Chapter 3: The Unexpected Invitation
The data was flawless. Samarth knew it, and he saw the reluctant acknowledgment in the sharp line of Shivani’s mouth as she scanned the printouts on her desk three days later. The air in her office still carried that new, unspoken charge, but she’d built a fortress of professionalism around it. She was all business, her finger tapping a column of figures.
“The yield is seventeen percent higher than the Chaudhry paper,” she said, not looking up.
“Twenty-one, if you normalize for their flawed baseline,” Samarth replied, leaning casually against the bookshelf. He watched her. The high collar of her blouse today couldn’t quite conceal the faint, yellowing bruise on the side of her neck. His mark. She’d made no attempt to cover it with makeup.
A brisk knock sounded at the door before it opened. Bharti stood there, a folder in hand, her long hair a dark cascade over one shoulder. “Shivani, I need your signature on the reagent order before four.” Her eyes flicked to Samarth, and a familiar, playful smile touched her lips. “Am I interrupting?”
“We’re just finishing,” Shivani said, her voice even.
Bharti stepped fully inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. The room seemed to shrink. Samarth could smell the difference in the air now—Shivani’s vanilla-jasmine austerity undercut by Bharti’s warmer, spicier perfume. It clung to everything.
“Good data?” Bharti asked, peering over Shivani’s shoulder. She rested a hand on the back of Shivani’s chair. Her stance was casual, but her presence was a deliberate pressure.
“Adequate,” Shivani said, but the word lacked its usual bite.
Samarth stayed quiet, observing. Bharti’s gaze drifted from the data to Shivani’s neck. She saw the bruise. Her eyebrows lifted a fraction. Then her eyes found Samarth’s, and the playful look deepened into something knowing, complicit. She’d seen him leave Shivani’s office late that night last week. She’d never mentioned it.
The silence stretched, thick and peculiar. The hum of the computer fan was suddenly very loud.
Shivani cleared her throat. “The order form.” She held out her hand without looking at Bharti.
Instead of handing it over, Bharti dropped the folder on the desk. “It can wait a minute.” She walked around to the front of the desk, her hips swaying slightly in her fitted trousers. She leaned back against the edge, crossing her arms. She looked at Samarth, then at Shivani. “It’s stuffy in here. Doesn’t it feel stuffy to you?”
Shivani finally looked up. Her professional mask was intact, but her eyes held a new, complex energy—a challenge, maybe, or a test. She looked from Bharti’s deliberately posed figure to Samarth’s watchful calm. The air wasn’t just stuffy; it was ionized, waiting for a spark.
“Perhaps,” Shivani said, her voice dropping to a low, deliberate register, “Samarth could help us both unwind. He has a talent for… relieving tension.”
Bharti’s smile widened. “Does he?”
Samarth pushed off the bookshelf. “I’m a dedicated research assistant. Full-service.”
Bharti let out a soft laugh. She turned to Shivani. “And you’d be okay with that? Sharing your talented assistant?”
Shivani didn’t blink. She held Bharti’s gaze, and in that look, decades of academic rivalry and unspoken female understanding collided. Slowly, deliberately, Shivani brought her hands to the first button of her blouse. The ‘pop’ of it releasing was tiny, explosive. “I find my capacity for sharing has recently expanded,” she said.
It was the permission, the catalyst. Bharti moved first, stepping to the door and turning the lock with a definitive click. The sound echoed in the quiet room.
When she turned back, Samarth was already behind Shivani’s chair, his hands on her shoulders. He felt her shiver. Bharti approached, stopping before them. She reached out, her fingers finishing what Shivani had started, undoing the rest of the buttons with a practical efficiency. The blouse fell open. Bharti’s gaze was frank, assessing. “You’ve been keeping secrets, senior advisor.”
“We all have them,” Shivani breathed, her eyes locked on Bharti’s.
Samarth guided Shivani to her feet, easing the blouse off her shoulders. She stood, small and pale and deliberate in her plain bra. Bharti, meanwhile, pulled her own sleeveless top over her head in one smooth motion. The difference was stunning—Shivani’s compact, almost boyish frame next to Bharti’s lush curves, the swell of her breasts against her lace bra.
No one spoke as the rest of the clothes fell to the floor, a pile of academic armor on the scratchy office carpet. The afternoon light through the blinds cut sharp lines across their skin.
Samarth guided them both to the worn leather couch against the wall. He sat, and the old leather creaked under his weight. He looked at them, standing before him—Shivani with her hands clenched at her sides, Bharti with one hand on her cocked hip.
“Ladies,” he said.
It was Shivani who moved first, her newfound hunger overriding her ingrained caution. She knelt on the couch, then straddled his lap, facing him. Her small hands went to his belt. Bharti watched for a second, her breath catching, then she climbed onto the couch beside them, kneeling over Samarth’s face, one hand braced against the wall for balance.
“Don’t be gentle,” Bharti whispered, looking down at him over her shoulder.
He wasn’t. He gripped her hips and pulled her down onto his mouth. She was already wet, her taste ripe and familiar. He licked into her, and her whole body jerked, a low moan tumbling from her lips. At the same time, he felt Shivani take him into her mouth. Her technique was different from Bharti’s—less playful, more focused, a deep, studious intensity that made his vision blur. She took him to the back of her throat and held, her nose pressed into his skin, and the dual sensations were catastrophic.
He lost track of who was where, of what was whose. The room dissolved into a lexicon of touch and sound. The slick, rhythmic noise of his mouth on Bharti. The choked, eager sounds from Shivani. The feel of Bharti’s thighs trembling against his ears. The sight of Shivani’s back, muscles taut as she worked. He pulled his mouth away from Bharti’s heat, gasping for air. “Switch.”
They moved with a fluid, wordless understanding. Bharti slid down his body, her mouth replacing Shivani’s with a hungry, enthusiastic suction. Shivani, her lips slick and swollen, climbed over him, lowering herself onto his tongue. She was different here—neater, tighter, a focused point of aching sensitivity. He learned her, and she came apart quickly, her thighs clamping around his head as she shuddered, her cry muffled by Bharti’s busy mouth on his cock.
“Enough,” Samarth gritted out, the pressure coiling unbearably tight. He pulled Bharti off him by her hair. She gasped, her eyes glazed. “Turn around.”
She obeyed instantly, moving onto her hands and knees on the couch. He positioned himself behind her, one hand fisting in the magnificent, dark curtain of her hair. He pulled her head back, arching her spine, and entered her in one deep, driving stroke. She screamed, a raw, unfiltered sound of pure gratification.
As he moved in Bharti, faster now, harder, he looked at Shivani. She was watching, her hand between her legs, her eyes black with want. He reached for her, hooking an arm around her waist. “Here,” he grunted.
He guided her over him as he fucked Bharti, pulling Shivani down so she was straddling his face, her knees by his shoulders. He thrust up into Bharti’s clutching heat and lifted his head to taste Shivani again. The position was awkward, animal, overwhelming. Bharti rocked back against him, meeting every thrust, her moans punctuated by sharp, hissed commands of “Yes, like that, like that.” Above him, Shivani ground herself against his mouth, her small hands braced on the back of the couch, her own moans a higher, desperate counterpoint.
The symphony was just that—a chaotic, beautiful noise of gasps and slapping skin and broken phrases. It built, cresting, until Bharti’s body seized. She let out a strangled shout, her internal muscles clenching around him in rapid pulses. It tore his own release from him, a blinding, deafening rush that left him buried deep inside her, shuddering.
He lay spent, his face still pressed against Shivani. She was quivering, on the edge but not over. Gently, he turned his head, nuzzling her inner thigh. His voice was hoarse. “Your turn.”
With a slowness that felt reverent, he helped her slide down his body. He was soft now, exhausted, but his mouth wasn’t. He laid her on her back on the couch, pushed Bharti’s limp, sweaty leg aside, and went to work with his tongue and fingers until Shivani’s back arched clear off the leather. She came silently, her mouth a wide ‘O’, her fingers scrabbling at the cracked leather before she went completely boneless.
The only sound was their ragged, syncopated breathing. Dust motes danced in the slants of afternoon light, crossing over the tangled pile of their limbs.
Bharti was the first to stir. She slid off the couch, her movements loose and languid. She found her underwear and stepped into them, not bothering with the rest yet. She looked at the two of them—Samarth slumped on the couch, Shivani lying with an arm over her eyes.
“Well,” Bharti said, her voice raspy but bright with triumph. “That’s one way to finalize a reagent order.”
Shivani removed her arm from her eyes. She looked at Bharti, then at Samarth. A slow, real, unguarded smile spread across her face—a thing of such rare beauty it transformed her entirely. She sat up, reached for her clothes.
“We’ll need more reagents,” Shivani said, her tone dry but her eyes alight. “The project scope appears to have… widened.”
Samarth laughed, a low, hearty sound that felt good in his chest. He watched them dress, two brilliant women reassembling their armor, now sharing a secret that hummed in the space between them. The lab outside awaited, with its deadlines and data. But in this dim, musk-scented room, a new, unpredictable variable had just been firmly introduced to the experiment.