Chapter 64 :

Anvaya's POV

We arrived at a place - most probably Area 96, from what he had been saying over the call. The name itself didn't mean much to me, yet the way he spoke it made it sound distant, secluded, and unreachable. I hadn't wanted to come like this, so abruptly, without informing either of my best friends. That thought lingered in my mind, tugging at me with guilt.

But I wasn't wanting to leave either.

That was the contradiction I couldn't escape.

With him, I could at least breathe. My chest didn't feel as heavy, my thoughts didn't race in panic. With him, I could at least believe - if only for a moment - that I would be protected. That I would be held close, listened to, and understood. At least he would see me in a way no one else ever had. He felt like someone I could rely on, someone solid in a world that had always felt unstable to me.

Was that right?

I didn't know anymore.

The selfish side of me - the part I rarely allowed myself to acknowledge - wanted him. It wanted the comfort he offered so effortlessly. It wanted the strange sense of peace I felt in whatever ruination he was pulling me into. That ruin should have scared me, should have made me run the other way, but instead, it felt enough. Enough to stay. Enough to choose him, even when logic told me not to.

As soon as we got down, he led me into a house. Not very big, not intimidating - more like a modern, medium-sized mansion. It didn't feel cold or unfamiliar. He took me to a bedroom on the top floor, basically the second one, his movements purposeful yet gentle.

Then, making me wait, he went outside to bring something.

And just like that, I was alone.

Nervousness crept in slowly, curling around my ribs. I didn't know what he was going to tell me. But there had been seriousness in his tone earlier, something heavy and unfamiliar, and I knew this wasn't a joke or a moment of indulgence for him.

This was real.

I remained seated, my eyes drifting around the room to pass the time. The room was beautiful in a quiet, understated way. Beige walls surrounded me, the white ceiling above softly illuminated by recessed lights glowing at the corners and one directly overhead. Thick beige curtains were drawn aside from the sliding glass doors, while translucent white curtains stood between the glass and the room, filtering the outside light gently. Everything looked composed, balanced, calm.

Too calm for the chaos inside me.

I breathed softly and lowered my gaze to my hands resting in my lap.

What was I actually doing?

Falling for the person who was supposed to be my patient?

Wanting more than his kisses and his touches - wanting something deeper, something permanent?

But he wasn't my patient anymore. Maybe he never truly was. We had been connected for a long time without either of us knowing it. He had lived like a shadow in my life, influencing it silently, while I remained unaware of that presence.

And yet, maybe he was still unaware of something about me.

Something buried in the past.

Even remembering it now sent goosebumps racing across my skin. The hair on my arms stood up, and waves of tremor ran through my veins. I hated recalling it. It had been seven years, but some memories can't be forgotten like ordinary nightmares.

They stay.

They live inside you.

Not as dreams, but as horror-filled memories that refuse to fade.

My gaze fell on my ring finger.

Empty.

Would I wear a ring in his name one day?

Would we get married?

Could I become his wife - rightfully his?

The answer rose inside me without hesitation.

I wanted to.

Yes. I wanted to marry him. This wasn't a random wish or a fleeting desire born out of longing. I loved him - deeper than I ever thought I would allow myself to love someone.

Maybe because he gave me what I had always craved for but never truly received.

The way he took care of me, the way he held me as if I might break, the way he never treated me the way I had once been treated by someone else - it all mattered more than I wanted to admit.

He gave me what I had been searching for.

Even if his ways weren't right.

He broke me.

Yes.

But this ruin allowed me to let him in.

He made me feel humiliated by his wife.

Yes.

And I needed answers for that.

He never said he loved me.

But his eyes - his eyes never denied his feelings. The way he looked at me wasn't normal, wasn't casual. It carried depth, restraint, hunger, and something dangerously close to devotion. I didn't know how to explain it now, but it was different. It was real.

I just wanted to believe what I saw, not force myself to be delusional just because this emptiness inside me was killing me like slow poison.

But the questions wouldn't stop.

Would Viola divorce him?

Would she let him be free?

Or would she try to control him even more?

Now that I had seen the clearer picture, what existed between me and Kaaryaksh didn't feel wrong. It didn't feel like cheating. Legally, it might be an extramarital affair, but emotionally, he was freeing himself from a cage that had been built around him.

Using someone's dreams as leverage to control them was disgusting.

Pathetic.

And his wife and family had mastered that cruelty.

He was searching for comfort. For a home. For a lover. For someone who would love him with all his scars and understand him without conditions.

And maybe - he himself was still unaware of that.

He was changing now.

And he deserved to.

He was breaking out of his walls, even if it took me breaking myself in the process.

It's okay.

If we found a new version of ourselves in this ruination, then let us be found there.

The desire inside me - to be touched by him more than I already had - never dimmed. His touches burned through me, leaving behind an ache that refused to settle.

And I wanted more.

I didn't know what the future held or how long we would be together. He was a man of power, and power had a way of hiding sins. His hands weren't clean. And every wrong deed eventually brought consequences.

But I didn't want those consequences to separate us.

He had become a part of me that I never knew existed.

And now, there was no undoing that.

My thoughts scattered the instant I heard the soft click of the door unlocking.

The sound pulled me back to the present. I looked up just as the door opened, revealing Kaaryaksh standing there. The hoodie he'd been wearing earlier was gone. Now, he was dressed simply - in a black shirt and black trousers that fit him too well, accentuating the quiet authority in his posture.

His hair wasn't long, not really - but long enough to be tied back. And it was tied into a neat man bun.

That alone made my breath hitch.

When his gaze lifted and our eyes met, something inside me froze. Completely. The world seemed to narrow down to just that moment - just him.

Those rimless glasses.

They never failed to steal my breath away.

He closed the door behind him and locked it, the sound echoing faintly in the room. Then he walked toward me. I thought he would sit beside me, maybe at the foot of the bed. But he didn't stop there.

He passed me.

"Come here," he said quietly as he moved behind me.

I rose from my place almost automatically. Once he sat down against the headboard, his back resting comfortably, he guided me to sit between his legs. My back settled against his chest, firm and solid. I had taken off my thin cardigan when we got out of the car earlier, leaving me in just a white shirt and grey sweatpants.

His chest felt warm. Steady.

His arms slid around my waist, pulling me closer until I was flush against him.

My body shivered in response.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop gradually - or maybe it was just my awareness of how close he was. This proximity was doing things to me, things that made heat pool low in my body, things that threatened to embarrass me if I let them spiral too far.

"Stop shivering," he murmured against my nape. "I'm not going to eat you."

Before I could respond, he pressed a slow, careless kiss to my skin.

I sighed softly, my eyes fluttering shut as my head tilted just enough to give him access. I didn't resist. I didn't want to.

His teeth grazed my skin, nibbling gently before biting down just enough to leave a darker mark. A sharp hiss escaped me as my fingers tightened around his arms at my waist. I was already drowning in the sensation, my thoughts dissolving into heat and need.

I wanted this.

I swallowed hard.

His thumb traced slow patterns along my waist as his lips lingered at my neck, sucking more deliberately now. I knew this would leave a mark. Darker. More obvious.

But I didn't care.

He moved unhurriedly, finding another spot, then another - sucking, biting, nibbling until my neck burned pleasantly in several places. My breathing grew uneven, shallow.

His teeth caught my earlobe, gentle at first, followed by a slow flick of his tongue before he bit down lightly. My toes curled instinctively. A hazy smile tugged at my lips as a sharp wave of sensation coursed through me. Then he pressed a kiss behind my ear and tugged my earlobe a little harder, drawing a low, helpless moan from my throat.

And then - he stopped.

The sudden absence of movement left me breathless.

"Turn around," he said softly against my ear. "I need to tell you something."

I nodded, still dazed, and turned carefully. He guided me onto his lap, my legs settling around his waist. I wrapped my arms around his neck, grounding myself, and looked into his eyes.

Those grey eyes looked almost onyx-dark.

He reached up and removed his glasses.

And just like that, my breath caught for the umpteenth time.

Without them, his gaze sharpened - intense, unguarded. He stared at me in silence, studying my face, my reactions.

"You feel it?" he asked quietly.

"Huh?" I barely managed to murmur.

"You're feeling it," he said, certain.

I swallowed, our eyes locked in a charged stillness thick with unspoken tension. I stayed perfectly still, careful not to shift closer. We both knew why. I was pretending not to notice, pretending not to understand - but he had known long before I admitted it to myself.

His arousal was unmistakably close. The boner in his pants was pressing on my inner thighs.

Getting closer would unravel both of us.

"Do you want to touch?" he asked.

My eyes widened in shock and embarassment.

He chuckled softly, the sound low and intimate, vibrating against me. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, and then his face tilted closer - close enough that I could feel his breath brush my skin. His voice dropped, slower now, deliberate.

"I'll tell you something first," he said. "Then you decide."

I bit my lower lip, bracing myself, my pulse quickening. This man - human as he was - had never once been predictable. Every truth he carried arrived like a storm I never saw coming.

He leaned back slightly, just enough to look at me properly.

"I'm a virgin."

The words struck me hard.

I froze, my body going utterly still, as if the world had glitched for a second.

He's... what?

My mind refused to cooperate. The meaning hovered just out of reach, absurd and impossible all at once.

"You're what?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper, confusion bleeding through every syllable.

He nodded once, calm and unflinching. "What you heard."

My brows pulled together, disbelief tightening my features. "But how?"

A faint, almost amused smirk curved his lips, as if he found my reaction telling. "You're not happy?"

I hissed softly, frustration bubbling up. "Answer me first. You've been married for five years and you're still a virgin? Do you think that makes any sense?"

He chuckled again, deeper this time, and before I could react, he pulled me closer.

My eyes widened as I became painfully aware of where I now sat, the sudden proximity stealing the air from my lungs. A shaky gasp escaped me before I could stop it.

I lifted my gaze - from where our bodies met - up to his face.

His head was tilted back, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched so tight I could see the muscle flex. Every line of him screamed restraint.

Control.

Then he looked at me again.

His eyes were darker now. Heavier. Stripped of humor.

"I was married without my consent," he said evenly. "Sleeping with her was never an option. I never touched her. Never kissed her. There were moments when I had to be close - when it was expected - but I never gave in."

His hands tightened at my waist, not demanding, not possessive. Protective. Grounding.

"My heart, my mind, my soul," he continued, slower now, as if each word carried weight, "they've always belonged to you. Ever since the day I fixed myself on you, I've been yours. So I saved myself."

A breath.

"For you."

Each word sliced through me - not with pain, but with something far more dangerous. Honesty. Devotion. A loyalty so fierce it made my chest ache.

He wasn't a hero.

He wasn't a villain.

He was something that existed in the spaces in between - too dark to be pure, too devoted to be cruel.

His hands weren't clean. His choices were stained. But somewhere inside that chaos, he had guarded something untouched. Something sacred.

For me.

He was... something else entirely.

"I want to show you something," he said quietly, shifting just enough to reach for a black tablet resting on the bed beside us.

He placed it in my hands, gently disentangling my arms from around his neck, though his gaze never left my face.

"Watch this," he said. "Then tell me what you want."

I looked down at the device, already aware that whatever waited inside it would change something irrevocably. His confession alone had already cracked something open inside me.

Yes - there had been moments when I'd selfishly wished he was untouched. Reserved only for me. I hated myself for those thoughts, because they felt unreasonable, unfair. He had been married for five years. I had assumed - forced myself to accept - that intimacy with Viola was inevitable.

I had been wrong.

Everything had been different for far longer than I had known.

I set the tablet aside on the bedside table without turning it on.

Then I leaned forward, closed the distance again, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pulled him to me.

My eyes searched his, steady and sure.

"I trust you," I said softly. "Enough to know that whatever I see - I won't be disappointed."

I leaned in closer, my voice dropping, my breath mingling with his.

"And... I want you."

A pause hung between us, heavy and electric.

"I've waited long enough."

That was all it took.

His hand slid to my jaw, firm but reverent, and then he closed the distance.

Our lips met - slow at first, then deeper - sealing every unspoken truth between us.