Chapter 13: Afternoon Delight on the Lawn
The guilt was a low, constant hum beneath her skin, like the distant buzz of the refrigerator in the quiet house. For three days, she’d managed it by burying herself in textbooks and lecture recordings, the sterile glow of her laptop screen a flimsy barricade against the memory of the pool, of his release inside her, of the way her own body had clenched around him with a greed that still shocked her.
She had not called Venky back.
Instead, she’d sent a text: “Crazy week with assignments. Miss you too. Call soon xx”
The lie sat in her sent folder, a tiny, digital stone.
Now, the late afternoon sun was a physical weight, pressing down on the backyard. The air was thick and still, heavy with the perfume of frangipani and the damp earth smell from the garden hose. She was hanging laundry, a mundane, almost meditative task her mother would have approved of. A simple cotton sundress clung to her damp back. She wore no bra. The dress was one of her less modest ones, bought here, thin straps and a skirt that ended above her knees. It felt like a declaration, hanging here in his space.
The wet shirt in her hands smelled of his detergent, of the clean, sun-dried scent that was purely Eric. She pinned it to the line, the muscles in her shoulders stretching. She felt him before she saw him, a shift in the quality of the silence, a presence warming the air behind her.
His hands slid around her waist, not startling, but inevitable. Calloused thumbs stroked the thin cotton over her hip bones. She went still, the last peg held tight between her fingers.
“You’ll get wrinkles,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. The shirt dangled, forgotten.
“Let it wrinkle,” he murmured into the curve of her neck. His lips brushed her skin, just below her ear. A shiver, deep and visceral, rolled through her.
She turned in the circle of his arms. His face was close, his blue eyes darkened by the shade of the fig tree. He looked at her with a focus that stripped away everything—the university, the distance, the future. There was only this patch of grass, this moment, him.
Without a word, she let the peg fall. She placed her hands flat on his chest, feeling the solid muscle and the quickening beat of his heart beneath his worn t-shirt. She pushed. He yielded, letting himself be guided backwards until his legs hit the sun-warmed wooden bench by the garden bed. He sat, a question in his eyes.
The hum of guilt became a roar in her ears, drowned out by the pulse of her own blood. She didn’t smile. Her expression was fierce, determined. She hooked her thumbs under the straps of her sundress and pushed them off her shoulders. The thin fabric peeled down her body, catching for a moment on the swell of her breasts before slumping to the grass at her feet.
She stood naked before him, in the dappled light, the sun kissing her brown skin. She saw his jaw tighten, his gaze drop hungrily to her chest, to the heavy weight of her breasts, to the dark, taut nipples already pebbled from the breeze and his attention. His hands came up to cradle them, his touch rough and reverent.
“Christ, Charu,” he breathed.
She climbed onto him, straddling his lap on the bench. The rough denim of his jeans scratched her inner thighs. He was already hard, a thick ridge pressed against her through the fabric. She leaned forward, capturing his mouth, kissing him with a ferocity that tasted like stolen time. His hands moved from her breasts to clutch her ass, pulling her tighter against his cock.
He broke the kiss, his mouth trailing wet, hot kisses down her throat to her collarbone, then lower. He took one nipple into his mouth, not gently. He suckled hard, his tongue lashing the stiff peak, his teeth grazing it with just enough pressure to make her cry out. The sensation was a lightning bolt to her core. She ground herself against the denim-covered bulge, a ragged moan torn from her throat.
“Oh god, Eric… your mouth…”
He switched to the other breast, giving it the same desperate, worshipping attention. One of his hands slid from her backside, around her hip, through the nest of coarse curls. His fingers found her slit, already slick and swollen. He groaned against her skin, the vibration travelling straight to her womb.
“Soaked,” he muttered, his voice thick. “Always so fucking wet for me.”
He pushed two fingers inside her, curling them. She jerked in his lap, a sharp, choked gasp escaping her. She was so sensitive, so ready. Her own hand scrambled between their bodies, fumbling with the button of his jeans, then the zip. She freed him, wrapping her fingers around the thick, hot length of him. He was velvety and hard, a bead of moisture already glistening at the tip. She stroked him once, twice, feeling him throb in her grip.
“Now,” she panted, her breath coming in short bursts. “Now, Eric.”
She rose up on her knees, positioning herself. She guided him to her entrance, notching the broad head against her slick folds. His hands gripped her hips, his fingers biting into her flesh. She looked down, watching as she slowly, inexorably, sank down onto him.
The stretch was profound, a filling, burning ache that made her eyes roll back. She took him in completely, until she was seated fully in his lap, his cock buried to the hilt inside her. She felt impossibly full, split open on him. A guttural sound, part sob, part sigh, escaped her.
“Fuck, Charu,” he groaned, his head falling back, tendons standing out in his neck. “You feel… you’re fucking perfect.”
She began to move. Slowly at first, a rocking, grinding motion that made him curse softly. Then faster. She rose up until only the tip of him remained inside, then slammed back down, taking him deep. Her breasts bounced with the rhythm, and he leaned forward, capturing a nipple again, sucking fiercely as she rode him.
The bench creaked beneath them. The forgotten laundry flapped gently on the line. The world was this: the smell of grass and sex, the slap of skin, his ragged breaths hot against her breast, the glorious friction of him pistoning in and out of her gripping wetness.
“Yes… like that… fuck me,” he urged, his voice a raw scrape. His hands moved to her ass, spreading her cheeks, helping her find a deeper, more punishing angle.
She obeyed, her own hunger taking over. She fucked him with a desperate, driving need, as if she could purge the guilt, the fear, the future, through the sheer physicality of this act. Her orgasm built, a coil of white-hot tension in her belly, tightening with every brutal downward stroke.
“Eric! Eric!” Her cries were sharp, fractured things, lost in the humid air.
She felt him swelling inside her, his rhythm becoming erratic, frantic. “Charu, I’m gonna come,” he warned, his eyes screwed shut, his face a mask of agonised pleasure.
“Come inside me,” she begged, the words filthy and perfect. “Fill me up.”
It was the permission he needed. With a roar that was partly her name, partly a wordless shout, he thrust up one final, searing time and held her down. She felt the hot, liquid pulse of his release deep within her, a flood that triggered her own climax. It shattered through her, a convulsive wave that clenched her around his still-spurting cock, milking him dry. Her vision whited out. She collapsed forward against his chest, her sweaty forehead pressed to his shoulder, her body trembling violently.
They stayed like that for long minutes, joined, breathing in ragged unison. His hands stroked her back, her hair. Gradually, the world seeped back in: the buzz of a distant lawnmower, the cry of a currawong.
He shifted beneath her, softening, slipping out of her. A trickle of their combined wetness traced a path down her inner thigh. She didn’t move. The hum was back, quieter now, mingled with a deep, satiated lethargy.
His voice, when it came, was soft, blurred at the edges. “We’re gonna have to wash that shirt again.”
A surprised laugh hiccupped out of her, a strained, watery sound. She lifted her head. He was looking at her with an expression so tender it felt more dangerous than any hunger.
Her phone, sitting on the grass beside her discarded dress, rang.
The shrill, familiar tone was the opening bars of a popular Tamil film song. Venky’s ringtone.
The sound was a physical slap. All the warmth drained from her body, replaced by a cold, hollow dread. She stared at the phone as if it were a venomous snake. It buzzed and sang on the grass, a cheerful, accusing soundtrack to her nakedness, to the slickness between her legs, to the man whose seed was leaking from her.
Eric’s hands stilled on her back. His expression didn’t change, but something closed behind his eyes. A shutter coming down.
The phone rang out. Silence descended, heavier than before.
Slowly, she slid off his lap. Her legs were unsteady. She didn’t look at him as she bent to pick up her dress. She didn’t put it on. She just held it in front of her, a flimsy shield.
“I have to… I should…”
“You should,” he finished for her, his voice neutral. He leaned forward, slowly zipping his jeans. The sound was obscenely loud. He stood up, his shadow falling over her. “You should call him back.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. He turned and walked back towards the house, leaving her standing naked in the garden, the scent of jasmine and sex clinging to her skin, the ghost of Venky’s call hanging in the air between them.