Page 55 of Lawfully Yours

Her eyes widened. That was a lie. They had never crossed that line.

“Don’t be disgusting,” she hissed. “When have you ever seen me in such a half-dressed state before?”

He tilted his head. “Wasn’t talking about this lifetime.”

She blinked, confused. “What?”

“In my dreams,” he clarified. “Wet dreams.”

Her breath caught again.

“You had dreams of me in such an undressed form?”

He stepped closer, and every step raised the temperature in the room. She could feel the heat from his body even before he reached her, and her fingers instinctively clenched tighter on the saree.

“We were living under one roof that time, happily married, Aru. I had every right to dream of my wife.”

She swallowed hard. He called herAruagain.Not Arundhati. Kushal was using all his lawyer techniques to defend himself, and she, despite being a lawyer too, had no counter-defence reply to that.

“Trust me,” he said, his gaze now flicking down her body, lingering at the edge of her bare skin. “The visuals of you like that in my dreams were quite... distracting.”

Her heart hammered in her chest. She hated the way her knees trembled. And most of all, she hated that it was him, who still had the power to unravel her like this.

“Are you drunk, Kushal?” she asked. “You don’t sound like... like the man I know.”

“Maybe,” he said, his tone dipping into something darker, more intimate. “Maybe Iamdrunk…”

But it wasn’t alcohol. It was her. It always had been. The way she looked in a saree, how she looked now, reminded him of the first time they had kissed, back when they were newly married. She had worn a saree then, too—maroon, elegant, devastatingly feminine. That memory came rushing back uninvited, making his pulse pound harder.

And now… this. Even with all his arrogance, it was taking everything in him not to lose control.

His fingers brushed against hers as he took the edge of the saree she had fisted protectively against her chest.

He didn’t tug. He didn’t push.

“Time please,” he murmured. “Now hold still.”

Arundhati’s heart thudded against her ribcage, but she didn’t argue. Not when his fingers were already moving slowly to help her.

Kushal tried hard not to look at her, tried hard to keep his gaze focused on the fabric, but it was impossible not to feel her presence. The warmth of her skin under his knuckles. The subtle tremble of her breath. A faint scent of something floral that clung to her hair. He was already losing control.

He reached for the pallu, but hesitated, unsure of which way to pull.

“That goes to the left… not right,” she said, guiding him quietly.

He nodded without a word and corrected it. They stood too close now, closer than they had in months. And when he turned her around to bring the pleats across her waist, he was careful, cautious not to touch her injured arm. But even then, the intimacy was overwhelming.

She saw him swallow hard.

He saw her look away.

They both knew they were on the edge of something dangerous.

His fingers folded the pleats one by one. But when he finally tucked the fabric into the waistband of her petticoat, his knuckles brushed over her bare stomach, over the smooth curve of her navel.

She gasped, sharply, before clearing her throat in a weak attempt to mask the sound. Her body betrayed her. She hated that.

But Kushal didn’t retreat. If anything, his touch lingered. His knuckles grazed her skin again, slower this time, like he was memorising the feel of her. She sucked in her stomach instinctively and shot him a sharp and blazing look.