The city's late afternoon light melted across the dashboard as I slumped into the passenger seat. "Chalo na, pani puri khane chale," ["Let's eat pani puri nah!] I suggested, my voice half plea, half dare.

Azaan's grin arrived before him; it was the kind that tugged at the corners of the world and made the mundane sparkle. He kissed me—quick, warm, a punctuation mark on the day and asked, "Ha? Chal lenge par, badle mein mujhe kya milega?" ["Okay let's go but what will I get in return?] His tone was a promise and a tease braided together.

I narrowed my eyes, feigning insult. "Ab 20 rupee ki pani puri ke liye rishwat dena parega kya? Choro, mai akeli chali jaungi!" ["Now I have to bribe you for even 20 rupees then it's better i go alone,] I crossed my arms, deliberately looking everywhere except at him.

"Are thik hai, thik hai — le chalta hu. Romance bhi nahi samajhti kya, biwi hai?" ["Fine fine, I will take you. Can't even understand romance,] He shook his head theatrically and set the car in motion, a small pout settling into his features as he pressed the accelerator.

A tiny, traitorous pity softened my expression. I eased back, uncapped my glucose drink, and offered, "Chalo thik hai, ek lollipop dungi." ["Okay I will give you a lollipop,]

His smile shifted — there was now a sliver of something sly about it. "Lollipop kharid ke dene se kuch nahi hota. Lollipop chus sakti ho to bolo." ["Buying a Lollipop doesn't get you out. If you can suck one then..."]

I choked on my sip, eyes widening. He let the steering wheel rest for a beat only to reach over and rub my back with an affection that was at once familiar and dangerously intimate. "Are sambhal ke, biwi uspe choke karogi toh kaise chalega," ["Are careful, wife. Don't choke on that.."]

"Do you know how inappropriate that was?" I scolded, the rebuke sharper than I meant.

Azaan wore mischief like a second skin. "Agar wo inappropriate hota, toh aaj ham tum exist nahi karte, jaan." ["If that was inappropriate none of us will exist,"] His words landed like a soft dare, as if history itself absolved his cheek.

I felt a strange disconnect when I spoke next. "Oral sex is not that important," the sentence sounded half-hypocrite, half-confession even to my own ears — a truth complicated by memory and softness.

He met me with the casual, dangerous frankness I'd come to both love and war with. "Says the woman who loves my mouth between her legs," he said without missing a beat, then added in mock-lecturer mode, "And don't you think the term 'oral sex' is a bit outdated? We call it blow job."

A slow, exasperated smile tugged at my lips. "The correct term is oral sex, not blow job. It has nothing to do with blows, you know?" I jabbed, part pedant, part lover.

"And I have no interest in dissecting the term. I am only interested in the act," he said bluntly, then softened in a way that made my chest cave just a little. "Are you interested?"

There it was again — that impossible look. It rendered me unsteady in a way no one future-proofed me for. I inhaled, steadying my pulse. "You better not pull up in a place in plain sight." I leaned back and let my fingers ghost over my skirt, the motion innocent on the surface and brimming with intimate promise beneath.

His hand found mine, warm and steady. "You are gonna blow my mind away, baby — pun intended." He winked, then turned his attention back to the road, steering us through the city's narrower alleys with the skill of someone whose map included all of our private shortcuts.

We laughed, quiet and conspiratorial, as the car tucked into a shadowed corner that smelled faintly of crushed mint and wet pavement. The streetlamp spilled a soft pool of light over the hood, and in its glow the world contracted to the two of us: the faint hum of the engine, the cadence of his breath, the magnetic pull of impossibly ordinary intimacy.

When the car stops under the building's parking, the quiet presses in—a hollow, suspended hush that makes every small sound feel amplified. Night is generous and stealing itself over the city; the windows drink the streetlight and blur it into anonymous pools. Azaan looks at me, and that look is an accusation and a benediction both. Time thins. A beat passes, and I can't look anywhere but his eyes, those eyes that hold me like a tide.

He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles, a tiny ceremonial thing that makes the rest of me bloom. "You don't have to do anything you aren't comfortable with," he whispers, voice low and rough at the edges, and somehow the caution fans a different flame in me—an answering will to give, to please him as he pleases me.

I lean in, deliberately slow, my fingers tightening around his. "I want to," I murmur, and the words are thin but true. Our mouths meet. His lips are exactly as I remember—soft, commanding and our tongues find each other in languid exploration, each pass a promise. He yields control, hands falling loose to his sides, elegant surrender.

I trace a lazy path down his throat, my kisses methodical, tasting the salt of his skin. Whimpers tumble from him, small and needy, and hands that were steady moments ago find my waist and drag me closer. "Oh fuck," he gasps—sharp, involuntary and I take it as a benediction, a permission to be bolder.

His fingers fisted in my clothes, his arousal pressing insistently against my thigh—he is all heat and wanting. My husband is exquisite like a private secret, a gravity I keep falling into. The car fogs around us with his ragged breaths; the world outside reduces to glass and hum and the electric pull between two bodies.

My hands map him: the slope of his ribs, the taut planes of muscle, the fierce, hammering pulse beneath his skin. Each touch draws a new sound from him that vibrates straight into my chest. "Azaan," I whisper, his name against the tender hollow beneath his jaw. He tastes like citrus and bergamot, like every memory of him distilled to a single, intoxicating flavor.

His restraint fractures in pieces. Knuckles blanch on the upholstery; his jaw works; a low growl escapes him that does the work of a confession. "You're going to ruin me," he hisses, head tipped back as if offering himself. God, I love that—his surrender is a drug.

I drag my tongue lower, precise and teasing, lengthening the delicious moment between want and meeting. The air around us constricts until it is nothing but our breaths and the soft, obscene friction of fabric and skin. My hand slides over him and he curses, half plea, half command. The tension coils so tight there is no space for anything else.

Lower I go, between his thighs, the engine's whisper our only witness. When my hand closes around his delicious cock and feels the heat and hardness through his clothes, he stutters, the sound caught somewhere between control and collapse. I unfasten him with deliberate slowness, reverence in each motion, savoring how his chest rises, how his whole body tilts on the brink.

Freed, he sits heavy and real in my palm, hot and flushed, and his voice breaks the car's hush. "Fuck..." he groans, guttural and raw, a prayer that tastes like danger.

My mouth finds him. I begin with a delicate lick across the tip and he jerks—small, honest, exquisite. My name tears from him as I take more, lips and tongue claiming inch by inch, until his hand tangles in my hair—equal parts wanting to stop and to push deeper. The flavor of him folds across my tongue, sharp and sweet and addicting.

I hollow my cheeks, set a rhythm. My throat swallows and works; the tastes and textures fill me and make me clever with motion. He guides me with a grip that is near-violent in its need, not cruel but desperate, the kind of hold that says there is nothing else that matters. Slow at first—torture, coaxing, then building, wetter, faster, a cadence that has its own gravity.

He becomes a chorus of small sounds: curses, names, the ragged punctuation of pleasure. When I pull away enough to breathe, his face is a map—head thrown back, jaw clenched, sweat pearling at his temple. I smile, wicked and private, then dive back down, taking him whole until my throat works around him and his body shivers under the pressure.

"God, you're mine," he growls, voice strangled, the kind of ownership that is more worship than possession. He drives his hand deeper into my hair as release begins to coalesce, every breath a taut wire.

I don't let him find his center. I drive him deeper and harder, deliberate with every pull, each motion calibrated to push him farther. His thighs tremble, his hips buck against my mouth—instinct and abandon braided together—until salt stings my eyes and saliva beads at my lips. The mess of it is gorgeous, animal and intimate; it fuels him. His curses sharpen into ragged, urgent commands as the last threads of restraint snap.

"Fuck, I'm—ahh—" His voice cracks, surrender spilling out in clipped syllables. His grip at my scalp turns almost painful, nails pressing like punctuation as his body convulses.

He comes hot and heavy into my mouth, shuddering with a force that makes my own ribs hum. I swallow every part of him, greedy and exact, not letting the rhythm falter until his cries break into weak whimpers and he collapses back against the seat, released and raw. He tastes exactly as I imagined—bright and complex, citrus and bergamot braided with him—and it settles into me like a secret.

I pull back, slow, tasting him on my lips. My mouth is slick, my breath thick. I wipe the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand, an almost-civilized gesture in the aftershocks. His eyes find mine; they are blown wide and dark with hunger that isn't sated but widened—awakened, hungry for whatever comes next.

"You're going to kill me one day," he rasps, voice hoarse and playful with pain. He scoops me up onto his lap, hands roaming with a new, burning certainty. His thumb presses against my swollen lip before he claims my mouth in a hard, bruising kiss, tasting himself and me together, a growl thudding through his chest like a drumbeat.

He is still impossibly alive beneath me, hard against my stomach, relentless in his want. The car is a small world of heat and breath and the private punctuation of two people who know each other's edges. This is not the end; it is the beginning of a long, bright ruin I am eager to explore with him.

🌸

I shift back on his lap, breath still thick, and grin up at him. "Aab panipuri khilao mujhe," I demand, sudden childlike and insistent. "You promised."

Azaan straightens, buttons his shirt and his pants with a distracted kind of care, then gives me a slow, indulgent nod. "Ha, wada kiya tha. Nibhana toh parega," he says, voice threaded with amusement.

My dodo—my husband, my infuriatingly charming narcissist slides into the driver's seat with exaggerated composure and starts the car toward the main road. The engine hums, the fogged windows reflecting two faces still flushed from what just happened, and for a beat the city seems to hold its breath for us.

He steers us through the lanes, and we joke and jab at each other the whole way—light, familiar banter that peels away any leftover tension. When we arrive at the panipuri stall, it feels less like running an errand and more like a continuation of the private ceremony we just shared. The vendor's bulbs cast a warm, greasy light; the air hums with traffic and laughing vendors; the smell of spice and fried dough is immediate and grounding.

We buy a plate and sit on the curb. I pile my puris high, daring the pani to be hotter, spicier. "More spice," I say, eyes bright, and push the bowl closer to him. He obliges with the exaggerated solemnity of a man performing a promise. He dips, composes a perfect pani puri for me, then another for himself.

The first one explodes with heat on my tongue; I laugh, hungry for more. "Again," I command, and he obliges, scooping more fiery pani. He takes a bite, and his face goes from smug to startled, then to red; tears gather unbidden at the corners of his eyes. He coughs, flapping one hand theatrically, the narcissistic composure melting into honest, ridiculous suffering.

"You okay?" I tease, delighted and ruthless.

He glares—just for show and then gags a laugh. "I'm fine. Don't act like you didn't make me do it," he mutters, voice thick. He reaches for another, determination and wounded pride warring on his face. With each successive puri I shove at him, he gets redder and more theatrical, eyes watering as he tries desperately to maintain dignity while still keeping pace. Every time he blusters he also licks his lips, eyes bright with the same thrill that made him reckless with me moments before.

We alternate between feeding each other and snatching puris away, daring one another toward ever-higher heat. The streetlights pool over our little battlefield of flavor and laughter. Passersby glance at the pair—two lovers, messy and loud and warm—and we don't care. He wheezes a laugh, swears a little, and every time he thinks he's reached his limit he obligingly dives in for one more, because that's who he is: incapable of losing a challenge with me.

Between mouthfuls we steal soft, peppered kisses, the contrast of sweet salt and spice and the hum of the city making everything feel charmed. The world is small and fierce: the car's leather, our mirrored faces in the glass, the hot sting of pani on my tongue, and Azaan—flushed, humiliated, utterly adorable—trying to prove he can take as much as he dishes out.

When we finally slow our assault, cheeks damp with tears of heat and laughter, he swallows and breathes out a ragged, pleased sound. "Okay," he concedes, mock-defeated, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand. "You win."

I lean in and kiss him—long, satisfied, messy with spice and salt and he tastes like victory and citrus and everything I know how to love. He squeezes my hand, the kind of soft, smug contact that says he lost, and he loved every second of it.

We finish the last of the pani puri, cheeks damp with tears from spice and laughter, and the city hums around us like a complacent audience. He pays the vendor with the practiced casualness of a man who would spend the world for a smile. We climb back into the car, the leather cool against our heated skin, and for a second the engine is the only thing that breathes.

I settle into his lap, still tasting spice at the edges of my mouth, and grin up at him with a sliver of mischief. "Apko apni patni se pyar nahi chhaiye?" I tease, voice low, fingers tracing the line of his jaw. He meets my look—eyes bright, already dangerous with want.

I lean in close, breath warm against his ear. "You want my mouth on you again?" I ask, deliberate and soft, deliciously patient.

He doesn't hesitate. He nods, eager and immediate, the kind of yes that pushes his chest forward and makes his breath hitch. "Haan, mai toh hamesha ready hu," he says, the single syllable taut with need.

I move with the slow composure of someone savoring an inevitable collapse. My mouth finds him where he is still tender from the earlier storm, and for the briefest instant he is absolutely still—suspended on the edge of the next inevitable fall.

Then something in that first contact—a warm, slick press of tongue and lips—makes him break. He gives a startled, theatrical scream that starts sharp and ends in an undone laugh. It's a sound of surprise and surrender braided together: high, raw, wildly unmeasured, "Ammi!! Bachaye mujhe!" He immediately pulls me away.

"Tum toh meri jaan hi le logi! Mere Jr. member ko kuch ho gaya to sex kaise karunga!" he complains, crossing his arms like a baby.

I burst out laughing. "Kyu, aab nahi chhaiye blow job? Blow kar du aao.." I say, leaning closer, playful and unrepentant.

He jumps away from me, face reddening, and waves a hand with mock alarm. "Nahi rehend do, aaj ke liye kaafi hai," he says, half-laughing, half-pleading—the kind of refusal that means he's both defeated and delighted.

We hold that ridiculous, breathless moment between us: spice still on our lips, the city a distant wash of noise, and the car a little private world where mischief and tenderness braid together. He pouts, I grin, and for a few more seconds we trade theatrical complaints and soft kisses—the aftertaste of panipuri and the echo of what came before mingling into something warm and utterly ours.