Aarti Raman - Kingdom Come

Ziya broke open the eggs and mixed in the milk, salt and pepper, and the chopped tomatoes and onions which were already frozen in a Tupperware box. She added them and sliced a green chili open right down the middle and added that too. Whisked everything together and poured it over the skillet.

“Don’t just sit there, my beached whale,” she said mildly. “Pop the bread in the toaster, would you? Make extra. Krivi’s coming over for a breakfast consult.”

Noor laughed; a husky sound and whistled. “Ooh! Krivi’s coming over for a breakfast consult, is he?”

Ziya didn’t bother to answer her best friend. So Noor singsonged, “Ziya and Krivi sitting on a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

Ziya removed a toasted bread slice from the pile Noor was adding to, and stuffed it in her opened mouth. Noor’s lovely green eyes rounded in indignation and she munched on the slice before she removed it with a sputter.

“That was low, Zee.”

“Really? It looked pretty justified to me.”

Noor’s toast dropped out of her hands as she squealed and turned around to the man who’d just spoken.

Ziya watched indulgently, affectionately as her best friend launched herself on the military-uniform-clad man who’d come in through the mudroom. He topped at about six feet, and was leanly muscled as befit an officer of the Indian Army, and he had drop-dead good looks and hazel eyes that complemented Noor’s own beauty.

She was kissing him quite enthusiastically, winding her long legs around his lean waist. And he kissed her back, pressing her closer to him for just a second, a second too long before he slid her off his body.

Noor grinned back at Ziya.

“Look what the cat dragged in, Zee.”

“I thought it was your irresistible lure that brought me here, baby,” Major Sameth Qureshi murmured, as he brushed a tender hand over his beloved’s tumbled hair. He made himself move away from her, even though it was becoming increasingly difficult to move away, to stay away, when all he wanted was forever with her. But, the life of an Army man’s wife was not for Noor Saiyed, impending PhD from Oxford. And he didn’t know how he could let her go either.

Right now, that beauty queen face softened into pure beauty that shone from her untarnished soul, through those eyes he saw in his dreams. Noor, who had never known true loss or unhappiness for a single minute of her sheltered life. And, if he had his way, she never would.

“I didn’t want to give myself that much credit. Zee would accuse me of having a bloated head,” she stage-whispered.

“Zee doesn’t have to accuse,” Ziya pointed out dryly. “She already knows about your bloated head, honey. Morning, Sam. You staying for breakfast too, I suppose?”

Sam nodded and stepped fully back from Noor. He dragged his eyes away from her face and smiled at Ziya. A big brother smile. Ziya Maarten was the best friend a girl could have, and she was the closest thing he had to a sister. He worried about her, as much as he admired her for her drive and grit to simply forge ahead and get things done.

“Morning, Ziya. Yes, I came here for your breakfast actually. Not Noor’s supposed lures,” he added with a wink.

Noor rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm before strolling away to pour him coffee. Ziya followed Sam’s eyes as they watched his girlfriend with a kind of helpless fascination she’d always found vaguely pathetic.

“You two are a riot, aren’t you?” Noor sulked as she dumped the mug in Sam’s surprised hands.

Ziya leaned down and picked up the fallen bread slice and gave her a wry look. “You make it so easy, honey. How can we resist? Right, Sam?”

Sam dropped a kiss on top of Noor’s head and slid into a chair next to her. “If I answer that, she will skin me alive.”

Noor brightened and leaned into Sam and said, “Nope. If you answer that, I will make you marry me.”

Sam’s dark eyes shuttered and his face hardened into the soldier that he was. “We have discussed this already, Noor and—”

“We didn’t discuss anything,” she cut in icily, while Ziya fanned the gas flame higher in an effort to drown out the conversation. “You just nixed the idea before we could ever discuss it, Sam.”

“Noor, I told you already, the Army is my career. And it’s a dangerous one, a terrible one. I can’t stand to have you waiting for me when I go to war.”

Noor’s face took on a pugnacious look. Even though they’d had this same argument, practically every day since she’d come back three months ago in order to claim him. Thirty-one, in the Rulebook of Noor, was the right time for a bachelor to settle down. And she was damn well not going to celebrate another birthday as a single woman.

“And I told you, there are millions of women all over the world who do the same every day. If they can, why can’t I?”

“Because.” He raked a hand through his buzz-cut hair and exhaled loudly. “Those women are not the love of my life; who I can’t stand going mad with grief. Besides, what about Oxford and your PhD?”

Noor shook her head. “You cannot sway me with that line, Major Sameth. And do NOT make this about me. This is about you and your inability to commit to a woman, as I am discussing IN detail in my doctorate. I tell you, Ziya. Be it Victorian times or post-post modern, the male as a species prefers to hunt alone than find a mate.”

“Noor.” He reached for her hand and she used it to cradle her coffee mug. “It is not as simple as that …”

“Sam, I love you,” she said, implacably. “You’re the love of my life and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. It’s as simple as that. We’ve been doing this for almost a year now. I can’t wait anymore, I won’t. You should understand that and you’re going to regret not saying yes to my proposal because pretty soon I won’t want you anymore.”

Sam shook his head and looked helplessly at Ziya. “Help, please.”

Ziya shook her head too. “I have a call. I have to take it right now.” She held her phone out like a weapon and backed out of the kitchen.

Noor’s laughter made her smile and she still had that same soft smile on her face, as she entered the living room and collided into a wall of sheer, hard muscle. Terrifyingly hard arms came around her and held her steady when she would have dropped her beloved cell phone.

Ziya stepped back at the same instant that Krivi did.

“Thanks,” she managed, when she got her breath back.

It puzzled her that she’d lost her breath for even a second.

Krivi looked at her for a single, electric second, the hard planes of his face set in even more rigid lines than Sam’s, who was a career military man. He didn’t have a traditionally handsome face; it was too blank and hard for that. But he had a strong jaw and eyes that were bottomless, soul-sucking every time she looked directly at them.

Ziya shot his pursed lips a covert glance and thought, OK, class-A kissable mouth. Then immediately berated herself for allowing that thought to slip in.

“You should never turn your back while entering a room,” he suggested.

“I hardly think that terrorists are going to gun me down in my own living room.” She hoped her face was as mild as she’d made her voice to be.

He had stepped back from her as if she was a live bomb which could explode at any second. There was ignoring, and there was indifference and then there was outright abhorrence. And this man was displaying the third emotion with his emotionless face in spades.

He couldn’t bear to touch her.

“All the same. Please, be careful.” He didn’t take his eyes off her face, as he continued, “Hey, Major. How’s it going?”

Sam threw his hands up as he stalked out of the living room.