Secrets Hidden In Time (Time #1)

57 | The Weird Pair

He flashed a lopsided smile. "How about a race then?"

"Sure, if you want to kiss the mud." She sassed back.

"Are you challenging me?" He ceased the movements of his cycle.

"What if I am?" She quirked up her eyebrow.

He breathed out, smirking at her. "3"

"2" She clenched her jaw.

"1"

"Go!" She roared.

In an instant, he raised his waist, bent his back while positioning his feet with their heels on the pedals at the lowest point of their arcs, and started cycling forward with a steady yet considerably fast speed.

She, on the other hand, being a neophyte in cycling, pedaled her way ahead at her own pace.

He looked behind for a split second. "Why aren't you racing?!"

She just shrugged, grinning at him. "Ma life, ma rules."

All of a sudden, Mahadevan's cycle skidded forward due to the damp pavement, causing him to lose his balance and control over it. And in an instant, the poor matte black thing crashed onto the wet cement tiles, taking its rider along with itself.

"Jesus Christ!" Her eyes widened with her own cycle losing its control as she and the cycle she was riding tumbled down on the pavilion, landing right on top of the matte black cycle and its rider.

"Ah." He cleared his throat, smiling at her. "I would freaking love it with you on top of me." He whispered. "But, now is not the right time, is it? I mean, I don't have any problem at all but-"

She slowly got up with a few 'ohs' and 'ahs' escaping her lips while staring at him confusedly. "I beg your pardon?"

He bit the insides of his cheeks, curbing the smile trying to take over his face. "Nothing, tigress."

"Whatever." She shrugged.

"Any bruises?" He probed, rising up with the cycle steadily. Arching the kickstand of the cycle on the ground, he inched closer, examining her arms, limbs, and face.

"No." She shook her head. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

"No." He replied, taking hold of her wrists and examining them.

In a trice, the pitch-black sky thundered as if the dark clouds were cracked wide open. Drop after drop, ice-cold rainwater touched down on their heads, faces, and the other parts of their anatomies, leaving them drenched.

"What's with rain and us?" She looked up, amusedly, a drop of water dribbling down the corners of her eyelashes.

His lips curled up as he palmed her damp right cheek. "It falls when we are together."

Mahadevan's eyes travelled from her wet and translucent short khadi kurti sticking to her slender frame, especially the swells on her chest, to her pale and glistening collarbone and neck, eventually moving on to her damp eyelashes and blooming cheeks. He swallowed heavily as his gaze finally dropped down on her moist lips.

He slowly leaned in, bending his waist to match her height, with the four-chambered organ inside his sternum throbbing at an unnatural pace.

He gulped again, his uneven breaths falling on her face.

She shivered, sensing his face inching closer to hers. Despite the cold drops of rainwater falling on them, the heat surrounding their figures was intense.

But just as he was about to attach his mouth to hers, she turned her face to the other side, causing his lips to land on her right jaw instead.

"We can't." She whispered, shutting her eyes close, not being able to look at him.