Juma by Madhuri Pavamani

Author:Madhuri Pavamani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

24: JUMA

Death.

Her realm. So much so it didn’t even have a proper name.

Her space. All of it, as large or as small as her mood pleased.

Her rules. Always her rules. No questions asked.

And here I was, back again.

I needed to check on Ma and meet with my team to get an update on the progress of her reclamation, so walking these halls—halls that today were covered in paintings from Picasso’s blue period, while rich Persian rugs muffled my steps—was an unavoidable necessity. That didn’t mean I approved of the current decor. I rolled my eyes at the obvious melodrama the interior design evoked—I liked the space much better when it was austere and minimalist.

This, the abstracts and too-many paisleys, wouldn’t have annoyed me as much if the fact I had to check in with Death didn’t exist. But it did, so here I was, despite this exercise in hierarchical bullshit being nowhere on my list of favorite things to do. It mattered little, this check-in. What did matter was that she was my Mistress and I could only be gone for so long before she came looking for me. And I didn’t want her looking for me. I wanted her as far away from my shit as possible. So I played her game and checked in, like the good little Poocha I was.

Or I planned to check in.

Eventually.

First, I wanted to walk and think and reflect on my last twenty-four hours. And in all that thinking and walking and reflecting, I found myself lost in thoughts of hands made to wrap around my hips, full lips at my throat, a flash of dark eyes, and that voice that moved through me in ways no other sound did, making me ache everywhere for some of him to be all over some of me.

Dutch.

I don’t know how he found me and I never asked because it didn’t matter I didn’t care I wasn’t interested in the how-why-where-when of his discovery, I just wanted to be the discovered. After so many endless months of falling asleep with his name on my lips, to wake in his arms was surreal and a part of me wondered how I ever left his side how I would ever sleep again without him next to me how I would ever open my eyes again and not see his beautiful face right there next to me.

And then my new self, that darker being, that woman just as wrapped up in Dutch but in another way altogether, a much more dangerous way, deadly and determined, that part of me whispered the words I already knew: I left because I had to.

Because just as Dutch had an agenda when he parted ways with me—Don’t touch me, Juma—so, too, did I and no matter how much I wanted all of him all of the time, my agenda didn’t involve lying around all day with him touching and sucking and fucking.

My agenda . . .

“Juma.”

I stopped in my tracks as the low

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.