of eroticized hand-holding. Bum-holding may have been the residual to the hand-holding affect. But the warmth lingers. This is not an imagined sensation. I feel imprinted upon like a decal on a runner’s vest.
    Every time I get up for a glass of water or a paper from the stationery cupboard, I gently rub over my imprinted bum, not to accomplish its pretend erasure but to remind myself that its there. Maybe I want to push it further into my skin, hopefully in some indelible way. I know everyone has noticed my stupid smile all day. Yet no one has said or asked anything. I feel grateful for not being inquisitioned today. I would know not what to do except maybe go red again or remain a mute.
    “Ms. Sharma,” Dipta addresses me formally from the doorway. I look up and see her smiling. “Is there a Ms. Sharma available to take a call from Mr. SexyNobody today?” She winks at me! I feel the warmth rising from my stomach all the way up to my face. I smile at her but without saying a word walk past into the phone room. I pick up the receiver feeling like my heart’s racing at the sound of hundred decibels per second. Its deafening.
    My bum is searing now.
    I say a hello into the phone but no sound emerges. I try again. This time there is a sound but a barely recognizable sound. I am officially deaf now.
    “Ms. Sharma” he is saying, “Am I intruding?”
    Before I can attempt another unrecognizable sound, he continues, “Sorry, if I am but I calling to inquire about your bum—hope it is feeling roundly happy this morning.”
    I am rendered soundless now. Not just speechless, no, I retract. I am feeling peeved with his audacity, his little risqué playfulness. So I respond with a huff, “fine.”
    My voice is a little clipped now. He gets it immediately. “Oh, baby, I am sorry if I offended you. I just couldn’t help myself. You really have very delectable, touchable bums. I felt helpless before the pair of them.”
    The “baby” makes me warm all over. But I refuse to let go of my peevishness, “You took undue advantage of my sidle and for that you are no gentleman, Sir.” I shoot back at him.
    He laughs! And then says, “Oh, Ms. Sharma, I have been a gentleman for far too long. I have endured your flirtations for too long without flirting back even when I so desperately wanted to. I liked you sitting behind me on the scooter and holding me with your pretty hands as if I was your anchor in this world, as if I am one you have been waiting for all through your young life. And yesterday, I decided I am going to start playing the One you have been waiting for even if you might disagree with my perspicacity. I couldn’t resist anymore. So I kind of made my intentions a little clear hoping you would not misunderstand them. I don’t want you to misunderstand them. But since touching you I cannot get you out of my mind. My fingers have been twitching all morning and I have watched them involuntarily take the shape of your delectable bum again and again and again. I seem to have no control over what my hands are doing anymore. So I had to call you and ask you—does your bum feel me? Are you feeling me? What do you want to do