Chapter 13: Moonlit Deception
The calendar alert burned between them long after the screen went dark. Sid turned away first, padding back to the bathroom. This time, he closed the door.
Anya dressed in silence, pulling her clothes on with clumsy hands. The scent of him, of them, was on her skin. She opened the balcony door and stepped into the twilight, letting the sea wind try to scour her clean.
When he emerged, dressed in fresh chinos and a polo shirt, it was as if the last hour had been surgically removed. “Team dinner on the terrace in forty minutes,” he said, checking his watch. His voice was all business, a flat, neutral signal. “We should head down separately.”
“Right.” Anya’s own voice sounded hollow. “Of course.”
Dinner was a cacophony of clinking glasses and shop talk. Anya sat three seats away from Sid, laughing at a junior analyst’s joke a beat too late. She felt raw, hyper-aware of every glance he didn’t send her way. He was in full CEO mode, charming the clients, deftly steering conversation. The perfect host. She watched his hands as he gestured, remembering exactly where they had been.
Later, as the group dispersed towards the bar or their rooms, Anya found herself drifting down a corridor that led away from the lobby. A sign pointed to a secondary staircase: ‘Beachfront Rooftop Sanctuary – Residents Only.’ She pushed through the heavy fire door and climbed.
The roof was a revelation of quiet darkness. It was a sleek expanse of treated wood, lined with low benches and potted palms that rustled softly in the offshore breeze. The front was a sheer glass wall, waist-high, overlooking the endless black tapestry of the Arabian Sea. The hum of the hotel faded, replaced by the rhythmic, crushing sigh of waves on the shore far below. The air was cool and thick with salt.
She heard the door click shut behind her. She didn’t need to turn.
Sid’s footsteps were quiet on the wood. He came to stand beside her, not touching, both of them leaning on the glass. The lights of a distant fishing boat bobbed on the horizon.
“Neha wants to try that new Italian place on Saturday,” he said, his voice quiet. “She’s been looking forward to it all week.”
Anya said nothing. She watched the boat.
“I have to go home tomorrow,” he continued. “Back to my life. Back to being the man who doesn’t do this.”
“Then why did you?” The question was out before she could stop it, sharp and low.
He was silent for a long time. “Because when I’m with you, I’m not that man. And for a few hours, that feels like a victory instead of a crime.”
His phone, on the bench beside him, lit up with a familiar, cheerful ringtone. A video call request. The screen showed Rohan’s name, his smiling profile picture.
Anya’s blood went cold. “Don’t answer it.”
Sid looked at the screen, then at her. His expression was unreadable in the dim starlight. “Answer it.”
“What?”
“You’re watching the waves. You’re alone. Tell him.” There was a challenge in his tone, a dangerous edge. He picked up the phone and placed it in her numb hand.
Her thumb trembled over the green icon. She accepted.
Rohan’s face filled the screen, pixelated in the low light. “Hey! Trying a new look?” He squinted. “It’s really dark.”
“Hi!” Anya forced a brightness into her voice that felt like breaking glass. “Yeah, I’m on the rooftop. It’s beautiful. Just… watching the waves. It’s so peaceful.” She turned the phone, panning it shakily across the dark sea.
“Looks amazing. Miss you.”
“Miss you, too.”
Sid moved then. He came up behind her, his body pressing hers against the cool, solid glass of the railing. His hands slid around her waist, under her blouse. His mouth found the sensitive spot behind her ear.
Anya sucked in a sharp breath.
“You okay?” Rohan asked.
“Yeah. Just… a chill from the wind.” Sid’s hands were on the button of her trousers, deftly undoing it. The zipper slid down with a hushed scrape. She braced her free hand against the glass, her knuckles white.
“Should’ve brought a jacket. So, what’s the plan for—”
His words cut off as Sid entered her in one deep, relentless stroke. The phone jerked in Anya’s hand, the camera pointing down at the wooden deck. A choked gasp was torn from her throat, mingling with the distant crash of the surf.
“Anya? You still there? The video froze.”
Sid set a brutal, punishing rhythm, each thrust driving her hard against the unyielding railing. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear. It was nothing like before. This was raw possession, a furious, silent claiming.
“I’m… here,” she managed, lifting the phone with a Herculean effort. She fixed a glazed smile towards the camera, her face pale in the screen’s glow. “Sorry. Connection… must be bad. The waves are… so loud.”
“I can hear them,” Rohan said, voice tinny through the speaker. “Sounds rough.”
“It’s… powerful.” Her voice broke on the word as Sid’s grip tightened on her hips. The wet, rhythmic sound of their bodies was a private, obscene metronome beneath the ocean’s roar. Pleasure, sharp and desperate, coiled inside her, amplified by the sheer audacity, the dizzying risk. She was split in two: one half smiling numbly at a pixelated boyfriend, the other dissolving into a fever of sensation, clinging to the railing for sanity.
“I’ll let you enjoy it,” Rohan said, oblivious. “Call me when you’re back in your room. Love you.”
The screen went black.
Anya dropped the phone. It clattered on the wood. The sound that escaped her then was a raw, unfettered moan that was swallowed by the night and the sea. Sid’s hand clamped over her mouth, muffling the rest as he chased his own release, his body a tense, shuddering line against her back.
Silence descended, broken only by their ragged breathing and the eternal waves.
Sid slowly withdrew. He stepped back, adjusting his clothes with mechanical movements.
Anya stayed hunched against the glass, trembling. She felt hollowed out, used, and utterly complicit. The romantic “stargazing” lie had curdled into something ugly and true.
He picked up her phone, brushed it off, and placed it on the railing beside her. His voice, when it came, was flat and drained.
“Now we’re even,” he said.
He walked back towards the stairwell door. She didn’t turn. She listened to his footsteps fade, and then to the definitive click of the door closing, leaving her alone with the vast, judging dark.
She listened to his footsteps fade, and then to the definitive click of the door closing, leaving her alone with the vast, judging dark. For a long time, she didn’t move. The salt air chilled the sweat on her back. Her legs felt unsteady, her body a collection of aches and tremors.
A laugh bubbled up, sharp and humorless, startling her. It echoed on the empty rooftop. Even. The word was ridiculous. Nothing was even. Rohan’s unknowing voice was in her head. Neha’s name glowed in her memory. She was in a canyon of her own digging, and the walls were getting higher.
She pushed herself upright, wincing. Her clothes felt alien, disheveled. She fumbled with her zipper, her fingers clumsy. A deep, involuntary shudder ran through her, from her core to her fingertips. It wasn’t just cold.
It was the aftershock. Her mind replayed the pressure of the railing, the distant sound of Rohan’s voice tinny through the speaker, the brutal, silencing force of Sid’s grip. Shame burned hot in her throat. Yet, beneath the shame, a traitorous pulse still throbbed, a live wire he had touched and left sparking.
She stumbled to a low bench and sat hard, burying her face in her hands. The scent of him was on her fingers. She jerked them away.
Her body was conducting its own ruthless autopsy. Every nerve ending reported back, cataloguing the memory of sensation. The phantom weight of him. The specific, mapping pressure of his tongue from hours before, now colliding with the raw friction of minutes ago. Her breathing hitched.
It was an unwelcome, purely physical rebellion. Her thoughts were a storm of disgust, but her skin remembered everything. A warmth pooled low in her stomach, insistent and separate from her mind’s revulsion.
“No,” she whispered to the empty air. It was a plea.
But her body wasn’t listening. It was replaying the script on a loop. The image of her own hand, pale against the dark glass. The secret, rhythmic sound drowned by the waves. The moment his control shattered and he drove into her with a final, possessive force. The coil, which had never fully unwound, suddenly pulled taut.
She clamped her thighs together, a futile attempt to stifle the feeling. It was too late. The tension crested, breaking over her in a silent, internal convulsion that stole her breath. Her spine arched slightly against her will.
Then sound followed. A ragged, desperate cry tore itself from her throat, raw and loud in the sanctuary of the rooftop. SHE CLIMAXED LOUDLY. It was a sharp, solitary sound that had nothing to do with pleasure and everything to do with release, a painful expulsion of the accumulated tension, guilt, and electric shame.
The wave receded, leaving her hollow and shaking. She felt gutted. Used by him, and then betrayed by herself.
On the bench beside her, her phone lit up. The screen glowed, a rectangle of cruel light in the dark. A new message notification slid into view. It was from Rohan.
‘Can’t wait to hear those waves with you next time. Got the dates for our trip. Looking at villas now.’
She stared at the cheerful text. The glowing screen reflected in the dark glass of the railing, a tiny, impossible window floating over the endless black sea.