Page 16 of That Same Old Love

Mahi woke up at six in the morning. The D-day was here and her stomach fluttered in anticipation.

Luckily, she could distract herself with packing. Since she wasn’t the most prepared person in the world she had always it put off until the last minute.

She threw in her clothes and toiletries hurriedly into her bag along with her shoes and cosmetics. After she finished packing, she took a quick shower and got ready.

It was close to six fifty and almost time for him to arrive.

At the thought of him, her stomach fluttered again.

Just as she got out all her bags along with the work laptop waiting near the main door, the doorbell rang—at sharp seven.

Taking several deep breaths, she tried to calm herself. “Right on dot. Seriously, why can’t you be a little unpredictable? Shake it up once in a while. Try it,” she muttered while opening the door and then was surprised to see Samrat dressed in his formal work clothes.

He looked super fine in them. His six foot three inches body with broad shoulders filled his dark suit. She knew he maintained his body in a meticulously way, not to get attention, but simply because he was so disciplined.

His black hair was clipped short with only slightly longer hair at the front which was again styled in a deliberately messy way. Her fingers itched, wanting to run them through his hair.

He also had slight stubble, as though he didn’t find time to shave that morning.

She was finding it physically exhausting to not look at him. She wanted to drag him inside and attack him and at the same time beg him to take her right there.

Soon, whispered her rational mind soothingly, bringing her back from her dirty thoughts.

“Am I underdressed?” she asked, looking at her jeans and comfortable T-shirt.

Samrat was looking at her with hooded eyes. “I can be unpredictable where it matters,” he said huskily and then, “You are dressed fine. Let’s go. I don’t want to keep anyone waiting.”

He grabbed her bags to load them into his SUV.

Mahi was intrigued by his unpredictable comment. She felt a little hot and bothered, recalling their last two encounters. And as the saying goes, still waters run deep. Under that calm and controlled persona, he was definitely hiding an unpredictable bad boy.

She sat next to him in restless anticipation while he aptly played some soothing classical music on the car stereo.

After a few minutes of silence when she finally began to relax, Samrat broke the silence.

“Mahi, I want you to be comfortable with whatever I’m proposing. If you are not, then feel free to interrupt me anytime, and I also want to let you know that you can back out anytime. Alright?”

He kept his eyes on the road.

She frowned a little. “What are you going to propose that I won’t be comfortable about Samrat?

I hope you are not into some sort of extreme pain and degradation kinky crap, because I’m definitely not into it.

As I told you before, I have a low threshold of pain.

But don’t worry, I’ll definitely make it up to you with other kinky stuff. ”

He had a small smile on his face while he listened to her.

“No. I didn’t mean that. I don’t enjoy extreme pain either; I prefer pleasure instead, and would enjoy giving out pleasure too.

” And then he paused for a second. “But sometimes, a little pain can cause extreme pleasure too,” he said in his slow deep voice, causing her to shiver a little.

“I meant that while we have the deal in place, I want you to be available to me exclusively.”

“Yes. You mentioned that before and I agreed to it,” she said.

He looked at her for a brief intense second and then turned back to the road, drumming his fingers to a song playing softly in the background.

“By exclusive, I also meant that we would be with each other even outside sex. We would be on friendly terms, and share other parts of our life for the three weeks duration or more as any other normal couple,” he said in a matter of fact tone.

Mahi was a little stunned by his conditions. “Okay. So you are proposing something like friends with benefits kind of relationship, then. Are you sure you don’t just want a fling?”

At the word ‘fling’, his fingers paused for a couple of seconds and then resumed with the drumming.

“What I’m saying is that I don’t want a purely sexual relationship.

We are adults who respect each other and have some things in common.

Even if it wouldn’t be of a long duration, I prefer to have a normal relationship with you to be able to share some aspects of our life. ”

“A normal relationship,” Mahi repeated slowly as though he asked her to be in a polyamorous relationship. “Okay… sounds…uh…okay to me,” she said hesitantly.

He turned again to watch her face for a couple of seconds before turning back to the road. “Another important thing is that either of us can end our relationship whenever we want. And without any strings attached or any hard feelings.”

At that statement, all of Mahi doubts vanished.

“That won’t be an issue from my side. I’m not going to demand anything once we end our deal. What else?” she asked feeling much better.

He proceeded to negotiate the terms of their time together pretty openly in the most controlled and sexy manner.

Some of them were a little vague and he claimed to leave them to her imagination, and her imagination was running pretty wild and graphic in her head.

Then, in his low pitched rumbling voice, he began to provide some details about what he wanted to do to her, and also some of the things he expected in return.

It was enough to raise her temperature to a fever pitch.

“Holy hell Samrat, stop! Yes! I don’t object to any of those things. In fact I would object, if you leave out any of those things during our three weeks together,” she said, increasing the cooling of the car air conditioning, and then directing the cool air towards her.

He smiled. “Good. Then I think we can start our deal the moment we land in San Francisco.”

“Actually, about that… can we start it a little later in the night? I was invited for dinner at my brother’s house tonight.

” She paused while she thought of something.

“And also since we will technically be in a sort of relationship, you should join me as my friend. You already know and met most of my family.”

Samrat frowned, but said, “Okay.”

Then he made a call to one of his executives, stating that he will be taking the commercial flight that morning and to have someone else replace him.

After he hung up the call, he said, “I’m dressed formally because I thought I would be working on the company jet, just in case you had second thoughts after hearing my terms and conditions.”

“Hmm… Okay, but why can’t I join you on the company jet?” she asked him curiously.

“Sorry, I don’t allow family or friends to use it.

Only employees at a higher executive level can.

We always make sure that the seating capacity is filled to the maximum, saving us money, even if it is still a lot of carbon footprint.

But the jet’s schedule is more… predictable, and it has conference rooms and other provisions that the commercial flights don’t usually offer. ”

Mahi smiled at the word predictable, but nodded in understanding.

Soon they reached the airport. Samrat purchased his tickets and made necessary changes to Mahi’s to be able to sit next to each other.

They ended up working during most of the flight journey.

Mahi didn’t want to stay in the company owned condo that Samrat usually stayed during his SF business trips. She also didn’t want to stay in the hotel next to the office that she had initially made reservations for.

So she took some time during their flight to book a vacation house for their three week stay. And since Samrat upgraded her tickets for both ways and was paying for their car, she insisted on paying for their vacation house.