The next morning broke with a deceptive calm, the kind that follows a storm—everything quiet on the surface, but the air still charged with electricity.

Virat woke before the sun fully crested the horizon, his body attuned to the routine even when his heart was in turmoil. He lay for a long moment staring at Ishani’s sleeping form on the sofa across the room. She was curled on her side, the loose cotton nightie he had dressed her in after last night’s punishing worship riding up her thighs, exposing the curve of her ass and the faint red marks his teeth had left on her inner thighs. Her breasts rose and fell gently, one nipple peeking from the neckline, dark and swollen from hours of his mouth sucking, nibbling, biting. The mangalsutra lay tangled between them, the chain catching the first rays of light. Her face was peaceful in sleep, lips slightly parted, sindoor slightly smudged from his kisses to her parting. Even marked, bruised, and exhausted from his relentless claiming, she was breathtaking—the woman who had lied, who carried his child, who still made his cock harden with a single glance.