Kingdom Come

“It’s not a debt, Salman,” Krivi said, formally. Uncomfortable by the sudden somber tone of the conversation. Uncomfortable even more to find that every eye around the small table was finally on him.

“And I don’t think—”

“Krivi?”

Ziya’s low voice made him stop. Mostly because she never called him by his name. Just like he never did hers. Ziya. A small, short name for a very complicated, hard-to-figure-out woman.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and accept the compliment for what it is. Yeah? Da doesn’t shower praise on just anyone. You need to swallow that chip on your shoulder that’s obstructing your throat and say thank you graciously. Yes?”

She smiled pleasantly, although her eyes were roiling like storm clouds. He again had the insane urge to grin at her, the way he had when she had told him off for considering smoking in the car, but wisely kept the impulse and its consequence to himself.

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Maarten,” he murmured.

And, turning back to Dada Akhtar, said in perfect Urdu, “Thank you, for being so kind as to call me a hero. I don’t deserve it but I will try and live up to it, anyway.”

“You’re welcome, beta,” Dada Akhtar managed.

“I think we can safely say that between Sam and K, we are not going to have a problem if aliens invade Goonj, Da,” Noor said, confidently.

And after a second of disbelieving silence, the whole table burst out laughing. Dada Akhtar laughing so hard, his little pot belly shaking with his mirth. Noor and Sam put down their forks and held onto their stomachs, tears running down their faces. And even Ziya was smiling and chuckling as if the joke had been funnier than it was supposed to.

Krivi smiled because it would have been rude otherwise. But he knew aliens were scary beings because you didn’t know the first damn thing about them. Least of all, how to beat them. Ziya’s silver eyes lit up with laughter and humor as she gave him a passing glance. Yeah, he thought morosely. He didn’t know the first thing about beating this alien woman.

Noor prowled into the kitchen where Ziya was busy scooping out vanilla ice cream into bowls which held gulab jamuns, scrumptious round balls made from flour, saffron and floated in sugar syrup, her favorite.

“I am going to bloat,” she wailed, even as she took a golden jamun out and stuffed it whole in her mouth. An expression of utter bliss crossed her face before she opened her dreamy, satisfied eyes and nailed her best friend with an intuitive expression.

“K is hot.”

“Hmm?”

Ziya didn’t really hear the statement, because she herself was contemplating popping one jamun in herself. As penance for being attracted to someone who was so obviously not good for her.

“I said, K is hot,” Noor said patiently. “Like, hero hot. And that’s a lot of hotness, babe.”

Ziya shook her head in disbelief.

“Stop talking and eat dessert, honey. Your brains are obviously scrambled.”

Noor poked her in the shoulder. Hard enough that Ziya stopped ladling the ice cream and shot her an annoyed look.

“What?”

“You like him. You want to jump his bones because he hauled you around like a sack of potatoes and then, like five seconds later, went and saved the world. All without breaking a sweat. Or even being unduly concerned about you or the world. It’s hot. All that implacable indifference.”

Ziya chuckled.

“Yep. Brains. Scrambled. Definately.”

Noor shook her head.

“You can lie all you want to me, baby. But the truth is there in your eyes when you think no one is looking at you.”

“And what truth would that be?” Ziya’s face was rich with amusement.

“You look at him,” she answered promptly. “You don’t want to, but you look at him.”

All the amusement faded from her eyes and she said, “Shut up, Noor. You have no idea what you’re saying.”

“I do. And it scares you, because he really is who he is. And you are intrigued by the indifference and the hero complex.” Noor was so confident in her assessment that Ziya was sure she must have slipped up and said something to her after all.

But, then common sense reasserted itself and she said, “I am not intrigued by a man who has all the manners of a retarded mute and what you call hero complex, I call macho arrogance. And yes, he is indifferent to everything, but mostly to me and I return the favor,” she ended sharply. Sharper than she had intended because it was all so close to what she herself was feeling. She just wasn’t ready to admit it out loud yet. If she ever would be.

Noor’s eyes were rounded in dismay. And Ziya asked her, “What? Now what?”

There was a loud cough from behind her and Ziya whirled around, ladle at the ready. To see the object of her derision standing at the kitchen entrance. Thundercloud face and impassive eyes.

The ice cream dripped onto the floor as he told her with a straight face, “I am not indifferent to your gulab jamuns. If that counts for anything.” Then he nodded at Noor and said, “I’m taking off now, Kid. The … fulsome praise has more than satisfied my appetite.”

Then he turned and left without acknowledging Ziya at all.

Ziya took a deep breath as she struggled to handle her anger and embarrassment at having been caught bad-mouthing him. An employee, no less. Which was inexcusable in her book, even though it was all his fault, no doubt.

Noor watched as a host of emotions flitted across her friend’s usually calm face and she said, casually, “He does pack a punch when he opens his mouth.”

Ziya flicked a distracted glance at Noor who was enjoying her second gulab jamun. She came to a decision that had been simmering at the back of her head for a long time, and she placed the ladle on the table carefully. And she wiped her hands on the small dishcloth she wore around the waist of her jeans.

“I have to end this,” she said, mostly to herself.

“Go, Zee.”

But Noor’s encouragement fell on deaf ears as Ziya half-walked, half-ran out the kitchen and down the passage that led to the living room and then out the door, without pausing to grab a jacket against the chilly night. Srinagar had cold nights in spring and tonight was no exception.

Ziya had to run downhill, and it was a mostly easy path but even then she was winded, her breath coming out in gasps that made little white puffs of air as they escaped her lungs. She could see Krivi’s dark form moving ahead, almost at the edge of the fence where the gamekeeper’s cottage began.

She put on a sprint and reached the wooden gate just as he was going to unlatch it. Ziya tapped him on the shoulder; having to reach up to do it since she was not in heels but practical Nikes. Krivi whirled around with dizzying speed, something feral leaping into his eyes that she instantly shrank away from.

“Don’t do that again. Ever,” he ordered her. “I could have punched your lights out.”

Her small chin went up haughtily, the gray eyes flashing stormy. “You could try, boy-o. Who the hell do you think you are?”

He inclined his head and stepped a discreet inch back as her anger and seductive, female scent swirled in a thick condensation around them. Tightening the bubble around them.

“I am the Assistant Manager of Goonj Enterprises. The other stuff’s not important.”

She shoved him back with one hand, and he was so surprised at the gesture that he actually stumbled. She came forward and did it again. But this time, he was prepared so he caught her wrist in one loose hand. When her other wrist came up with a swing, he caught that one too.

All without taking his dark eyes off her furious, beautiful face.

“What are you spitting at me for?”

“Ziya,” she said coldly.

“I beg your pardon?” He restrained her with a simple hold, while she struggled, trying to escape his fingers, his touch and the stupid, insidious heat filling her at her proximity with this insufferable maniac!

“Ziya!” She practically shouted. “My name is Ziya. Learn it, live it. I don’t care what you do outside of the office, or here in Da’s home, but I am damned if I am going to have you talk to me like I am some small child that needs to be pacified, or worse a woman who doesn’t know what she is doing.”

Her chest was heaving, and because of the way he held her, almost in his embrace, he could feel each movement against his own, suddenly rioting body. He tried to step back again.

“Look—”

“Look, Ziya!” She yelled. “Are you deaf? Or just that cruel? Let go of my hands, you arrogant baboon. I don’t need this from you.”

“Stop moving, please,” he said, in a low voice. His patience strained, his own emotions running up to take the place of the patience.

“I won’t! I am your boss! I am good at what I do and I have lived twenty-nine years without some Neanderthal telling me what to do every five minutes, goddammit. You take your orders from me, Krivi, not the other way. Now let me the hell go.”

Ziya blew a gold-streaked bang off her forehead and glared at him, so mad, so very mad at the casual ease with which he could subdue her and the indifference with which he held her. She was even madder at herself for wanting to talk to him at all, and cursed her wayward hormones to hell and back.

“Ziya—”

“Good.” She smiled, and it was blade-sharp. “Now say it a million times and we won’t have a problem.”

Something snapped. It could have been a twig, could have been the air, or it could be his control which broke free from the restraint of four long years and he dragged her closer and ravaged her mouth.

Ziya was so surprised, shocked out of her wits, that for a single, trembling second she just hung in mid-air, gravity having no pull on her muscles. It was Krivi, his mouth that held her anchored. Then his hands dug into her wrists and she grabbed his hands in return and kissed him back.

Hard.

Using her teeth to bite at his lower lip, hard enough to draw blood. And he groaned as he staggered back, taking her with him. They hit the fence and he released her hands to run restless, rough hands over her shoulders, into the short mop of her hair as he ruthlessly kissed her. And she opened her mouth and let him in to do exactly what she’d ordered him not to. Take over.

But being taken over was a glorious melding of tongues and breath and a scent that could only come from a man who’d faced down death. Taken over meant running her hands over the hard planes of his shoulders, and into his hair. Clutching it hard, desperately as she tried to take the kiss deeper. He bent her back, holding her still by the head, taking a single kiss into depths she hadn’t known existed until she groaned. And only half in pain. They both sprang apart in the same instant.

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